After a very awkward walk
After a very awkward walk down a red carpet (it was apparantly the only way in) I saw Wonderful Days at the opening ceremony of the Pucheon film festival. The red carpet was weird, it was the same one that all the famous korean celebrities had walked down and people were clapping as we walked down, but the cameramen knew better. Everytime normal citizens like us walked down you could see a wave of cameras being brought down and the cameramen resting, but we did fool some other people. Anyway, red carpets = evil. No fun, ultra embarassing.
Now the movie.
The movie for me was a huge disappointment, but before I get to that let me first mention the horrendous conditions under which the film was screened. First, they opened up the curtains really wide even though the film itself isn't that wide. A minor detail, but very annoying nonetheless. Secondly, the air conditioning was turned on, very loudly. Also very annoying. Third, the light turned on part way into the film and turned off again and the lights in the projection booth were left on throughout the screening! Awful stuff, but it wouldn't have made the film any better had none of this occured.
I have to admit that I fell asleep part way into the film for about 10 or 15 minutes so I can't fairly comment on the story although from what my brother tells me it was pretty good. As for the animation I was incredibly disappointed. The characters hardly seem to move at all and when they do it looks awkward and not smooth at all. The only things in the film that do a lot of moving are the computer animated objects. Anything hand drawn is about as animated as Pikachu... well, it's not that bad, but it might as well have been.
The mouths are also synched to the dialogue terribly, evoking some chuckles the first time characters talked. The voices are all right and the acting is good too, but the damn characters need to do some moving! Throughout the film I kept on thinking about the part in Ghost in The Shell when she's invisible and kicking that guys ass but alas nothing in this film approaches the genius of that scene.
Coming into this film my brother and I were expecting to see some of the most incredible animation ever because the ads we had been seeing here looked amazing. Oh well...
Other things about the film that annoyed me:
The music was annoying.
The ending did its best to let people know this was a Korean film by turning melodramatic and sappy.
A lot of the above was sent to Aintitcoolnews.com, hopefully they're going to print it. Sweet.
