100 Ngày Bên Em

Needless to say that I hadn't even heard about this 2018 Vietnames movie titled "100 Ngày Bên Em" (aka "100 Days of Sunshine") from writers Trinh Dan Phuong and Ngoc Phuong Vu. But it being an Asian movie that I hadn't already seen was actually enough to make me sit down and watch it.

Director Ngoc Phuong Vu delivers a watchable enough movie here with "100 Ngày Bên Em", which has elements of romance, drama and light comedy to it. While the movie is watchable, I have to be honest and say that it was a rather generic movie. The writers didn't really offer anything that hadn't already been seen before in other movies.

Truth be told, then everything up to the last twenty minutes, give or take, was rather generic, and it wasn't before this last part that the story really grew. Up to that point then I didn't buy into the illnesses that Nhat Minh (played by Jun Pham) and Anh Duong (played by Kha Ngan) supposedly suffered from, and thus the movie didn't really carry much of any leverage. But the last twenty minutes or so more than definitely made up for the previous shortcomings of the movie. Just a shame that it was sort of too little, too late by then.

The acting performances in the movie were good, but there just wasn't that convincing atmosphere of the two leading characters suffering from terminal illnesses, and it reflected poorly on the storyline.

There are far better romantic dramas out there in the Asian cinema, and "100 Ngày Bên Em" just simply doesn't manage to stand out as being memorable or unique. The movie is, in fact, suitable only for a single viewing.

My rating of "100 Ngày Bên Em" lands on a bland five out of ten stars.

I liked this film a lot and thought it was really well done. My understanding is it is a Vietnamese remake of the 2012 Korean film "Never Ending Story." I haven't seen the Korean film yet, so I can't say how this measures up to it, but this film stands alone just fine.

It deals with a common scenario in such movies, and it takes its own direction. The scenario is a sad one, and different films approach it in different ways. This one did not go the route of "so sad, we're going to break you down with it"...but it still got the point across and added real sympathy for the characters and an appreciation of their plight.

Rather, it didn't completely focus on certain painful details and added some comedy in with the drama to give it a satisfactory "balance." I am a fan of the deeply somber approaches of some films of this genre, but if every movie dealt with such a scenario in the same way, we would only need one. So I can appreciate a film like this one right along with those.

The lead actress was stunningly pretty, had good chemistry with the male lead, and the rest of the cast played their roles just right. Vietnam puts out many outstanding films, and I count this as one of them.