BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

Bereamic Awesome Movie

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.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

ellethekitty As someone interested in history, I found this movie totally laughable. In fact, it was so bad I could barely laugh. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people who require absolute authenticity in a movie just because it is based in history. After all, movies are dramas and dramas require dramatic license. But This script was so awkward, with the most unbelievable and contrived conversations and dialog. For instance, the women on detail doing work on the men's baths are not likely to be discussing penis size casually. The Japanese, who did commit atrocities, were not likely to have burned a woman alive for a small crime. Not because they were unaccustomed to cruelty, but because fuel was scarce. One dimensional characters, unsophisticated plot. In short, this movie had fake dialog, unbelievable premises, and was a waste of time. if you would like to see a good movie about POW life, Try Empire of the Sun. Even Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence had believable moments, despite its convoluted agendas. Everyone voted to give this movie an average of 6.8 stars must have been on the cast.

SnoopyStyle It's 1942 Singapore. Adrienne Pargiter (Glenn Close) joins the women and children evacuating from the approaching Japanese only to have their ship sunk. She and others swim ashore to Sumatra and imprisoned in an internment camp. As they face mounting brutal treatment, they decide to organize a choir.There are a lot of great actresses here; Frances McDormand, Pauline Collins, Cate Blanchett, Julianna Margulies plus many many others. The different characters can get to be too numerous. However the main characters played by the better known actresses remain center stage. Ten years before, the stories would be shocking and ground breaking. After Schindler's List, that kind of inhumanity is no longer as shocking and it seemed that this movie held back the most shocking visuals. For example, when the woman gets burnt alive, we are barely allowed to see anything. The beatings were all stage crafted. They could have stage a more brutal vision.

supermontage1975 The last good films that I saw on some random cable channel at odd hours of the night was "The Bounty"(Anthony Hopkins) and an old one with Sean Connnery called "The Hill". I find the both films equally disturbing and about the same speed as Paradise Road. As for "Paradise Road", it makes you feel grossed out and humiliated. Just like the women in the film. It is a very disgusting and probably accurate portrayal of a prison camp. This doesn't appear to be the political correct Hollywood revisionism that you normally see like in "Ghandi" or "The Last Emperor". Which might explain it's poor coverage. There seems to be a lot of focus of torture which has no particular purpose other than the amusement of sadistic Japanese. Few of the Japanese guards show some sign of humanity after getting to know the women and adjusting to their different take on society. The actress portraying the New Zealand woman seems to be the most fierce and prone to punishment. She almost seems to delight in showing insolence to the Japanese. I especially like the part where she is made to kneel over swords with her arms tied behind her back in the hot sun all day while looking at the Japanese flag. While I find the musical parts of the film very annoying(this is likely a guy thing) there is no part of the film that isn't disturbing. It's littered with Hollywood's favorite women stars and this qualifies as a chick flick. Only a chick flick for when chicks have had enough and get crazy. No Glenn Close doesn't boil any rabbits this time like in "Fatal Attraction". Be warned you'll never look at sushi the same again and you might feel a lot more like dropping the nuclear bombs on Japan was the right thing to do. Perish the thought.

joeestlinbm If I was going to describe this movie in one word, the word would be atrocities.I think men who are assigned to the seeing after of POW's, especially female POW's, are particularly inept, and not good for much else, and probably realizing this, and being angry about it, are experts through their anger, in the field of designing, and applying atrocities.The courage, and resourcefulness, of these ladies was impeccable. Even when faced with what seemed to be the most dire of circumstances, they were able to maintain their digninty.The music they created through the expertise of Glenn Close's character, was unique to say the least, and also enjoyed by their keepers, I believe to such an extent, that they were spared at least some of the indignities they would have had to suffered.I've watched this movie several times, and although there are a few places where it seems to get a little slow, it is still a very enjoyable film, because these slow places are essential to the movie as a whole.I couldn't write this without mentioning Frances McDormand. She is so versatile, and in this movie, she proves once again, that there's nothing she can't do!