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Wonderful Days


areaseven

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Wonderful Days ( 원더플 데이즈 )

Tin House/Aura Entertainment/Masquerade Films, 2003

MaxMedia, 2005

Directed by Kim Moon Saeng

Rated PG-13 for graphic violence and mature situations.

A.D. 2142 - Overpopulation and excessive pollution have made majority of Earth uninhabitable. The only safe haven for mankind is a city called "ECOBAN," which actually uses pollution through the DELOS System as a means of energy. While searching the city for an infiltrator from the wastelands, ECOBAN officer Jay discovers that the intruder is her old friend Shua. A former ECOBAN citizen, Shua has sided with a militia from Marr to bring down ECOBAN's tyrannical reign and restore the Earth's environment.

Story: B-

The story, highly influenced by Fritz Lang's 1927 masterpiece Metropolis, seems promising at first, but in some aspects, it reminds us of Square Pictures' 2001 flop Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. In its running time of 87 minutes, Wonderful Days has a rather minimal plot with characters that need a little more development. Still, it's an entertaining movie and for a Korean film, it's much better than the 1996 animated disaster Armageddon.

Animation: A++

Using the skills learned from the Japanese, Tin House (Macross Zero) delivers an outstanding mix of cinematic-grade 2D and digital 3D animation equal to groundbreaking anime titles like Macross Zero and The Animatrix. The character designs aren't too bad, either.

Soundtrack: B+

While there's one song in the film that's well-composed, most of the orchestral BGM is barely noticeable except in the end.

The Bottom Line

Can Korea compete with Japan in the animation business? The answer is yes, and Wonderful Days just proved it.

Links

Official Wonderful Days Homepage

Reference

Anime News Network

Edited by areaseven
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I saw the movie a couple of weeks ago, and I must say I was really impress with it, very good. Looks like koreans are really seriuos about getting into the animation.

BUT on the other hand I saw another new Korean animation, mostly CG, and MAN! that was SO BAD!

I dont remember the name right now but was about some giant robots ALA knights fighting in a nonsense movie.

Later when I get home will post the name of it.

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wonderful days is a fantastic demo piece to show off Korea's budding animation prowess. its CG work is second to none and is extremely beautiful to watch. the story? eh its a snooze fest. absolutely nothing ground breaking or unique here. take a standard romance plot (boy meets girl, the war tears them apart and puts them on opposite sides, much serious dialog later...your must have climatic fight scene, the end) and toss in the pretty CG work. like FF the movie, pick this up for the eye candy but dont read too much into the storyline.

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i believe i saw somewhere that most of the background are actually dioramas that they put the cg mecha and cell ppl into, i doubt ever backdrop is a diorama but there are a few that are noticeably real, particularly the statues in the museum scene in the begining

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Areaseven, do you know if the Korean DVD release comes with english subs?

They are REALLY good in that department.

I really don't know, as I don't have the DVD yet. I only have the AonE fansub.

Speaking of which, I'm currently playing Wonderful Days, along with Macross Zero, Sailor Moon and other anime/J-Drama fansubs at PC Club Computers in Burbank. If you're in the L.A. area, drop by.

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I downloaded it awhile back. No subs, but the movie looked like it took alot to put together, i liked it just for the realistic look.

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  • 2 months later...

I just picked up the HK bootleg DVD. It has English, Chinese and Japanese subtitles, as well as Dolby 5.1 and DTS 5.1 audio. Since it's done by Manga International, you would take the English subtitles with a grain of salt. However, it seems that they pulled the translation directly from the AonE fansub.

I only got to see the first five minutes of the DVD, but I'll watch the whole thing tonight. In the meantime, if you're in the Los Angeles area and haven't seen Wonderful Days yet, drop by PC Club Computers in Burbank as the movie is playing everyday except Friday.

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  • 9 months later...

Good news and bad news: The good news is that Wonderful Days is eligible for an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature. The bad news is that it probably won't win.

And what exactly is GAINAX going to do with the film?

posted on 2004-11-05 13:35:48

source: Yahoo News Japan

Japanese Anime Company to Produce Localization of Korean Film

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yahoo Japan reports reports that Gainax has announced that it will produce a Japanese language version of Wonderful Days.

Yamaga Hiroshi, the director of the Japanese version, stated that they didn't merely dub it but also changed the direction so that the film's dialogue would feel less alien to Japanese viewers.

Gainax said that they were attracted to the film because they were impressed by its beautiful animation.

Wonderful Days was listed yesterday as one of 11 movies eligible for an Oscar for best animated feature. Only 3 non-American movies were among the 11, including Production I.G's Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

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Good news and bad news: The good news is that Wonderful Days is eligible for an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature. The bad news is that it probably won't win.

And what exactly is GAINAX going to do with the film?

posted on 2004-11-05 13:35:48

source: Yahoo News Japan

Japanese Anime Company to Produce Localization of Korean Film

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yahoo Japan reports reports that Gainax has announced that it will produce a Japanese language version of Wonderful Days.

Yamaga Hiroshi, the director of the Japanese version, stated that they didn't merely dub it but also changed the direction so that the film's dialogue would feel less alien to Japanese viewers.

Gainax said that they were attracted to the film because they were impressed by its beautiful animation.

Wonderful Days was listed yesterday as one of 11 movies eligible for an Oscar for best animated feature. Only 3 non-American movies were among the 11, including Production I.G's Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

chances are best animated feature will go to incredibles or shrek 2. While I liked wondeful days, Incredibles and shrek 2 are just better movies. Damn, I never thought I'd say that about two works of american animation in relation to a work of asian animation.

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Meh, it was ok. I kept getting this feeling of Heavy Metal: FAKK 2 when I was watching it tho...

heavy metal fakk 2 was beyond bad, at least Wonderful Days had a okay plot thrown togeather to support the visuals, HM: Fakk 2 seemed like it was written by a 12 year old crack head.

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Meh, it was ok.  I kept getting this feeling of Heavy Metal: FAKK 2 when I was watching it tho...

heavy metal fakk 2 was beyond bad, at least Wonderful Days had a okay plot thrown togeather to support the visuals, HM: Fakk 2 seemed like it was written by a 12 year old crack head.

There was a plot?

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Meh, it was ok.  I kept getting this feeling of Heavy Metal: FAKK 2 when I was watching it tho...

heavy metal fakk 2 was beyond bad, at least Wonderful Days had a okay plot thrown togeather to support the visuals, HM: Fakk 2 seemed like it was written by a 12 year old crack head.

There was a plot?

I thought it was a Penthouse issue turned into a movie... :p

The comic adaptation by Simon Bisley's pretty cool though, this guy knows how to hold his pens :)

Too bad this movie sucks nonetheless, the first Heavy Metal was the 0wn4ge... <_<

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  • 2 months later...
Wonderful Days is finally coming to selected theatres across America. However, it will be under a different title:

Sky Blue

OOHHHH! Thank you! They're actually playing it in one near me all this weekend! I just hope the possibility of snow doesn't affect travel. :(

btw, is A Tale of Two Sisters any good? It's playing right after, and I'm up for a good horror movie.

Edited by Wes
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