Chocobana
This review may contain spoilers
The first episode was so weird I almost bounced off of it but I'm glad I continued. Despite how tropey it was, the relationship development between the leads still felt cute and sincere. I swooned when the confession finally happened and everything was progressing okay. The male lead is very convincing as a girl and the female lead was decent enough.I did feel slightly anxious about them inevitably breaking up and prepared myself for it. I think I was expecting a more deft and natural build up to the break up since the characters had been behaving according to a consistent internal logic so far. Instead, I felt betrayed by the feeling that the break up arc was now activated and the characters started behaving unlike themselves just to create angst.
The characters had been managing their switching incidents as they happened but now the fmc was fearful of touching the mmc and withdrawing from him physically. They both knew there was a chance of them being discovered at any moment (the mmc always had to wear a mask in public) and, leading up to the posting of the paparazzi pictures, they'd been aware that a paparazzo had been following then and may or may not have "incriminating" photos of them together. They knew all these things and maybe the fmc wasn't fully cognizant of what the scandal would mean for her and her family...she still completely withdrew from the mmc at their first real difficulty without any consideration for how this might hurt him. It's definitely difficult for celebs to date -especially when it's with regular people- but not impossible. Things do blow over eventually. I guess I just wish the build up was convincing if the break up had to happen in the first place.
I disliked the last 3-4 episodes strongly. I'm over the whole let's-break-up-and-meet-after-a-year trope. It's old and boring. I don't even properly understand why they broke up anymore. Their conversations after the one-year gap made it seem like her one and only major issue had been her fear of them switching and that made no sense to me. So it wasn't the scrutiny from his fandom and the media? Blergh. Whatever. (Note: I didn't care much about the story-in-a-story thing since I figure they only used it to get around censorship. I'm treating the novel as "the story" in my head.)
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The writing lacked subtlety when it was trying to teach a lesson or communicate a point. A scene featuring a simplistically nasty character would play before another scene showing one of our main character doing the "right" thing to show them in a better light. Most of the characters were overly idealistic and kind or terrible and mean. I wished the arching themes were handled in a much more subtle way instead of us getting hit over the head with them.
The screenwriter's writing really shines when she depicts friendships and the bonds between families, but even then, there were some weak points. She seems to have a tendency to focus on mother figures and use them to create conflict. For most of the patients' families, the father/husband figure was absent completely or only appeared for an important surgery (unless the father was a patient himself). This happened multiple times to the point where I couldn't take the father/husband figure standing next to the woman seriously because they'd been pretty much completely absent until the surgery scene. They rarely have lines and they might as well have blurred faces because they're simply there as props.
I liked most of the relationships except for the one involving Jong-wan and Ik-sun. This couple reminded me too much of the main couple in Reply 1994, which I disliked, and the conflict felt absolutely idiotic and pointless. Again, the screenwriter mostly writes really good couples that have the best interactions and chemistry so I don't get why she keeps reusing these old-fashioned types of conflicts for some of her couples.
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So many viewers made comparisons between TEN and MNM, and it makes sense since the two shows carry the same vibe and are gritty and thought-provoking. But the questions that were asked in each show were different. TEN made us wonder who really was the monster, while MNM made us ponder the meaning of (in)justice.
What I like so much about both shows in any case is that we're not just watching a brainless procedural cop show with a new case of the week every episode. There's so much more with every case that unfolds. You will definitely question what's right and what's wrong in each context and still feel unsure of your own judgement.
I also liked how well we got to know our characters in such a short amount of time and without being spoon-fed a lengthy exposition. We learned more about their backgrounds whenever they became relevant and through their own actions. Gil Soo-hyeon is not so cut-and-dry as you'd believe at first, and Oh Dae-yeong is both endearingly and frustratingly someone who's ruled by emotions and acts before he thinks. I think the weakest link was Jin Seo-jun, who we did get to know about but still fell a little flat even with her past being revealed.
It was a good show overall and I hope they make a second season of this because I definitely want to see these characters again. Plus, the ending was a semi-cliffhanger (they concluded the series but left enough hanging that there's the potential for more).
P.S. Do not make the mistake of eating food while watching this show. Just saying.
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Usually with movies, there are clear events escalating to a climax and falling down into a natural end. It hits you, "Oh. The movie's over."
Either it delivered or it did not. With 'Shindo', I was jolted from the movie by the black screen because I was waiting for something more because the story did not feel complete. This, though, doesn't mean it was an awful movie or something I did not enjoy. I simply found 'Shindo' an oddball.
At the beginning, we're introduced to a middle-schooler who dislikes playing the piano but is attracted to the sound of it playing one day as she's walking down her neighborhood. It turns out the one playing the bad tune (according to her) is Wao Kikuna, who's practicing for his music school audition. A very strange friendship(?) begins from that day when she gives him some tips to improve his playing.
Now you'd think there's plot right there, right? The audition would be the perfect climax, albeit cliche. But it's still off the mark because the audition is never the central story. Uta comes over at random times and spends time in Wao's room while he plays or does nothing. There's a bond between the two, something that's not quite friendship but not yet love, age gap notwithstanding. Uta is the classical prodigy while Wao's the traditional hard-worker who lacks that touch of talent but is willing to make up for it with effort. Uta seemed to inspire Wao and add that something more to his piano playing, and Uta enjoyed his "sucky" playing.
There were also characters that seemed like potential love interests for the two but the story never went there. There's Uta's father's story, which was never explained properly. Uta seemed to have something going on with her ear, but we never get to know if it's merely psychological or physical.
With these missing elements, you end up with a story that never truly goes somewhere and many unspoken and nameless things that leave interpretation up for grabs.
Having said all of this, I do not regret watching this movie. I'm less frustrated than confused. All the same, I liked the calm and quiet atmosphere it had and enjoyed the undefined relationship between Uta and Wao. Though it's frustrating, maybe things are better left unsaid.
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This review may contain spoilers
This movie struck me emotionally so it's a little difficult to look at it as a whole and weigh its cons and pros. It's one of those movies that touch your heart and resonate with you that you just tell your brain to shut up when it brings up things you didn't like about it.It's like the plot was a mere ornament for the heart of this movie: the story of a woman trapped in a man's body. No matter how you change the setting and characters, the story is the same, and that universality is the best thing about 'Man on High Heels'.
Cha Seung-won, Cha Seung-won. Oh, man. This was not my first time seeing him pull a great performance, but I find myself struggling for words to describe what he did with a hit-or-miss role like playing Ji-wook. Perhaps another actor would not have managed the subtlety and nuance of a 'manly' man with an inner woman, or given the character the perfect shade of a vulnerable and feminine aura. No matter what you think about transgender people, you would just be pulled in to sympathize and feel for Ji-wook's deep-set longing. By the movie's end, I fully bought Cha Seung-won's character and believed the conflict of what he is vs. what he wants to be.
The directing and camera work was spot-on and handled with finesse, and it makes sense since the director wrote the script and channeled his vision. I loved the parts unspoken in a scene, when the camera would show us instead. I can't really recall the music but I think it was mostly instrumental and most scenes were big on natural sounds.
Lastly, I'm going to avoid talking about the ending because it would definitely include spoilers but I just want to say that it made sense since the whole movie was leading up to this. Not that I'm happy, but I'm at peace with it.
Warning: Right. Just be aware that there are lots of violent scenes that veered a little on gore at times. I cringed so much but I'm just averse to seeing blood and stabbings on screen.
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One of the most noticeable indicators is how the Shinsen-gumi uniforms were completely off, as the Shinsen militia was famously known for their white-and-blue uniforms. Thus not including them in the movie was no mistake on the director's part. Another indicator is how we never really find out much about Kano's motives or his past and how inconclusive the ending is.
In fact, the whole movie is up for interpretation and not even watching it twice (which I did) would enable the audience to fully make sense of the events that happen throughout. In that sense, the movie tries too hard to be artistic or to transcend the setting and the time period into more abstract ideas and criticism pertaining to the modern Japanese society. What results is a messy string of scenes with characters we do not understand but somehow serve the director, Oshima's, overarching purpose.
The events could have been set in modern Japan for all we care and the story would have retained its flavor and may have even fared better (since the characters tote some very modern concepts of sexuality). That kind of flexibility is not necessarily so bad when the director is trying to get a certain message across, but the problem is when the characters are so simply caricatured.
In the end, I'm left with more questions than answers and I have no idea what I just watched. Is it art, a daring work that tackles eroticism? Is it a criticism of taboos (especially of the homosexual variety)? I don't know what 'Gohatto' is and I only have an inkling of an idea as to what it was supposed to stand for. Apparently, Oshima is no beginner when it comes to expressing what is, by society norms, considered taboo. Perhaps 'Gohatto' was yet another exploration of that taboo, which proved to be his last.
Back in December 1999, 'Gohatto' was a complete commercial success, but I wonder how many of the millions that flocked to see it left the cinema theaters with at least a basic understanding of what they've just seen.
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It was incredible watching Sakamoto Ryoma from childhood to his death, seeing him grow and lose the naivety of his younger years to become the man that history came to know him as. And the fact that this man, who lived only a century and a half ago, achieved so many things before turning 30 is just mind-blowing. He lived for his cause and worked for Japan to become a stronger, more modern country so it would not fall a victim to imperialism.
Ryoma lived in the turbulent period at the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate's rule, the time at which Japan finally revoked its closed country policy because of pressure placed on it by the United States's then president. In the aftermath of such a decision, the country was split into those who supported the Shogunate's decision to open the country to foreigners and those who wanted to expel the foreigners at all cost.
You could just imagine the kind of unrest spreading in Japan during those hard times when Ryoma was in his early twenties.
One of the great things about this drama (and all Taigas as it seems) is the travelogue at the end of each episode, which shows the real places that some of the events occurred at, as well as extra information about the characters, so you end up with a well-rounded picture of the setting and characters. Don't worry about getting lost in all the historical details; the English subtitles done by izumisano are the best that I've seen ever. Terms are explained clearly and the translation notes are very helpful.
Also, the narrator of the story, Iwasaki Yataro, is the lifelong friend of Sakamoto Ryoma and they have one hell of a complex friendship.
Ryoma is someone who inspires all kinds of feelings upon meeting him: admiration, respect, love, fear, envy, hatred, jealousy. All those who meet him can't help but feel something strong towards him, be it positive or negative. That's the kind of man we're talking about here. And Yataro, who came from humble origins and later became a wealthy businessman who eventually founded Mitsubishi never got over his inferiority complex when it came to Ryoma. He was never able to escape his shadow.
It's truly fascinating to see admiration, love, and envy on his face every time he looked at Ryoma. It's a complicated mix of emotions and it feels so real that I have to just kowtow to Kagawa Teruyuki for his intensity and powerful personification of such a difficult character. We see Yataro curse Ryoma many times, claim to hate him but his eyes betray him every time.
Yataro's my favorite character and I don't think that would have been the case had a lesser actor taken the role. Kagawa deserved those three awards he'd earned for the role. I have to include here that he was the only actor from 'Ryoma Den' who had gotten any awards at all.
I have so much more to say about 'Ryoma Den' but I don't want to spoil anything. Yes, the camerawork was a bit messy sometimes (shaky camera, awkward up-close shots of faces) and there was this annoying meowing sound running in the background of the most serious scenes, but I could overlook these minor things when I look at the full picture.
'Ryoma Den' overwhelmed me at times to the point where I got tears in my eyes from being so filled with emotion.
Such a drama should not be missed.
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This quote (by Shirato Mio) properly describes the complex Shiomi Eiji in a few words. The first thing that I really noticed about Eiji was this incredible sadness in his eyes and in the corners of his smiles. His smiles are bittersweet at best; he's quiet, pensive, kind--almost too kind, as though he can never be anything else.
I could only heap praises on Katori Shingo for this understated, delicate portrayal of a man who has numerous scars but tries his best to liberate himself from them. At the beginning, I was struggling to understand this enigma of a person: does he truly mean the things he says? When he says it's fine, is it really? Why does he always view himself as undeserving? Why is there so much sadness integrated into his whole being? I wanted to understand so badly and by the end, I was satisfied with my conclusions.
The plot itself is convoluted and hard to buy but I was able to go beyond that 'revenge' premise to what's truly gold about this show: the characters and the bonds between them.
Eiji's relationship with his daughter, the cute Shizuku, was one of the most moving father-daughter relationships I've ever seen in a drama. And it's a bonus that Shizuku is a level-headed child who is both kind and sweet, though without being saccharine.
Unexpectedly, there were also a few twists in the drama which kept the drama going. While I can't really talk about them, I could just say that they fit well in the story.
I'm so glad that I picked this to watch because the last Japanese drama I've seen was around four years ago (I know, I'm ridiculous). 'Bara No Nai Hanaya' made me remember all the things I loved and appreciated about Japanese dramas. I truly recommend this show and hope you like just as much as I did.
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I've seen Prince Suyang's plotting and scheming in The Princess' Man and the bloodshed that happened in order for him to ascend to the throne in place of his young nephew. The brutal slaughtering of all those who opposed him as well as the innocents who were offed by association was no less horrific to watch here and I had tears in my eyes as I watched the coup unfold.
This is one of the strong points of this movie: the way it can makes you feel numb one moment and then filled with emotion at the next. It got me in the heart and it really hurt for the characters.
Physiognomy (or face-reading) is an almost extinct practice today because many people don't believe that so much could be told about a person from his features or the thought that our fates are (for the most part) fixed and unchangeable. I think it's possible to read faces and determine some of people's qualities if you're skilled enough but I don't believe it can help tell the future. That's stretching it.
That explains why I was a little disappointed that there were a lot of exaggerations when it came to Nae-Kyung's abilities (which depended more on estimations than anything else). I couldn't fully understand some of the characters' reasoning and motives as it hasn't been clearly explained in the movie and that pulled me from the magic of the story sometimes. I have to mention, though, the amazing cinematography and directing that took my breath away with every scene.
I can now understand the reason behind the hype surrounding this movie but it fell short from being THE movie for me.
(And, am I the only one who thought the whole scene where Prince Suyang first appears in full evil glory awesome?)
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I hated Yoo Il-Han at the beginning, and who wouldn't? He's vain and so desperately pretentious when there's nothing that would give reason to his vanity. I found it a little pitiful how he held on to that overblown pride of his as some defensive measure against his failure as a musical director. You can tell that he wants to make it so bad to the point where he forgoes his true self to do it. And that is exactly why he's a no-name--he forgot about his originality in the process.
So you can imagine how gratifying it is to see a character like this grow and be the better person at the cost of his ambition. It was humbling seeing him do that one act of selflessness.
Then there's Kim Young-Gwan, played by the cute Ji Dae-Han, who is a half-Korean, half-Filipino boy who is missing and looking for his Korean father. He feels like he doesn't belong and the people around him don't help.
In regards to that, I think the movie raised some interesting issues such as racism in Korea. People kept commenting on Young-Gwan's dark skin and how his heritage is an issue. He's a half boy and that's all they care about.
As for the music (since this is majorly a movie about making musicals), I thought the music itself was great and the dance routines were amazing (some performances gave me goosebumps). Yet I didn't like how incredibly autotuned the singing was. I know the kids singing in the movie are not professional singers or anything but the autotuning was too much and too obvious. It ruined the songs a little for me. However, not everyone would have a problem with this as it depends on personal opinion.
I recommend watching this movie overall~ I had so much fun watching it.
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I love watching psychological crime shows like Criminal Minds, so I loved the psychological study here. There is no white or black in the world of Ten, and each member of the team has a dark spot in his or her past. They're a bunch of misfits in a league far ahead of the others and who else would be better at solving those cases ordinary detectives wouldn't be able to?
The cases themselves are incredibly smart and terrifying (the kind that leave you in awe and fear of the things that people are capable of), and really hard to see through. Sometimes the killer turns out to be the guy the camera focused on for only a few seconds--sometimes it's the person who's been there all along. You can never really guess, and I enjoyed that.
There's a bit of social criticism hidden deep between the dialogue, not directly stated but makes your heart heavy with realization. Any writer who could achieve this kind of subtlety wins brownie points with me.
Overall, it's a great show and I can't wait to find out what happens in the second season after the huge cliffhanger they left us with.
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Finding out that your next-door neighbors are your biological parents is the kind of coincidence we hear about on the news, the kind of thing that we wonder if it truly exists. I started watching this show because I wanted to see this unusual situation unfold.
The first couple of episodes, I’ve been holding my breath for the moment everyone finds out the truth, but the drama keeps teasing us (although it does make up for it with the comedy and the suspense).
Maybe it’s because I haven’t watched that many +20 episode dramas, but I felt too impatient and annoyed at the beginning. I could totally imagine many people dropping this drama somewhere around the first ten episodes. Even I –crazy about it as I am now that I’ve finished it- have thought about dropping it before Gwi-Nam found his real parents.
This is why I wanted to tell you guys to stick it through and you won’t regret it. At least, I haven’t.
I truly loved the social commentary that was subtly going on in this drama—South Korea is still a country deep-rooted in traditions although it has become so advanced. ‘Unexpected You’ makes its viewers question some of Korea’s firmly standing traditions, and comments on the nature of the relationship between in-laws in Korea. I thought the writer handled these sensitive matters very well, in that she gave us the two sides of the issue fairly.
The characters are flawed and feel real, even Gwi-Nam who I thought was too perfect at first (turns out, he has his own share of faults). One thing I found funny was how Gwi-Nam was like the closest thing to perfect a man could get, to the annoyance of men in the show.
It was like the drama was telling us that this is how a man should be, but in a completely comical way. I couldn’t stop laughing when the men in the drama grumbled about Gwi-Nam setting the standards so high and ruining things for them (a little meta that I enjoyed).
I hope more people would discover this gem for what it is.
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So how could this drama possibly fail when you have an actor like Lee Seung Gi and a gumiho character? When we have in our hands a wishy washy writing such as this.
You'd think that –at least, from the title- getting the Gu Family book would be the most important objective of our hero, but this plotline is tossed and picked up several times whenever the matter of becoming a human is convenient. And still, Kang Chi does nothing to get the book because he's too busy with other things that the writer throws at him. The same happens with the other plotlines; the writer would introduce a certain plot that would then take a backseat to another subplot before finally being continued once we've already forgotten about it.
"Oh, that issue is not resolved yet? I thought it was over two episodes back."
The writing is not sturdy or pulled together; it's confusing and annoying how events simply crop up and how they go down without a proper conclusion, how the rules of this world (which are, in this drama, equivalent to fine print on a contract) are not clear from the beginning and just pop up whenever it's convenient or complementary to the plot to mention, how blatant and forced (and illogical at times) the events that would lead us to major events are. The writing completely lacks the subtility needed for such a plot to be exciting.
One thing I need to concede is that the female leads were amazing; Yeo Wool and Chung Jo are both strong characters that never failed to surprise me—they are so unlike the rest of typical k-drama female leads and I wish to see more of those, but preferably not from the same writer.
The last episode was so messed up I wanted to cry for all the time that I spent watching this show—I felt like the writer was like, "Let it all go to hell! Woohoo!". The only reason I watched all 24 episodes was because of Seung Gi and Suzy, but even if I love those two to bits, I should've quit when it was apparent that the screenwriter hasn't the slightest clue about what she's doing.
(Only when I was writing this review did I find out that the screenwriter is the same person who wrote King of Baking and Man of Honor, both of which I was not able to finish because I couldn't stand the plot and characters.
Now that is pretty interesting.)
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This review may contain spoilers
When I started watching this, I kept in mind that the whole drama was going to be a little different than most k-dramas (no company politics, thank God--a nice change, if anything). From the reviews, I got the idea that this was a slow-paced love story between two friends that was years in the making. I loved how this was realistically handled, although there were some inevitable clichés that come hand in hand with the best-friends-turned-lovers storyline.
From the beginning, you realize that, while the two main leads are extremely close (they've been friends for 30 years, as they like to say), they didn't feel for each other romantically. Or, at least, they were able to suppress those feelings because they were so comfortable with each other that you barely noticed the sexual tension lying there under the surface. Moving in together (not really spoiler-ish since it happens early in the drama) only heightened the levels of sexual tension and made them aware of each other in *that* other way. But -the way I see it- it was there all along.
I really enjoyed the close friendship between all the other characters (mostly the main leads' college friends) and the way each of them became a significant character that got its own camera time. It wasn't annoying that they explored other characters' own storylines; I even found myself sometimes waiting for them to appear because they were just as important as the main leads to me.
The acting was great: Lee Jung Jin & Soo Ae had loads of chemistry and were able to convey the air of two people that were incredibly comfortable with each other. The rest of the cast was great as well.
The music, I'm sad to say, was pretty generic k-drama music that sounds eerily familiar (like, you've heard variations of it only a billion times in different dramas).
I have to mention one last thing though. I thought the last episode was a little abrupt, and the major reason this drama earned itself a 'very good' rating instead of anything better. The conflict that kept the two main leads apart was suddenly (and randomly, the way I see it) resolved; I felt cheated. If it was that simple, then why was it a conflict from the beginning? That's the thing that annoyed me the most.
Overall, it's a good drama that I enjoyed watching.
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One moment we're all tense because we know something creepy is about to happen, then we're laughing our hearts out the very next moment. Take the horror out, and you'll have yourself a weird version of romantic comedy.
The thing I really loved about the movie was how emotionally deep it ran, which made it completely different than a horror or thriller movie. When we watch horror/thriller movies, we know what we're in for. We don't really care about the main character or her other friends (who would typically be killed one after the other) are like. We're not invested in the characters is what I'm trying to say. Two hours of watching something that makes us nervous and scared is what we're after (people are strange like that). So I really appreciated "Spellbound" giving the characters that extra dimension, when we can sympathize with and understand them. I felt for Kang Yeo Ri's loneliness and her wish to connect with others so it wasn't just a horror story with a romantic twist.
Then there's the awesome Lee Min Ki (seeing him in 'Shut Up: Flower Boy Band' made me a fan so he was why I picked up the movie at all XP) as a weird magician that I completely loved. Can you please tell me where I can get a magician dude like you? I love weird, abnormal people. They're always fun to hang out with and it feels like you're free to be whatever around them.
Overall, I really enjoyed the movie. It has humor, comical scenes (yes, they're two different things), depth, and is pretty interesting. The only gripe I have is about one thing that I thought was left unresolved. Maybe it's a bonus because, in most movies, that kind of thing does get tied up neatly in the end, but I still was too curious about it.
Still, I loved the movie and I do recommend watching it!
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