RResende Fantasporto 2010.Those who are regular readers of my comments know that i have a special appreciation for the theme of cinematic uses of space. Usually, most of the times, i mean physical built spaces, architecture. I plan on developing the theme, and in a near future hopeful get sponsoring to deepen my research and eventually get somewhere. In the meanwhile, i collect examples of films which clearly address the theme.The thing i've been noticing is that unlike other qualities you may find in a film, this space/image adequation is something that simply won't happen unless the filmmakers are conscious of it. In other words, in order for buildings to become either characters or spacial entities, there has to be a lot of thinking and awareness involved. Being an architecture might help, it certainly did help Meirelles in Blindness.Here we have a fairly interesting example of the theme. The story is absolutely uninteresting, dull and discardable except for what allows the architecture connection to show: everything revolves around one building, the ECOBAN, where the bad guys have their fortress from where they control the surrounding world of the film. the sequence during the credits is powerful in how it synthesizes this concept: the hero rides his motorcycle through the road, and enters this building. It's interesting to understand this building: it has a central plant, we actually even see a virtual model of it, inserted in the film!, when the bad guys discuss the security of ECOBAN. from that central round core (with an interior that uses Wright's New York museum) we have several huge accesses, several long corridors that connect the core to the world. Those corridors great structures that mix Gothic bows with more bionic freely designed structures, one inside the other. It's one of this corridors that we see the hero ride through, in the initial sequence. So that first essential scene has him reaching the inside of the building. That's the most spatial sequence of the whole film, and it makes the experience worthy, even though the rest of the shots are usually uneven (with a few exceptions). It's useless to say the the final solution to release the world from tyranny is found at the centre of the building.So, we have a story folded into a building, making the building a character itself. that building works in its conception as the metaphor (symbol) of what it represents in the story. So it's Storytelling mapped into architecture. That's really interesting. Everything else in this film fades compared to this concept. More than that the story is strangely inefficient. I don't know how we can have the cleverness of making architecture a character to support such an unclear narrative. It's like there were different people working on different aspects of the project.The production, and visual aspect is quite good, as in fact pretty much anything that comes out of South Korea.My opinion: 3/5http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com

giddeo Ordinarily I wouldn't spend a great deal of time reviewing a movie, but the amount of hype and bragging that was contained in the DVD pamphlet taunted me into doing this.If you read the DVD description it describes this as a cinematic masterpiece 7 years in the making which stands to rival Akira. Let me assure you that it doesn't. In fact to even say that is an insult to everything about Akira.The effects are quite impressive however the animation of the actual characters leaves a lot to be desired and the story line is just about the most predictable piece of rubbish you could ever imagine.See it if you have to but please don't waste money on this.

Richard Brunton Movie: The story is strong and filled with interesting characters, yet despite the breadth and depth of the story the characters are kept light and you don't really feel as though you do anything more than scratch the surface of them, which is a real shame as they they seem as though they could be given so much more life and reality with some more backstory. There were a couple of moments that didn't do the film much justice, one was that some of the character voices had the usual anime style of being just a tad over acted, and the others, which are all too typical in anime and manga, cute animals and unusually annoying children. It feels as if the film is pulling between two genres when these sort of styles are brought in. On one hand they are trying to create an adult themed cartoon, and on the other you have voices and characters straight out of Pokemon. This bothers me, because if they had managed to focus on a pure adult animation then this movie would have increased in estimation, but although these failings are not bad enough to really harm the film they do affect it. Still, with all this there's something that just takes your mind away from it all the time, the visuals, they are stunning. The backgrounds to just about all of the scenes look fantastic, and some of the sequences were stunningly created and looking really beautiful to the eye. Careful consideration has been taken about where to place the viewer, and how to recreate the actual movement of a camera through the scenes. Nowhere is this more apparent than the opening scenes with the bike racing through the outside world, it's a wonderful piece of animation. Picture: Widescreen 1.85:1 Anamorphic: Very sharp and clear picture, the colours tended to be duller due to the nature of the story, but when colours arrived they were strong. During the fog scene there was very little evidence of the grading effect you see in lower quality encoded DVDs and digital signals, it was very smooth and you had to really look to see this effect. Overall an excellent picture reproduction. Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS: The DTS audio was utterly brilliant being delicate, crisp and clear. During any action sequences the audio was loud and bold and very spacious, travelling around the speakers with the action. The full effects of DTS were used with audio coming from all around you, which was helped by the thoughtful positioning of the camera in regards the action and therefore where the sound and movement would be coming from. There was a good use of silence too which heightened the actual sound effects when they arrived. The soundtrack was wonderfully chosen and matched the movie superbly, with the final scenes elevated by the chosen operatic piece which was quite stirring. Extras: None. Overall: Although there are a few more annoying aspects of anime creeping in here with some not so strong voice acting and childish animation, overall the movie is good. What really makes it is the fabulous animation combined with the excellently visualised camera movement. It truly is a feast for the eyes, and when the DTS audio is layered above it you're sucked into the world so easily. Yet for all those good points the story is left quite light and brushed over, especially with the lead characters who are hinted at being deeper than they really are. There was so much to explore here and yet it's been ignored. Definitely worth a viewing if you are a fan of such movies, otherwise you might find this visual feast a tad less satisfying.

athena24 This is definitely more than a pure animation. It's more like a movie, only an animated one. My emphasize here is on the word movie. Not because it has a brilliant colorful animation, that sometimes appears to be 3 dimensional, and sometimes 2 dimensional ( which is spectacular by itself). It has that. But I'm thinking of it as a movie because of high details. Actually, this is direction. When I watch animation, I don't really care who's the director of it. In fact, Until this one I forgot there is one in each animation like in every film. This movie is full of details that make it look much better than other animation. I'll mention some of them, that I found the most interesting.1. Near the beginning of the movie, there is a scene with a tunnel exit covered by a waterfall, that flows not quite as one could expect of it. You get an explanation of the irrational flow a couple minutes after, but isn't it amazing they thought about it? 2. Flies around a lamp. When was the last time you saw flies around a lamp (in animation), just as part of the view, because they attracted to light and not to portray something ( like trash site, bad smell, dirt or other metaphoric things that flies represent). 3. While Jay was entering the rebel zone a guard watched him through the optics of a sniper rifle. They could show us only the guard, without the mentioned aspect. But no, this is what a direction is about!!! 4. Jay's fight with the army's commander. Just watch the details.I could possibly continue with some more examples,like shooting scenes from different angles and so, though those were the most vivid to me. Think about it. Think about they thought about it. In one word the animation was excellent. In some words it was a tasteful mixture, with live colorful characters and places. I don't really think they could do it better. Both the 3 dimensional animation and the 2 dimensional looked awesome. I really don't agree with those who say that the latter was dull and poorly done. As I said, I don't think it could be done better.Another aspect of this movie, that stroked me with it's uniqueness, at least from western animation, is the brutality and the naturalism. I don't know much animation (again western), where a gun was violently put against somebody's head, shooting it, and spilling the blood all around. I don't think this kind of violence is good or bad, but in a way it completes the movie. I just get the feeling that it's necessary. This also brings it closer to movies because there is some convention (unspoken) that animation is for younger audience.Well, the movie is not all good. Like every other movie, the plot is a crucial thing. Wonderful Day clearly lacks one. It tries to be scientifically ingenious in it's main idea which makes no sense if one thinks about it (you don't really have to think, its obvious enough). There is another thing that bothers. This movie involves a drama among three characters, which at the end gets exaggerated and too emotional ( emotional not for the viewer but for the characters themselves). There are a lot of animated and non-animated movies with that kind of drama in them. Some of them pass this drama to the audience, while others try but fail. Wonderful Days belongs to the latter. It has a good revealing of the drama at the beginning and the middle of the movie, but in the end it disappoints.Wonderful Days' flaws are minor compared to its highlights. I would recommend it to anyone who likes animation and is not disturbed with excessive violence. My rating: 7.5/10