Remembrance of things past

I am always amazed at cop shows and how the witnesses remember everything exactly as it happened. I do not remember what I had for breakfast this morning nor when I took it. I wonder how many people really remember accurately the events they took part in.

The memory is the premise of this mini web drama. It is interesting to see how people remember same events differently: the gist of it is the same but everything else is different starting with clothes, what they said, where they went....

The main characters are both in relationships with high speed controlling people while they are themselves more easy going and relaxed. When they meet, it is love at first sight and while the woman breaks up immediately with her boyfriend (who does not listen to her...), the man does not have the guts to do the same thing and keeps on lying to his girlfriend. That was actually the only problematic bit here. Other than that, this drama is cute, fluffy, interesting and easy watch. There are a lot of PPLs so I guess this must have been an ad based drama.

The actors had good chemistry and the romance was credible.

Unfortunately, I am not a fan of Hwang Chan Sung having seen him play a baddie in a drama which left me a lasting impression of him as an actor. Even here, where he is playing a cute and a bit lost guy, I keep finding him sleazy and dodgy (which was eventually confirmed when he did not break it off with his girlfriend before dating another woman!). But that's just me.

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A story of 10 years

I have forgotten how skilled they are at Playlist global in making amazing short web dramas and telling a complete story.

Go, back Diary (what's with the odd punctuation in the title making it incomprehensible?) tells a story of a relationship over 10 years. A vast enterprise but they still managed to put everything in it without making it rushed. From the first crush, to the adult relationship to the obligatory girl best friend who wants to be more, we are shown every stage of this relationship.

The drama shows are the difference in growth of characters. After ten years the girl keeps sending signals of wanting more attention, more of a relationship but the boy is not there yet. He is struggling to find a job and the best friend uses this to drive a wedge in the couple.

The actors are excellent, Lee Jong Won is so handsome and his smile is electrifying. The cinematography is nothing special though they managed to convey the confusion of feelings through some camera angles and foggy scenes. The only really remarkable thing, technically wise, was the awful wig the SFL wears in school makis her ugly and unrecognizable! The music is generic.

This is really a good short watch

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What do you do when you really, but really do not like an actor but would love to see the drama because the theme is supernatural and you love it? So you try watching it, even finish it! But you hate every second of it! Even though you tried liking it. Well, that's me with this drama!!!

So, I am really biased here, but I cannot stand the sight of Lee Dong Wook. He may be a very nice person but his acting is not! He ruined the whole drama for me! He always sports a sinister smirk, a cary half smile which is permanently glued to his face and is immuable like the universe. His only moments of grace, in my eyes, were when he slayed the bad supernaturals. But the rest of the series which he spent pining and swooning and crying ... it was just awful! The only moment I really liked the drama was the very last MINUTE of the very LAST episode. Up to that point, it was draggy and messy. Characters strutting around, being cooly dangerous. Or the main couple being all lovey dovey in the midst of all the chaos! Nice! Major events were being planned and plotted leaving tha main baddie enough time to figure them out and come with a counter attack plan! The main couple seriously lacked chemistry in my book and they were so evidently unhappy when they saw each other again but could not say anything because they spent 16 episodes pining for each other, and offering to die for each other frequently. When the banality set in, they were bored and not interested in each other any more. All those scenes of domestic bliss following the cringy nature wedding (rings made of grass! Original! What else?) felt so false, wrong. Which was proven in the last minute of the drama. Domesticity kills the romance. And the romance was high when they were risking their lives every day but not anymore....

I liked seeing the actor from To My Star being all young and eager: I almost did not recognize him, he was so different here! Well done!
I usually like Kim Bom but here his character felt off, his acting was all over the place.
I liked that grim reaper couple: the husband was so funny with his wife and their banter was great.

What else did I like? The money they obviously spent on sets, cinematography, costumes shows clearly which was nice! And that's it!

And the final remark about Lee Dong Wook: he should be in a vampire themed drama or a movie, as a vampire obviously! That I would watch!

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First love, regrets and flowers

Beautiful. Poetic. Sweet. Magical.

There exist a flower shop which you can enter only if invited. Mizushima Toru gets one invitation and curious, goes there. The owner, Mochizuki Hayato asks him to choose one flower out of three and then gives him one petal. Toru suddenly finds himself 10 years earlier on his high school graduation day when he spoke for the last time to his first love Shindo Kasumi. Can the past be changed or will only regrets remain? Using remaining petals, Toru goes back again and again trying to gather courage and confess his love. Will he be successful?

This amazing web drama needs sequel. Like yesterday!

It is beautifully filmed, the actors are perfect: the cool florist, the flustered Toru and the kind Kasumi. Music is rather generic

The main theme is the first love and how it is never realized and how it remains in memory shrouded in regrets and how we can never go back and fix it, and how we need to have more courage and be brave and take risks. The story is perfect from the first to the last minute (35min in all) and the final surprise.

Cinematography is excellent: the 4:3 screen ratio is surprising since nobody uses it anymore. Unless it is destined to be shown on IG or similarly square formated site , it is wrong format for a vertical tiktok drama. Nevertheless, it harks back to the old 20th century television! The colours are bold, joyful in the present and dull yellowish brown for the memories.

They managed to say so much in this short series. Go watch it!

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Manhua puppets

The first thing that came to my mind upon completing this drama was: great production values! And these short c dramas are really surprising! I always considered them as cheep, short, side projects but they are all but that! The costumes, the sets, the music: everything looks rich and luscious! It is a feast for eyes and ears first and foremost!

Another good surprise was the storyline: the usual "fall into book author" is a guy and there is no palace conspiracy in sight. It is about traditional chinese puppet theater. And even though the plot is rather basic: the author facing writing block falls into his own manhua and has to discover the mystery behind a fire. While doing that he falls for the sole survivor of that fire. Once he catches the bad guy, he goes back to reality where he meets the girl again! Happy ending ensues!

What I love about these short c dramas is that they do not bother with unnecessary side characters but are solely focused on the main couple and their trials. That makes the drama smooth flowing and the the pace is steady. Still, the best way to watch these dramas is if you manage to find a full film edit (or automatic playback): clicking to change episodes when they are 7min long is annoying and I was at the brink of dropping this. Changing episodes breaks the flow and my attention is lost!

The acting skills of the main couple as well as their chemistry, leave a lot to be desired: a few more acting lessons should be advised! But considering the length of this drama, it is not as important since the plot moves onwards quickly and you do not have the time to dwell on bad acting in certain scenes:by the time you realize it, the episode is over!

The chinese puppet theater is something I knew absolutely nothing about and this put it in my visor so I got interested and read a little about it: the skills of those puppet masters are amazing and they managed to show a bit of it in this drama! And then they included some dark magic and flesh puppets to make it more fantasy like. Special effects were rather good in those scenes!

The music was also very nice, the songs (except the closing credits' one) were nice and sweet.

All in all, this was an average short c drama, worth a single watch.

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And the point of this being...?

Can I have the time I wasted on this back? Why was this compilation made? It is about 80% recycled material from the series and the rest is useless new event (a shady journalist investigating SH with the help of the naive JW in love). Only to tell us that Shishio is alive and well, three years later fascinatingly annoying like before.

There must have been a point to this special: I guess to remind people of the events in the series just before the movie is released. And reminding we did need since the drama was boring and easily forgettable! I had just finished watching it yesterday and I could not remember half of the cases - That's how invested I was in it!). So I hoped for a better ending with this episode

The guest actors reprised their roles perfectly. But the character of Wakamiya reached the new levels of cringe: crying like an abandoned lover, pretending to be SH and failing pitifully. While he did have some character and a backbone at the beginning of the series, SH managed so well to train him that he became a willing cult follower without his own will, he had become SH's shadow, useless and there!

Fortunately, SH was only heard of but not much seen except for the violin playing montage. I guess he knows how to play only one piece of music.

This was a disappointment. They did follow the original books: SH and Moriarty fall down the Reichenbach Falls and disappear only to show up out of nowhere as if nothing happened some time later. Arthur Conan Doyle tried to get rid of the character who was ruining his life with his popularity but could not and had to bring him back. So he did but it was lazily done. Here it is unacceptable!I wanted to find out more about Moriya, their disappearance, what did he do and why. Nothing! Ep 10 they fall into the bay and vanish and then he shows up at the crime scene three years later. Easy! The magic of Sherlock Holmes?Yeah, right! No thanks!

I'll be watching the movie next, hoping it is better but not really believing it!

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Dans le pays des Bisounours....

In the land of Care Bears everyone is pretty, cute and nice, they care for each other and help each other, there are no conflicts and no bad bears.

Well, this drama is a live version of that cartoon series! That is the only comparison that works actually! I wanted to compare it to a fairy tale but in every fairy tale there is a conflict, there is an evil character (usually a witch of a sort!). So that does not work!

This is a story about two people who meet through the dating app on Monday, get married on Tuesday, fall in love on Wednesday, meet mothers on Thursday, promise to stay together for the next 50 years on Friday and get married again on Saturday! On Sunday, I guess, they rest gazing into each other's eyes with a huge smile while the sparkly hearts and flowers keep popping around them . Well that is what I saw (except for the last thing, which I imagines while I was dying from a sugar overdose induced diabetes coma!)

Somewhere in between gazing lovingly and being lovey dovey, they pretended to work which was just an excuse to be cute and smile and cup one's face with hands. Those poor actors must have suffered severe facial cramps from all that wide smiling!

I cannot stand the grown women in j dramas acting cute! It definitely is a cultural difference for me. Being cute is for kids: when I see kids acting all cute, it is so adorable and endearing. Adults acting that way is distracting, cringy, immature . Why do you think that Japan has a problem with birth rates? When you have adults behaving like children, why make real kids? Just my theory!

Anyway, this was just awful, definitely not my cup of tea! It is a live action manga: and again, for me the plot that works in a comic form, does not necessarily works as a live drama! Just my 2 cents!

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A promise of a gl in an ad

Your Ship Is Real gets the credit to be a promise of a gl. I gather that China is no more favourable to GLs as it is to BLs.

The actresses are cute and have a correct chemistry. The scenes from the historical drama are well filmed and their interactions are fun to watch. I would like to watch the full version of that drama (if it was a short drama!). Outside drama they keep circling around each other, trying to figure out what is going on between them: there are meaningful glances and hesitant touches which were cute and sweet!

But this is an ad and you need to keep that in mind: so we get choppy storytelling, choppy editing, choppy music, choppy watch experience. It is only 10 min long but I was bored after 2 min because of all the choppiness! The story was difficult to follow because it kept jumping from historical fiction to ad to something in between! And those jumps were not smooth! I guess you cannot do much in this short time!

This drama special is too long to be a good ad and too badly produced for a movie. But kudos, nevertheless, since it was made in China and we all know how brutal the censorship is there!

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Acquaintances to friends through panic

Kota has always had bad luck. At the university he notices Naoya who seems to have extraordinarily good luck. Moreover when Kota is next to him his bad luck disappears. So one day he approaches Naoya with an offer of friendship but it is badly phrased and Naoya accepts to be his boyfriend. From that moment on, Kota is in eternal panic mode, jumpy and incapable to deal with the consequences.

I usually drop manga adaptation when they look too much like an anime and not enough like a live drama. I dropped this one halfway through the second episode (when he got all wrapped in yarn!!) but chose to pick it up in order to complete a challenge.

And let me tell you what a challenge it's been to finish this drama.

Kota is a very unlikable character. Immature and silly. He was formed by his relentless bad luck from childhood so he avoids having friends. Pretending to be interested in Naoya is too much for his feeble character: he misunderstands Naoya's every word and action. We are privy to his innermost thoughts as he is narrating it but what we get is panic. His every reaction is panic. His every thought is panic. He is jumpy, hugging the walls and trying to keep low profile. (though his very attempts to be invisible are so conspicuous! go figure!). He is afraid of contact and he does not know or want to respond to Naoya's affections. He's a typical victorian virgin. In 21st century! I found Kota extremely annoying. Even his evolution towards the end, is not really convincing: I think he cares for Naoya but more like a friend than a lover.
Naoya, on the other hand, had been blessed with good luck he decided to use for good, be nice to people but, just like Kota, he never really got close to someone. Until one day he sees Kota smiling and falls for him. I could believe that. Someone's sunny smile can make a person happy. Is it love? Probably on Naoya's part since he already knew he was attracted to men. He was so deeply taken that he chose to ignore Kota strange 'manga anime) behaviour.

Their relationship is more of a bromance than a bl romance. Kota is never, not even in the end, at ease with physical closeness.

So the romance is really not good. What is good here are some side characters: group of gossiping girls Kota listens into, psychology classes in an open circular classroom (well done stage manager!), Naoya's friends who are underused. What is surprisingly missing here are a number of tropes (childhood relationship, crazy ex etc.) which makes this a rather refreshing watch.

I was right to drop this initially and only the actor laying Naoya made me go through this annoying show. Sato Yusuke is a very talented actor who managed to portray the happy exterieur and the sad interior feelings of Naoya with a smile and a look. Amazing acting skills! The other actors are not worth mentioning because they do very little acting just by standing there and I do not want to talk about Sota Ryosuke. Actually I should, because he brought to life the most annoying character in BL since Kieta Hatsukoi. If he was supposed to be so annoying, then well done Sota. If not, well, it is a problem!

The story centers on these two characters and nothing exists outside of them: family or the society in general it is a moment in time in a microcosme where there is no prejudice!

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Butterfly inducing attraction

Well, I loved it! For the first time in a very long time, I felt butterflies while watching the interactions between the leads.

A Familiar Stranger is first and foremost a romance having as the backdrop a power fight for throne with a touch of fantasy. The main character is Shi Qi, a painter looking for her long lost sister. The prime minister's daughter, who is soon to be married, asks her to come and paint for her in exchange for information on her sister's whereabouts. But she uses this occasion to change faces with the painter (important: not bodies!) who marries the general in pm daughter's stead. The general turns out to be the painter's first love and he finds her oddly familiar even though he'd never met the pm's daughter before.

This sounds a bit complicated: it is simpler when you watch it!

The story flows seamlessly for this type of drama: which is usually a bit rushed and stilted. No such problems here! The story take the time it needs to develop, and since it is short, there are no unnecessary side characters (the blessing of short c dramas!). The characters are mostly down to earth, human if you like! The painter is a smart, strong woman. The general is a good man who thinks, the prince is evil enough not to be a caricature, the pm's daughter is just someone trying to be happy. No one is perfect, they all have flaws which makes them real.

The two main actresses were amazing: going from one character to another smoothly and managing to show their character traits with the minute facial expressions. The actors playing the villains excelled as well at portraying the human side behind the evil deeds so one just can't help but feel sorry for them in spite of all the horrible things they do.

The love story is the center of this drama. The general and the painter recognize each other but one finds it hard to believe his eyes and the other is blackmailed into keeping it a secret. So they dance around each other succumbing to attraction and falling deeper and deeper in love. As I said, this was really butterfly inducing chemistry.....

The production was lush and rich and windy, mostly white: all those drapes floating in the wind artistically hiding the characters. The shots of rain and the final scene in the snow were just beautiful. The music was nice. The only thing that bothered me was the way they spoke most of the time: whispering, soundless and breathless voices.

I cannot recommend this enough! Go watch it! I haven't seen many short c dramas, but this one is definitely one of the best considering high production values, talented actors and a screenplay that makes sense within the genre!

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Lift the veil

Veils is a short movie about two women in a relationship who would like to have proof of their commitment to each other in a form of wedding photos. They have trouble finding LGBT friendly photo studio and those they do find offer single photos. While one of the women would like to drop it , the other one is fed up with the sort the japanese society leaves to them and decides to complain. And it works and they have their wedding photos taken.

This was a nice short movie about ordinary people facing daily challenges because of who they are. They are both more or less closeted: one does not dare come out to her parents and the other is reluctant to talk in public about her partner. But that is the result of deeply rooted cultural prejudices, as far as I know. Even though marketing yourself as LGBT friendly commerce (photo studio) is good selling point in today's more tolerant and open societies, there is usually nothing behind it, as the women find out. To bring the change about in a society, one needs to be willing to fight for one's convictions. And that's what they end up doing. By taking photos in wedding dresses, the women wanted to lift the veil off of their own relationship.

The movie is a slice of life kind, where we find out a lot about the characters through conversation and simple remarks and glances. It was well produces, though toned down colours and shaky cameras are things y=they could have done without.

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Timeless

TRIGGER WARNING: People smoking a lot. And inside!

I loved this. In spite of it being 15 years old, it still looks fresh.

This is a kind of omnibus drama, stories about different people loosely connected. And in this case, the connection is the restaurant that is open from midnight to dawn! The restaurant owner just sits there smoking when he is not cooking and listens to his customers lives without interfering. We do not know anything about him. Not even his name: everyone just calls him Master!

Each episode deals with a customer's problem: love, parents, friendship, children, jobs. Master is there to give them their comfort food and listen.

I love this kind of dramas so I enjoyed it a lot. The stories are told in short 25min episodes but are completed, sometimes there are even time skips (months, weeks) but this is not an artificial passing of time (for the dramatic effect) but it is life: the characters needed that time to show us how their stories were going to finally turn out (an actress needed to complete the movie for example!).

The cinematography is amazing: shots of Tokyo at night, the bustling streets give way to a small alley. The music is amazing: I do not know anything about japanese music but in any case this is not pop music.

People are lovely and what every one of us needs is a plate of comfort food and a friendly non judgemental ear. And that is what this Midnight diner provides for its customers. Warm and welcoming.

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Cinderella....again?!?!?

Yes it is a timeless story! No matter how many times they remake it, how many different variations they manage to come up with, I am going to lap it all up and ask for more!
Actually, I dropped this after the first episode: I really did not like the female lead actress. No, I really did not like any of the actors because they look too old as teenagers. But eventually, since ALL of the actors looked too old, I got used it and did not mind it at all.Still I took me about a month to pick this up again. And I binge watched it overnight: episodes are short so it is an easy watch.
Ugly duckling in school, Hagino adult has become a beautiful woman and a make up expert thanks to being cruelly rejected by her highschool crush. Angry, after a fight with her best friend, she tears a photograph of them together and is transported to time when the photo is taken. She realizes she had become a teen again but kept her adult knowledge which she uses to become a swan and have her crush fall for her.
Time slip is one of my favourite tropes. The reason for the time slip was a curse put on her by a jealous other best freind of her best friend.
Here it is used to show the FL that her extreme shyness is not wrong and that people can actually SEE her behind the mask she wears. Beauty is only skin deep and real friends and lovers see beyond that. In the beginning she wanted to hold on to her newfound high school popularity but eventually came to understand that she was cheating and that all her life experiences had made her the person she's showing to her high school friends. And even though her friends and her crush did not want her to leave, she explained her reasoning to them.
The pace of the drama was changing all the time: sometimes very slow and repetitive then too rushed towards the ending. I felt like there were two episodes too many in the first helf and an episode missing in the end.
The main couple had decent chemistry and they were quite cute together. The best friend was a bit disconcerting: she wore a happy go lucky face at all occasion but it was obvious she had deep wounds she was hiding and did not know how to deal with them but avoid them!
This turned out to be a decent watch, not too complicated and charming with lovely music.

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Attraction and....

....temptation. This is the term missing from the title. They are two sides of the same coin as this short movie shows.

There are two parallel stories in this shor movie that join in the end.
The first one is about an army sergeant who has a crush on his kind superior and even though he wants to tell him, he is confused by that kindness ,not knowing how to interpret it, so he loses his courage and says nothing.
The other story is about a female office worker who is having a fling with her married coworker.

Attraction is an amazingly well told and filmed story describing how difficult it is to reveal one's feelings or resist the temptation of acting on attraction. They also point out the difference in straight and gay attractions, because and in spite of our societies making huge advances, the straight relationship is still the norm and it is easier to act upon it and succumb to temptation. The soldier, in addition to being a man is in the Army where the hierarchy and obeissance are the rule so coming out to his superior has added difficulties. He was brave enough to approach him at the train station but was eventually made speechless but the superior's kindness and invisible barriers.

I would love to see this develop into a longer movie. Why was he attracted to his superior? Was he having hard time in the army and grabbed onto a little bit of kindness and understanding he could find? Why was she attracted to the married man? Bored but not wanting a serious relationship? Or something else...

Maybe I am reading too much into this or maybe not enough!

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Filmed manhua

Starting from the ridiculous and incomprehensible title,to the fortunately short episodes and the storyline adding one clishé after another ending with corny love speech, this is a mercifully short and a really fun watch!

It is the usual setting of rich CEOs and hairesses going through family dramas and fights over money and for power.

This story's only originality is the main male character who is it the wheelchair! And for once it is not presented as an ultimate tragedy. He happens to be handicapped (until the last minute when he miraculously regains his ability to walk!) but that does not mask the fact that he is smart and competent and always there when she is in a pickle! Female lead was also better than usual, not too much of a damsel in distress batting her eyelids and waiting to be saved, she was proactive and at least knew when someone was trying to take advantage of her.

Ah, the magic of manhua, the cold CEO with a hidden heart of gold wearing the ubiquitous pin striped suit (so ugly!) and the sweet cooky girl not letting anyone walk all over her and using the feminine wiles to give the bad guys their comeuppance! Every short episode seemed to be literally filmed episode of a manhua, without any special rewrite or editing involved in order to make it more palatable. But, just like mangas, I prefer reading over watching them: the things that happen in a book should be toned down for screen. Just my take on this issue!

The acting was mostly over the top, cinematography looked cheap, and sets seemed vulgar and bling bling(as in: Let me show everyone how rich I am!). And the music was a bit weird and inaudible mostly(copyright issues on youtube?).

I usually never watch c dramas: I can't stand the number of episodes but I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered these micro episodes dramas. This is the fourth one I watch, the novelty has worn off and I think this is going to be my last one. I want to stick to my principles!

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