Dear My Life

  Header illustration for the film review essay of Secret (2007). Illustration created for editorial movie review purposes. 💭 Short Personal Reflection Secret (2007) found me somewhere I hadn't expected to be found. To be honest, I was more captivated by the music than the story itself. Perhaps it comes with time — I find it harder to fully surrender to fantasy, at least in live-action films. Reality has a way of anchoring us more firmly than before. With animation, I still find myself believing almost without question. But here, at first, I remained at a certain distance. And then something shifted. When the Piano Battle arrived — Chopin's "Black Key" Etude reimagined under Xianglun's hands — the distance closed without my choosing. Art is never fixed, I thought. It is constantly being reborn through the hands of those who perform it. In that moment, the question of fantasy no longer mattered. The music was real enough to quietly bridge the distance between ...

Header illustration for the film review essay of 5 Centimeters per Second (2007). Illustration created for editorial movie review purposes. 💭 Short Personal Reflection 5 Centimeters per Second (2007) came back to me this April, as I walked through streets lined with cherry blossoms. The film tells us that five centimeters per second is the speed at which a petal falls — and the distance at which two hearts drift apart. But sitting on a small bench beneath the blossoms, holding a cup of coffee, watching the petals fall in silence, I found myself quietly disagreeing. I tend to believe that feelings don't disappear so easily. They remain, like a small ember, quietly staying alive somewhere deep inside. And maybe that is why — even now — the person I miss feels, somehow, still there. 🎥 Film Overview Director Makoto Shinkai Release March 3, 2007 (Japan) Runtime 63 minutes Cast Kenji Mizuhashi (Takaki Tōno), Yoshimi Kondou (Akari Shinohara), Satomi Hanamura (...

Header illustration for the film review essay of 20th Century Girl (2022). Illustration created for editorial movie review purposes. 💭 Short Personal Reflection Watching 20th Century Girl (2022), I found myself not only following Bo-ra's story — but returning to my own. She moved through her youth with urgency and brightness, chasing love, making choices, living loudly. And for a brief moment, I wondered why my own teenage years had felt so much quieter. But as I sat with that thought, something shifted. My youth was not empty. It simply spoke a different language. Where her world was filled with pagers, video rentals, and restless movement, mine was shaped by smaller, quieter moments: sharing lunch in a classroom, longing for films I was not allowed to see, sitting in a theater for the first time, watching something unfold on a stage. And maybe that is what this film ultimately offers — not just nostalgia for someone else's youth, but a way back to our own. 🎥 Film Overvi...

  Header illustration for the film review essay of Like Father, Like Son (2013). Illustration created for editorial movie review purposes. 💭 Short Personal Reflection Like Father, Like Son (2013) made me think that becoming a parent is, in some ways, the beginning of a second life. A life heavier than the one I carried alone. A life that sometimes asks me to set parts of myself aside. This film poses one of the most unforgiving questions along that path: what would you do if the child you had raised for six years was not your biological child? Faced with that impossible crossroads, I found myself holding my breath — lost between two immense currents, unable to move. And long after the film ended, I was still standing there, asking a question the film refuses to answer for me. 🎥 Film Overview Director Hirokazu Kore-eda Release September 28, 2013 (Japan); World Premiere May 18, 2013 (Cannes Film Festival) Runtime 120 minutes Cast Masaharu Fukuyama (Ryota ...

  Header illustration for the film review essay of When Morning Comes, I Feel Empty Illustration created for editorial movie review purposes. 💭 Short Personal Reflection When Morning Comes, I Feel Empty (2022) confused me at first. Nothing seemed to happen. The screen filled with dry, repetitive routines — days that passed without incident, without change. But as I slowly came to understand the protagonist's circumstances, I realized that this "nothing happening" was not empty at all. It was a silence — heavy, suffocating, and deeply human. There was a time in my own life like that. A time when waking up felt like something to fear, when the arrival of morning itself felt unwelcome. And then I understood: this film is not about emptiness. It is about surviving it, quietly, one hollow morning at a time. 🎥 Film Overview Director Yuho Ishibashi (石橋夕帆) Release May 12, 2022 (OAFF); December 2023 (theatrical, Japan) Runtime 76 minutes Cast Erika Kar...