Battle of Memories

Saw this with my wife in a AMC Cinema in Columbus, Ohio. We were two of a total of 9 people in the theater. ....Which was too bad, because this was a very well done, fun, entertaining movie: much better than the schlock playing in the other 23 rooms of the complex.

The idea of memory erasure and insertion is not totally new (see "Total Recall") nor is the idea of two different humans memories competing (See "Get Out") Nevertheless, this movie has some original ideas about the problem and an intricate web of a story that emerges in the confusion of the competing memories.

Outstanding acting and cinematography. Visually stunning. The lead actor is particularly convincing. Beautiful Chinese costars, exciting pace, keeps you guessing. My only complaint is that the writer/director actually tried to do a little too much with the complicated story. For example, the similarly confusing "Get Out" snaps together into perfect coherence after the last 60 seconds of the movie. In "Battle of Memories", the pieces don't quite all fit together at the end. Nevertheless, overall the movie was great entertainment, exciting, well acted, very interesting, beautiful to watch - we enjoyed the evening.

The people who gave it high ratings must watch only 1 movie every 5 or 10 years. you cant tell its a chinese movie except for the chinese faces, everything else is a copy of something else or other already done in movies. copying parts of 10 great sci fi or thriller movies doesnt make it a great movie. the chinese movie industry has more money to spend then hollywood and still really cant turn anything decent to put on the screen. you're lucky if you find a good movie out of 10. the movie gets 5 stars because it is professional but that draws the line. theres also the requisite pop songs they like putting into movies...dont matter if pop songs dont belong in a thriller movie. they try to sell you everything at one time ...lol. again...a professionally done movie with decent actors but so underwhelming and a major copycat of multiple great movies. i love great thrillers and sci fis...sighhh...this had a little potential but sure wasnt it.

Clever use of plot twists. As with sixth sense, you watch it twice to check for clues missed on first viewing.

I went to watch this movie with my best friend and her father this weekend at the movie theater.

I thought that the plot of the movie was excellent. The beginning was very creative. The relationship between the characters was very complex and well planned. Also, the movie gave the audience a lot of room and freedom to imagine what could happen.

The acting was very convincing. The actors poured a lot of passion in their respective roles. The child in the movie showed a great range of emotions. The on-screen relationship between the police officer and the protagonist was awesome to watch.

This is an amazing and fantastic movie and I recommend it strongly. Go watch it now!!!

Battle of Memories is quite intriguing ... for the first 5 minutes. After that I'm afraid, it's all down hill. Constantly referencing a host of similar - themed, but better, earlier movies (Total Recall, Inception, Paycheck etc), it's major problem lies in its foundation plot line premise. In the future people can go to Memory Centres and undergo procedures to erase some of their memories ... subject to, we find out, a plethora of confusing, uninteresting qualifications, terms and conditions. Immediately the alert viewer is asking oneself who would bother then, if it's not a straight forward operation? Well apparently Jiang Feng would.

He's a popular author whose wife, Zhang Daichen has decided to divorce him, for reasons (surprise, surprise!) that are never made clear. So not unreasonably then I suppose, he decides to have his memories of her deleted, a course of action that we suspect may be compromised by a critical incident occurring, just before he leaves the Centre. To add to his misfortune, on arriving home, Daichen suddenly announces she wants to postpone the divorce (for reasons not explained until the last 10 minutes of the film, in a ho hum twist dramatically better utilised in soap operas such as Days of Our Lives). And things don't get much better despite the inclusion of serial - killers, odd ball cops and copious black and white memory flashbacks (and for good measure, endless variations of same).

Production standards are admittedly quite good, but overall tone of the film is just plain weird. It's not just the reams of clunky, awkward dialogue that characters are forced to spout (it can't all be blamed on poor sub - title translations.) But the tone of the film is constantly out of kilter. E. G. What's with episodes such as the Three Stooges like slapstick farce of the cops rolling down the stairs together, in a film supposed to be some sort of sci - fi thriller?

For those who manage to stay the course of this dull mess of a film, they'll find Battle of Memories collapsing into a morass of blindingly stupid coincidences and who cares plot twists. Character motivations change directions like the wind to better suit the convenience of the story. The climactic revelation of the killer's identity is obvious, with the only benefit being we now know this banal movie will thankfully soon end.