"Fish Story"
As a cataclysmic comet approaches in 2012, three guys consider the ahead-of-its-time Japanese punk band Gekirin (meaning "wrath"), which released Fish Story in 1975, a year before the Sex Pistols formed. As they wonder whether music can save the world, we flash back 37 years to meet the bandmates (including Ito and Kora) struggling to stay afloat; shy Masashi (Hamada) in 1982 trying to work out the song's secret message; a cult awaiting Nostradamus' 1999 world-ending event; and a baker (Moriyama) and lost girl Asami (Tabe) who encounter terrorists in 2009.
The movie switches along the various timelines and this is probably the hardest portion to manage in the movie but Fish Story did it very well. It's not so confusing that you don't know what's happening but at the same time, the movie was able to keep audience in suspense. After a while, you'll naturally get very engrossed in wanting to see how the story uncovers and how everything link up together.
It may seem a little far-fetched in this movie that a song can save the world but think about it closer and it'll be easier to connect - there's definitely people out there who might have been inspired by a particular song that gave them the strength/courage to achieve something important in their life.
And watching this kinda movie, what you get at the end of the day is the song stucked in your head.. Thank goodness it's not too bad a song.
Good movie. This should be one of my top 5 movies of 2010 :)
"Asyl - Park and Love Hotel"
This heart-warming story revolves around an oasis in the city. Tsuyako runs a slightly dilapidated "love hotel" for couples for short stays. On the rooftop there is a small park, where children and old people gather to spend time. Various women come to visit this curious hotel and Tsuyako. They include a girl with a Polaroid camera, a woman looking for her notebook in which she has recorded the number of steps she made during her morning walks, and a female graduate student who is a regular at the hotel and always comes with an attache case. In an obscure corner of the city, these isolated women regain the strength to face life.
The title can make this film sound very sleazy but this is rated PG and there's not a single love scene in this movie.
The synopsis tells everything about the movie and the lack of dialogues and unexciting storyline makes this movie very dry.
Not a movie for everyone. But i'm pretty sure the judges at the foreign film festivals can appreciate this for its distinctive style.