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Last Life in the Universe

Last Life in the Universe (2003)

August. 03,2003
|
7.5
| Drama Action Thriller

An obsessive-compulsive Japanese librarian living in Bangkok spends most of his days contemplating suicide in his apartment. His life changes when he witnesses the death of a young girl and becomes acquainted with her elder sister.

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Reviews

Arianna Moses
2003/08/03

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

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Kien Navarro
2003/08/04

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

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Juana
2003/08/05

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

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Isbel
2003/08/06

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

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Yashua Kimbrough (jimniexperience)
2003/08/07

Librarian with gangster affiliations whom is obsessed with suicide becomes infatuated with a young Thai girl after bonding over her sister's car accident . Slow paced storytelling, even the love connection is messy. Some may praise cinematography for this is average for Christopher Doyle .. Takashi Miike makes a cameo

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Chrysanthepop
2003/08/08

'Last Life in the Universe' works both as a mood piece and a dark romantic comedy. The dry humour, silence, washed out colours, visuals and music help set the atmosphere which is gloomy and depressing but has a sense of humour. The Kenji (Tadanobu Asano) and Noi (Sinitta Boonyasak) unconventional love story comes across beautifully on screen. There are no saccharine moments where the boy and girl profess their love to one another. It is displayed with marvelous subtlety. Both Asano and Boonyasak act wonderfully. They convey a lot through non-verbal expressions. Yet it is director Pan-Ek Ratanaruang who deserves most credit. The way he has weaved everything together using minimum amounts of the essential ingredients of film-making only prove that less is more (at least in this case). The end is open to interpretation but given the 'depressing' themes the movie brings forth, it finishes on a note of hope for the two protagonists.

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Enchorde
2003/08/09

Recap: Kenji is a Japanese man living in Bangkok. He's quiet and withdrawn, working as a librarian and books seem to be his whole life. His pedantically organized home is full of them. However, Kenji is also obsessed with suicide, and repeatedly tries/plans to kill himself, to escape his loneliness. Something seems to turn up and interrupt him every time though. Noi is the opposite. She is a prostitute and her life is more or less in constant chaos, full of violence, drugs and meaningless/destructive relationships. Under odd circumstances they meet and Kenji ends up moving in with Noi, and later starts to get to know her. Together they form an odd pair under pressure from outside forces but find strength in each other.Comments: This is a very odd movie, but with a peculiar quality that is hard to define. In contrast to most thrillers out of the west (i.e Europa, USA) that puts as much action and violence as it can this Asian production does the opposite. On all levels. This is a very slow movie, but do not make the mistake and put that equal to bad. There is not much action or violence, and that there is is mostly out of picture. The shy and pedantic Kenji does not say much at all, in contrast to Noi that speaks much. But with only one part running the dialog it is slow and intentionally limping. The slowness also is represented in the film itself, in a cinematographic (is that a real word or just something I just thought should be? anyway, I hope you understand what I mean) way. At first I thought the camera never moved at all, the director choosing to cut instead to change point of view. But this is not entirely true, in fact the camera and view changes in almost every scene. But it is very slow and very little, and hardly noticeable. So the camera becomes a very static point, in line with the story that moves slow as well.Still there is some peculiar kind of quality that I am having a hard time putting my finger on it. There is humor, in an almost wordless way, but nonetheless, it is there. There is the opposite characters and their fate. And there is the looming end that because of the circumstances must come, in one way or another. So the movie never became dull, but instead gave time and room for thought. It also is a visually beautiful movie with clashes between Kenji's pedantic living and Noi's chaos. Especially there is one scene when Noi is having a drug-induced hallucination of Kenji's effect on her life and house. Beautiful! This is a movie for those who want to see something different, something else. Not another blockbuster.6/10

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vailsy
2003/08/10

i really didn't like the sound in this movie at all. it drew far too much attention to itself and was a distraction for mefor example, noi closes her house up before heading off to japan.. we don't hear the gate closing at all but we do hear her locking it. why? the car rarely makes a noise and instead we hear the gentle sound of the waves. a nice idea, but overdone overall i found the sound in this movie to be inconsistent and confusing. very much like the movie as a whole before you rush out to see or buy this movie, bear in mind that the IMDb rating here is based on around just 40 or so reviews currently (07')

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