Flavors of Youth, originally known as 肆式青春, Sì shì qīngchūn, is a movie that explores three people in different Chinese cities: Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai.

Each segment did a fantastic job of being original from the others while also keeping to the main themes of growth and nostalgia. When looking at an anime film such as this the three key elements are animation, story and sound.

Flavors of Youth is seen to have amazing backgrounds and animations of food. These are exactly what I would expect from a collaboration between CoMix Wave Films and Haoliners Animation League. CoMix might sound familiar as they were the production company for the award winning movie, Your Name.

This Japanese-Chinese co-production was based around the Chinese idiom 衣食住行, yī shí zhù xíng. This idiom means clothing, food, housing, and transport. It denotes the basic needs of life. The movie focuses three stories around this idea and how mundane things can have huge emotional importance for the characters.

The first story, directed by, Jiaoshou Yi Xiaoxing, explores that. It depicts a young man who seems to have lost a flavor of ramen

he had as a child with his grandmother. It explores his life through the dish and the different places he orders it. This story had the potential to rise and really set a high standard.

However, an unneeded, slightly creepy, unrequited love situation prevents that. Despite this, the grandmother and ramen aspect of the story was enjoyable and even got me thinking of past dishes like my Granddaddy’s applesauce. A flavor that when tried, can bring you back to your childhood.

The second story, directed by Yoshitaka Takeuchi, is plausibly the weakest vignette. It is focused on two sisters who have lost their parents. This story fails to mention or even show key details that would allow you connect with one of the sisters.

The connection to China and nostalgia get lost along the protagonist’s journey of being a model. Ultimately it comes off more of a saccharine sitcom kinda ending than one grounded in nostalgia. This was the only section handled by a Japanese director; which could attribute to the different atmosphere this one gave off considering the movie is based on growing up in China.

The third and final story is directed by Li Haoling, a director who is known for incorporating smooth yet rich animation to many of his works. It focuses on a young man who moves back to Shanghai after many years of being away. He finds an old tapes him and a young love sent to each other and through them they reconnect. However, this one had many stereotypical scenes that never really seemed fully original. It just wasn’t the masterpiece I expected from Haoling.

Flavors of Youth falls short in not only story but sometimes animation as well. The movie seemed very focused on backgrounds.

The cities and towns were simply amazing throughout the film.

A risk that comes with extensive detail in backgrounds is loss of focus
on the characters themselves. This became clear throughout the film, especially
if compared to CoMix’s animation work on Your Name.

One thing that does need to be considered is this was a co-production. An issue that can commonly unknowingly come up is difference in artistic views. While only slight, this can be seen in the three different stories, all of which were handled by different teams.

While this is more effective and time efficient it does come with its issues. This can be seen in inconsistencies in the overall artistic vision and slight difference of atmosphere in the three stories. Many times it was the soundtrack that helped set the atmosphere.

By no means was this a bad film, it just didn’t own up to either of the production staffs previous work. Another huge factor is the fact this was both translated and edited into an ‘international edition’. There are few changes in the story itself, the language doesn’t always translate best it could.

While there were many discrepancies in the film it did do an amazing job of quickly taking you through three lives in different Chinese cities. The animation flowed very smoothly and while the characters didn’t match up to the background it wasn’t anything that took away from the films enjoyment.

Overall, the film did a superb job of exploring showcasing Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai through three lives. This insight, while not as intimate as the production staff had planned for, did do its job it making the viewer nostalgic.

Overall : B-

—————-
Story : C
Animation : B-
Music : B

The post Flavors of Youth: a Tasteful Nostalgia appeared first on KRUI Radio.

“Maniac” is a ten episode mini-series out on Netflix. It comes with a pretty loaded team from Emma Stone and Jonah Hill to the director, Cary Joji Fukunaga who lead the first season of “True Detective”.

Despite this, I couldn’t say I left the series satisfied at all. Before going into those reasons I want to break the series down a bit.

“Maniac” takes place in a seemingly alternate present, based off stereotypical tropes of 80’s sci-fi movies. A world with AI’s that are are old bulky computers alongside cord telephones. The world is very capitalistic, it features a service

called, “Add Buddy” who comes to you and gives you a variety of jobs to choose from. They range from a fill in husband for widows to drug trials.

The story focuses in on Annie Landsberg (Stone) and Owen Milgrim (Hill), two people who have signed up and joined a drug trial for their own reasons. While Stone’s character fell flat, the same wasn’t true for Hill. Whenever I see Hill perform I can’t help but think funny man, after all I grew up laughing at his roles. Hearing he was playing a serious role I wasn’t quite sure if he’d be up for it.

I was wrong.                

Jonah Hill absolutely saved the show from falling completely on its back. He gave the show a great foundation to build off of. Both Owen and Annie were pretty basic characters and at times their motives were unclear and slightly unbelievable. Despite this, Hill displayed such an unconventional yet mesmerizing performance you couldn’t help but go along with whatever he did.

The show itself really tried to make you do that the whole time. On the surface the show seems to be completely serious, however it is not…at all. This is an issue though, you need to suspend your disbelief for a lot of events. Being a Sci-Fi show I already came in with little belief in the ‘norm’. That wasn’t necessarily the issue though.

Some moments were just badly written. For example, at a certain point a man goes blind for no reason. They say it is a psychotic break, but it just seemed like a cheap explanation.

I found similar moments throughout the whole series.

I don’t wait to paint such a bleak picture for Manic because at a lot of moments it really was enjoyable. It had a lot of really funny moments, I just couldn’t always get behind the serious ones.

Now a good point to say is that might be the exact point of the series. They might have tried to make a ridiculous show that is slightly making fun of old Sci-fi, 5th element-esque movies. If that was the point, they could have succeeded a lot more had the show focused in on that more.

However, considering the creator is Patrick Somerville I don’t think that’s the case.       

Overall, if it weren’t for Jonah Hill and his superb acting I don’t know if I would have even finished the series, let alone review it. This show is a must watch simply because of Hill. This breakout role for him is one of a long line, Jonah hill is not longer just the funny man. The amount of different roles he plays in this movie showcase his wide variety of skills as an actor.

“Maniac” a 7 out of 10 movie that relies on the acting of one man to keep it from falling into bad show territory.

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