The story seemed like it would be action packed, what with the spy theme and all. It wasn't. Yeah, there was fighting and shooting in most of the episodes, but how it was managed to make them so boring and uninteresting is beyond me. I literally caught myself yawning more than once while I watched this drama.
The story is supposed to be suspeseful. I never found it so. I found it repetitive and extremely predictable from episode 1. There for a while, around ep 4 or 5, I did start hoping for it to pick up and get more interesting, which it seemed to do, but only barely and then it fizzled. Also, the ending was, again, predictable and anti-climatic.
Now, I rated this a 7, which means that I did find some good qualities to redeem it a bit. #1. JaeJoong. It's not his fault the writing sucked. While he was not at his Triangle caliber, he pulled his part off very well and his performance was more than decent. #2. The music. I really enjoyed the OST for this drama, especially Reuby's Key To Her Heart. It fit the theme well. #3. Short episodes. I liked how each episode was only about 45min. each. Any longer and it would have been even more drawn out.
I would only recommend this drama to other JaeJoong fans. Like I said, his acting is decent in this. However, if you are looking to watch a well written, suspenseful, action packed spy drama, you'd do well to skip this one.
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The plot, while not entirely orignal, did do a pretty decent job of showing us the online world complete with hackers, trolls and cyber bullying. It felt fresh and was a lot of fun to watch. I could see myself watching this movie more than once for sure.
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Though I did enjoy the drama, there are quite a few reasons that I felt I couldn't rate it higher than 7.5. The first being the ever recurring annoyance of Japanese dramas, which is the seemingly lower budget presentation. While the costumes and locations were beautiful, the rest of the production had a sort of 'cheap' feel, such as cheesy special effects and sometimes shoddy cinemetography. Also, when the Japanese actors had to speak English, you could barely understand them. Add to that the terrible overacting of the Western actors, especially the guy that played Admiral Nelson. He was especially awful!
I much preferred the second half of the drama as opposed to ths first. The first half had more unreal, fantasy elements, plus I feel the acting was more awkward. By the second half, the true history of Ryukyu took center stage with the magical elements making less of an appearance. The actors seemed more comfortable in thier roles and the story just felt more solid.
I would also like to add that I see this as a more mature drama. Meaning, geared more for adults. While there are no graphic scenes at all, there is one in particular during the first half that is extremely suggestive. In fact, it made me widen my eyes considering this was a historial J drama and not a movie.
Special mention about GACKT's role in this. His character is super creepy. Like, icky, skin crawling creepy. Which is pretty cool as he plays it so well.
I would recommend this drama to any adult viewer that enjoys Japanese history. It's interesting and has some wonderful moments.
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I placed all my hope on at least getting a satisfying ending that made sense. Instead I was left mouth agape and ended up more disappointed than I had feared being even at the height of the awful moments.
I will give it this. Never has there been another drama that has suceeded in keeping me hooked, while being both wonderfully awesome and epically terrible at the same time. I am left in sheer awe and wonder.
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What is really interesting, also, is that this drama shows how the education system is warped in Japan. How many schools focus only on teaching what is on the exams for the sole purpose of getting the most students into prestigious universities while neglecting to teach other educational material, such as history and physical education for example. This no doubt creates enormous pressure on students to devote themselves to studying, ignoring everything else.
Out of all the high school themed dramas I have watched so far, Taiyo to Umi no Kyoshitsu is by far one of the most realistically portrayed dramas. I highly, highly reccommend this to anyone looking for heartwarming, coming of age drama without all the over the top silliness.
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Acting wise...I was extremely disappointed with Gackt's performance. This man is one of my favorite actors and I think he is highly talented, but in this drama, he seemed like he was merely there and trying hard to stay awake. It was kind of shocking how lifeless and dull his acting was here. Also, and this is minor but annoyed the crap out of me. Never once did his character change clothes. I mean, what? Did he never take a few moments out from time hopping to change his outfit? It never had any wrinkles or stains. Would it have killed the production budget to give the man a couple of outfits to change into like everyone else? The other actors wers ok. Nothing too special here. At least they had adequate changes of clothing, though.
Overall, this drama is watchable, but barely. It could have been so much better had more thought been put into delivering it and more sense made in the plot. Would I reccommend it? Not really. Especially for Gackt fans, don't watch it. It will be a huge disappointment for you.
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Acting wise, it's not that great. You can tell just how incrediably far Lee Joon Gi as come since then, but I still really enjoyed watching him in this. The other actors are about the same. There are no stellar performances here, but that's to be expected. The music is eh, except for the '70's music, like The Animals and the Bee Gees. Also, as an added bonus, I got to see Lee Joong Gi disco dancing to Staying Alive. That alone made watching this worth it! :p
I actually watched this with my kid and he really liked it. It's only an hour long, so I could even see myself watching it again, perhaps. I do recommend it to others, especially other Lee Joon Gi fans, just so you can see how he was back in the day. Overall, I give it a 7.5.
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This drama is, in one word, epic! When you first start watching, you think you know what the overall plot is going to be, but along the way, it evolves into something much bigger and more fateful. I really loved the historic period portrayed here, the Joseon of the past caught up in a bitter feud with the Joseon of the future. While watching this drama, I had the sense that it was exactly this period in time which marked the turning point for events that came decades later, and on up into the 20th century. While the story itself was fictional, the time period in which it occurs and all the struggles going on about the Enlightenment, were real and really played out.
The cast was absolutely supurb! Lee Jun Ki was phenomenal in his role as a son bent on revenge for his father's murder, and was simply endearing in later episodes as he focuses his energy on protecting the people and the woman he loves. The fight scenes were awesome, and as usual, LJK executes his action scenes flawlessly.
The main villian was wonderfully written. I especially liked the character development with him. As the story progresses, you are able to see why he has made the choices he has, and even start to empathize with him a little, even though you are still cheering for Lee Jun Ki to enact his revenge.
The main female lead was excellent, imo. So many people have commented how annoying she was, how full of faults, but I disagree. I thought she did a wonderful job playing her role. She is supposed to be a kind, loyal and forward thinking young woman, and she was. I think she had great chemistry with Lee Jun Ki and as the viewer, I could totally feel their emotions for one another. Thier relationship was especially moving, I thought, because Yoon Kang was forever faithful and extremely protective. I just really liked this couple a lot no matter what anyone says! :p
I was not as impressed by the second female lead so much. I thought she ws ok, but until the last couple of episodes, I thought her acting rather stiff and her character inconsistent. I did like her relationship with her father, though. I think those scenes were her best scenes.
I gave this drama a 10/10. I highly recommend it if you are looking for a historical action drama with romance. It's also a perfect revenge drama. Plus, if you're a fan of Lee Jun Ki, he absolutely shines here.
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My biggest complaints about this movie, besides most everything, are as follows:
First off, Godzilla is supposed to be the star of the show, so to say. Unfortunately, I felt like he was more of a side character. The movie was more about the humans and the human-like xians rather than Godzilla or all the other monsters. They are there, yes, but spend only a measly amount of time in the movie blowing stuff up and fighting with Godzilla. In fact, the monster fight scenes are less than two minutes at a time. They are over quickly after a lick or two from Godzilla, and on to the next scene with the humans and xians. It's a big let down. The only exception to this is the final monster fight with Godzilla vs. King Gidorah. That one is appropriately longer and is actually rather cool, though I don't remember King Gidorah being a vampire. :\
Next is the special effects. Now, everyone knows going into a Godzilla movie not to expect anything fancy. The lack of good special effects, in my opinion, has always enhanced the greatness of the movies. Here, though. Oh lordy. >_< They seem to have wanted to go for the CGI stuff except...not with most of the monsters. So here you have some really obviously expensive special effects, all devoted to the human-mutant-xians combat stuff and the alien space ship. Some of it did look kind of cool. But then you have.....all the monsters old school. And what I mean by old school is that they are either mechanical or people in rubber suits. >_< I kid you not. It is that obvious. There is one monster that is CGI and that is Manda in the beginning, though King Gidorah at the end seems to be at least partially CGI in his introduction scene, as well. It's like they spent their budget on the special effects already and when it got time to create the monsters all they had left to use was fifty cents. >_< Also, as an added bonus, some of the enemy monsters liked to strike a dramatic pose ala Mighty Morphin Power Rangers right before they attacked Godzilla. Smh.
You know, really I could go on listing stuff, like how bad the cast was, the really horrible and corny one liners they liked to throw out there, like "Sorry I'm a vegetarian" right before impaling Ebirah, but there are just too many horribly bad things to list. There was one good thing, I will say. Mothra makes an appearance. That's about the only good thing I can say for Final Wars. Oh wait. Minilla was there too and was pretty cute. There. Two things. Wish I could say there were more positives but I can't. It's just embarrassing. After watching, I just want to hug Godzilla and tell him it's not his fault.
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A note about why I rated it an 8. There were some parts of the story that left me confused at the end. I felt there were still some unanaswered questions that lingered and a couple of scenes that were shown quite differently. Also, episode three was short on the creepy.
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Despite all that, though, I couldn't, in the end, rate this drama above an 8. There are a few reasons for this. Number one, it is almost exactly like the Korean version. And I mean, exactly. Usually in remakes, they add their own flavor to mix up the story a bit. They did end up doing that here with Fabulous Boys, but until the middle of the drama. The whole beginning was pretty much word for word You're Beautiful, but in Chinese. Number two, the music is also pretty much identical. There are a few new songs, but a lot of the background music is the exact same as was used in You're Beautiful and two of the main songs were the same, as well, just sung in Chinese. The last song was original, but nowhere near as good as 'What should I Do?' Still, overall, the music, while not all of it original, was good, just not as awesome as was in The Korean version. Plus, Jiro Wang, who has an awesome voice, still doesn't quote deliver the same impact as JKS.
Speaking of Jiro Wang, this brings me to my third reason for not being able to rate this version higher. I was, all through the drama, extremely conflicted on this last point, and I still am. That is...the drama is Fabulous BOYS. Jiro, as hot and sexy as he is, is a fabulous MAN, acting alongside BOYS and a GIRL. He was wonderful in the role, don't get me wrong, but he was obviously a few years older than everyone else. I think the time for him to be playing flower boy roles is over now and in the future, I hope to see him in more mature roles.
Finally, the ending scene was a letdown. It wasn't as emotionally powerful as the same scene in You're Beautiful. The dialog was strained and not delivered as poignantly as in the original, plus, my issue with the last song, as I stated previously.
Besides those issues, it was a great drama to watch. I liked it a lot better than the Japanese remake, that's for sure. Nothing beats the original, though.
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HOWEVER. I knew it was going to be bad going in, having read other reviews. I watched it anyway because it's Hana Yori Dango, after all. Word of advice, though to all my fellow HYD fans. Skip this movie. Read the manga, watch the anime, watch all the different dramas. Pretend this bit just doesn't exist, because it's an hour and twenty minutes of your life you can never get back.
That being said, I can at least say that it was hilarious. Stupidly, embarrassingly hilarious. I was literally either shaking my head or laughing out loud the entire movie at the absurdity. Also, FYI. Domyouji in a speedo. >_< There are no words.
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Overall Rating=10: Reading about the plot, I did think it looked interesting. Handsome playboy type character falls for a spitfire freedom fighter in 1930's Japanese occupied Josoen. Well, the story is so much more than that. Because of a bet, our handsome playboy is forced to try and woo Miss Prim and Proper Freedom Fighter, and in the process, finds out a lot about himself. The side story about his ex best friend and current courtesan best friend is just as important as the main story, weaving itself flawlessly within the other. Everything is linked and everything fits, from the slapstick comedy moments to the cute romance to the intense emotional drama that starts to unfold.
The story does start off with a rather light hearted and comedic feel. As the drama progresses and the characters become more embroiled with the events, it takes a more serious turn, though such a transition occurs subtly and again, flawlessly. The pacing is everything here, and the whole drama is paced perfectly, even down to the numerous cliffhanger episode endings that leave you eagerly impatient to see what happens next. This is especially true in the last few episodes.
In the end, I highly, highly recommend this drama to anyone who is looking for a drama to watch because really, it has everything most people look for. Romance, comedy, action, drama, mystery and suspense. It kept me guessing and on the edge of my seat throughout, as well as had me laughing out loud and crying for real with the characters. Both funny and touching, it truly is a masterpiece.
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Lee Jun Ki is just breathtaking in this. Not only in the looks department but his acting skills really shine. He is such a talented actor who can successfully portray a vast amount of emotions throughout and pulls it off effortlessly. Plus, we get to see his fighting skills too, in this and every action scene was intense and kept me on the edge of my seat.
I think the best thing about this drama, besides Lee Jun Ki as the lead, is the theme. It's not just your typical revenge drama. Not only does it take one of the biggest cliches in Asian drama and make it totally awesome that it's a serious part of the plot, it actually delves deep and confronts the moral aspects and dilemmas of seeking revenge.
The very, very best thing, though? (Again apart from Lee Jun Ki as the lead) It keeps you guessing. You may think you've figured something out, or expected a certain outcome, and instead, you get handed a surprise that you totally didn't expect.
I very highly recommend this drama to people. In fact, if you haven't seen it, stop what you're doing right now and start watching this drama! You will not regret it.
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