Samâ firumu ni notte

It's a Summer Film!

Falls into that rare category of

"I don't mind watching this again".

It is a movie about a movie being made by a highschool member of a school film club whose script for a Samurai film lost out to a teen-romcom script. And yet it is a movie that ticks a lot of boxes: samurai, coming of age, underdog, Sci-Fi, High School and yes, it too is a romcom.

Watch how a time traveler aids in making this a reality in spite of the obvious setbacks and insanely furious changes to the version of the final climatic scene.

The ending is unexpectedly expected and very satisfying.

If I ever get to live my life over, Barefoot would be the kind of daughter I want.

And yes, I watched it again. It made my day, twice.

I can honestly say I've never seen anything like it. I loved every minute of it. Not crazy about certain parts of the score, but the story hooked me. Its hilarious, heartfelt, a love letter to filmmaking when you're young and to Samurai films and the joys of creation. I even got some Hausu (aka House) vibes from it! This film works in so many ways and I cannot wait to own this.

I thought it was a normal high-school movie of teenagers making a samurai film, but there is a small little detail that if I mention it will give away this movie. So I'll leave you in suspenseful for you. I do can tell you that the story was very interesting and you really get to enjoy the characters...but the climax and the ending?? Oh my...I really wasn't expecting it be that exciting and good. Give it a try please.

PS the score was the only problem here.

I sat down to watch the 2020 Japanese movie "Summer Film Ni Notte" here in 2022 without ever having heard about it. I stumbled upon the movie by random chance, and with it being an Asian movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to watch what writers Sôshi Masumoto and Naoyuki Miura had to offer.

Well, I will say that the movie was watchable, for sure. However, the storyline just somewhat fell short about entertaining me all that much. I mean, a movie about a group of students making a low budget Samurai film just didn't really cut it for me. But hey, I am sure that there is an audience out there for an artsy movie such as "Summer Film Ni Notte" from director Sôshi Masumoto.

The acting performances in the movie were good, I will say that much, and the actors and actresses definitely put on good enough performances to carry the movie, and thus I managed to sit through all 97 minutes of the movie, despite not being particularly entertained by the storyline itself.

I will say, though, that "Summer Film Ni Notte" is not a movie that I am going to be returning to watch a second time, since it failed to properly entertain me the first time around. Nor is it a movie that I would recommend fans of the Japanese cinema to rush out and get to watch.

My rating of "Summer Film Ni Notte" lands on a generous four out of ten stars.