2
amrita828
Italy
There are no romance, no cuteness, no funny moments to draw a breath. There are no gorgeous sceneries to admire, or beautiful faces to ogle.
This movie is a punch directed at your very stomach. And yet it's so full of heart and intensity it left an indelible trace in my memory.
It's the story of a handful of Japanese soldiers left on guard of the rocky, desolate, deserted but of outmost strategic importance island of Iwo Jima. They are basically left to rotten there and eventually being slaughtered, if not by the Americans, by the obtuseness of high rank Japanese officials.
It's based on a true story, so I have no fear to spoil the plot. Many of you may already know of Iwo Jima, if only for the über-famous picture of the American soldiers planting the stars and stripe flag on a little mountain of dirt. This movie tells the same story, but from the other side of the barricade, in the literal sense of the word.
Western films tend to depict Japanese soldiers during WWII like war machines, ready to die for their country no matter what, cold and determined. Here we see the human side of them, the ultimate meaning of the film being the universality of fear, loneliness, anguish and friendship.
Outstanding acting performances by all the cast, entirely Japanese and terrific direction by acclaimed Clint Eastwood.
This is the kind of film one re-watches sooner or later. A film-library movie. You have been warned as to its content, so I recommend it with a clear conscience.
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His character here is so endearing, this drama could have just as well been entitled "Falling for Min Ho" and it would have mirrored my sentiments exactly – though I realize the pun with Sung Jung meaning Innocence would have gone lost. The way Min Ho's character is written is clever enough, but it's the actor's rendition that makes him so darn adorable. I can easily picture a director instruct his actors to show surprise, anger, sadness, joy, but in the end it is always the actors who decide how to bring these emotions to life. Min Ho's reactions are almost never what one would expect, his movements and even the intonation of the voice took me by surprise more than once, never failing to express what it was meant to, though.
What I personally found irresistible, is the way he would think things over, make his own personal connections and deductions and blurt out the conclusion with the utmost candor, leaving the poor people around him totally confused. Not to mention his appearance, a mixture between a kid with temper tantrums and a pale man who's either just got out of bed or is in dire need to go back to it. Not exactly the general idea of a romantic hero, on paper. And yet, he's the kind of man I would fall in love with in real life… wait, I atone: he's the kind of man I HAVE fallen in love with in real life and even married (minus the heart condition, the whole revenge/business stuff and the Korean language. Details). So you may now understand and perhaps forgive my passionate bias.
Since this is a drama review and not Jung Kyung Ho's – wait, did I tell you I love this actor? – I suppose I should address the rest of the cast too. Kim So Yeon is a talented actress I've known and liked before. Her role here is very well acted, very believable; possibly, a little too… by the book. It's as though in an attempt at staying as true as possible to her character, she forgot to be that character. Sung Jung is lovable, loyal and intelligent and if only this script had given her the opportunity to be a little more lively, we could have enjoyed a sizzling love story, instead of a very cute one. But I suppose that was the original intent, so I won't complain.
If chemistry has to be, then I thought there was quite a lot between Jung Kyung Ho and his nemesis Yoon Hyun Min. Since these two have worked together before as best friends in Cruel City, it was great fun to see them stand one opposite the other as enemies. Their steady, verbal arm wrestling made up for some of my favourite scenes. The character of Lee Jun Hee is like a dog in the manger, who doesn't eat vegetables, but doesn't want anyone else to eat it either. While I hated him for his actions, his motivations made him into a pathetic man. To quote Min Ho's words: "You do not live to be able to gain something..., you live to take things from other people. Is there any happiness in this?". Really, how measly is that?
The most touching moments in the drama are those involving fathers, Ma Tae Seok in primis, and the funniest the ones with Detective Ok Hyun and Secretary Woo Shik, aka Wendy and Tinkerbell. What an improbable, hilarious pairing!
The music is like the rest of the drama: very cute. Not something which would stand alone, but rightly chosen for the feel of the drama.
All in all, I laughed a lot, I fell in love with the male lead, I was highly entertained, grew very fond of all the characters, was sad to say goodbye to them and had a lot to talk about for the reasons mentioned above. I don't ask a rom-com for anything more.
Recommended to everyone, I'm definitely going to watch it again in the future.
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If you are reading, it means you're hesitant: please don't be. Don Quixote is a fantastic watch, wonderfully acted, well directed, full of sweetness and serious issues treated with a light touch which is neither shallow nor melodramatic.
But most of all, you will laugh. A lot. Loud.
Yes, I'm a fan of Matsuda Shota and started watching because of him. I had been waiting for his next drama with a passion after Liar Game and prepared myself to be swept away by his very natural charm - and looks, I won't deny it.
He did not disappoint me one bit. He's outstanding: infuriating but incredibly sweet, hilarious but bossy, dense but clever in a very down-to-earth way and just as crazy as the famous hero created by the pen of Cervantes.
But a Don Quixote review would be incomplete and totally unfair without including Sancho Panza in it, brilliantly portrayed here by Katsumi Takahashi. As the synopsis explains, there's a soul switch involved in this drama, so that we see the two actors suddenly changing attitude, accent, facial expressions. The attentive viewer won't fail to recognize the ability of these two actors to wear the clothes of the other. The result is comic and endearing. Takahashi and Matsuda form an unforgettable duo.
All the secondary characters do a splendid job. The Yakuza's family is so improbable you can't help but laugh out loud and all the staff of the child consultation centre grows in depth and characterization.
And then there's the children. Japanese have a true knack of telling children stories, in my opinion. The fact that these kids are all incredibly cute and most of the time talented helps.
I loved the music too. It's in Spanish, as required by the title, and the contrast between the Spanish sunny rhythm and the Japanese architecture and landscapes is so sharp it's brilliant. I also loved the open credit tune with the children drawings, I thought it was a very cute touch.
I will rewatch this drama. Soon enough. I will marathon a second time through it and no doubt be left with the same huge grin on my face.
Highly recommended.
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This review may contain spoilers
Pasta would be an overall delightful watch if it weren't for a couple of absolutely annoying, infuriating traits.I think it's necessary for me to premise that I have first hand experience of how a high level restaurant/kitchen works. This is why I was attracted to it in the first place.
For the most part, what happens in the kitchen of this drama is exactly the same you will find in Michelin-stars kitchen all over the world: the strict hierarchy, the arguments between kitchen chef and restaurant direction, the treatment of women (things are rapidly changing, but high level cuisine has been for a long time a male domain, where women were treated almost like slaves). Even details in this drama are absolutely realistic, from the utensils they use to the allocation of each cooking-partie.
I had a great time watching the whole kimchi debacle, as I know for a fact that this is exactly the kind of problem a chef in such a kitchen would face.
BUT. Like Beca, the female lead annoyed me. Royally. Not so much because she would say Yes Chef every second word - that's actually quite accurate - but because she was ambitious but never showed any sign of having learnt anything. If you want to succeed in the gourmet world and you have the chance to work with a great chef you don't discuss his menu decisions: you learn! She is at the same time too humble and too conceited. She bows her head when she should show pride (grrrrrrr) and fights against the chef when HE is right (double grrrrrrr)!
And please don't get me started on the way she eats spaghetti. I'm Italian and, believe me, I cringed, to say the least. She would grab a handful of oily spaghetti and thrust them in her mouth with her hands, chewing them as if it were pigswill. In front of other people. I was disgusted. I respect different customs from mine, but you don't work in a 3-star (or even a 1 star) Italian restaurant without knowing how to eat spaghetti, for Pete's sake!
Lee Sun Gyun on the other hand is amazing. He is an arrogant jerk, but he is absolutely believable. I would never fall for such a man, but nothing he does or say comes out as unrealistic. Let me be just a little spoilerish here and say that his declaration is a great one! I finished the drama because of him and the rest of the hilarious, spot-on kitchen staff.
I can't remember the music, I'm afraid. Hence the 7.
I'm not sure I'll rewatch this drama. I laughed a lot, it entertained me a lot, but there are parts I'd need to skip entirely if I wanted to go through a second watch.
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Does it tell the story of a girl who needs to come out of her hidden sense of guilt and find the lost relation to her father? Or is it about this same girl seeking revenge against a cheating boyfriend?
Perhaps it tells the adventures of a young man who pretends he\''s gay, as the title seems to suggest. Or, again, it\''s the story of a house and how it influences the lives of those living in it.
In short: I could compare this drama to a pot-pourri. You know, those pretty little boxes or vases filled with all sorts of dry flowers, herbs and spices. You open it thinking it will smell of frangipani and your nostrils are assailed by a nondescript cocktail of perfumes, from cinnamon to roses.
The acting is not bad, although I maintain that Lee Min Ho is too preoccupied with his good looks to be a truly believable actor. I\''m ready to face the consequences of my statement.
And, to be honest till the end, I was slightly distracted throughout the whole show by the length - or lack thereof - of his trousers.
Overall, it starts in the best of ways, with elements of comedy and all the premises for a very sweet, passionate love story. It loses direction somewhere by the middle, and it doesn\''t find it back.
Disappointing.
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What an utterly stupid movie.
The premises are interesting enough: two "love swindlers" meet, and their carefully planned arts of seduction are put to the test by the experience of the other. Up to this point, everything's fine: two very good looking people are thrown into some funny situations, keeping the viewer entertained for the duration of… a quarter of an hour.
After that, all the inconsistency of this plot come to the surface. This should be a romantic comedy, but where is the romance? Unless we are to think that beauty were the one and only prerogative to love and be loved, there is absolutely nothing likable about those two. They are cynical, spoiled, prejudiced and irritating. If you expect a character development, a little something to make you empathise with one of them or both, you'll be disappointed. There is no characterization whatsoever here: why are these two disillusioned? No idea. Are they going to change, feel deeper, be taught some valuable lesson by the encounter? No.
All we see is 2 handsome people displaying all their weapons, from beginning to end. The point of a romantic comedy is to satisfy the comedic and the romance. In this movie, the comedic is repetitive and the romance non existent, since who cares about two bad people who stay bad?
I suppose the acting saves the day. Son Ye Jin is unusually feisty and plays her role very well, given the little material she was given to work with. This was my first time watching Song Il Gook on screen, but I know he's played serious roles before, so I guess he did a good job too in portraying a funnier character. Since there is no true soul in this movie though, I can't imagine they had to work hard on identifying with their characters.
Music… can't remember, I'm afraid.
No way I'm ever going to rewatch this movie, I'd rather have my foot be hit with a hammer.
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This review may contain spoilers
Ugh
After plumbing the depths of my brain in search of a suitable word to express my “enjoyment” – or lack thereof – of this drama, ugh is all I could come up with.Now, before I start my very long rant, a clarification is needed: this is about the second part of the drama, that is from episode 28 to 56. I thought the first was lovely and captivating, so full of promises it made the wreck that followed so much more painful to endure.
Truth be told, a few hints of puzzling directing and editing extravaganzas were given away in the earlier episodes: perhaps I should have doubted my choice when, 5 minutes into the very first episode, our dark hero is given a cloak to wear, he puts it on with whooshing grandeur, only to mount his horse the next second without it! It gave me such a delicious Doctor Strange vibe, with a flying cloak coming and going at its own accord.
Or I should have sensed looming trouble by the 5th time our hero – yes, he again – stood there like a war totem staring in the distance with fixed gaze. Please do not go micro-expressions on me: when something moved, it was clearly from the very natural and irrepressible need of the actor to blink, now and then.
That Ling Bu Yi was in fact a Marvel character under Han dynasty disguise, became more and more evident as the show progressed, what with slow motion sequences of him swirling Niao Niao around (but still staring in the distance) or appearing out of thin air with black guards in tow to save the day and the girl, not to mention surviving the most improbable wounds/falls/cataclysm etc. His acting improves in later episodes, as though he really started to feel his character, instead of just acting it which, as I’ll mention later, didn’t help the mess this plot became.
But, as I said, the story was still to unfold and held lots of promises. Then Part 2 came.
Another reviewer here said perhaps they employed 2 teams for this script and its mise-en-scène, and I second this theory. The A-team was responsible for Part 1 and a few scenes of 2 but then went on a holiday, on strike or sick-leave and left everything else in the hands of a trainee who didn’t know what to do with it.
Let’s address the elephant in the room first: Niao Niao.
We spent 27 episodes learning that this poor girl has been abandoned at birth in the unfriendly arms of the silliest grandmother ever created and an avid aunt. She had to fend for herself all her 15 years of age and grew up to be unpolished but independent, cunning and extremely intelligent. So much so, that when we are repeatedly introduced with other daughters, all of them born and raised the “proper way” and all of them, invariably, bitchy – with two lonely exceptions – I couldn’t help but deduce that if you want a child to grow up well, you need to abandon her, neglect her, starve her and slap her. The authors spent so much energy at creating a galaxy of female villains, young and old, that any analysis on the family dynamics that made Part 1 so intriguing flew out of the window. Was it a way to make Niao Niao shine by contrast? If so, shame on the author, for that’s a dirty trick indeed.
At first she is the epitome of an emancipated and courageous free-thinker, which gives out the false impression this drama were a celebration of female spirit; alas, there are so many quacking, quarrelling, cruel and jealous women around her that she ends up being the odd one out, hence defeating the object. To make matters worse, Shao Sheng herself slowly grows to become irritating and eventually insufferable.
When we finally come to Niao Niao realizing she wants to marry Doctor Strange… sorry, I mean Ling Bu Yi, I did ask myself why. Why? Trumpets…. Because he saved her several times! We know it because her “epiphany” consists on a series of flashbacks all involving him swooping her in his arms like the macho he is to prevent her from being hurt or killed. And yet she clearly and repeatedly stated she didn’t want to be treated like a damsel in distress. We all know he fell in love at first… hand, but I honestly still don’t know why and when Niao Niao fell in love with him. If her motivation were escaping her mother’s overbearing disapproval, then she chose the wrong environment to move to, something her mother and even Yuan Shen tried repeatedly to make her understand, of course to no avail.
Possibly realizing the direction the show was (not) taking, the authors saw it fit to morph Miao Miao (no typo) into the most annoying know-it-all busybody in imperial China. I spent all the early to middle part of this Part 2 expecting her to pop up at every imperial council, palace banquet, chamber, garden gathering, private conversation to speak her mind on the subject and endlessly preach: and I was never disappointed, cause so she did! To further complicate my personal sense of propriety, nobody in the whole imperial court had anything to object to whatever she did or said – except of course the villains, whose sole scope of existence is to annoy Shao Shang and, by default, Super Ling. We know nothing of these villains’ story or upbringing, for all we know they too went through some sort of trauma, the same we are supposed to use to justify our main leads shortcomings. This dichotomy in treatment permeates the whole drama, depriving it of logic and ethic.
The whole palace part was a snoring fest for me, because at that point the format was repetitive and predictable. I am well aware this is fiction, but the idea that an Emperor of China spends all his waking hours, and some sleep I suppose, playing paranymph to his beloved Zisheng is ludicrous. Is he a nice character? No doubt, but isn’t he supposed to also lead a country in his free time? Doesn’t he have other children? Furthermore, everything about his grand schemes of having Shao Shang and Bu Yi “find each other” are comical, rendering the few heart-wrenching scenes bizarre and filled with shall I laugh or cry dilemma. He basically ruins the party by being the party’s buffoon.
And what happened to the pace? I distinctly remember often having a hard time following the subs in part one, so fast they were. Once in the Palace, dialogues became sooooo slow, at times they uttered one word a minute. The whole Empress arc was kind of painful to watch and tedious to read, and I breathed in relief whenever the Consort come into the picture. My watching became a series of: “here we go again!”, “let’s ff this”, “please come to the point”, “you already said that” and, of course, “ugh”.
The love story is the one which paid the highest price in all this, because it too became repetitive, lacklustre and now and then saccharine. How many times can we have these two standing there gazing in each other’s eyes? How many combinations of words can be used to say the same thing?
him - Trust me, I don’t want to control you
her – Don’t patronize me. I am who I am
me – Give me my 40+ hours back
It was incredibly anti-climactic from some beautiful scenes they gifted us with in Part 1. They had a deeper chemistry when they were separated than when they were together, like two positive poles that repel one another. Even their touches, kisses included, looked forced.
Then, suddenly the drama takes a U-turn and becomes gory, melo-tragic, messed up and slightly disturbing. Everyone talks about death, litres of blood are shed and the moral compass becomes so blurred I couldn’t empathize with any of the character. In fact, I started loathing them, mostly our main leads, who at this point I’ll call Brangelina, or Mr and Mrs Smith. “Let’s go save the galaxy, my love, but before that let us bite our arms and do some amusing slaying, just as long as we do it together!” Ling Bu Yi shows his true colours, and they aren’t the shades I like at all. It didn’t help that we have Miao Miao go from “I need no man” to “I can’t live without this man” passing by “You’re all bitches because you don’t respect your men” and other equally contradictory and preposterous statements.
The acting changed too in this Part 2. I’ve already mentioned Leo Wu’s improvement; ironically, his better acting came in pair with Zhao Lu Si losing spark and believability. She was marvellous as a rebel teenager, well blending insecurity and stubbornness; not so as a woman crazily in love. He aced the besotted glance, while she just looked at him as though she was reading a recipe in slow motion – granted, we were told she was a prodigy at everything except reading. I don’t even know what the heck she expected of this guy, at some point I thought she was more blood-thirsty than him and was miffed because he didn’t invite her to the murder fest. Her idea of being equal to her man consisted of becoming LIKE him and do everything together, even those things she had no knowledge, training or experience of. Equally important does not mean being the same. To put it simply, I never bought their galactic love, neither in words, nor in deeds or stance. By the end I felt something akin to aversion for them, both as individuals as well as a pair.
Re-watch? Thank you, but no thank you. The highlights of the drama to me were Shao Shang’s mother, the Emperor’s Consort and the Cheng family as a whole. I would gladly watch a spin off solely focused on them and a love story between Yuan Shen and whomever – except Miao Miao, obviously, who by now will be busy creating an efficient torture device for her deranged man to use.
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In a nutshell, a saeguk for kids. Take a Disney film, split it into several episodes, dress the characters in hanboks and you have this drama. It mimics The Moon embracing the Sun - without ever nearing its intriguing plot or romance - in almost every aspect except for the detail of a girl dressed as a man despite the fact that she could never in a trillion years be mistaken for a man. To keep the parallel, we could say this is a fluffy rom-com dressed up as a Saeguk.
The romance is so cheesy I welcomed the politics with a sigh of relief. Everything happens too soon and... too much, depriving my otherwise romantic heart of the needed suspense and, yes, what I consider a must for romance: trepidation. I can't say I am an expert in historical dramas, but the little I know is that almost everything the two main characters do and say here is totally implausible: stroll hand in hand in the palace courts without anyone seeing them? Right. This is just one example out of dozens unlikely - no, impossible - situations. Unlike other reviewers here, I believe the second half of this drama to be a lot better than the first, with at least some plot developments, albeit rushed, at times.
The real saving grace of the show is Park Bo Goum. He clearly is talented and a pleasure to watch. His character is too good to be true, but well played out and multifaceted. On the other hand, I was a little disappointed in Kim Yoo Jung's performance. I know she's very young and has a lot of potential, but she didn't manage to make me feel a thing. By some camera angles, it was clear she wasn't looking at her partner when supposed to do so, and the result was kind of ridiculous. Her character is neither particularly brave, nor very strong or intelligent, so what's left in the end is a super nice crown prince who falls madly in love with a sweet pretty thing because she's a sweet pretty thing. I even came to prefer the appointed crown princess, she was refreshingly spunky.
The music is a collection of pop songs fit for everything and nothing. See above for the age target.
In conclusion, this drama had some real potential, even when the plot twists are predictable, but the final package is fluffy at best. Can be marathoned through for an overdose of lovey-dovey chirping.
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The plot is a surprise because it never goes in the direction one expected it to. Don't be fooled by an apparently superficial beginning: nothing in Stand Up!! is what it seems.
The cast is a surprise, because despite the very young age of the main leads, the acting is brilliant and gives the viewer a glimpse to the type of actors those young people would become.
The script is a surprise, as it deals with ordinary occurrences, teens fixations and the relationship between teens and adults in a sweet, mostly hilarious way.
You'll find yourself laughing out loud, giggling and, at times, remembering with a smile.
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Let me start with the plot. It isn't the most original of all, but I don't consider this a flaw, per se. Few things are more satisfying for a romantic than a woman compelled by circumstances to live under the same roof with 3 good-looking men. Season this with music, humour and a lot of misunderstandings, and you have the perfect material for a great drama.
My problem lies with dialogues and execution. The first are childish and repetitive, the second is average. I can see for myself that the actors are good looking, but that's the extent of their charm.
Park Shin Hye is insufferable. She displays two emotions only here: surprise - round eyes and O-shaped lips - and desperation - a river of tears. Her character has no real development: a nun who changes her love for god with love for a star, without learning anything whatsoever from the experience, neither wisdom, nor self-assurance or pride. One more apology from her mouth and I'd have strangled her. And don't let me started on the way she walks, as if she were trying to apologize for her existence too.
Out of the three guys, the only acting chop I'm ready to salvage is Lee Hong Ki's. He looks like a puppy, but is endearing and changes throughout the show. Jang Geun Suk uses too many exaggerated facial expressions and Kang Shin Woo too few. The result is forced. One is reminded every minute of the show that these people are staging a drama.
The character of Uee is your usual spiteful duck, whose purpose is none other than add the nth foot walking all over humble Go Mi Nam.
And Grey Eminence the lost twin brother must be the most useless character ever created, who comes back, takes all the glory he did nothing to obtain without as much as a thank you, and even has the guts to start an affair with a woman who has made his sister's life a living hell.
I have admitted before at not being a K-pop fan, therefore I didn't really like the music. But this is my problem, and it would be unfair to judge an original OST only based upon my taste. I thought some songs were used too often and they annoyed me in the long run.
Re-watch value is obviously in line with the general liking of a drama. If one has fallen in love with it, one will probably want to revive the experience. If this is not the case, why re-watch something average when tons of other dramas are still to be seen?
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This review may contain spoilers
I usually keep my reviews spoiler-free, but to explain the reasons why I found this drama disappointing despite liking it in the beginning I can't help but refer to parts and details of the show. Therefore, if you haven’t watched the drama yet, you may want to skip this long review.From the very beginning, my interest focused solely on the sentimental dynamics of the two main leads. I wanted to find out when and above all how the love that had evidently led them to marriage had turned into total indifference or even hatred. I found all the rest kind of redundant and started FF very early on.
At first, the most problematic character from a narrative point of view was undoubtedly Baek Hyun Woo. He can no longer stand his wife or her family and so far no one can blame him. However, a normal couple would at least try to discuss it, or quarrel about it, but Hyun Woo's tactic is to turn away and go sob in some corner alone. If, like me, you are hoping for at least one outburst of anger or passionate frustration, it is better to find a corner where we too can go and sob alone, because turning their backs on problems is the recurring pattern, regardless of the characters involved. Bar the volcanic aunt, that is.
When the terminal illness bomb is dropped, Baek Hyun Woo's reaction is: surprise, hug with declaration of love followed closely by relief of being able to escape the marriage without consequences. Am I supposed to find this funny? Only two scenarios are possible: either he has never stopped loving her and his hatred is just the other face of the love coin, or the contempt is real and we are left with a husband actively rejoicing in his wife’s untimely demise.
Hae-In's character is fleshed out a little better. Despite her apparent indifference towards her husband, on several occasions she highlights his intelligence and professional ability, thus proving proud of him. It is easier for the viewer to understand why she chose this man for her husband. It's a shame that instead of continuing along this line, the screenwriter prefers to introduce the usual K-drama banalities: "you're beautiful, you're sexy, I'm jealous of anyone who breathes, don't let anyone look at you, wear a burqa, blah, blah."
Given all these premises, I would have expected a much more passionate sentimental dynamic and not two spouses who obviously shared a bed at some point but whose simplest touch appears now unnatural. For the first four or five episodes, we see Hae-In trying to get closer to him physically and him backing away or denying himself as if he feared contagion. The absurdity is stretched to the point that Hae-In asks her secretary whether it is normal for a wife to be physically attracted to her husband, to which the “wise” secretary decrees this woman must be clinically crazy. What universe are we in?
Suddenly though, we are told that the love between them is the deepest in the cosmos and we have to take that for granted without further questions or explanation.
The pace of the entire narrative is fluctuating. It alternates poignant, almost lyrical moments with others full of completely irrelevant events, apples or pears and over-the-top, frankly irritating characters. The male lead's sister and her gossiping clients, anyone? Not to mention the family who arrives with 4 helicopters at the hunting lodge - not even the royals of England - the bad guy who does whatever he likes without consequences or control, the self-made patriarch who lets himself be fooled by a greedy prune of a woman and this last who goes around with a bevy of bodyguards/minions in tow like the queen of Joseon with her eunuchs.
When all this is said and done, what annoys me the most is the repeated trick of giving us a cliff-hanger of paramount importance at the end of every episode, only to start the next with either a flashback of the past or a conclusion to said cliff-hanger that is deflating my expectations at best or insulting my intelligence at worst. A few examples [very spoilery]
- Ominous press conference with the whole of South Korea gathered, Hae-In shocks everyone not only by revealing her illness, but also exposing the villain’s threats and manipulations to the world, even claiming she has recorded evidence of it. Fantastic! Next episode: the villain is still strolling the Queen’s corridors without a soul questioning him or the press dedicating a line to his involvement. Where did the recorded evidence go?
- Hae-In gets in the car with the what’s-his-name villain thinking he is Hyun Woo. The whole sequence is truly well made, giving the audience small but undeniable hints and a suspenseful car chase until Hae In finally realizes her mistake. End of episode. Here I am all excited at the prospect of a true confrontation, but the next episode Hae In coldly informs her husband she will go along with Villain to visit grandpa and Hyun Woo makes no objection. What? Cliff-hanger over, as well as my sanity.
- Grampa made a panic room built somewhere inside the family mansion, but he didn’t see it fit to tell anyone, which clearly defeats the object of a panic room. I’m still laughing out loud at a friend envisioning a bunch of criminals breaking in and the family dying of panic attacks because they can’t find the panic room. Remember, this is the same distrustful and overly cautious patriarch who made an unrelated woman his tutor without ever checking her true credentials. One wonders how he made all that money… So we have this suspenseful scene in which the family descends into the room via an elevator and Hyun Woo immediately gets the trick. How? You think they are going to tell you the next episode? Guess what: no.
There are other instances of logic defeating situations, but unless you like to be spoilt you have already watched the drama and know exactly what I’m talking about. They have crammed a gazillion open threads to be finally knotted back in the last two episodes, and yet they still find the damn time to introduce new, totally useless, eczema inducing characters, a murder mystery, a trial and a good 10 minutes’ village party with quacks and barks. I promise you, I almost got that eczema.
In conclusion, since the plot has got more holes than Swiss cheese and clichés abound, I watched and completed this drama because of the main leads. Alas, more often than not they disappointed me too: they never felt real as a couple of adults, despite their roles as individual characters being brilliantly acted. There isn’t a mutual alchemy between them, no sparks flying around: they exist as individuals who happen to repeat they love each other ad nauseam. There is no real in-depth conversation between them: why didn’t it work? When did we start to drift apart? Let’s be honest; if you don’t clear up the misunderstandings, they are definitely going to be repeated, no matter how many times you’re shot, driven over by a car, get tumours, surgeries or whatever catastrophe a scriptwriter can come up with.
There’s a beautiful dialogue sometime by the middle in which Hyun Woo comments: “what if we had applied a balm on our wounds every time we hurt each other in the past? How would our marriage be now?” That was such a wonderful cue, the type of conversation I would expect from an adult couple in a crisis. But what does Hae In reply to that? “No, we should have stopped by the ice-cream and put an end to our relationship then and there. We wouldn’t be in this situation now.” What kind of superficial, immature response is that?
Better we were never born, so we wouldn’t be suffering now, sort of clever philosophy.
I decided early on that I would add one point to the drama if they made Hae In and Hyun Woo finally sit down and address the elephant in the room: October 31. As it stands, the drama gets one point less for turning a promising story of healing into a buffoonish makjang.
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I truly loved this show. It's a mixture of Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle, Ellery Queen and Philip Marlow, all made into a hilarious parody.
The great "Meitantei", brilliantly portrayed by Matsuda Shota, is a cocktail of silly arrogance, childish mistakes and misgivings, yet he's got brain and you can't help but like him a lot through all his naive traits.
The older policeman is a sort of "deus ex machina", who understands the needs of the dramatic process and explains it to his collegues and, in so doing, to the viewers.
Kashii Yu does a great job in picturing the only clear headed character in the story, who eventually learns to follow the rules, not those of the real investigation but the ones that create a detective story.
This show has to be viewed on different levels: the plot itself and the sub-plot, which is "how is a classic detective story created?".
I enjoyed the music too. Just like the situations portrayed, it mimics the pathos always found in thriller stories and makes it all the funnier.
Not to spoil but to encourage, let me add that the finale is brilliant; it will either leave you completely perplexed or you will laugh out loud and be left with a grin on your face, as I was.
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This is so annoying, and so sad.
Like everyone before me already pointed out, the lead actors did a brilliant job here. They are so natural together, it's a pleasure to watch them interact.
But even cute has its limit, at least for me. I didn't know of the writer switch until the last episode, but the difference was evident. What used to be a quirky, funny, sweet and sexy script suddenly turned into a sugary, childish, cutie cute one, with these two chirping to each other for the duration of six, never-ending episodes.
When mutual love has been loudly declared, the lie has come into the open, the antagonists are out of the games, what is left in terms of expectations? Who cares what they eat and when or how many times they hold hands?
Somehow, they used all their good cards at the beginning of the game, only to drag it with uninteresting little scenes till the end. By the third ice-cream I was ready to smear it on the face of the director.
Also, I was left wondering what happened to the majority of the characters? Were they sucked into some drama black hole, or sent en masse to Paris where they are happily eating escargots?
The music was somehow schizophrenic. At the beginning I though it was horrid, with those very childish pop songs used at every turn. Then it improved a lot, it became more varied and able to enhance the feelings. At times it was hilariously chosen. Then it changed again and became a simple background sound, which I forgot a few minutes after it was played.
Re-watch value is obviously low, unless something heavy hits me on the head and I think this drama's only got 11 episodes.
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I am currently punishing myself for having surrendered to curiosity and approached it in a moment of bad impulse. It doesn't help that I had nothing better to do, because it managed to turn me from lazily content to furious.
The plot is a butchery of the original story. What they have done is take a very uncommon, extra-ordinary, even controversial plot and randomly cut it like Edward Scissorhands gone completely mad.
Let's have a look at who those characters should be - in the mind of the Japanese author: Sumire is a cold, measured, prim career woman who's incapable of opening to anyone. Her loneliness is so much a choice as it is her condemnation. Momo is a young man with talent who stopped loving himself, all instinct and childlike/petlike sweetness. The encounter of these two world-apart people is indeed that of an owner and her pet, while the epilogue is the growth of both as people. Kimi Wa Petto explained why and how Momo is the only one capable of drawing out Sumire's need to give love and why Sumire's the perfect choice to make him finally reconcile with who he is.
This movie takes out every trace of insightful characterization and leaves us with a badly edited huge fluff. It makes those who have seen the drama - like me - bitterly disappointed and those who haven't puzzled, when not disturbed by the concept of a barfing man.
The cast does not save the day. I wonder if they have taken the time to read the manga, or watch the drama to at least understand who these characters are. Perhaps it isn't fair to ascribe this to the actors, but I couldn't help comparing the sober elegance of Koyuki with the frilly style - so out of character - of Kim Ha Neul. And while Matsujun was a very convincing pet, Jang Geun Suk is an embarrassing pantomime of one. The dance is the icing on the cake: the beautiful, well danced modern ballet in KWP morphed here into a crazy grass-hopping. Humph.
In conclusion, I recommend this movie to nobody.
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In order to be fair, I have to give this drama what is its due. Script, acting, direction, music are VERY good. The script is downright brilliant, with many lines worth of being quoted. Kim Sun Ah is fantastic: self-ironic, convincing, funny and determined. Hyun Bin has to portray a distasteful character, and does so with a seemingly effortless performance. All the side characters are wonderfully characterized and likable.
The music is perfectly chosen too, with just the right mixture of irony and pathos-building required by the story.
But I also have to be honest. And to do so I have to admit I didn't like this drama. I spent more time cringing and shivering in embarrassment than laughing or falling in love.
Each character is unique and wonderfully portrayed, but for the duration of 16 episodes I kept on asking myself: why? Why should these two like each other?
When I watch a drama and instead of rooting for the main couple I concentrate on the scenery, the cake, the old mother or the child it means something is wrong, at least for me. And when the first kiss doesn't make me smile in delight, something is even more wrong.
I could never feel sympathy for Sam Soon & Jin Heon. Not as a couple. By the middle I was terribly annoyed by both: by him because he couldn't be a man and decide; by her because she slowly morphed from the anti-conventional woman she used to be into a sort of human ivy, spying on her "man", shouting too much, crying too much, asking for rings, declarations and all the most conventional paraphernalia attached to your usual relationship. Had I been the man in the situation, I would have flown to Mars in order to escape the torture.
Possibly, the acting is too good: had the characters been more wooden or less expressive, I would have felt nothing for them and had had no reason to cringe. How ironic is this?
To summarize: I believe a review has to be fair. When confronted with a good show/movie/book/painting one has to be objective and recognize its value. This is why I gave it an overall 8 when, on a mere emotional and personal level, I would barely have given it a 6.
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