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Not bad, but why bother?
This film wasn’t bad if taken on its own. But it hewed so closely to the very good Japanese original that it was impossible to avoid making comparisons and that is where it falls far short. In particular:• The pacing was off. This remake was too slow in places where it should have moved faster and too fast in places where it should have slowed down. The net result was to rest emotional resonance (not that it wasn’t plenty emotional, just not nearly as much as the original).
• That acting (particularly the leads) was noticeably inferior.
• We got a very washed-out version of one of my favorite characters (the FL's best friend).
• The original benefited greatly from being told primarily from the point of view of the FL. In switching much of the attention to the ML, they miss out on some of the best parts of the story,.
• Neither the overall production nor the OST were as good.
But despite all these criticisms, I did enjoy watching this remake as a way to pass the time.
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The title of ¨Invisible Us¨ says it all
More than a murder mystery, this miniseries is about the alienation of young adults within Japanese society. An incisive, well-written and well-acted but depressing tale that follows a reporter as she discovers not only the roots of the crime she’s investigating, but also that almost all her former classmates are already to at least some degree disillusioned with their lives only 8 years after graduating from high school. What keeps this series from being overwhelming dark is that in reconnecting and finally being honest with each other, several of these old friends manage to find glimmers of a way forward.This is not a light easy watch and perhaps not to everyone's tastes. But after a slow start, I thought it one of the best Japanese series I've watched recently.
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Begins well but loses focus
I finally managed to finish this series, which turned out to be yet another drama that after a promising start slowed to a crawl and lost its way as the season went on (which helps explain why it took me so long to finish).It was at its best when focused on the intrigue and suspense surrounding the two female spies/assassins who have infiltrated the Gong palace. Will they be found out? Will they work together or against each other? Will they persevere with their dedication to their original mission once they develop relationships within the palace? Will they discover the truth about their own pasts?
If only the plot didn´t keep meandering into long aimless overly dry pseudo-mystical monologues and conversations that don't go anywhere, when it’s not getting sidetracked into a rather predictable and poorly developed storyline centered on sibling rivalry and power struggles among the Gongs. As if that weren't enough, the drama ends on something of a cliffhanger, failing to provide an unambiguous conclusion.
At least most of the fight scenes were fairly good.
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intriguing and intense, but could have been better
Korea has become known for its complex, intelligent, carefully crafted, and well-executed “who-done-it” mysteries. These stories require almost impeccably good plot development and writing - even more so when they add a science fiction element as they do here. When it works (“Flower of Evil”, “Mouse”, "My Perfect Stranger"), it can result in top quality TV. When it doesn’t, you end up with a convoluted mess.This series falls somewhere in between. While intriguing and intense, it has a few notable plot holes and inconsistencies. They should also have done a lot more with the FL given that the character had some real potential to add a different dynamic to the story. At least they do a decent job with the parallel worlds concept and the way butterfly effects can result when someone crosses over to a world that is not their own.
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Good Cast, Poor Panel
This was my first season of Heart Signal. The cast was on the better side, with an interesting mix of quite likable personalities that made it easy to get more emotionally invested than I usually do. It doesn’t hurt that this is one of the most physically attractive group of participants I've seen on any of these shows. All 4 women are simply breathtakingly beautiful, and the guys aren't far behind.The show also successfully maintains some suspense until the end on who people were going to select, having developed multiple reasonable matches for most of them. I do wish though that some of these women had realized a earlier that Hyun-woo was one big walking red flag. I was completely fed up with him by the end of the season. Everyone else grew on me, but this guy went the opposite direction.
But this show has one much bigger problem that seriously detracted from my enjoyment as a viewer: Way too much screentime is given to a terminally unfunny and uninteresting panel at the expense of the participants themselves. Among the things I found particularly galling was that in order to allow this gimmicky panel more time to show off their pop-psych idiocy, they deprive us of seeing the reaction of the participants to the texts they are asked to send anonymously each evening to the person they find most interesting. Watching those reactions is one of my favorite aspects of some of the subsequent reality shows like EXchange and My Sibling’s Romance. It was sorely missed here.
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Offers a different dynamic
The best thing about this show is that by adding a mystery element, they create a different dynamic, as well as significant added suspense for both the participants and for viewers, particularly during the build up to when all is revealed in the final episode. But this also means that the interactions among the participants are clearly highly controlled and manipulated to maintain that suspense to an even greater extent than normal. When added to the shorter 8-day duration of the filming, we simply don't get the same complexity and depth of the relationships that develop among the participants on some of the other dating shows.Was this review helpful to you?
Changing gender roles and marriage in modern Japan
The story of the unravelling of a marriage as a couple struggle after circumstances force a reversal of traditional gender roles. The film charts the course of their entire 15 year relationship with canny observations and a rueful tone. While the relationship falters due to the couple's own failings, the film aptly illustrates the pressures of a society that still treats stay-at-home dads as second-class citizens and working mothers as lousy parents.The subject is treated seriously within a well written and filmed story about two imperfect but sympathetic relatively likeable people. Though some interpreted this film as a critique of modern gender roles where encouraging women to prioritize their careers is to the detriment of the family, what stuck me was how much pain and suffering would have been avoided had both leads not been conditioned by their upbringing into assuming that the husband should always be more intelligent and capable than the wife and kept trying to force this assumption no matter how obvious it became that the opposite was true. But watch the film and decide for yourself.
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A Pleasant Surprise
I stumbled into this film while on a long trans-Pacific flight. A Cannes Film Festival official selection based on a true legal case. What is surprising about this film is that with the central court case itself largely glossed over within the drama despite the eye-catching title. It turns out to be more of a coming-of-age romantic melodrama with impossibly high stakes at a personal level than a full-throated indictment of the industry. But though it’s tight focus on the lead character perhaps reduces its impact as social commentary, I found it quite engaging in an understated way. This is primarily because Kyoko Saito, a former teen idol herself, really brings her character to life. I only wish the ending had been a little less rushed.Was this review helpful to you?
Good balance of romance and drama
With Korea’s tense political situation in the late 70's as its backdrop, this nostalgic coming of age drama, aptly balances innocent romance with heavier drama. This includes the harsh difficulties faced by girls in a very paternalistic society, as our FL is subject to repeated physical and emotional abuse from her parents, her teachers, and school bullies. She somehow manages to shrug it off, bandaging up her bruises, while obsessing about typical teenage concerns like boys. It’s the convergence of her growing friendship with a new girl at school and the forces of political repression that finally cause her to take a stand at school, at home, and even with the two boys in her life.Despite her relative inexperience at the time, pop idol Bona is quite good here in her first major acting role - showing signs of some of the excellent acting performances she has given us since then in shows like 2521 and Pyramid Game. The rest of the cast is also acceptably good.
The soundtrack is full of the sappiest of 70's love songs, which is quite fitting for the time and place (given the heavy censorship by the dictatorship of anything else). But this does serve as a reminder that in addition to some of the greatest music ever written, the 70's also produced some of the cheesiest shallowest pop of the 20th century.
Though primarily just a good coming of age story, this show also serves as a reminder of how much Korean women have to lose if certain political factions are able to turn back the clock.
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One of the best films I've watched this year
Well deserves its multiple Golden Horse Awards. A slow, intense, emotionally raw, and well acted film set during the period of White Terror, when Taiwan was ruled under the Kuomintang’s era of martial law. The heartwarming unlikely friendship between the two leads keeps the story from becoming unrelentingly brutal as it mixes political violence with simple moments of human connection and survival. The post-credit scenes really do amount to a fitting conclusion.Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Dramatic and Suspenseful
It was clear from the structure and casting that this show was going to be more about the drama than trying to generate any deep lasting romantic relationships, and it that, it was quite effective.The way the lies were handled certainly added to the drama by creating considerable suspense. The fact that some of the lies were much more serious than others was part of this, as viewers could never be sure if any particular lie was going to be a dealbreaker. It’s true most of these lies would not have been much an issue in my country (perhaps only Taeyang’s and Hanui’s). But I understand that South Korea is a much more conservative (and paternalistic) society and things like being a divorced mother are seen much more negatively.
It was clever of the show to end with a montage illustrating how most of the contestants ended up gravitating towards people who were the opposite of what they said they were looking for at the beginning.
It's true that many of the participants do not come off looking particularly good. I wasn’t much of a fan of Daon, but Taeyang, and particularly Hanu, were such complete jerks that in the end I couldn’t help but sympathize with her. Besides, she was just playing the game the way it was supposed to be played. Meanwhile, those two are the kind of smug stuck-up players who give guys a bad name. I’m glad the woman eventually figured this out.
The exception was of course Hanui, but I had to sympathise with her anyway, even if I question her insistence on chasing Hanu even after he made it more than clear (and quite rudely) that he didn’t consider her up to his standards. Perhaps she was trying to prove something to herself?
I didn’t particularly like the panel. There have been better panels on other shows.
Overall, when it comes to reality dating shows, I would rate Pink Lie a step above Single’s Inferno and both the Korean and Chinese versions of Heart Signal, but well below Nineteen to Twenty, EXchange/Transit (S1 and S2), and My Sibling’s Romance.
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Disappointing
I watched this after having watched a couple of seasons of the original Korean version. I started with Season 2 simply because it’s much higher rated than Season 1 here on MDL. As this Chinese version follows the same general format as the original, it was impossible not to compare them.The main positive is that I found the panel of this Chinese version much more tolerable than the Korean panel. Or at least they got less on my nerves, despite all the squealing. It helps that the panel took up a bit less screentime that could be better dedicated to the participants, though it was still too much for my tastes.
The negatives compared to the Korean version include:
1. The participants go into the house with much more competitive mindset, while not making the same effort to develop close or lasting friendships with those of their same gender the way they tend to do in the Korean version. This was particularly true of the men early on who seemed to be mostly focused one-upping each other. I’m not at all surprised that most of women immediately gravitated towards the dreamy eyed laid-back unthreatening guy who basically couldn’t care less what the other guys were up to.
2. One result of the above is that I didn’t really like many of the contestants. I took an almost immediate dislike for most of the guys (though Junjun did start growing on me). With the women it was more one of those cases where I ended up sympathizing with the underdog, only I would have picked Wen Pi right from the beginning long before it became apparent that none of the men were interested in her (which certainly didn’t improve my low opinion of the guys). Two of the other girls had that infantile overly cutesy act going that I can’t stand but I guess must be popular among at least some Chinese men. I wonder if this is a cultural thing as none of the women in the Korean reality shows I watched even came close to that extreme and the two women from the Japanese Terrace House I can remember trying to put on that act eventually got found out and ridiculed, even though they didn't act nearly as extreme as these two on this show.
3. The method for selecting the final critical dates seems almost purposefully designed to discourage any couples that were beginning to be formed up to that point. I can see the value of pushing participants into dating different people, but that should come earlier in the season. If the producers were really interested in romantic outcomes, then they should allow the participants to select their own final dates. If not, you end up with a bunch of final climatic dates in which most are disappointed either by who they were forced to date or by the lack of romantic interest from their date (but kudos to the participants for at least attempting to fake enthusiasm). The fact that one of the couples might still be together doesn't really change my opinion.
4. The product placement is ridiculously over the top, to the point it was distracting. Featuring the participants in ads throughout the season may have at least earned them some additional income (one hopes), but it wasn’t always even clear what was an ad and what was supposed to be part of the action (assuming there was any difference to begin with). I’ve gotten used to a certain amount of product placement in k-dramas and c-dramas, but this went way beyond anything I’ve seen before.
I’m not sure I’ll watch any more Heart Signal seasons (either Korean or Chinese) as this simply isn’t my favorite format for this genre. I’m finding I much prefer the approach taken by the Korean “EXchange” and “My Sibling’s Romance” series. And my two favorite Asian dating shows continue to be the Netflix one-off “Nineteen to Twenty” and “Offline Love”.
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Major Disappointment
The overall plot pretty much follows a very standard predictable sports movie formula. That in itself isn't necessarily bad if you can identify with the characters enough to root them on. This film falls flat because there is pretty much no character development that might make you care what happens to our poor overmatched volleyball team. I was also outright dissapointed in Song Kang Ho. He may have been an award winning lead actor in several of the most notable films in Korean movie history, but here he seems to simply be going through the motions. Even much of the humor falls flat.Was this review helpful to you?
Tropey and Unimaginative
A potentially entertaining short series held back by a tropey unimaginative plot centered on school bullying and populated with mostly stereotypical mafia and teen drama archtypes. The few female characters were almost laughably superficial, as were most of the school bullies and adult gangsters. The only character with any real depth was the second male lead, but even in his case there is a noticeable disconect that comes from the fact that many of his actions are only explainable if he's madly in love with the first male lead, only the show keeps trying to insist they are just buddies.Was this review helpful to you?
A Sad Melancholic but Ultimately Uplifting Tale
I happened to come across this film on an airplane halfway across the world from Japan and gave it a try.It's a slow melancholic but ultimately somewhat uplifting tale centered on how parents mourning for their daughter and a woman mourning for her best friend are eventually able to find comfort as they uncover a series of (mostly very positive) surprises about the life of the dead girl, whose example eventually helps encourage them move on with their own lives.
The acting was good, but they could have done more with this plot to make a bit more lively.
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