Birigyaru

There are some out there who believe that mainstream films can never be artistically great or entertaining. I am certainly not one of them - and this film definitely proves it.

True, it's not groundbreaking by any means. But is it interesting? Is it emotionally gripping? And most importantly, is it memorable? This is all three, and more.

Taking literally the best parts of what characterizes Japanese film - over the top acting, narrative exposition, classic tugs at the heart-strings moments and melodramatic long pauses - this film pulls great screen writing, direction and acting to produce what has to be the best two hours to come out of mainstream Japanese cinema in a very long time.

A lots of teenage and coming of age movies don't touch with the subject of school materials. Usually they just focus on romantic relationship or broken hearted experience in high school. Well. You can expect differently from this one.

Sayaka Kudo, a pariah high school girl that only knew how to enjoy her life instead of studying, suddenly face the challenge to enter one of the most prestigous university in Japan. She had only one year to make that happened. Her mother asked help from the golden heart tutor Tsubota-san to assist Sayaka in her impossible quest. Can they make their dream come true?

It was a very heartwarming and touching family movie. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie. It managed to truly touch the real family life....the great expectation the parents have on their kids.

Really worth spending almost 2 hours watching this movie.

Tender and touching, this movie is a real story (based) of following your dreams and of how a great teacher can help people to realize their true potential.

The main hero, Sayaka - thickly painted social butterfly at the start of the story, with no knowledge and no skills to speak of - with the help of 'cram school' teacher working overtime because of his belief in his students - is gradually transformed over the course of the movie into successful student, sure of herself and her abilities, who applies for the entry exams into one of the finest universities in Japan.

Great story and great cast -- frankly, I was quite skeptical when I started the movie, but all the performances were so believable, and the flow of the story is so finely woven that it completely won me over long before the movie was over.

This movie moves you on many different levels - girl's struggle with her own insecurities, her troubled relationship with her family, the teacher finding ingenious ways to help students who are not interested in learning, to start with - everything is told with so much skill and so much heart that you can not help being pulled in by the story.

Watch it! One of the external reviews called it "an entertaining time-waster". Well if it is, it is probably the most useful way to waste two hours of your time :)

Have you ever wanted something so bad you gave everything you have to accomplish it? That is what Flying Colors is all about, perseverance, dedication, strength and will power, all to accomplish your goals. I enjoy the concept, and this movie was by no means poorly done, but I think they could have done a lot more within the frame of an almost 2 hour movie, I think a run time of 1 hour and 30 minutes would have helped this movie out. Essentially this movie ends up being an hour or so of just watching the main character study, where we barely get to even learn anything along with her, we just watch her look at some text books intently. I also had a problem with the teacher as a character. I felt they didnt do much with his character, which does not make sense. He is supposed to be this magical being, almost, that convinces these troubled youths to change their ways and try to learn and do better in academics. But as a character, he sure is boring, not charming, and just completely empty. We didn't know much about him, and I didn't care enough to know more by the end, which is a shame, because they push the dynamic between the main character and the teacher, all throughout the movie, and yet they have no chemistry as student and teacher, and thats because his character is flat and the interactions are nothing special. So the idea that he's supposed to be able to convince these people, who no one else has been able to change for 14 years or more, in like one meeting... it just makes the relationship between everyone seem so fake, because of the basis of how it starts off. I think the story between the main character and her family is the most interesting in all of the movie, and that is not given enough screen time at all. The ending is nice, definitely sweet, which I will give this movie credit for also, it was uplifting, to see someone working so hard for what they want, and prove everyone wrong. But because the character work was not amazing, and development was poorly spaced out through the movie (she tries to change almost immediately and when she decides to stop trying to do well, it only lasts for a few minutes, so there was not enough time to actually believe she was giving up, the drama ended there). If you are interested in a simple, slightly uplifting and motivating movie, with not complex characters and have almost 2 hours to burn, then I'd say go for it, but for me, it was just forgettable