Thanksgiving Doublog! 家有儿女 (Home With the Children) and 부l힌지옼 Possessed

This Thanksgiving, I have two films to recommend watching with friends and family: Korean horror movie by Yong-ju Lee, Possessed, and a warm and cute Chinese sitcom show Home with the Children.

 

Possessed is a psychologically thrilling Korean horror movie that friends would love watching together. Possessed ranked 6th place at the South Korean box office for its opening weekend of August 14–16, 2009. It is about a college student who returns home when her 14-year-old sister So Jin (Shim Eun Kyung) goes missing. Her mother is a fanatic evangelist and resorts to prayer and refuses to work with the lazy police. Meanwhile Hee Jin hears rumors that her sister had been possessed. The whereabouts of So Jin become increasingly elusive and dead people begin appearing in Hee Jin's distorted dreams.

The sypnosis is not that creepy, but trust me, the film is more than creepy. 

I thought Possessed was great at capturing the small, creepy details and building suspense. The actors are great, especially the actress for the slightly crazy mother. I love how Possessed captures so much terror in one look from a possessed person, or a single shadow in the distance. There were a few scenes where I thought nothing was going to happen and something – an eye, a body, or a sound catches me by surprise. Some parts didn’t scare me at all though – when the director clearly meant for the scene to be scary.

So, on my Doublog scale (1 is that it is the best movie to watch; 10 is to not ever watch this for the holiday) I rate it as a 3.

Next up; Home with the Children is a nice sitcom to enjoy with the family over a crackling fire. It is about a family with three children (two from the father's previous marriage, one from the mother's previous marriage). It is a chaotic mess of a family and yet they manage to solve every problem with zing!

The funny moments in Home with the Children are unbelievable, and inspired me to think that if I look at life in a different way, anything is laughable. The sitcom has accompanied me through my childhood and actually is a useful tool for stress relieve. The innocence in Home with the Children transports many back to their own beautifully innocent times. I rate this a perfect 1. Must see, especially for my Chinese followers!! BTW, you can watch episodes on Youtube.

There you go! :D See you Saturday for a Japanese anime movie!     

トイレの神様; Goddess of the Toilet: The Most Beautiful Family Story Ever

Goddess in the Toilet (sorry, no trailer available, so I posted a clip), an adaptation of Japanese singer/songwriter Kana Uemura's song Toilet no Kamisama about her late grandmother, is the most touching, lovely movie I have ever laid eyes on. The plot is so simple, yet the sweet, well-thought details make this movie a hit on my blog. It was produced by MBS and directed by Hajime Takezono as a drama in January 2011. 

Goddess in the Toilet starts out as a funny comedy with a twist, and turns in a very serious yet inspirational direction. When she was 8 years old, she lived at her grandmother's house next door to her parents, playing gomoku, eating noodle soup when they went out shopping, and watching Yoshimoto Shinkigeki. Her grandmother especially told her that a beautiful goddess lives in the toilet, if she cleaned it every day, she'll turn out to be as beautiful as the goddess. As Uemura grew older, they stayed together still (actually the real Uemura grew very apart from her grandmother). Her grandmother gave her very good advice from achieving her dreams to dealing with her boyfriend. Her grandmother later became more ill when Uemura left for Tokyo to pursue her hopes of becoming a singer, and was hospitalized. Her grandmother could not say much and the next morning died quietly in her sleep. Uemura believes her grandmother was waiting for her.

There are no reviews in English or Chinese that I could easily find (guess I am the first). I personally feel like this movie was breathtaking. The characters are very relatable and optimistic, portraying many different viewpoints on one situation. The lessons learned from this fantastic movie are truly invaluable. It is as if your own grandmother is telling you these lessons. At the end, get a box of Kleenex ready because every tear etched down from Uemura's face will prove to be unbearably moving. You see, this my the first time I remember me bawling simply because of a movie. And also notice how the film ends very happily and peacefully, comforting you and leaving your soul cleansed/stable. The soundtrack is also not something to take lightly.

If you haven't guessed, this movie gets a phenomenal 5 out of 5 points. MUST SEE.