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Cute premise, but that's it.
This was probably the worst I've seen from strongberry/matchbox.The plot didn’t make sense, and not in a "ghosts aren't real" way, but in a "if ghost were real they should still feel emotions that develop from the situation instead of being forced onto the audience without basis" way.
The acting was sloppy and uncomfortable to watch - I never really knew what was supposed to be conveyed in the actors' faces.
Was there a point to the story?? I didn’t get it. I felt like the whole ghost bonding sequence was entirely wasted by a nonsensical script and poor direction/acting. It could have been a really interesting point to make about? Idk not wasting your life? Solidarity between groups oppressed by heterosexual patriarchy? Anything would have been better than the weird, abrupt crying and hugging.
The camerawork and soundwork was messy and inconsistent (did they not have a boom operator on this shoot?), and not to good impact - shaky camera work can communicate something if done well, but done randomly, it just distracts from the (in this case not very good) action. The sound was tinny in a number of scenes.
I hope the team on this project has made a lot of progress since producing this piece.
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what a waste of a premise
I like the premise because it could have done so much with grief, survivor guilt, age gap discomfort, reckoning with our loved ones being someone other than who we thought they were. It could have used generational divides for comedy and social commentary. It could have eschewed all that and just done a competent romance! Instead, it failed at every point.Acting and writing: The MC, once a relaxed and fairly poised elder, somehow becomes pouty and dependent on the 20 y/o. Literally POUTING in several scenes. There's no continuity of characterization. These are not legible as humans, they're just annoying clowns bouncing from one overused cliché to the next.
There's only ever lip service, 2-liner asides that are supposed to indicate that the grandfather is dealing with the loss of his grandson, all delivered like commenting on the weather. There's never any confrontation of the fact that from the grandfather's POV he has cannibalized his own grandson. What an extraordinary waste. At that point, just drop the blood connection! It's fine, we're used to regression/reincarnation plots, we don't need some bloodline magic.
I really do want to be able to just say, "Well, this one wasn't for me," and move on, but every trash BL is a limited budget and pool of acting talent willing to do BL being drained once more. For nothing. How did the production team let this absolute dross leave the writing room? How did the director tolerate this from the actors? Does no one involved have eyes? Taste??
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Interesting premise and ideas! Heavy on melodrama though
I don’t think the primary theme is a new one to cover/explore; I do think maybe some of the way it was explored was novel. I really like the ambiguity that the end leaves as to the more complicated main character's (hint: his name ends in "woo") motivations and intentions. I think this could have been a great mini series if 1) it gave us more background on both characters, 2) it toned down the melodrama or at least gave it the meat and development to feel plausible, and 3) it gave the wife more room to be a person (I think the actress was wasted a bit in this movie).I hate that the acting in the acting (story is about a play within the movie itself) relies so much on screaming - if screaming is the only way your character knows how to express intensity, it's a boring, badly written character.
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Meh writing
The manga makes both of the main characters make more sense with fewer words/scenes, surprisingly.One thing that really bothers me is how one of the main characters was rewritten to be more so much more shallow-ly characterized than he was in the manga. Please keep in mind that the manga is maybe 60 pages total - how do you manage to reduce a character's depth when you turn 60pp of mostly pictures to 2h of content?? He went from a realistic, if eccentric, person to a weird caricature of "innocent and imaginative". Disappointing.
The other main got a sort of similar flattening-out, but not to such a jarring degree.
Beyond that it was fine. Acting in the more bastardized character was kinda wobbly, but he wasn't given great material.
I can't tell you more without spoiling things, so I'll leave it up to you to hunt a full plot outline elsewhere (Wikipedia or forums are a great source of spoilers)! Either way, I definitely recommend finding the manga and reading that instead.
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