Green Days

First of all, "Green Days" catches the eye with animation and style, realistic drawing of people and backgrounds. This is especially important for conveying the atmosphere of a small Korean town of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The backgrounds are very detailed - right down to the cracks in the old wood frames, peeling plaster and stains on the walls. The visual baton is complemented by sound - Korean music of the late 1970s (I guess the ballad 'Blue Days' performed by Kim Man Su), picked up by references to films popular with Korean teenage girls of those times (snotty 'Love Story' for the rustic main character and aesthetically decadent 'Elvira Madigan' for her vainly pompous beauty friend) and series featuring pop references like Linda Carter's Wonder Woman's spin-transformation. The narration, in its pursuit of realism, echoes the art - the film is full of everyday mini-scenes, reviving the era of South Korea, when it was just on the verge of its technological ascension. Authors of this ascension are depicted as a friend of the heroine and his uncle - enthusiastic techies stubbornly moving towards their goal ("... there are no special mountains under the sky. Any one can be conquered, climbing step by step"). The heroine herself, reciting this verse, does not believe in it and is in search of herself, striving to find a place in life where she can leave her mark (like that imaginary dinosaur to which the name deceptively refers). She prefers Robert Frost - she stepped on "The Road Not Taken", with its eternal doubts, regrets about any choice and missed opportunities. The "idea" of the film is reminiscent of Kondo Yoshifumi's "Whisper of the Heart" (there is even a reference to gems that can be found in the rock), but the narrative itself is as prosaic as possible and devoid of fairy-tale elements, however filled with a variety of cultural references and an immersive retro atmosphere that is hardly whether the cinema could achieve.

The best thing about this animation are the visuals - the clarity and attention to details are mostly fascinating.

This movie is reasonably good but not superb, and definitely worthy of much more attention then it eventually received, having done rather poorly at the theatres, as I understand from Wikipedia. Sadly, after seven years since its release, I am the first (but hopefully not only) person to review it here.

While the animation is top notch, the premise is generally acceptable but not unique enough - movies with very similar storyline (both life and animated) about teenagers at school and growing up, have been thoroughly done all over the world - Korean and Japanese included. The plot is acceptable, but adds nothing new enough to make it stand out.

The pacing is also too slow (even the characters themselves often look bored), and the few main protagonists are not given enough oomph and the all important je-ne-sais-quoi to capture the viewers empathy and attention. (It also did not help that the version I saw did not have very good English subtitles - substantial meaning and nuances are probably lost through the poor translation and poor title timing).

An outstanding animation needs to have key traits about it that would make a life version of it lacking and inferior, compared to its animated version. However, Green Days can be easily conceived as being as good or better if done life - hence, while there are no complaints about the animation itself, at the same time, animation did not bring anything sufficiently unique or outstanding to the movie (except for the last 10 mins of the 'dinosaur park fantasy' sequence where animation did count).

Insufficient marketing funds aside, this animation while definitely worthy and competent, is not able to stand out from the crop of good to excellent similarly-themed animations that have emanated from Japan, and apart from the language there is nothing about it (probably unless you are Korean) that marks it out as quintessential 'Korean'.

Do I recommend it? Yes, sure of course - while it is not right up there amongst the best, it is still heads and shoulders above the host of other lesser animations.

Very cool and deep themes of hate, regret and sadness explored in a great way. Hamish Little recommend this film in an interview with Fox News and I've regretted watching it.