Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

CinemaClown Makoto Shinkai's feature film debut packs a number of elements that would later be regarded as his trademarks and is no doubt an ambitious undertaking but it also exposes his inexperience as a filmmaker, as evident in the film's convoluted storyline, inconsistent flow & lack of interesting characters.Taking place over several years in an alternate history where Japan is divided into the USSR controlled north & US controlled South, The Place Promised in Our Early Days tells the story of two childhood friends who grew apart after another friend of theirs disappeared. Their paths cross again when they find out about her whereabouts.Written, produced, directed, cinematographed, edited & storyboarded by Makoto Shinkai (best known for Your Name), the film contains a number of elements that are associated with his works, be it the malleable nature of time & reality, themes of loneliness & longing, vivid use of colours, etc but the narrative isn't well refined and is often difficult to follow.The animation isn't as spellbinding as his finest works but there are moments of beauty & lifelike quality to it. Pacing is good during the first half but it all falls apart in the remaining half as the plot keeps getting more muddled and after a while, following its events become a tad frustrating. It all does come together in the end but it's already lost interest by then.On an overall scale, The Place Promised in Our Early Days is a fascinating start to Makoto Shinkai's filmmaking career but in his effort to carve his own style & find his own voice, he ends up biting off more than he can chew. A lot of elements that would form the basis of his later works are present in this sci-fi war drama but its presentation isn't refined enough and execution isn't up to the mark.

Psycane I was hoping for a great animated film when I sat down to watch The Place Promised In Our Early Days. This film even for an anime felt very different and stylized right from the beginning. What started out interesting and promising, became one of the most incredible experiences that I could have ever asked for. The one thing I could say after watching it was wow. All I could think was this was an exceptionally beautiful filmThe film tells the story of Hiroki and Takuya, two young boys who are trying to build a plan in order to someday reach an enormous tower in the distance. When they befriend a young girl named Sayuri, they all make a promise to build the plane, dubbed the Bella Ciela, and someday reach the promised place. But as time goes by this prospect becomes thinner and thinner.This film is able to represent something that happens and is significant to everyone: how we view the world. Perspectives change throughout the film, we see the world as beautiful, mysterious and wonderful and something to explore like most people feel when they are young. We then see it as depressing and sad through the eyes of someone who has felt loss and grief. And we see it as horrible and violent as the divided Japan inches ever so closer to war. The characters bring to life a beautiful parable to how we deal with our pain and world and loss. It creates real human relationships and characters. The beautiful surreality entrances you and makes you truly think about how your actions can affect someone. The film has this overarching line where people have a premonition of losing something. Innocence, love, wonder, things that matter that we so often throw away and take for granted.It's almost hard to describe how this movie made me feel and how incredible it is. All I can say is that you stumbled onto a truly fantastic movie that I guarantee you will never forget the experience of watching. The characters, story, stunning animation, surreality and style will have you thinking for ages afterwards.Beautiful.

zetes Mind-bending sci-fi is a staple of Japanese animation, and many of them are complex in a way that makes them difficult to grasp immediately. This one, though, I really don't think the director has any idea how to tell a story. The film is just never coherent. Not only is its science fiction premise (which deals with alternate universes) never clear, nor its world comprehensibly established, but it's terrible at establishing characters and their relationships to each other. All of the characters are quite thin and clichéd. The artwork is nice(the animation is a bit choppy, though), and the music is pretty (but also occasionally too sappy), but this is an annoying mess of a film.

hellraiser7 Whenever we are young we have lots of dreams, and make lots of promises to fulfill them. They can be a lot for things like flying a plane, going to a far off place, but the most common is mainly an emotional need which is love.this isn't so much a film it's more of an experience, there isn't really much of a plot which in reality is more of a setting. It's really a story concerned about it's three characters and the feelings they carry through the film.It all has the feel and setup similar to a Terence Malick film, like with his films they were all based on mood, emotion, and always had a poetic/journalistic sensibility to them which helps draw out a humanistic quality, just like this film. The film does have dialog in some places but not much of it, most of the film consists of narrative which feels journalistic and poetic since it all describes the feelings the characters feel at certain points or what they've been carrying within them but near say out loud.Even the background at times and music reflect their emotions, almost as if the world their in has a symbiotic connection to them and I'll admit it is just beautiful to see. One of my favorite scenes in the film is when Hiroki and Sayuri are both in the isolated alternate world together, their in a classroom and both have shared an intimate moment together and then we see that there is sunlight that just surrounds them in the background, it was just beautiful that visual just metaphorically shows both love each other, it's reminiscent of that same visual between Darcy and Elesbeth in Joe Wright's "Pride and Prejudice".The theme throughout the whole film is mainly about promise of the heart, it centers in on three characters in particular who all have desires but as time has gone on they have denied it, which has made them go different but lonely directions but as we see no mater how much has changed they have never forgotten what they promised themselves. and we see how in different circumstances what they do to fulfill them.Hiroki and Syuri it's all about unspoken romance. For Hiroki, he's basically naive and brash, he's always a child at heart which is his great quality, he does have feelings for Sayuri but doesn't really discover or admit to them till unfortunately Sayuri is gone. I can easily feel the internal sadness he was going through when his best friend Sayuri is in a coma, the backgrounds he's in at the time really reflect it from his small apartment the use of gray and dark as he goes out.Sayuri is a girl that is rather shy but sweet, can play the violin beautifully which reflects the beauty within. We see she carries feelings of love for Hiroki but has trouble expressing it even when she spends time with him. I could feel even her sadness when we see the coma has put her into that alternate world which is a rather quiet and lonely place it really had that feeling of isolation where we saw the same town with no life much like the alternate world in the film "The Quiet Earth". In a way it gets at the common fear we all feel of being alone for the rest of our life.Both of them we see somehow have developed a psychic connection to one another and we see scenes when probably through the strength of their feelings are able to come together in that alternate world, the time they spend together is beautiful, we very much want them to find each other and stay with one another forever.Takuya we see is very much the one through the whole film that struggles the most. His persona sort of reflects my own in a way, he is sort of an introverted guy very much a brainy person but as we see has trouble expressing his feelings. Thsi doesn't make him cold which he's anything but however shy and in denial to admit what he really needs the most in life. But as the film goes further, despite all the different ways he exercises his denial, the wall he's built around himself crumbles when Hiroki and Sayuri come back into his life. But it's really one particular character he interacts with at times int he film (a shame there wasn't more scenes with the two) Maki his coworker and best friend a sweet soul is the one that breaks that wall completely. Both obviously desire each other, from the way they talk to each other as well as look at one another, there is one shot as both are talking Takuya briefly glances down at Maki's chest area, this doesn't make him a pervert mind you, it's just natural attraction is all Takuya's desire for her mentally has evolved into being more physical. It's a common thing as some of us who might at first be best friends with someone of the opposite sex depending on two deep things get begin to see them differently, as if our sense are opened up for the very first time.The place promised in their early days is the future and beyond.Rating: 4 stars