STORY: Simplistic and overdone. That being said, the drama didn't try to be more than it was. The story mainly revolved around the leads' love story, and that's really what made the drama worth watching. It was awesome seeing Singh go from the tough guy to an adorable little cinnamon roll. Mew's character was good too, and it was nice to finally have a heroine who will actually stand up for herself once in a while.
ACTING/CAST: Nadech stole the lakorn easily. He was so hot as Singh; seeing him play a sexy guy instead of a goody-two shoes made my life.
Mew did a great job with what she was given. Her character didn't have much depth, though. I was pleasantly surpirised at how great the chemistry between Nadech and Mew was. A lot of it was he height difference... Mew is so tiny compared to Nadech, but they were honestly couple goals in this drama.
The side characters overacted as usual, but they were funny and kept the lakorn lightm
MUSIC: Nothing amazing, but the theme was good and blended well with the drama.
REWATCH VALUE: I'd rewatch for the couole scenes and skip through the rest of the plot. But I'd watch it again.
This drama is for lakorn lovers who love a good romance but don't want to have to endure the usual emotional rollercoaster. The lakorn is logical and doesn't fall into the usual stereotypes with the leads breaking up because they think one is lying or because they believe the evil girl, etc.
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The cast is so good and the chemistry, i think i fell in love with the guy so handsome ???????????? i want moore of this lakorns.
If you are very fond of kdramas pls dont hesitate to watch this lakorn a very masterpiece drama of all time. I hope it will be aired on my country's national television abscbn or gma network
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STORY: Absolutely frustrating. I wanted to scream at every single character almost every time one of them opened their mouths. However, the plot was well-paced and was not over or underdone. Such a dramatic plot is very easy to go overboard with, but the writers knew exactly which buttons to press to get our emotions riled up, and then left the story alone. I personally was a little disappointed with the conclusion because it felt foreign compared to the rest of the drama, but it wrapped things up fairly well.
For the couplings, I was super invested in Piak and Chaiyan and Sathit and Jee, but I felt that Dao and Jade were superfluous. However, I rarely get invested in side couples, so it was mostly me.
ACTING/CAST: Yaya completely blew me away in this drama. I've seen almost all of her lakorns, and she's always been good, but WOW. Jee was a very complex character, and Yaya pulled it off like nobody's business. Yaya created a Jee who seems tough and cruel on the outside, but she's really a caring, vulnerable person on the inside who had to learn to defend herself.
Mark did a good job as well. I still felt didn't quite reconcile the different facets of Sathit's personality into one without appearing to have MPD. Sathit is obsessive, but he's also cute at times and a real gentleman. Mark did an adequate job, but in the last episode, I wondered if I was watching Sathit or some other character I didn't know about.
Louis was a sass king, as usual. I especially liked how he showed that Chaiyan wanted to blame Piak completely for their troubled marriage, but that Chaiyan was also to blame in part. Also, when Louis cried, it was so real... he's not the hero with perfect makeup making tears fall, but he's the real person crying, screwing up his face and trying to stop the tears from coming.
I love Toey, but her Piak made me want to throw my phone at the wall, which was kinda the whole point of her character. Well done, Toey.
MUSIC: Lovely. It varies, which is something they usually struggle with in dramas. The music was passionate and dramatic, but also cute and loving. Pretty sure the same people who wrote the msuic for Piang Chai Kon Nee Mai Chai Poo Wised wrote the music for this one.
REWATCH VALUE: It took me a year, but I rewatched this one all the way through. I thought it was actually better the second time through, because I already had the story, so I could pay more attention to the actual characters and such.
Overall, this drama is for those who love drama and angst. If you don't look elsewhere. It's frustrating and will make you ugly cry, but the drama really is very touching and will give you hope that true love might actually exist.
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The movie will makes you think about the decision you made in life, be it in the past, present or future. It will make you think and recall what you have done and choose and the result of that decision will it be right/wrong and was it the right decision.
Standing aside, the movie is kinda flat and most of the movie time will not keep you on the edge of your seat.
Overall, the movie is worth watching for the 1st time and that’s it. But I think some of you will not like it due to not watching at the cinema because I think that the sound and the device that will be playing the movie plays a big part.
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I was eager to see what the other classes at Zhen Hua High School were up to. At the beginning of the drama, we are introduced to a large roster of new characters and I have to admit initially I was a bit worried that they bit off more than they could chew. However, I should have known better than to doubt this production team.
What I love most about both "With You" and "My Huckleberry Friends" is the attention and time they afford to each character whether main or supporting. As the drama says, every person is the main lead of their own story. That means all the characters will experience highs and lows. No matter how "big" or "small" the issue, all of their problems were treated with the respect they deserved. As a result, even when characters that weren't featured heavily throughout the drama had a moment of success/triumph, I couldn't help but be moved as well. Similarly, some characters also experienced setbacks and failures and I was able to sympathize with them. But these hardships/struggles also serve as learning experiences so that we can better ourselves. No one can predict if our past struggles will net us the result we want in the end. However, in the process, we will become better versions of ourselves with fond memories that we can look back on. As a result, we should cherish our past not mourn it.
I also like how Zhen Hua feels like a community made up of individuals that genuinely care about one another. Even though Zhen Hua is an elite school, students go out of their way to help each other if they see someone is struggling even if that means a student might surpass them in ranking. The students try to be inclusive and take notice of each other's strengths in order to help each other achieve their dreams. Sometimes we forget that school isn't just about learning different subjects/earning grades but also learning how to socialize/interact with people who may have different personalities, interests, dreams and so on. Ideally, you shouldn't have to choose a major/university only because you think you'll get a good job from it and your job/career shouldn't solely define who you are as a person. Instead, you should be able to pursue something that genuinely interests you so that you'll be more invested in what you're learning. Unfortunately, this isn't a realistic option for most people. But there will be a courageous (and lucky) few who will buck the trend and go after their dreams however impossible they may seem because when you're young, the possibilities of what you can be seem endless.
One of the main messages that both "With You" and "My Huckleberry Friends" promotes is being yourself. This also means discovering who you are in the process. For some people, high school is the time when you start to think about your place in society and how you'll contribute to it. Some of the characters in both dramas, select their majors because their friends/crush have chosen that major or have been pushed into choosing it by their parents. It's important to explore a variety of options to find what suits you the most. That is how you'll contribute to society but your interactions with other students/teachers/parents and how you conduct yourselves will determine who you are as a person. If you want other students to be more kind, to be more understanding/empathetic, you should lead by example. Be the change you want to see. I think it's great that the teachers are portrayed encouraging this type of behavior and that they understand the youth are the future.
One of the main differences between "With You" and "My Huckleberry Friends" is the greater emphasis placed on the students life outside of the school's walls in MHF and how those factors inform what kind of student they are at school. Social status, high expectations from parents, personal trauma are just some of the issues that are examined in this drama. We also see the students bond over shared interests such as Anime/manga, basketball, music, movies as a way for them to relieve their stress and temporarily escape the harshness of their current realities. Those interests will bring them together but their shared experiences will bond them for a lifetime.
Honestly, if I had to choose between "With You" and "My Huckleberry Friends", I wouldn't be able to. I feel that they both complement one another so well and together should be counted as one of the definitive representations of youth and the growing pains associated with it.
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The heroine is a spoilt one and the actress is awesome in her role...super hot and cute. The hero is gr8 as well. Their chemistry is off the charts...no kisses at all yet I finished it, bcoz lord there were some cosy scenes and they were incredible.
I loved the leads and the mean kiddo second lead/villian...he was soo cute trying to be mean....
This drama is worth a watch totally.
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Plot:
Now usually I need a lot of romance in dramas to give my brain a break from any complicated plot lines or heavy subjects but with this one it was hardly needed. Just the deep, beautiful connection that Gil Dong had with his immediate family and his group was enough for me. Don't get me wrong, the relationship that developed slowly between Gil Dong and Ga Ryeong was so touching and realistic.
Anyway, with sageuks, I usually get very frustrated with the plot as there is always so many lies and misunderstandings that I just flip the table over in anger. However, that was not the case with Rebel. Everything was just so perfectly spread out and well paced that I didn't get the chance to get frustrated because I was distracted with Gyun Sang's beautiful face and some damn heart wrenching scenes (there may have perhaps been one or two moments when slight frustration bubbled up in my heart but they were so insignificant that I didn't bother including them in my overall rating). DO NOT BE PUT OFF BY THE NUMBER OF EPISODES, TRUST ME. Also, this drama was incredibly well written. There was so much emotion and deeper meaning to everything that was said, all linking to the same idea of justice and respect for everyone, no matter what class they are. Of course, these lines would not have been as substantial if not for the incredible performances of each and every actor involved.
Acting:
My god. There is nothing bad I can say about the acting. Everyone brought their own magical piece which all fit together to form the beautiful jigsaw that is Rebel. This drama would not be the quality it is without the amazingly talented cast. Damn I feel like I'm going to cry again just thinking about their performances. It takes serious talent to keep an audience entertained for 30 episodes, all lasting an hour each. IT IS SO WORTH IT! This may be one of the longest dramas I have watched and even dramas that have been just 16 episodes long have not kept me as invested as this one. Honestly, just watch it, it will raise the bar for sageuks so high it'll be hard to beat.
Music:
For me, the song that stood out the most was Nightly Rain by Jambinai (feat. Park Min Hee). This song was so beautiful and so well placed in the drama that honestly whenever I listen to it I cry without fail.
Rewatch Value:
I know this might seem like a low score even though I've just sang immense praises for the drama. But for me personally, I don't have the time to invest 30+ hours into a drama (though I wish I did). So it is unlikely that I will watch it all again.
Overall:
An amazing drama. It will take me a while to get over this one. Other sageuks that I loved were Faith and Gu Family Book. They were (slightly) shorter than this one which many of you will probably prefer but please watch this drama, it deserves so much more recognition.
Thanks for reading, here's to another great year of dramas in 2018!
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The setting makes it interesting, yes people locked in a room and they don't know why. The characters are wondering why and so are the viewers but that's all it was. Perhaps the first 3 - 4 episodes were okay. We had questions and we got some answers but further on in the show you just kept getting questions and the answers seemed to be just more questions. This is what happens with thrillers / suspense though. Something with single room / locked room settings requires more psychological torture. I wanted more chaos.
The acting was not too great. Some had potential and the rest... :S Sometimes music came on and you could feel that they were forcing on a scene. It did not feel natural. They dragged out moments with repetition and bad acting and then when emotional scenes came up, it just felt out of place because they either needed to explain why it should be upsetting or the music felt extremly forced. I'm sure with decent acting, even in silence you could understand whether a scene should be sad or not.
I would not rewatch this. I completed it because I wanted answers and I regret I even watched it because I feel like I wasted my time. I could see where they wanted to go with this but it could've been better. I was frustrated and felt like 12 episodes could've been cut to 8.
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This review may contain spoilers
This drama is totally awesome !!!!! It's so fun to watch, and it may be very cringe but is resistible .You will fall in love with the characters and with the actors at first sight . The story is absolutely beautiful and the love story of the main characters is super duper awesome . I loved this story because the main's character personality is really similar to mine ( referring to the tomboy/sporty girl style) .
!!!!!!!( SPOILERSSSS) I really loved how they were actually friends from childhood and they didn't realize it until they had a really awkward moment and he started calling her " Fatty" .
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I've already seen the original AnoHana anime series back when it came out in 2011 and I also watch this recap/after story movie as well and I have to say they both had absolutely fantastic story telling, however, I felt like generally the anime versions weren't nearly as emotional than what I felt while watching this live action adaption here. Sure, it had it's issues since the pacing felt a little off at times and they had to shorten some things in order to make everything important into the movie, but that was honestly a good thing. When I watched the anime version, the episodic format of that series had felt way too limiting as well for me, like since the story has been splitt up into mutiple episodes, some emotional events that took place didn't feel as serious since it has been"so long" since they last mentioned some important key plot development in an earlier episode if anyone knows what I mean.
Having this whole story as it's own movie that captivates it's viewers from the beginning til the very end is definitely the best format to tell this absolutely fantastic story about childhood and how children cope with their friend's dead over the years. People that have very strong opinions about the original anime may be displeased about some changes they had to do in order to make this story appear more realistically, but exactly the additional realism that this adaption provided is the very reason why I think it's the best version of AnoHana. Nothing is more emotional to see real people's sad faces full with tears as even though they are just acting there, I do believe this story speaks to you in an ever deeper emotional level out of pure instinct.
And speaking of the acting, I also have to say that the actors were absolutely fantastic as well! Probably one of the most disliked aspects of live action adaptions are the way the actors look, since either they try to make them look way too much like their anime counter parts and it looks absolutely horrible since... well, nobody normal in real life looks like an anime character, or they don't even try to make the characters look similar to how they looked like in the original and people feel no connection to the story that they already love. This time however, I genuinely believe that they couldn't have found better actors for each of their positions! Only one character looks drastically different than in the anime since her hair color used to be white and in this version brown, but that's definintely a good decision since white hair would simply look weird and not really relatable to someone in their person life for most of the audience.
So yeah, if you go into this movie open minded and don't compare everything to it's original all the time, trust me, you will definitely have an awesome time and an awesome experience to live through this fantastic story once again! Just don't be too elitistic about it :)
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This review may contain spoilers
It's not often that I write a review. Not even for movies i've seen multiple times. This turned out to be a movie that screams "write a review for me!" It's that good.If you're into the suspense thriller genre that is...
When you go by the summary of the movie, you might think that it's just an abduction/family movie. I personally thought something down the lines of someone getting plastic surgery to invade the family and do something... I don't know. I'm happy it wasn't what I had in mind. It was so much better.
At the first half of the movie, you're slowly sucked into the story and the events happening to/around Jin Seok, and you think you sort of get what's happening or what is about to happen and then the second half of the movie kicks you all the way back. What you thought was happening, isn't happening at all. It surprised and intrigued me even further. Although, to be fair, when the second half of the movie started and they started to explain the events to you, I got bored for a few minutes. Gone was the suspense and the mystery. Just to start back up again. AND kick you in the gut with the ending. It's hard not to give any spoilers.
Anyways, before I digress. If you look closely in the first half, you get a few hints here and there that will give you an "Ah-ha!" moment later on, if you saw them. I didn't think much of them at first, until i went back to look at it again. There were a few major "Ah-Ha!" moments for me. And even though I didn't expect it at first, I cried during the last 20 minutes of the film. So yes, I would definitely recommend watching this.
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Sunny is all about the feeling of nostalgia done right, it's not depressing in any way despite the circumstances some of the characters find themselves in. It’s full of heartwarming moments between a group of girls who are trying to survive as one, in a period of violence and repression (the 70s and 80s in Korea), but also the same group of girls who are trying to bring back that lost solidarity in the modern world where all of them are going through some sort of personal crisis. The story jumps from the present to the past, but the transitions are done so smoothly and cleverly that it won't feel out of the place, in fact, I could say that this is one of the best transitions I've seen in Korean Cinema.
Moving on to the actresses and actors, They all did a brilliant job, and I would like to thank the casting director who did a wonderful job at choosing Kang So-Ra to play the younger self of Ha Chun-Hwa while Jin Hee-Kyung to play the adult version, that hair is on point! Beautiful!
Apart from my obsession with hair, I loved this movie for its use of comedy in places where one might say that comedy is not suitable, for example, the scene where our girls and a rival gang have a fight at the same place where the police are busy crushing a group of anti-government activists. This is definitely one of my favorites because there, for a moment, I did not see a difference between a group of teenage girls fighting to a group of adult men fighting, both parties are driven by almost the same reason, which is to the gain upper hand or in other words power.
These are just a few examples to why I love this movie so much, and although the plot itself might not be perfect (there were some unexplained potholes that kept me wondering for some time) but if you ignore those, this is a rich coming-to-age movie that celebrates girl friendship, and girl power. Honestly, it’s a reminder for all us girls, to value the friendship that thrives through hardships in life because often media portray girl friendships as weak and fragile which we sometimes tend to believe in, but that’s not entirely true. Sunny is a reminder that female friendship can indeed be something beautiful.
Bonus points for all the 70s and 80s pop songs!
‘Sunny’ by Boney M and ‘Touch By Touch’ by Joy are some of my favorites!
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I recommend the movie for non homophobic people.
The love scenes leaves and the cinematography gives the impression watching real story. I loved that side to the movie.
The OST wasn't something special, in fact the moments without background music were more effective for the story.
The plot was a sample and commercial till one moment after that story got really unexpected turnover of the turnover.
The acting was good. It wasn't spectacular, but the gay roles are usualy hard to play, so i would say the main actors did really good.
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