Flavors of Youth

The movie consists of three stories connected by a common theme; what is it like to be a youth in China?

Liked the delicious noodles in the first story, the sisterly love in the second story and the innovative use of the tape recorder in the last story.

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AlphaGo

This is a documentary about how a team of computer programmers developed a program called AlphaGo to challenge one of the top Go players in the world, Lee Se Dol.

Liked the human aspect of the story for both the team of computer programmers and Lee Se Dol! I rejoiced when Lee Se Dol finally found a weakness in AlphaGo to win in game 4!

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Frozen

The story is about a queen who could freeze objects by shooting beams with her hands much like how spiderman shoots webs from his hands and her sister who longed to be closer to her.

Liked the nice songs in the film! The duet by the sisters was my favorite song followed by "Let It Go" by the queen. Was quite surprised by the twist towards the end that showed what true love really meant!

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The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

The story is about how an old couple came across a young baby girl in the bamboo forest and raised her to be a princess.

Liked the nice water color animation and the dream sequences! Was really surprised by the ending when the true identity of princess Kaguya was revealed!

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Still Alice

The story is about how a linguistic professor's relationship with her family changed after she discovered that she had Alzheimer's Disease on her 50th birthday.

Liked the leisurely pace of the movie and the inspiring speech at the care centre! Great acting by Julianne Moore! Thought the part where she watched her own video but forgot what she was supposed to do after she went upstairs was a little bit funny.

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In This Corner Of The World

The story is about a young Japanese woman's life during World War II.

Liked how the protagonist endured the hardships of food rationing and countless number of bomb shelter visits! She was mad only when she learnt that Japan had surrendered to the enemy. I also liked her creative paintings of the sea, the sky and the experiences that she encountered!

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Your Name

The story is about how a boy and a girl lived each other's lives occasionally when they switched bodies in their dreams.

Liked the nice soundtrack, the interesting incidents during the body switches and the complex plot that kept me in suspense on what would happen next! The girl looked beautiful with the ribbon tied to her hair!

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Senior Teacher

The story is about what happened to a teacher after a student whom he hit became deaf.

Liked the black and white cinematography, beautiful soundtrack and interesting plot! I also liked the use of hand written words on composition paper to divide the film into different parts.

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The Manifest

The story is about two astronauts taking part in an inter-stellar mission.

Liked the nice voice of the artificial intelligent assistant and the little arguments between the two astronauts!

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Beijing, Mumbai, Tampines

The story is about how recruits worked together as a team despite their different backgrounds.

Liked the realistic depiction of basic military training and the carmaraderie among the group!

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The Life of Bob Lee

The story is about how an ex photo-journalist coped with having an autistic son.

Liked the father-son bonding moments in the film!

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Sanjay

The story is about the encounters of an Indian couple who just moved to Singapore.

Liked the friendly neighborhood spirit of helping each other! Didn't quite understand what the boss of Sanjay was angry about though.

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Little By Little

The story is about two children who had to overcome the trauma of seeing someone falling to her death.

Liked the T-shaped paper plane and the drawings made by the little girl! Nice plot and great acting!

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Poor Bro, Rich Bro

The story is about how a brother and sister helped their grandmother collect old things to sell.

Liked how the grandmother taught her granddaughter to stay positive despite her classmates laughing at her! Nice plot and great acting!

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Remember

The story is about a son trying to put his father suffering from Alzheimer's disease into a home.

Liked the flashbacks and how the father and the son remembered about their past!

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Close Circuit

The story is about how a Lego child grew up in a Russian doll family.

Liked the tension between the mother's expectations and the child's desires! Great special effects!

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The Leader

The story is about how two young kids in a childcare center learned to co-operate with each other while their parents who happened to be colleagues had a small argument.

Liked the nice plot about how people with different races worked and played happily together!

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Hanging On

The story is about an old man trying to hold on to old voice mail recordings of his daughter as the telephone company phased it out just after she died in an accident.

Liked how the film showed the human side of technology! Thought this was quite similar to Emoji except that one was about voice mail and the other was about messaging apps.

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Crumb

This is a documentary about Robert Crumb who is an American cartoonist.

Liked the interesting interviews and how Robert brought the viewers through several of his cartoons! It made me question if there should be bounds to freedom of expression as one man's view could be offensive to another.


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Like Someone In Love

The story is about different types of love: a student's respect for his teacher, a girl worrying for her grandmother's safety, a grandfather's longing for his loved ones and a boyfriend's concern for his girlfriend.

I was browsing through the Criterion catalogue and this title caught my eye as it was directed by an Iranian director but filmed in Japan. Liked the interesting conversations and the pretty actress! The film taught me not to judge a person too quickly by first impressions. I thought the boyfriend was a good for nothing initially but changed my mind after seeing him working diligently in his uniform. Similarly, I thought the professor's neighbor was just being nosy until I learnt more of her situation later in the film.

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