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Reviews
Kairo (2001)
The Edge of My Seat
This is a movie with a message about technology, one with which it beats you over the head a bit. However, given the time this movie was made and the fact that social media wasn't omnipresent and constantly given flack for how it isolates us I don't really hold it against this movie.
Following in the footsteps of Ringu and Ju-On, this film is based around technophobia. Not to spoil anything, but depression, isolation, and suicide are also key factors, which I would say were handled very well in their depiction.
Kairo has some really beautiful sets and locations, its depiction of urban Tokyo is frankly beautiful on a cinematic (if not eerie) level. The characters, while not extraordinary, were as interesting/entertaining as they needed to be given that this film is more about the supernatural chaos infiltrating their lives than anything to do with them.
Some of the scenes are very memorable, and "the couch scene" actually gave me chills, something that horror movies don't really do for me much anymore.
It's a bit of a slow burn and you may be left with more questions than answers, but absolutely worth it for the right kind of a person.
Ne Zha zhi mo tong jiang shi (2019)
It's Fun, Albeit Unspectacular
I speak very little Chinese, but I saw this film with my girlfriend (native speaker) at the cinema. She helped me understand plot points and certain dialogue that I was struggling with. This film is a great step in the right direction for the Chinese 3D animation industry, but in no way is it worthy of a 10/10. This film falls drastically short of the high bar set by films like those from Pixar.
The good:
-The landscapes and effects are bright and beautiful
-The voice acting is solid
-Some of the humor works even despite the language barrier
The bad:
-Most of the characters look like they're from different movies. The juxtaposition between young/transformed Nezha, his parents, the bad guy and the villagers just feels off. This film would benefit from more consistent character design.
-Some of the jokes are based more on Chinese meme culture, and as all of us know in the west, using memes in films is lazy pandering and sure to age very poorly.
-There are some emotional cliches regarding sacrifice and character reactions to events in the film. These things have been done a million times before and they are not exceptional here at the least.
All in all, I thought the film was decent. It was fun and looked a lot better than most 3D animation in China. But oh man are people riding the hype train on this one! It's really not a perfect or even great movie, but it is a step in the right direction. Hopefully Chinese films in the future will build off of this and produce films that are worthy of being called true classics, Chinese or worldwide.