Liza the Fox-Fairy (2015)

I loved 'Citizen Dog' and this movie falls under the same category. I haven't seen many Hungarian films, but recently I saw and liked 'White God'. After seeing the overwhelmed responses to this, I think I anticipated a lot only to get disappointed. I'm not completely upset with it, I liked the story, maybe I expected more cute and innocence like an Audrey Tautou character from 'Amélie'.

There are lots of fun that you could feel the movie is not simply trying to impress you, but begin to evolve to build a fine storyline and a better conclusion. The deaths, inclusion of a Japanese character, songs and a fairytale is how the concept was developed that became the centre of the narration.

At a time I felt a little too much use of them is why my interest on this slightly declined during the watch. I definitely won't consider it a bad movie, but only felt it should have been a little better in the storytelling. I might have not liked it as much as other similar films, but it's a superior quality, with the good performances. I think anyone who enjoyed 'Citizen Dog' and 'Amelie' should try it with the low expectation.

6/10

Fmovies: This movie best compares to the French movie Amelié, though it isn't quite as good, it is still unusual and interesting enough to be worth a watch and a warm recommendation to lovers of Amelié. Where Amelié was very French, this is a Hungaries film though it at least on the surface draws a lot more from Japanese culture than Hungarian. It gives it a nice charm of mixed cultures.

The humor is mixed, some good some that misses the target, but it does the job overall and can put a smile on your face unless you are too cynical. The main character is perhaps a little to clichéd naive, but that is also what drives the plot, so I will excuse it.

While not an entirely wasted opportunity, Liza the Fox-Fairy doesn't generate much laughs, and its half-witted premise is thrown at the audience so carelessly that title character's hardships at the hands of a vengeful Japanese pop star ghost fail to make anyone care too much what happens next.

Most of the runtime is spent on going through all the people that need to die to push Liza over the edge, which understandably gets quite repetitive. Neither the deaths or the characters show any screen writing genius.

The execution itself is well-thought and careful, and the team behind the production seems to have felt all the way they are making a wonderful movie. It always lifts a bad movie when one sees people trying hard, even if they don't really succeed.

Liza the Fox-Fairy fmovies. Had to write this after seeing a cruddy review from some local misery guts who waffled on forever and ever about how bad it was. Long reviews are generally an indicator of little to say along with a sense of self importance. Well Liza was a great film in my opinion. The movie, if fantasy fairy tales are your thing, is a well written, beautifully visualised and made European film. There aren't reams of dialogue to put off those who don't like subs, just enough to move the plot and produce gags. The casting is faultless. God bless the Hungarians for financing it's production. To invoke the awful Hollywood cliché that invariably stops me from seeing movies, it is a 'Timeless Classic', Much like 7 Faces of Dr. Lao. I recommenced it, it's funny and entranced me and will do many others for decades.

This movie starts like a fairy-tale, and retains this style throughout: Liza is a simple young (well, she's hitting 30) girl who hasn't found her dream prince yet. She's working in a fictional Budapest as a live-in nurse for an elderly lady, who teaches her Japanese because she used to be the wife of the Japanese ambassador. Did I mention that it's a very complex fairy tale? Simple Liza reads her favourite Japanese novel over and over, listens to J-Pop and dreams about meeting her prince over a crab burger, just like in the novel. One day, a Japanese pop star from the Sixties appears to her, and they both shake it out. Liza manages to get two hours off to go to a burger joint, which is the closest thing to the crab burger joint of her dreams. While she's gone, her ward dies, killed by the only seemingly innocuous spirit of a Japanese pop singer, Tomy Tano. Liza inherits the flat, but the evil spirit is now jealous of her quest for a dream lover. Many good men, and some mediocre ones, die, and Liza's only explanation for this is that she is a fox-fairy, a Japanese mythological figure of a young, attractive woman who is inevitably killing off all of her suitors ...

This is a very odd, very complex and very well made movie in the style of Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain about a young woman finding happiness. I especially enjoyed the subcosmos of equally erstwhile as well as fictional J-pop star Tomy Tano, he seemed to be living in an eternally hip and fun world of great tunes and swinging moves.

Liza the Fox Fairy follows a woman named Liza who is best friends with the ghost of a Japanese popstar. One day she gets cursed becomes a fox fairy, which means that anyone who falls in love with her will die.

I'm just going to get this out of the way, this movie is very unique. The concept alone should be enough to pique your interest. If it somehow doesn't, well, it makes me wonder who hurt you.

Putting the concept aside, how well is it presented? If you ask me, it's very well presented. For starters, the comedy is great. It's full of often dark, often goofy, often overly-anime-Japanese-ish comedy and everything still feels like it's in the right place. Yeah, I don't get it either. But trust me, the humor is pretty great.

The soundtrack is actually pretty good, and it adds yet another surreal-weird layer to the film.

The characters are weird and interesting, and fit the movie perfectly.

The whole movie is pretty unpredictable too, as it is a very unconventional movie so you as the audience really has no idea where it's going. Unless you've already seen it, of course.

Overall Liza the Fox Fairy is weird, but it's hilarious and unique and yet nothing about it is out of place. It's a movie you have to see to believe. In the end I would definitely recommend this movie.