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A Disappointing Continuation

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A boy dreams repeatedly of a beautiful woman by a lake in a Japan of the remote past; but after falling asleep under a legendary oak tree, he finds himself in the Tengoku period. He meets woman from his dreams, Princess Ren (Yui Aragaki), and a loyal samurai and childhood friend (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi) - and find themselves party to a battle so common in the period of warring states. What results is a story of love, war, and courage set spanning two time periods.The tale is quite engaging, even if the time-shifting plot isn't particularly credible. But remember, this is a children's story - though there's enough acceptable period detail to appeal on the level of a parable. It's not particularly funny, aside from an unaffected humor, nor is it as thrilling as you might expect (despite some battle scenes). BALLAD has an appealing visual sense, with attractive photography and neat but rustic set decoration; the film has an unusually effective use of light and shadow. And once you're willing to forgive the inconsistencies of the time-shifting plot, the simple story is captivating enough. I was not as forgiving about the plot's time problems, as the boy goes from modern time to ancient Japan by conveniently falling asleep.

This is basically a fantasy style movie that the audience has to just go with it. There is some parts that doesn't make sense at all noticeably. The plot is about a modern time boy who goes back in time somehow to Sengoku-era japan and is in pursuit of courage while dealing with the dangers of his surrounding. In fact the movie switches from modern time to tenshou year 2 or something like that. The premise actually sort of reminded me of "The Forbidden Kingdom" except way more ridiculous because despite traveling back in time the story doesn't revolve around any mystical stuff. And this movie takes place in japan instead of china. But like I said it's a movie your just going to have to just go with or else your really going to dislike it, like the character Shinichi Kawakami's mother in the movie who just automatically accepts what is going on. When the movie takes place during Sengoku-era it just didn't seem all that realistic, it felt sort of like a live action Disney movie, even the interaction between characters seemed a bit childish at times. But than again this was probably aimed to be a family movie, and let's just say the acting was pretty terrible for this type of movie and even for a family movie. The problem about this movie is that it goes in a really cliché direction from the dialogue to the directions of the characters and everything else. And the movie just seemed to really drag with the characters just constantly infatuated with different time zones which is understandable but it's just really dragged on in this with nothing much going on. Even if it's a family movie little kids will probably get bored about 30 minutes into the movie, probably even less. There really isn't any good character development and the chemistry between the little boy and his surroundings wasn't developed very well either. The build up isn't good and there is little to almost not attachment. The plot is about a modern boy going back in time and building courage, but there is hardly a moment to build his courage and it's more leaning towards stupidity instead of bravery. Although it's a bummer the blend of the characters from modern time with the Sengoku-era time isn't done really well, I sort of enjoyed the last 50 or so minutes of the movie very slightly. Probably just because of the inspirational music and emotion even if the battle scenes got worse as it progressed.4.5/10