An engaging movie that requires that the viewer wants to think about concepts

Rating: 9/10 (11 February 2013)

I went to see the movie with mixed expectations. I had read reviews beforehand that warned of a messy plot line with multiple stories. I was positively surprised on how untrue that was. The stories play well out in terms of pacing and characters. There are a lot of them in total, but each part (or you could say "act") has only a couple central characters, like you would expect from any typical story. The different stories are very easy to follow because they are so different, yet they are the same on many levels. I specially like how the film expects you to think. You can watch this movie just for the visuals, but to really appreciate it, you need to think what happened and because of what. Some reviews I've read say that the stories are not connected. I would say that if that is how you feel, you did not pay attention at all and were expecting the movie to give everything pre-chewed to you. Instead the movie expects to you to fill the missing bits, notice references between the stories and to imagine what has happened between the transitions from one story to another. There is even an exchange of lines in the movie which can pretty much be summed up as the characters saying to the audience that we won't tell you everything, you can imagine and fill the blanks yourselves. The movie has a message and after you've processed the stories, it should be quite obvious. It might not be exactly the same message as I got, but still. Music and sound effects were good, not exceptional or bad, but satisfying and did their part well. The locations and visual effects were really nice and at times stunning, fitting for the events that transpired and interesting. Acting was good, the characters were played well and the actors fit their roles neatly. My only criticism is about the masking - same actors played different roles and genders, and the masking department had not been up to the task at all times. Or maybe it is that I perceive female actors playing male characters and vice versa a bit hard to digest due to the different body/facial structures of genders. I would recommend the movie if you want to see something that requires paying attention and ability to concentrate for nearly three hours, but in exchange gives food for your thought and imagination. Don't watch this if you just want to hang out with friends and chat at the same time.