Probably a great Khmer cinema film in this period of time? Im not glazing, even though it's not so good but compared to other cinemas today, this one is actually good.
The opening scene was dope, no need any information else we know that this is a Khmer film by seeing the first scene. This is a comedy/romance film so don't be crazy about why they put the joke since the beginning. I don't know if any of ya noticed, but LD's film is always beautiful just like the "Photocopy" it got the best shots but the problems are so strong that it takes down the whole film with it.
Let's get into our topic, this movie is also well shot, it has good composition/camera movement. Just take a look at the beginning scene where's the people training shots, The Tilt shots and The Trucking shots where's Neang Neath sleeping on her Weaving machine (it was shot from the first two characters and tracks it to Neang Neath position by shooting it from the middle of the tree), these are what I noticed about the shot and I was enjoying the movie so I didn't notice if there are the other shots but I also see that the director never throw away the Rule Of Thirds shot.
One of the most impressive is The Setup, this film setup the entire village to look like the past. It has a specific location and combines it with the colour grading, it looks exactly in the past, plus the setup for shots where the objects, light or characters are placed into a frame is in the good position and looks so beautiful. Not to mention that the cinematography is fire.
It's century old, so don't forget about the Costume Design, the clothes here are fit with the movie, not just the movie but it fits all the characters as well. But I'm wondering about the shoes...
Does anyone feel what I feel? This is about acting. The acting isn't so good, but except for the main character, the part where he can't hold back the tears, this is the perfect part to makes the Villain Origin bro, I feel the protagonist's feeling, he didn't say anything, he just got into his character, on his knees and let us see through what his feels right now. The Monologue runs deep straight into the audience brain, The dialogue is so good that I can feel the pain in him, that was my favorite part of the film.
I almost forgot about The Genre itself, this is a comedy movie but there are so much jokes. I always see that any movie that has too much jokes it'll ruin itself, no matter if the genre is comedy and the joke in the movie good but if it's too much comedy, people didn't get the joke (I do understand that our people love the overjoke so much). And about the romance part, this is so bad I don't know man I don't like romance film so I'm immune with bad romance.
Now close your eyes for 3s and clear your mind, because from now on we got into the negative side which I think they should improve.
The first negative thing I saw was The Cuts, from one scene to another I felt like it's no connection, like we just cut a piece of paper and pasted another piece of paper on it without using the glue. That's not good for the film if we show daytime 2min and nighttime 5min and then back to daytime again, we should manage the time and tell the story so the audience can be better connected with the film and not forgettable.
Like I mentioned before, the colour grading is good for this film but the entire movie has only Warm Colour? We should use different colours to express the feeling, mood & tone, use it to tell the story, not just using one for the entire movie, I was expecting that I would see the "film looks" like the Photocopy, but turns out it's only warm colours and it hurts my eyes sometimes.
Now, the biggest mistake that ruined the whole film is The Story, this storyline is just bad, the storytelling didn't tell the audience properly, people just confused with the story why is it 3 months so fast? How long did he practice the martial arts? And when did she run away? And the story is boring, if there's no comedy part I would be sleeping in the cinema. It's a romance film but there's no romantic scenes, the audience needs the scenes where they can't stop smiling. It's the love story but it feels like "this is how I meet your mother" story because there's no love expression in it (it has but it's toooo little almost can't count as love)
Well this has plot twist this twist isn't bad but it's weak. The good thing is i didn't expect the twist but the bad thing is that the twist doesn't make sense, if they didn't flashback everyone will wonder why she became his daughter?. Another one is make sense, but I don't know clearly why he chose this village? I think the explanation will be in part 2.
Do we need to talk about Choreography? Why are they fighting like that? I mean, they fight like they're afraid of hurting the others, they don't even touch their opponents and their opponents are just knocked down by the wind or something? Yeah I see some scenes they did it good but mostly it's bad, I was watching Tena fighting video and it's better than this. The one thing that can carry the choreography is the soundeffects, and it should be have a climax scene, the scene where the thieves start to attack, that's the part to put the mind blowing scene to see the choreography and how character got his scar, not just playing around and then got stab. Btw it's not an action movie so it's fine with this but I think it would be better if we have a good choreography.
Emotional damage! There's a scene that everyone should be can't stop themselves from tearing, but instead it's just a waste. While fighting with thieves, why not shoot the part where the character got k*ll and the main character sees it with his own eyes and make it in slow motion+ with the soundtrack so that the audience can cry their a$$ off? When I watch it, I feel like I'm a heartless person because it doesn't feel sad at all, even if the character is screaming or crying it still couldn't make the audience feel bad about that.
Now we're talking about the story again but this time is how they ended the story, doesn't matter if the movie is good from the start or from the mid film or at the end of film, if they don't know how to end the story, it'll takes down the whole film with it, the ending should be shoot with the furious of main character or he's locking in and make the audience can accept this ending... Let's take a look at Godzilla minus one, how do they end the story? The main character should be die at the end, but he's alive and that's fine but after that scene we get into the credit scene, the Godzilla is regenerate again, so it makes the audience think that "ohh if we make the main character die and the Godzilla regenerates, then the main character will die for nothing, and the audience won't like it, and if the main character's still alive then it's fine for Godzilla to regenerates, but if the Godzilla can't regenerate then it'll be okay for the main character to die, this is why they make the main character alive and Godzilla regenerates, and that makes sense" See, One step on the wrong ending, Godzilla minus one would never be the best film.
Another film that's similar arc to this one, but in a good way is "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes" The film is ending but the story isn't end yet, there are still more part of the story but they ended the film by making the character arc and add the soundtrack, it can told us that the film is ending but the story is still continue and they show us the potential of main character that make the audience curious and feel the excited to see the next part. That's how we end up the movie that has a lot more stories to tell.
This film is good but the ending makes it fall down, btw is this one of the trilogy, so I hope they'll suprise us in the next 2 part and I also noticed that the author included the real thing in our society into the film too.
