I Come with the Rain

Everything about this movie screamed for me to despise it. Yet this movie is like meeting a person whose appearance is ugly, yet whose inner beauty is unseen unless given a chance to shine. Dark.... nasty work with cuts of beauty. It just flows out in both directions, this movie got a 9 out of 10 from me.

Basically an ex-cop (Josh H.)named Kline who has seen and been overtaken by evil( a serial killer drives him insane over his investigation into this 24 mutilation killings then tortures Kline during a meeting,) is given the task of finding a lost son of a billionaire who turns out to be a new Christ figure, a saint. Which of these two meetings will have the most impact on Kline? Deep, slow and gory but oh so beautiful in a very disturbing way.

Here's my 2 cents, and I rarely log in to IMDb to actually write anything, I usually just read the threads. I saw this film at the Pusan International Film Festival, and while I feel lucky to have seen it debut there, walked away with mixed feelings. "Rain" is a thoroughly unconventional film, which is fine. Unconventional is not for everyone, so that is not where the film falls short. Where it fails is in the lack of cohesiveness and not feeling like a finished product.

To answer one of the thread questions - yes, Shawn Yue's English is absolutely horrible. He just felt very uncomfortable and awkward. The rest of the cast was not bad, it's clear that English is not their first language, but it's bearable. Lee Byung Hun's is very good actually, and he's able to emote and act very well despite his lack of fluency.

Much of the acting is good - it's not excellent, but it is good. The cinematography is effective, and there's a lot of atmosphere as well as camera work that lends itself to the characters well. The POV is always very interesting and begs something of the viewer, whether it's a desire to see what is just off screen, or how the environment connects with the characters, or even how the lines running on screen draw comparisons to both themes occurring and characters state of mind. Particularly, there is something very interesting the vertical nature of HK, and the way it is captured on camera, and the more natural environment where *beep* is residing in a tent... if you watch carefully there's some visual comparisons drawn that show well thought out cinematography.

As for comparisons, there's also a lot of comparing and contrasting of the films main cast, as they deal with very similar questions of morality but deal with it very differently. This is perhaps the most interesting points of the film.

That much being said, I did not actually enjoy the film. It had its well made aspects, and was very intriguing, but never produces enough substance to turn the intriguing thematic material into anything more solid than mere intrigue. You'll walk out wondering - what the hell was all that about anyway? And you'll have ideas, especially about the messianic and religious symbolism the film draws upon, but there's just not enough substance to call it anything but flimsy at best. It's not even on the level of being ambiguous.

The soundtrack may work for some, and I even enjoy Radiohead, but it was overwhelming for me. Yes, it fits the atmosphere, but it was overused, it felt like the soundtrack equivalent of "Speed Racer's" cartoony VFX. It fit, but was just too much.

Finally, there was perhaps a bit too much unnecessary gruesome imagery that could have been more subtly shown or even implied. I'm not against violence in film, but "rain" took it beyond what was necessary, the audience simply did not need to see everything that was shown. I felt like this was enforced by the maggots in *beep* eye, which was not violent, but simply felt like it was put in for the explicit shock factor. Some may disagree with me on this point, fine, but I felt like it was a bit much.

I really wanted to like this film, and feel it could have been a very good movie. I don't think it could be a masterpiece of cinema, but could have been very solid, but in the end "Rain" felt like a film that had it been a bit more thought out, and about 30% more well executed, could have been a truly solid art house thriller, but ultimately falls short of not what we want, but rather what we need in order to actually comprehend the film as a whole.

This is one of the best film I have watched. In fact, I watched it twice, and the second time on, I gave it a standing ovation. This film is a piece of art, just like a canvas to Tran Anh Hung ready to paint his imagination for the world to see. It may leave audience baffled after watching it, but you need to watch the details to know the story. This movie is Tran Anh Hung's interpretation of the Life of Christ, it is a fusion of mafia, rock, detective all roll into one. You can call it a misinterpretation of the Bible, but hey, this is art, he has the freedom to express himself. To me, this rocks more than The Passion of Christ, because it got substance.

I do love IMDb. Look up a movie...any movie...and you'll find at least one moron crying about how it's the worst thing they've ever seen. Fair enough, but if you can point to just one movie and tell me it's the worst thing ever then you obviously have not watched enough crap. Just glancing at the board section below reveals two people who share this sentiment without even going past one page. This movie is strange, a little disjointed, and it certainly has it's flaws...but the worst movie ever? Please.

If I had to sum up Josh Hartnett's career in a word it would be "odd". It's kind of like he went from being fodder for women's fantasies and decided "screw this...let's get weird". That really worked with Lucky Number Slevin, but not so much here. The story follows Hartnett as an investigator hunting down some rich guy's son. That sounds like something you've seen a million times, but that's just the start. It's full of poorly timed flashbacks, mismatched edits, and stuff that just plain doesn't make any sense. I'm probably missing something since I did catch a few religious undertones, but I was too busy trying to piece together what the hell was going on to pay much more attention to it. Other than that the films comes across very well in an almost dark, mildly unsettling way. The story has a lot of substance to it, but maybe a bit too much at times when it seems like too much is going on. All in all though it's really not that bad.

I had to watch this film twice as I missed the first fifteen minutes, so when it popped up again on Sky, I was finallly able to piece the puzzle. Josh Hartnett is an experimentalist of an actor gladly . As a private investigator hired to find a hermetic son of a pharma billionaire, he has his own mental battles to fight due to a serial killer in his police past which resulted to him quitting the force, and he delivered well that you will not be distracted by his handsome features at all. The missing party has turned into a faith healer meantime. Why- see it for yourself. This film has strong religious undertones , violence and horrific dead victim images. This film is for those who can take the aforementioned description and may not be suitable for impressionable viewers.