Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

gevike-934-128011 So many movies are like chewing gum. You get what the title says, the higher the number the more boring the story. No numbers here. Nice title. Then a story that is so confused and confusing that will make you think for some time. That's already worth it. Asian movies can do way better than the big factories of Hollywood. There is a brave and overly complex story here. There is 2 or 3 different story lines. 3-5 important characters. Asia as the backdrop. The head of a pharmaceutical company, that can't be seen or met by anyone, the private detective who has to find and protect the only son of the aforementioned, the son who can heal others by taking over their pain and who can't be killed, the artistic serial killer, the Asian mafia guy filled with cruelty but also with true love for her drug addict girl. Some of these are very obvious references to the Bible but others are more difficult to figure out. At least not chewing gum.

Michael Kerjman It is an outstanding movie.Authors' mind-playing is superb to an extent hardly followed by a reviewer as so much of different genres had been mixed and inter-lapped through detective Kline's sick-with-crime-solving-expertise brain. Family issues. Sexual fantasies, sadomasochism, pedophilia, blood-thirsty games and murdering, German-anatomy style art and fetish. Zombies. The modern USA, Philippines, Hong Kong. AND really nice music.No wonder, everyone keeps this DVD on a shelf, no Amazon sales as "R" is too soft for classification as R is too soft for classification while "X" would hardly attract adult shop customers en masse.

moviemarathonchampion I watched the movie prior to support that I am a fan of Kimura Takuya. Anyhow, as much as I adore KimuTaku's versatile talent as an actor, I must say that the movie was not at its best but also not at its worst. The storyline was left unclear, maybe the viewers are left to suffice everything through personal conclusions. Furthermore, watching such kind of plot was new to me and thus, even I thought some parts of it were weird -- Hasford's creations, I just respected it, watched it how it is. Josh Hatnett gave his best as Kline. Kimura Takuya as Shitao was something that made an impression to me. Kimura acted so good, he gave his best, especially his healing scenes wherein you could see how hurt he is absorbing the pain of the weak, getting stigmata and the like. Also, his best scenes were those healing scenes and especially the scene where he was risen from the dead in the greenery of Mindanao, worms escaping his body during a rainy afternoon. What made me question myself was the fact that even he was nailed by Lee after 4/5 gunshots, he was still undying. Lee as a mafia also made me do a thumb up. Yes, only one thumb up. You can see the fury in his eyes throughout the movie as he kills using his ways (putting a man in a zipped plastic and hammering him all the way to his death). As for the screenplay, the OSTs made their way too much that the dialog, the much important part of the film, were disrupted. Josh Hartnett spoke some lines so unclear in some scenes too. By the way, Tran Anh Hung had been so imaginative while writing the plot but he overdid a few components of the movie. To rate, the movie script - 7/10, the actors - 8/10, screenplay - 7/10.

notmynamenemesis 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.