blinkable

First time watching a movie with no whatsoever expectations as the casts are all unfamiliar to me except Vivian Chow. Turned out had so much fun watching the story unraveled despite the nonsensical plot involving fantasy-like angel theme. The actings of the casts were great and the chemistry among them was natural that even Boss Bao the so-called "gangster wannabe" ex-director character managed to provide numerous funny scenes along side the MCs.

Seriously though my first thought after 10mins into this movie was whether I want to continue watching it since I felt as if I was being thrown into a messed up, weirded out plot not knowing what to expect especially when the male MC appeared dressed up in bikinis, carrying a cabbage and on roller skate. I am glad I stayed put as I really enjoyed the simple romance journey between the MCs on learning what is love and crushes and having the courage to love and wishing happiness for the one you love. This movie is silly, weird, candid but tells the story of simple, pure love. I especially like how the romance story of the cafe owner being revealed and the relation with the MCs. As per the title of this movie, all of us are waiting for that someone who can see us the way we are.

This is a teenage romance movie with great story lines that touched on several themes in real life when "A", the MC started to appear in Rhiannon, the female MC's life. It does not matter that how and why the mystery of "A" able to transport from one body to another and living their lives for them for just that one day, is never properly addressed in this movie because this movie is not about the fantasy and supernatural but to me, it is about human relationships. From how Rhiannon's so-called romantic relationship with her jerk boyfriend, Justin to Rhiannon's family relationships to "A"'s attempt to live the lives of the people he/she invaded for a day, the audience gets to travel together in these illustrated relationships.

I like how the story tried to cover the many different aspects of people that "A" gets to invade and along the way touch on the various real life issues, the outcasts at school, the high expectations of parents on their children, LGBT, teenage's life, etc, and of course showcasing the people from all walks of life, culture, values, beliefs and so on. The flow of the story is smooth and the scenes are aptly laid out together with what I think are most amazing OST as bgm. In fact the greatest thing about this movie, to me, is the soundtrack of life picked out for these two MCs.

I also really appreciate how the ending is not going down the typical teenage romance movie of happily ever after and instead despite leaving a bittersweet taste to what I have watched, I realised I was happy for the two MCs to have the chance to meet and trying to make things work for them at their young age without much understandings how to go about what they are going through. Many things in life are best left unexplained and to just go with the flow and enjoy the process, which I think "A" the MC is living the life set out for in whatever best way "A" could think of for that person being invaded for a day.

Note: Apparently there was an older movie called Beauty Inside released in 2012 that is similar to this movie and also a Korean version also released in 2012. Interesting indeed.

One is never too late for a Jackie Chan's movie, especially a comedy action movie of his. First of all, the way the story plot being presented is very straight forward like, literally doing a presentation with sub-titles of what to expect in the scenes as we go along. It's clean cut in such a way and you won't feel any interruptions. And with the theme on, 'let's do something big in this lifetime' coming out from average railroad workers, you know you are going to be in for rides filled with laughters. The bgm matched well with the scenes and helped to raise the dramatic-ness from the comedic aspects.

To me, the most crucial point of this movie fell on the good chemistry among the quite star-studded casts. They matched each other so well in their rhythms and one can really feel their comrades and brotherhood, which at times really what made their actions/sayings funny. There were many times that I was really laughing my heads off and I knew this movie is such feel-good humor movie worth watching. I like how Jackie Chan was not a one-man show in this movie and helped to bring out the acting skills of others casted in this movie through their interactions. In fact, it was an eye opening for me to see Wang Kai with his supposedly 'cool-I-know-what-I'm-doing-in-war' Fan Chuan character turned out to be a hilarious character with his constant 'rational' thinking. Another hilarious character akin to Fan Chuan was the Japanese Captain played by Ikeuchi Hiroyuki, which I see in the movie as to now wonder why he and Fan Chuan 'battling' it out the most.

I got to admit that my initial thought before I started to watch this movie was half expecting it to be typical China-produced war era movie, focusing much on patriotism. However, despite this movie having its patriotic moment, it wasn't shove down the audience throat like the usual ones. The feeling of "patriotism" (wanting for the freedom fighters to win despite their average tricks and fighting skills) was somewhat built into me as I watched the progress of how desperate this group of average men, dreaming of doing big things as they kept putting it in the movie, wanted to help the army to blow up the bridge.

I am not the type who rewatch but if I ever do catch this movie on TV or something, I won't mind rewatching just for the laughters.