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I liked the beginning part of this film, but found myself progressively less enthusiastic as it wound its way to the end. Worth seeing, but not a big favorite.

Kimstim’s website now says “Blu-ray Coming Soon” on their Happy Hour page. I watched this on iTunes and loved it and will happily buy the North Amercan Blu-ray when it comes out.

That's great to hear, as someone who's been on the fence about the pricy import version for a while.

Michael Kerpan wrote: Sun Apr 22, 2018 4:14 pm I liked the beginning part of this film, but found myself progressively less enthusiastic as it wound its way to the end. Worth seeing, but not a big favorite.

I liked the film more than you, I think, but I do agree it loses something as it goes along towards the end - maybe everything from about after the long literary reading section. I also was watching the film in a serialized format (it was broken up into 3 separate installments for French theatrical distribution) and I felt like the film would've had a stronger impact on me had I watched everything in a single day/screening. Something about seeing them each one day apart made the similarities to watching a limited run TV series more apparent, although I do think what Happy Hour does with the extreme duration of certain sequences is quite different than TV.

The KimStim Blu-ray now has a release date of February 12th, 2019 at Amazon and Best Buy, though it's currently $42.98 at the former and $27.99 at the latter.

Has anyone picked up the KimStim Blu-Ray? Any info on the region encoding?

I did pick it up, but haven't played the disc yet. I can check on it tonight and update.

Edit: Just popped the first disc into my Seiki while set to region B, and it played fine, so I assume that means it's region-free.

This is a film I’d been hugely looking forward to, but my enthusiasm was dampened somewhat After seeing Asako I & II, which I was hugely disappointed by – indeed, I’d say it was close to the worst new film I saw in 2018 (I found its central narrative conceit kind of shrug-worthy to begin with, and then it just felt like it did nothing with it; the lack of any kind of interesting characterisation didn’t help!) I know a lot of critics have said that it was an inferior follow-up to Happy Hour, but do you think it’s even worth giving it a go if Asako did so little for me?

Agree that the film gets less interesting as it goes on. It's remarkably interesting in places (the bookreading scene in particular) it trades feeling for story about 2/3 of the way through and doesn't have a conclusion to offer. There are some genuinely terrible moments of storytelling in that final section and it feel it would have been better had the director been happy leaving it on more of a tangent.

It has a lot of fascinating moments though.

Hamaguchi trivia -- As far as I can tell, the _real_ name of Asako 1 and 2 is more like Sleeping and Waking....

Oedipax wrote: Fri Mar 08, 2019 8:39 pm I did pick it up, but haven't played the disc yet. I can check on it tonight and update.

Edit: Just popped the first disc into my Seiki while set to region B, and it played fine, so I assume that means it's region-free.

Brilliant, thank you for checking!

FYI, this is now available to stream on Kanopy (depending on your particular library's catalog, of course - it on the NYPL portal at least).

Finally got around to seeing this wonderful film. I am surprised Yang hasn't been brought up in the thread yet as the use of time to express horror and violence in a real world domestic setting seems entirely cribbed from him. What was uniquely amazing about the movie though was the acting which has some of the most complex body language I've seen in a long while. Just a tip of the head or the shift of eyes explains so much of the narrative. My favorite incident of this is perhaps early on in the blood drawing scene when the resident nurse sees what an expert job she is doing. The resident's face is covered in a mask and she doesn't really move, but expresses the full thinking of her character with her eyes.

Michael Kerpan wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2019 1:15 pm Hamaguchi trivia -- As far as I can tell, the _real_ name of Asako 1 and 2 is more like Sleeping and Waking....

Yes, 'temo' as a verb ending is a form of conditional in Japanese, so it would more literally read Even if (I/You) Sleep Even If (I/You) Wake. As personal pronouns are often dropped in Japanese, I've included them in parentheses so as to give a logical translation, whilst retaining the slight ambiguity of the title.

Watched Happy Hour at the LFF a few years back and absolutely loved it. It was undoubtedly one of the best things I've seen come out of Japan for quite a while and concur with knives' post about the performances.

knives wrote: Sun Jan 26, 2020 5:41 pm Finally got around to seeing this wonderful film. I am surprised Yang hasn't been brought up in the thread yet as the use of time to express horror and violence in a real world domestic setting seems entirely cribbed from him. What was uniquely amazing about the movie though was the acting which has some of the most complex body language I've seen in a long while. Just a tip of the head or the shift of eyes explains so much of the narrative. My favorite incident of this is perhaps early on in the blood drawing scene when the resident nurse sees what an expert job she is doing. The resident's face is covered in a mask and she doesn't really move, but expresses the full thinking of her character with her eyes.

I find this reading interesting, because I wasn't thinking of time as begetting horror/violence as much as an uncomfortable meditation on the crevices of the isolation's place in a social world, though I suppose that could fit with "horror" and certainly with the details you describe in the second half of your reading.

Even though I agree that these nonverbal elements are the film's greatest strengths, the moment that struck me hardest was the most verbal: the nurse's explanation for how the system prevents her psychologically from providing the best care for her patients, and even details the defense mechanisms at work that rationale this groupthink between her and her coworkers. As someone who has worked in human services settings with similar structural barriers for a solid chunk of life, this description and the awareness to it is all too relatable and bold for any film to tackle, as well as stunning in the simplicity by which it's verbalized.