This is Japanese 'filmu pinku', millennium style. It's strong, it's powerful, and it's very, very artsy.

It's a very erotic movie, but with a rock-solid storyline and plot, helped by majorly convincing performances from almost all actors; and never before have I seen an actress as powerfully convincing in a major and serious acting role as she is in the astonishing nude scenes. She is incredible in both.

By principle I would never mark any movie as 'perfect', but out of 5, this one ought to be 4.99.

Totally awesome movie. The actual story you can read about elsewhere so no point in me repeating that one, but let me just say that this is a very, very intense and beautiful love drama where it - for once - is not the guy's infidelity that hurts the relationship, but the girl's.

With a body to die for, she got him hooked for life; and with her teasing attitude always dangling like a carrot in front of his nose, he is hopelessly in love/pain and deeply suffering from her lack of commitment/sincerety.

A gorgeous movie that will showcase a by now well stamped out trademark of the new Korean cinema.

As a prejudiced bunch of hypocrites, we close our eyes to the ugly truth and scorn it when faced with it. We turn in disgust when faced with our own ugliness.

Lars von Trier (who else?) is once again turning the mirror on us. Dumb as we are, we think this is a movie about 'somebody else' when it's really a movie about ourselves.

If shock and provocation is what it takes to see the truth, so be it. This is not a movie about a bunch of idiots. This is a movie about a bunch of hypocrites: you and me!

[begin spoilers] Never mind the cultural issues of selling your children, but I chose to focus on the relationship and bond that slowly develops between the 'grandfather' and the 'grandchild' he purchased in the belief it was a boy...which just turned out to be a girl. Should I say yet another unwanted girl?[end spoilers]

A gorgeous piece of both heartbreaking and heartwarming movie making.

Never mind the shaped-like-a-Goddess Vivian Hsu (you have to be stone cold dead to not love her), but the story is compelling and told in a way that lends both the naiveté of youth and the wisdom of maturity. Pepper that with a few scenes of one of the most beautiful women in the world, 'au naturele', and you've got a wonderful movie you will remember for a long time.

Could you fall in love with a girl, if you knew she was a he?

Briefly my mind flashed back to 'The Crying Game'. Even though very different, there are certain parallel lines.

A beautiful movie you will remember long after the lights of Hollywood have faded.

A beautiful movie about frustration, sacrifice, reaching for the stars, fulfillment - however short-lived, pain and moving on. This movie will take you through all those emotions. It begs the question: " Is it worth all the scarifies, for a brief moment of happiness?"

Definitely a movie worth watching!

This is high art on the topic of one girl's attempt to find the perfect lover/calligrapher in one and same person.

Luck is bestowed upon Ewan McGregor to square off with Vivian Wu, but we better leave that subject for some other time.

A point to note would be that it may be a bit hard, ocasionally, for the novice to keep track of the "picture-in-picture" scnenes where you have two or three screens to keep track of, but in the name of art and beauty, this movie comes out on top.

Kurosawa is now neck-and-neck with Kim Ki-Duk, but 'the old Japanese' movies are still synonomous with a bygone era of movies that we will never be able to see the like of, again.

"Flower And Snake" ('74) is one of those movies, and though it's not quite as hard a hit as, say, "A Wife To Be Sacrified" or "In The Realm Of The Senses", it's still a very, very worthwhile movie to watch.

The movie falls a little short, timewise (only about 75 minutes), but it's enough to whet your appetite and get you through the first course of the meal.

It's not a fabulous movie, but if this is your first 'filmu pinku' it will certainly whet your appetite for more.

And that is what it's all about; the journey, not the destination.

There are very few 'square boxes' in this movie and the humanity and 'real life' quality about the cast, is what I was most attracted to.

There is just something about the original version that the new versions don't give you with all their flashy colors and mega-apocalyptic special effects.

The sheer joy of knowing you are watching 'the original' simply surpasses what the 'millennium editions' can offer. I want to watch the REAL Marilyn Monroe, not Madonna attempting to play Monroe.

Whether King Kong, Tarzan or The Marx Brothers...original is just better.

Admittedly, I purchased it to see a little more of an incredibly well shaped Kei Mizutani; and keeping that in mind, my financial investment balanced out...barely.

The movie itself is dumb enough that it's actually quite entertaining. Maybe there really IS no end to how women will fight each other to get one--well--"body part" up on the competition, and maybe men just ARE dumb enough to all fall victims of the women's attributes?

Whatever it is, it's a humorous little flick that you can get a laugh out of and enjoy the astonishing curves of Kei Mizutani...and then forget about when the movie is over.

Violence and sex - and nothing else throughout the movie - is what it's about. Right from the opening scene that will have many people turn it off right then and there.

At least human beings can defend themselves.

It took me 3 attempts to watch the movie in its entirety. The movie does not paint a very flattering picture of the Philippines, in general, but then again neither does Lars von Triers' 'The Idiots' about Denmark.

Left with the feeling that barbarism, sex and Jesus is all that is on the mind of the Filipino population, I think this movie is backfiring in its attempt to cast light on taboos in the Philippines.

Gone are Naoto Takenaka who lend tremendous credibility to this series (especially #3)and the lack of dialogue which allowed the camera to do all the talking, with incredible effect, in earlier titles in this series, has been replaced with choking amounts of dialog, yelling and screaming, together with surreal violence and 'suspiciously close-up' female body parts.

It's not all that bad a movie, though seriously limping. It just has no place in alongside the earlier ones, and gore violence and obvious 'plastic surgeon body parts' and female crutch shots does not make up for the fact that Naoto Takenaka is sadly missed. This one has lost its' credibility, as far as the series goes, but if you have never watched any of the others in the series, I suppose you will never notice.

I am not saying it's a bad movie. It's just not my style. I found it boring and un-interresting, only consolation being that I found it in the blow-out section. No wonder.