Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy

I mean... it's quite boring guys, beautiful though

Chick flick - actually three chick flicks in one - but not too bad, there is good dialogue throughout.

This movie is an exercise of empathy.

戏剧般的电影，去掉蒙太奇，用一场场比真实还要真的对话戏去无限接近现实。

If you are pretentious and a poser, this movie is for you

Three separate short films, from the mind of Ryusuke Hamaguchi, who is turning into one of the best young filmmakers in the world. There is nothing uninteresting about each story. They are captivating and alluring and thought-provoking. It is very slow paced and methodical. It's also a cerebral film that should stay with you after watching. A hypnotic film that may be for cinephiles more than the average moviegoer, but the experience is well worth your time! Final Score: 8/10

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is an intriguing and beguiling suite of films from acclaimed Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi. 3 stories of about 40 minutes each tell tales of love and deception and memory with female characters at the core. 'Magic (or Something Less Assuring)' tells the tale of two friends who after long conversations realise that one is dating the other's ex partner. A love triangle if you like. 'Door Wide Open' follows a woman who is coerced into trying to seduce a professor in order to create a scandal. 'Once Again', my favourite, is a beautiful story of apparent ex high school friends reuniting after 20 years. As you would expect from a director of the calibre of Hamaguchi these are quietly powerful films that are multi layered and full of humanity and pathos. Truly beautiful observations of life and love.

This beautifully crafted triptych anthology became increasingly more interesting for me as each individual story progressed, as well as the three episodes themselves, punctuated by such a strong conclusion with the final scene. This is my first experience with Hamaguchi and was struck with the captivating dialogue more than anything else. The characters were put in unusual and emotionally complex circumstances which the audience learned the intricacies of through the showcasing of these longer conversations between two characters. The score and acting deserve credit as well, and I especially appreciated the second and third segments with excellent work from Katsuki Mori, Fusako Urabe, and Aoba Kawai. I kept thinking of the novels A Dance to the Music of Time while watching and how we never know from moment to moment the people who will enter and exit our lives, or the lasting impact they may have. This "dance" through life is the same one in which you can casually say goodbye to a friend and end up not seeing them for years or can bump into someone you hadn't seen in years only to reconnect for a lifetime. I even had to rewind a few times as my own reveries on the various paths life can take with a different choice made at a single moment in time caused me to enter my own world of alternate possible realities, just like a few of these characters. I don't remember seeing a better anthology film, aside from maybe Buster Scruggs, and was definitely impressed with how the pacing and layout allowed for a heightening of appreciation right into the credits. 8.5/10 27 likes

Subtle and touching, through these emotional encounters we see deep into Japanese society and deep into the human condition. As the characters converse, they reveal and deal with their strengths, weaknesses, hopes and fears, and we reflect on love, friendship and existence. Simple and graceful filmmaking.

"Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy" has the same structure of "Relatos Salvajes", multiple unconnected short stories, but while the Argentinian movie is a comedy, the Japanese one is a drama/romance, and while I was immersed the whole time in the Argentinian film, I, unfortunately, can't say the same about this one. Ryusuke Hamaguchi didn't repeat the success he did with "Drive My Car". He knows how to make time fly, even in movies that aren't very immersive. There are three stories here. The first one is cool, and I wouldn't change anything. All the stories have good characters who are well developed, but I didn't like the plots very much. The second story starts well, but there is a long dialogue between two characters that was boring and embarrassing to hear. Finally, the third one visibly had good intentions on paper, but on screen, that situation was hard to swallow. I think it would work better in a book.