KrisWorld Movies

Set Off
Not worth the time to watch. This is getting typical of Chinese mainland movies. Weak male roles, strong streetsmart women, guy meets girl and they get to know each other better while trying to resolve a situation. Happy ending.
In this case we have this guy whose wife dumped him for his friend. His associate back in Cyprus is selling off the restaurant without his permission so he needs to rush back. On his way to the airport, this girl commandeers his taxi and his luggage and passport ends up locked away in her apartment unit. Meanwhile, some shady characters are after the girl because her no-good boyfriend stole a huge stash of dollar bills from his gangster pal. Turns out the bills are counterfeit. The bills, when arranged properly, actually contains a map of a secret tunnel underneath a museum. In the end, the bad guys are after the museum treasures. Confused yet? All you need to know is that the guy solves all of the girl's troubles, and they later became a couple.

Absurdistan
Should've steered away from this comedy film from Russia. Plot sounds interesting enough, but the movie's no good. You have these two childhood sweethearts living in a village where the only source of water is from a pipe running deep inside the mountains. They're now into their teens, and their raging hormones are telling them to do it. For some strange reason, the cute girl is holding back. They consult her astrologer-granny for an auspicious day, and she gives them one - 4 years in the future. According to granny, they're supposed to take a bath together the day before. The day comes and the water pipe has pretty much dried up. Smart guy diverts all remaining water into an improvised bath tank, and they have their bath. Before the guy can take her, she runs off and insists he fix the water problem permanently. Most of the movie shows the women going on strike - refusing to have sex with their husbands until they fix the water problem. The horny guy goes into the mountain caves with a spare pipe and manages to plug the underground reservoir, thus forcing the water upwards to their village. He (and all the other males of the village) are now happy campers.

Okuribito (Departures)
Won the 2009 Oscar award for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year. Well-deserved, too. They don't make movies like these anymore. Slow and calm and simple and meaningful. Unemployed cellist Daigo becomes a nokanshi to support his wife. As a nokanshi, his job is to cleanse, dress, and make up corpses before they are finally placed in a coffin. Not a job to be proud off, and his wife leaves him when she found out. He stuck with the job and learns to like it, even if other people look down on him. In the end, his wife understands the value of his work and how it gives happiness to the grieving families.