Don't expect too much or you might be disappointed

Rating: 1/10 (14 October 2005)

/!\ Spoiler ahead] The plot is a pretext to make a melodrama.
From the beginning, anyone can foresee what is going to occur at the end. The movie is a boringly long succession of clichés and deja-vus aimed at making cry the most hardened men.
None of the soundtrack, scenes or characters are unforgettable. The idea of the fireflies, among other important symbols, should have been exploited more powerfully. The fireflies are actually treated as a mere element of the setting. Same reproach as regards the historical background.
It is no hard a task to make a sad film if its main character is a child who eventually dies, nothing to be proud of. This movie is a piece of gratuitous cruelty and pointlessness. Too dark for kids, too childish for grown-ups.
The short music clip passage after the death of the girl (when we see her happy, playing innocently and fading to transparency as a ghost) is ludicrous. Awful! It reminds me of the black & white scenes in Baywatch to evoke happy remembrances. It is as though, at the end of the movie, they judged that its emotional impact was not sufficient and added this scene.