ver disappointing - Wonderful Days (2003) Discussion

[–] surenm 20 years ago

I got that from the preview and I haven't even seen the movie yet! Is the point in making these kinds of films now solely for the sake of style? The people look so poorly drawn compared to the backgrounds that it is almost like the CGI style needed to try and overwhelm and make up for the hand animation to compensate for poor design on that level. But great poster! I think I'll see it never the less when it opens here in LA in August.

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[–] 20 years ago

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[–] webmaster-1009 20 years ago

Well slicky i'm very happy to find someone who
actually feels like me about this movie.

Do you actually know any other movie of the sort?
Because just like you i'm having a hard time finding
anything that can come any close to the perfection
of this masterpiece.

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[–] hendercrazy 20 years ago

well, i wouldn't say "style over substance". the story was farily good, it's not the usual loud shitty stuff ppl seem to love, nor is it some pretentious "psychological" drama that makes so little sense that it convinces ppl to believe at its non-existing greatness. the story is actually quite neat (if u watch the orignal korean version, not the horrible english sbu/dub) and a truely sad one if you understand it fully. love the fact that it's very quiet and subdued throughout the entire 90 minutes or so, unlike all those stuff we see these days. now i'm not saying that the story is perfect, but labelling this wonderful movie as "style over substance" is just wrong, imo. and considering all the efforts put into this piece of art...well, i guess most of you who watch this film doesn't know the cultural context it comes from, but animation is alsmot nonexistent in korea, not because they lack the skills (many disney and japanese anime are done in korea actually) but beacuse their is no public for it. considering the kind of hardship they went through to make WD, what they achieved is actually nothing short of a miracle.

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[–] amourpropre 20 years ago

Well, the sad truth is that the movie was a flop.

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[–] daredevil_81 19 years ago

This film had a lot (and I mean a lot) of potential but it was simply not developed enough. From what I have gathered from watching Wonderful Days is Moon-saeng Kim should of developed story and more importantly finish the story first, then make the animation around the story, not make the animation first then fit the story around the animation. That is seriously bad production practice, if he had problems developing a story he should have hired script doctors. This film started production since 1997 and Moon-saeng Kim spend all time on the visuals, which is an important factor of animated films and motion pictures but these are secondary, the plot and the narration are crucial when it comes to production and Moon-saeng Kim ignored that vital aspect.

Why do you think Studio Ghibli productions are critically acclaimed? It’s not because Studio Ghibli have been around longer then Tin House, it's because Studio Ghibli use a simple work ethic that WORKS.

1 Story

2 Cast

3 Director

4 Production

Need I say more?

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[–] wasspam 16 years ago

To henderrazy: when you say like a 'psychological drama that makes little sense,' are you referring to how this could easilly be simular to the animes "Serial Experiments: Lain, Ghost in the Shell, Hellgirls, most of Miyazaki's work, most cyberpunk anime (i.e. Kari)?

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[–] jdogg2x 19 years ago

I haven't seen the movie but would like to respond to your point of view toward CGI over actors and synthesizers over real voices. First off, why? Are you that much looking forward to being inspired and influenced by total linear and non creative methods of expressive matter? The more you try to achieve realistic forms and styles in computers the more noticeable and flawed it becomes. Just as in Final Fantasy the movie, great piece of art but still pointless and emotionless. Might as well have used real actors and placed the special effects where needed. You obviously fall under the category of veiwers who don't look for substance. CGI is great but why limit vision to it, all sources should be used to apply it to the story which always should come first. And no, I don't think scripts will fall under formulaic plots and structures of computers. Where does this come from? Computers... storytellers? Hmmm.

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[–] janimetso 19 years ago

I liked this film, much more than the Final Fantasy -movie.
Actually, I didn't like Final Fantasy at all!

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[–] vlvetmorning98 19 years ago

I thought it was a let-down as well. The story and characters were all passe. The atrocious dubbing certainly didn't help, either.

If you want to check out a very good Korean animated feature, I highly recommend "My Beautiful Girl Mari"

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[–] 19 years ago

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[–] davey_street 19 years ago

Visualy this film was stunning. with a good mix of CGI animation and some wonderfull hand drawn stuff.

as for the story, i never found a well dubbed anime or easten film. i always like to watch original sound tracks with subtitles. you can normaly get a much better feel of emotion from the voices.

I be looking out for a copy of this. as its one i be adding to the collection. maybe not the best anime i seen but deffently worth a watch.

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[–] skyving 19 years ago

finally got to watch this film last week, and i must say for all the hype surrounding it, i came out rather disappointed.
don't get me wrong. the visuals are really something else. (though i did feel the CGI was a bit overdone sometimes.)
my main gripe was the oh-so-obvious references used.
the "star wars" cityscape, the hover bikes from "return of the jedi", the ecoban bike from "akira" (kaneda's bike with a canopy) , the trained-since-childhood elite force from "spriggan" (heck even the ex-comrade bit was from spriggan), the story of the ecoban, pollution, environment and marrans from "Total Recall".
in summary felt that the visuals were let down by rather weak story and characters.

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[–] davey_street 19 years ago

i agre with some of that. but liking the bikes to akiras bikes. is like liking akiras bike to the light bikes from Tron and saying that this makes it a bad film.
All movies borrow/are infulenced from other films. but this dose not make them bad films. There are many films that use hover bikes. many that use the ruined environmant as a back drop to the story.
mad max,
water world,
total recall,
etc etc..

I agree it was not the best story, but it was a better film than total recall. althogh not as good as akira!

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[–] 19 years ago

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[–] cloudsky11 19 years ago

The characters were subpar, some scenes tried too hard to be dramatic but turned out cheesy(like the ending scene where the gal gets shot onwards). Not very innovative designs. Superb CGI though

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[–] rayshiest2004 18 years ago

would you people consider "steamboy" style over substance?

...i know i would...the reason i ask is that the UMD of sky blue says " the akira of the 21st century" and i am a huge fan of akira, and was let down by steamboy (mostly because it fed off of akira's acclaim)

DEBBIE: "Oh! Isn't he a ladykiller!"
GOMEZ: "Acquitted!"

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[–] carloshasan 18 years ago

I watched the movie yesterday, and Honestly, I didn't like it. The CGI is great, but as a movie, it was boring. I think Steamboy is better, but not great either. I'm now waiting for the DVD release of Howl's Moving Castle, I hope this one won't be a disappointment.

PS: For the other poster, the kid is named Woody, not Rikky, and I don't think that he died.

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