Eternal Summer tells the story of three high school students who experience the good and bad sides of falling in love while growing up. The film begins in the early days, it shows us two elementary school boys, one a very responsable and studious boy named Jonathan (Bryant Chang), and the other the complete opposite, a troublemaker named Shane (Joseph Chang). Shane, being a troublemaker, is rejected by the other classmates, while Jonathan starts to befriend him as he was asked to do so by the teacher. This obligation that Jonathan had to do blossomed into a beautiful friendship, or maybe even more.

After this, the film skips onto the later years. When the boys are in high school. This time Jonathan befriends a new transfer student from Hong Kong named Carrie (Kate Yeung). Both of them decided to skip school and make a little trip to Taipei. Both of them stay over night and after a fun day, Carrie takes him to a hotel. While seducing him and provoke him into having sex with her, he begins to do so, but before anything really intimate happens he stops and declines. This makes Carrie think that Jonathan is a homosexual. When they go back to their hometown, they stop talking to each other for while.

One day Jonathan and Shane encounter Carrie while bike riding after school. Jonathan pleas Shane to just keep going along and leave her alone. But Shane provoked her onto stopping. After this, they go out for a drink and Carrie notices that Jonathan is really close to Shane. She then gets suspicious that Jonathan may be in love with Shane. After this and some other events, Jonathan goes to Carrie’s house, and asks him if he’s in love with Shane. Jonathan admits it, and Carrie as the good friend she is, she promises not to tell anybody.

After a year or so, when the three of them enter college, Jonathan gets more distant from Carrie and Shane as he is confused and has a sexual identity crisis. Jonathan and Carrie become a couple, and try to hide it from Jonathan. But Shane and Carrie try their best to help Jonathan on what he’s going through. Later, the secret of Shane and Carrie comes out to Jonathan, and then the three of them go through an emotional crisis and try to find the best way to fix this.

The film deals with themes such as friendship, homosexuality, romance, identity crisis, and depression. This is truly an outstanding and touching film, which was actually nominated for many awards and even won some of them. The soundtrack to this fantastic film captures the essence of the film perfectly, and as you watch you deeply connect with the characters. Being one of the breakthroughs in Asia’s homosexual-themed cinema, it is truly if not the best, one of the best out there.

Personal Rating: ★★★★★ (Five Stars)

Film Links:
Trailer@YouTube
Eternal Summer@IMDB

Dark Water tells the story of Dahlia Williams (Jennifer Connelly), a newly single-mother who is looking for a new place to live after her recent divorce. She struggles to keep custody of her only daughter, Cecilia Williams (Ariel Gade), as her ex-husband also wants custody of their daughter as well. Cecilia Dahlia moves into an old mysterious apartment complex with her daughter, and after they settle in they notice a stain in the ceiling of their bedroom, which later a leak breaks out. Dahlia, curious of this leak, goes to the apartment above hers. Which surprises her to see that the apartment is flooded. As she reports this to the apartment complex maintainer, he explains who used to live there.

While all of this is happening. Cecilia makes up an “imaginary friend” named Natasha. Who makes her behave badly and act strange. Dahlia worried, tries her best to make Cecilia come to her senses. Until she finds out that Natasha isn’t imaginary at all, but a ghost who is trying to get rid of Cecilia.

Now Dahlia struggles to protect her daughter no matter what, and find out the mystery behind Natasha.

The film deals with themes such as divorce & depression. The beauty of this fantastic movie is that it stands out from typical horror, adding drama elements to the story. It isn’t one of those horror movies that make you pop out of your seat. Instead it creates a creepy and mysterious atmosphere. Which shows you just how artistic and profound horror can be. The original was fantastic as well, but this remake added what the original was lacking. Most remakes nowadays are criticized for being inferior to the original, or changing most of the story all together. However this one breaks through that and it truly proves that it’s one of the best remakes out there.

Personal Rating: ★★★★1/2 (Four Stars and a Half)

Film Links:
Trailer@YouTube
Dark Water@IMDB

Hello My Love tells the story about Ho Jeong (Jo An), a girl who works at a radio station as a talk show host and a DJ, who is desperately waiting for her boyfriend, Won Jae (Min Seok), to come back home from studying abroad in Paris for two long years. Before he left to Paris for his studies, he promised her he was going to propose when he came back. But to her surprise, when he comes back he brings a friend, Dong Hwa (Ryoo Sang-wook).

At first Won Jae was avoiding Ho Jeong and didn’t take her out much, but she just assumed he was just busy with the opening of his new restaurant that he and Dong Hwa are doing together. One night when she goes to Won Jae’s house, since he wasn’t responding, she just went into his house and found out Ho Jeong and Dong Hwa being extremely intimate with each other. Now Ho Jeong is confused on what to do and tries her best on winning Won Jae back! Thus making a very interesting turns of events. One of them being a friendship developed between Ho Jeong and Dong Hwa.

The film deals with the topics of homosexuality and friendship, and those affected by it. South Korea has a lack of homosexual themed cinema, and there are only a few films to mention (No Regret is an example), as many consider South Korea to be homophobic, and doesn’t really have a big gay community, this film is considered one of the breakthroughs in the genre. And a very good one it was. The film shows the audience how love knows no gender, but not only in romance, but also in friendship. Even though I found the film extremely excellent, the reason why I’m giving it a four star rating is because it needed to show more development in the relationships between the characters. Near the end you wouldn’t know well the relationship status between that characters and it makes you wonder what happened between them. But maybe that’s just the beauty of this film.

Personal Rating: ★★★★ (Four Stars)

Film Links:
Trailer@YouTube
Hello My Love@HanCinema.net

The movie is about a young man with Asperger syndrome named Adam (Hugh Dancy), that lives in New York City. Who later develops a relationship with his new neighbor, Beth (Rose Byrne). Due to Adam’s Asperger syndrome, he has troubles communicating with others and lives in his own world of the outer space.

While Beth, just moved to his apartment complex. A pre-school teacher who’s passion is to become a writer and write a great children’s book. Thought she had the perfect family until his father reveals he’s been caught up in some kind of fraud. This is when she realizes life isn’t perfect. While she has Adam to keep her company, she also tries to figure out if falling in love with someone with Asperger syndrome is a good thing.

The film follows Adam’s hardships in life, dealing with the loss of his father and being on his own. It’s not easy being on your own with Asperger syndrome. But Beth, his new neighbor, really opens up to him and they start to develop a friendship, which later turns into a romantic relationship. The film makes you try to understand how it feels living with Asperger syndrome, and those who are surrounded by it.

The film is truly outstanding, and even though at some points it makes you want the movie to progress quickly, it is still highly entertaining.

Personal Rating: ★★★★ (Four Stars)

Film Links:
Trailer@YouTube
Adam@IMDB

Cyborg She tells the story of Jirou Kitamura (Keisuke Koide), who is spending his 20th birthday all by himself, he even buys himself a birthday present. Until he spots an attractive girl (Haruka Ayase) who keeps following him. He confused, and at the same time amused by this girl, goes a long with it. She follows him to a restaurant and then sit together. He explains that it’s his birthday and she also declares that it’s also her birthday. They spend the evening together in the restaurant, then at the end of their date, they exchange birthday presents. The girl later tells him that she has to leave, with some weird words left behind she later vanishes.

A year later Jirou Kitamura find himself in the same position, he again celebrates his birthday on his own in the same restaurant. But to his surprise the mysterious girl he encountered a year ago shows up again. But this time, the girl has a different attitude and persona. She ends up protecting him with special Cyborg-like powers when a massive shooting took place in the restaurant. When they leave and go to his place an image coming out from the girl’s eyes shows a future version of himself, explaining that his future self created this cyborg to go back in time and protect him from the massive shooting. If it wasn’t for the Cyborg, he would’ve died. He later explains that the Cyborg girl will be staying with him and taking care of him. Following with events that will keep you with your eyes on the screen!

The film deals with Jirou’s troubles that he has encountered with the Cyborg, and shows you just how a human being can fall in love with an object. He becomes dependent of her, and starts to develop feelings for her. However, seeing how she cannot return the feelings as she is a Cyborg, it makes him furious and tells her to go away unless she can return the feelings, and she doesn’t show up until an interesting turn of events occurs.

The film has a strong theme of materialism, and at the same time loneliness. The film has very impressive special effects, and surprises you with an unexpected turn of events. Truly an outstanding film and definitely one of Kwak Jae-yong best work’s to date.

Personal Rating: ★★★★ (Four Stars)

Film Links:
Trailer@YouTube
Cyborg She@IMDB