richy_palmer

Having read the book and seen the original series I was interested to see a newly updated Shogun series. The ratings were high and it was being compared to Game of Thrones so I became excited. However my hopes were dashed pretty early as soon as Blackthorne appeared and opened his mouth. Some problems were: -Setting. The series is filmed in Vancouver and doesn't look like Japan (I live here). Other parts use too much CG. And it's way too dark and misty. Again, this should be Japan, not Canada.

-Plot. The series was compared to GoT but all the good things from GoT are missing. Very little action, suspense and nudity. A plot that doesn't keep the viewers interested and deviates from the book. It was actually pretty boring with little payoff in the end.

-Acting. Wow, Blackthorne. Who is this whining guy who can't speak properly? Definitely not the captain and important figure in the book. He ruined most scenes when he opened his mouth.

Also some of the acting by the young Japanese men was terrible (unfortunately how they're taught to act over here). They were a big distraction.

It wasn't all bad as some actors such as Sanada put in a good shift and showed their class. It was also interesting seeing it from the point of view of the Japanese and some of the set designs and costumes were very nice.

It is watchable and maybe good for something different but in the end it was ultimately a let down and just spent too much time on things that ultimately made the pacing too slow and uninteresting.

Being interested in personal finance and living in Japan I was interested to see what this movie offered in problems faced and solutions found in regard to the elderly in Japan.

The movie started off quite well showing how elderly and those who take care of them are challenged when things like schooling, elderly care, weddings and funerals suddenly come into their lives. The bank balance was shown on screen with money being taken off for these events and the balance getting less and less much to the dismay of the wife who was bearing the brunt of the financial setbacks.

This was all good but then instead of offering real solutions into how to get out of this debt and become more financially stable we get a story of how they sold their house to live in a share house. While this could work for a few people it is definitely not the desired result for most people in this world I presume. Also, while the wife has been struggling with money and worrying about retirement etc and you'd think realizing the importance of it, in the end she gets 100,000yen (about $1000) and what does she do with it? Save? Invest? Buy something she needs? Nope, she goes out and buys a 97,000yen ($970) handbag! Yes, seriously.

So the movie went from interesting and then downhill pretty fast.

The acting was also pretty bad like most Japanese movies these days. Too much overacting and way too many geinojin (TV personalities) who didn't need to be in the movie in there.

It could have been a good film, and had potential but ultimately failed to deliver.

But still does have some interesting food for thought content, you probably only need to watch the first half of the movie to see it though.

I watched this movie in order to see scenery of the area of Japan I live in. In that regard it was nice and showed the greenness of the area.

The story itself was ok. The idea of the grandmother wanting to do something with her life as her days are numbered is a pretty common theme that we have seen in quite a few movies already. The fact that she wants to go skydiving though makes things a bit unbelievable as I can't see anybody of her age wanting to do that in real life in Japan but I guess, it is a movie after all.

The problem is that like a lot of Japanese movies these days the acting is poor and overacted. They seem to go for acting that is a mixture of theatre, anime and manga and is nowhere near how people really behave in Japan. The drama and acting are both overacted so it's hard to gauge just how you're meant to feel with this movie.

In saying that, it's only just over 90 minutes so that works in its favour. Not a must see by any means but an easy watch nonetheless.

There were some good performances in here but the ending just left everything open. Nothing resolved. They could have concentrated on just one character's problems but instead try to have every character having some kind of problem and in the end none of them were really covered as well as they could have or should have been.

One other thing that was mystifying was that after having a hundred difficult words in there that nobody has heard of in these spelling bees, we're down to the final two kids in America and we get.. Origami?! The easiest question in spelling bee history! As if. I know they probably wanted to use their CGI Origami in there but they should have at least had a scene of Richard Gere slipping the judges an envelope of cash the night before or something to make it more realistic.

A truly dissatisfying movie.

When the opening credits started up I thought we were in for something special. The music, the graphics.. wow.

However the movie ended up being a bit too centered on Maverick where it could have focused a bit more on the supporting characters like Rooster. It was also a bit too melodramatic in parts to the point of being a tad boring inbetween the action.

The music was generally great but Lady Gaga really felt out of place. Could've ended on one of the bangers from the original movie to leave a better ending impression.

The action though was intense and had a lot less CGI than current movies so that was sweet to see.

Overall still a good action movie to see at the theater but needed a bit more to be truly great.

The Walking Major is a good story of one man's mission to help an orphanage in Beppu, Japan. The walk from Zama to Beppu is the highlight and shows some great scenery of late 60s Japan. However rather than concentrating a bit more on the walk itself, the movie focuses too much on the photographer, overdramatizing the whole situation and making the movie about half an hour longer than it should've been.

Still, a touching story that deserves to be seen by more people.

-Some great 90s music but horribly used.

-felt like a kids movie but had random gore.

-Kids acted like we're living in 2021 and the film felt like it was set in 2021.

-Acting was so bad. No sense of panic from the characters or emotions after death. Felt like they just grabbed some kids out from the nearest high school drama class and used random teachers as the sheriffs.

-While the three older characters in the movie at least looked like teenagers the nerdy computer kid looked about 12 and felt really out of place. And you know there's no way he'd be listening to Maiden and scoring his sister's friend in real life.

-Story was all over the place and ended up just being boring.... The list goes on and on.

This documentary shows us of the struggles that the Bonin Islanders faced and are still facing In the Ogasawara Islands. These islands have a deep history, one that is not known by many, and the documentary covers the later stage of this history, chiefly from the period of American rule, back to the reversion to Japanese rule. While this can be read about in history books, the perspective from the Islanders themselves is fascinating as they offer a unique perspective to the events that unfolded around them. Bravo to the crew of Breaking Tides who have recorded this to be preserved for future generations. A thoroughly enjoyable watch.