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I've seen this movie at the Zurich Film Festival in 2009 where they premiered the Director's Cut, an almost completely re-cut, rewritten version with new dialogs and a (probably) new soundtrack. I went to see it as a fan of Yello, the band where Meier sings. This film might be his longest project, as it started in 1988. He is the director, producer, writer, actor, and Yello made the music, too. Most of the cast are from Poland and the movie was shot in the early 90's. You can see parts of the film in Yello's music video "Tremendous Pain" (from the 1994 album Zebra).

It is a fantasy tale about a magical violin and a talented violinist who is lured into an underground world following a beautiful woman. Then he has to play the violin to light a big crystal ball that gives energy to that world, a world full of strange people in strange costumes. At first the movie made sense but after an hour most of its artistic merits turned into boredom. The constant changing of the film through the years, the fact they recorded many dialogs again - the lip sync was visible many times - didn't help enough. I think it became easier to understand the story than in 2001, when it was shown in Berlin, but it's still difficult to follow (partly because the sound of the dialogs were bad and they whispered a lot).

The new music was nice, but little. It had some recent Yello tunes, even a completely new song in the end, but I found it strange they didn't make the music more articular while it's a central part of the story. The violin solos were great though. There was much effort put in this film, that's for sure, and the persistence in making it is respectable. I personally think it would have been better to start over the project than dragging it for so long. I could imagine this story as a visually stunning anime with lots of music instead of the old costumes and 80's-style special effects. It was very interesting and original but failed to entertain.

The movie tagline: "Real Fight, Real Karate, Real Japan" just says it all. I waited much to see this on DVD.. The movie lived up to my expectations, which were based on the trailer and the fact that the main "actors" are real karate masters of 1st, 5th and 6th dan.

The story takes place in the 30's, the country is about to go to war. A military troop arrives at a dojo where 3 guys practice karate with an old master and they soon engage in a fight. The soldiers want to take the building but finally they take the karate pupils, after they demonstrated their strength. The old master soon dies and leaves the black belt - representing their dojo - behind so that the most worthy of them can get it. But they have a lot to learn before.. Giryu (Akihito Yagi) is very naive, while Taikan (Tatsuya Naka) is the opposite of him, so they take different routes. The story, the acting, the movie itself could stand on it's own without any fights. The scenery is nice, the drama, the characters are well built, the directing is very simple, yet powerful, honest. The music is also worth mentioning, it was composed by Naoki Sato.

So, what's so special about this movie? That it's real, and it has it all. Great fighters and actors, a meaningful story, a nice movie with a respectful message and representation of karate. The style which - compared to hundreds of movies about flying swordsmen or vengeful kung fu masters - is just not so popular on screen. Maybe that's because it's not about showing off, so it doesn't look that cool at first. Don't expect any wire-work, stuntmen falling ten meters or special effects to exaggerate anything. There is nothing to exaggerate here, because even the simplest, shortest moves look so perfect and powerful that it needs no explanation. This movie makes a lot of things more clear about karate, and gives meaning to it. Reading about the movie on the net I found several karate forums where people praised the actors for being great masters and also nice, humble persons after knowing them. The fact that the movie was also advertised in these circles made it clear that it's not an average action flick. Naka Sensei, who plays Taikan in the movie is an instructor (ranked 6th dan) of the Japan Karate Association and Akihito Yagi (5th dan) is also an instructor and the president of IMGKA (International Meibukan Gojyu-Ryu Karate Association). I hope it wasn't the last movie they appeared in, their charm and talent would be a great addition to Japanese cinema and could further exhibit the true power and meaning of karate traditions.

This is an amazing movie, the kind that reminds us that cinema is not only a background entertainment for eating popcorn but a (complex) form of Art.

It has unique, beautiful visuals (won best cinematography prize at MIFF), and captivating soundtrack that perfectly suits the pictures, mood and story. The aching but beautiful, thrilling and sometimes erotic atmosphere itself makes it worthy to watch (as people like to watch even such nonsense movies as Wong Kar-wai's 2046 just for the picture and mood) but this time there's something even more valuable underneath the artistic surface: the story.

It's not a movie with gunfights and car chases so the plot can be summarized in one sentence. A girl with BPD (a personality disorder, kind of 'skizophrenia light') and her former psychiatrist meet and start to talk about their lives, and they get close and they get crazy and so on... Most of the "action" happens inside the characters, in their psyche, thoughts, feelings. But even with relatively few happenings there are a lot of surprises, twists in the story, nothing is what it seems to be at first. At times it can be a little difficult to know if we see reality or some imagination or hallucination of the characters but after a while it comes to light, and these "Wow!" and "Aha!"-like moments drag us even deeper in the turmoil of passion, desire, drama and despair. But this is the kind of pain which can be enjoyed for its beauty, the same reason why people like sad songs.

There are also a lot of things in this movie for the "thinking kind", for people who like to analyze, find reference, meaning, metaphors, symbols and so... Everything is in its place, almost every frame has a cleverly composed geometry, lighting, colors. I haven't seen Kim In-shik's first movie either but I will watch it soon, it must be good too. Acting is superb. I have a high interest in psychology so I read some books about this syndrome too. I think the director/writer and actors did much research on this - for an outsider it may not be obvious but the portrayal of BPD and the relationship of the characters are perfectly worked out (well, except some exaggeration like hallucinations). Lead actress Kim Hye-su won an award for it in Korea.

Anyway, I found some not-so-good reviews on the internet too so I'm aware of that it's not a movie for everyone. It's artsy and melancholic. Don't watch it when you're not in the mood - it'll be wasted. The best occasion is maybe a rainy, lonely night with a bottle of wine :) Also, it requires a certain amount of empathy, fantasy and openness. If you've never been depressed, lost, left alone, angry, instable, hoping, longing etc., then it's not so easy to feel for the characters, and probably a part of the story will mean nothing to you. The imaginations of Ji-Su are connected to her feelings, her strange but somewhat coherent inner world, so it also needs some empathy to see it in context. But the movie is still enjoyable for its artistic values or as a thriller, if someone just accepts that she's cracked and that's the way crazies are.

I think this film is mostly a drama and a thriller. There is some mystery in it, but it's not so far from the "reality" of lunatic people. What makes me surprised is to see this movie put in the horror genre. Wow. There is some blood and maybe a scary scene but it's definitely not a horror movie! It's worth checking out the film's official website for a taste of it, there are some beautiful flash videos ("Themes"). I watched them after seeing the film, and still being under its influence, they struck me.

It's sad that this movie haven't received more international recognition yet, and was only shown in a few countries. It deserves much more.