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  • Laatst online: 41 minuten geleden
  • Plaats: Eeyew....
  • Contribution Points: 6 LV1
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  • toetreden op: januari 8, 2024
  • Awards Received: Flower Award3
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Bedmate or Bad Mate
0 mensen vonden deze beoordeling nuttig
met Shasha
aug 22, 2024
10 van 10
Voltooid 0
Geheel 8.0
Verhaal 7.0
Acting/Cast 7.0
Muziek 9.5
Rewatch Waarde 6.5
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Discovering yourself

Bedmate or Bad Mate is a fun little taiwanese bl web drama. I watched the 90min edit on youtube (easier than going through 10 episodes full of BTS footage!). It is obviously a low budget production but what they lack in funds is more than enough compensated by their enthusiasm.

The story is cute though it uses many familiar tropes: best friends to lovers, gay man in love with a straight one, but also "only gay for you but otherwise straight", seme/uke height difference etc. etc. which I thought were things of the past. Their cohabitation was fun to watch, their bickering cute. The straight guy's confusion about his feelings towards his best friend and how he tries to sort it out by talking to customers in a gay bar was hilarious. There were also scenes filmed during Gay Pride parade in Taipei and I was struck by the fact that these two actors looked the most "cliché gay" wearing costumes in the part of the crowd where they filmed.

I could not find out anything about the actors but I did not watch BTS so maybe it is mentioned there though not necessarily translated: I don't know, I am not interested in BTS....I would like to know also if this was based on a webtoon because it seems to be the case judging from the images on their youtube channel.

In conclusion, a short, cute & fun watch.

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The Count of Monte-Cristo: Great Revenge
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met Shasha
aug 17, 2024
9 van 9
Voltooid 0
Geheel 7.0
Verhaal 9.0
Acting/Cast 9.0
Muziek 8.5
Rewatch Waarde 2.0
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Devil is in the details!

While watching the last episode, it had all of a sudden dawned to me: every single makjang that has ever been made originates in The Count of Monte Cristo. Just like Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice is the blueprint for every enemies to lovers romcom ever made (and Darcy is the original tsundere heartthrob!), Dumas' Monte Cristo is the same for the revenge dramas!

The book is a classic I read many times. I have also seen many adaptations for cinema and tv. So I wondered if the japanese would manage to give it that particular japanese flavour. Unfortunately, they failed in this.

They faithfully follow the major plot points and that's what is wrong with this adaptation: it is not japanese enough. The first thing I found grating was the name: Monte Cristo. Why did they keep it? That name passes all right in Europe but it sounds
weird in Asia.

The next was the fake country and a terrorist organization. And even though I enjoyed immensely the first episode, the terrorists and then finally the name managed to make me completely lose interest.

Another huge problem were the subs which, from the episode 5 to the end, were badly timed and showed up before the characters spoke or even appeared.

The pacing of the drama was also off: too fast but at the same time too slow, too much time spent on certain characters (like crazy wives) and not enough on others (Dan and Airi). On the other hand they successfully managed to transpose the 19th century story to modern world. The actors were exceptional, Dean Fujioka was the best by far and his transformation from the happy go lucky fishermen to a cynical billionaire was amazing. And he sings!

You know when you watch a piece of fiction, the question is not whether the story is true but whether they managed to make it so believable it sounds true. Here they failed completely and only because of a few details they did not but should have changed.

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Blue Boys Part 2
0 mensen vonden deze beoordeling nuttig
met Shasha
aug 13, 2024
4 van 4
Voltooid 0
Geheel 8.0
Verhaal 6.5
Acting/Cast 5.5
Muziek 2.0
Rewatch Waarde 3.0
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Fear girl & temptation guy

We all know that there is one thing that is next to impossible to see in korean dramas, in particular, korean BLs : real kisses. Oh boy, and do they go for it here!
I watched the free, cut version on youtube. If the uncut version has more explicit NC scenes, I refuse to pay for it because those scenes most of the time add nothing to the plot. As we have seen with many recent thai bls, excessive NC content is not the recipe for a good drama. People fall for it a few times but then afterwards, when they'd finished being titillated, they want some other content (i.e. a story, solid writing and acting!) beside shiny abs. At least, I do!

Blue Boys is a drama about two high school friends NamYi and JaeMin who reconnect as adults. The sparks fly and they start dating. But the honeymoon period is of short duration when and wannabee girlfriend scares one of them off. As soon as they make up, there is a temptation in the shape of another man. Throughout the drama, they keep getting together and then breaking up mainly because of JaeMin and his lack of trust and self confidence.

This short web drama is a typical korean fare: low budget which shows. No cinematography to speak of (cold colours, classical feel: though on second thought, it might be on purpose since the title has blue in it!), sound recorded in a cave (echo is terrible in the scenes filmed inside), no extras. Only when they film scenes outdoors, the feeling is mellower.

As for the writing: the background story of characters is missing. We know next to nothing about where they come from except that one is rich and the other one poor (though he has a Mac laptop, keeps sitting in cafés and never seem to work in order to pay for his nice flat!). Well, I think that we are not supposed to think of all those details but when the plot (wannabee girlfriend blackmailing) insists upon it, it is somehow hard to do it. The topic of the drama is the first gay love: one man has only dated girls so far while the other one has not dated anyone yet.

The biggest problem this drama has are the bad, bad subs. I had to rewatch the second episode a couple of times because the phone conversation makes zero sense. Another translation made everything look extremely creepy: NamYi wrote an article for his blog about the first gay experience and he called his partner a child, as translated by the production. That could not be any worse as a translation in this context. I was just happy not to have paid for the VIP membership: with such horrible subs, I would have regretted it for a long time.

The temptation guy, TaeHa is the star of his own BL: Bad Guy.

The rest was correct: the actors had correct chemistry, the acting was correct, the two side characters suspicious from the get go. A typical korean web drama just a bl. Not bad but memorable only for those sincere kisses which earned them an added point in my ratings. It is short and watchable. Go for it without any expectations, and you'll spend 90 min resting !

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Bad Guy
0 mensen vonden deze beoordeling nuttig
met Shasha
aug 9, 2024
4 van 4
Voltooid 0
Geheel 7.5
Verhaal 8.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Muziek 8.0
Rewatch Waarde 5.0
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Exes with a future?

Do you want to be yourself or do you want to fit into little boxes as decided by the society? That is the conundrum Tae Ha faces. On the cusp of getting married, he contacts his ex boyfriend to let him know about it. But that is just an excuse: he is obviously forcing himself to be someone else and that is taking a toll on him. Meeting Jiwoon makes that crystal clear and he cannot stay away from him any more. He breaks off the engagement but that is not without consequences: his fiancée knew everything about his past and was testing him by meeting his ex.

No matter how many BLs and lgbt themed films and dramas asian countries produce, they are definitely not the best indicator of how tolerant and accepting the society really is. I'd guess that there are many in real life like Tae Ha, who is the prime example of such a man: lost between his real yearnings and the instilled notions of what is really acceptable. This is actually a tragic tale: even though they do end up together, the ex fiancées threats promise to wreak havoc in their lives. You know what they say: "Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned!". The ending can be considered open: either they get to live happily ever after or the ex make their lives a living hell (which is easy in the society they live in!) and they end up giving up. We do not know!

I watched this as a compilation on the producer's youtube channel without the18+scenes and frankly they are not necessary. The actors start kissing and then cut to the next morning with them sleeping in the same bed. The rest is left to imagination and most of the time, it is for the best. The make out scenes bring absolutely nothing to the plot since we know they slept together. The only jarring thing I noticed is that they slept fully dressed the morning after: I mean, one guy slept with jeans and a belt on. It must have been really uncomfortable and it made for a less convincing "we spent the night together" kind of vibe!

The actors were good and have decent chemistry. I just could not stop looking at Luke Park, the actor playing JiWoon, who beside excellent acting skills has the straightest and the finest nose I've ever noticed. Production values are the usual korean web drama style: empty sets and hollow sounds but the acting and the writing were good so it kind of balances out.

Who is the bad guy here? Is it TaeHa selfishly looking for his ex boyfriend and subsequently breaking off the engagement? Or is it Ji Woon who cannot or does not want to say NO to his ex? Or maybe both? Probably both on a different level. But still, both...

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The Rebound
0 mensen vonden deze beoordeling nuttig
met Shasha
aug 7, 2024
12 van 12
Voltooid 0
Geheel 7.5
Verhaal 7.0
Acting/Cast 9.0
Muziek 9.0
Rewatch Waarde 4.0
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Basketball is so...2022 BL!

I wish I knew why I like Meen and Ping so much that I am willing to gobble up every bad drama they make with a huge smile. And ask for more! I fell for them in their first outing Ai Long Nhai which surprised me with unusual characters: Meen's was unapologetically adult and open while Ping's was cute and deceptively immature without being a doormat as ukes usually are! Through their subsequent two dramas they kept the characters just changed the setting (mafia, high school).

What I liked:
- the chemistry
- the players especially being supportive of Shogun
- the grandma
- the original title song which was so different from the usual funky fare
- basketball games particularly with the imaginary ball
- the poor third wheel Atom
- unrequited love by Que
- cinematography: urban landscapes and the rain were breathtakingly raw!

What I did not like:
- the setting: why high school and not the university: it would have made for a better drama
- mountains of plotholes and illogical events (they have money for the big houses and the latest flip phones but are struggling financially and need scholarships?!?)
- Lin: annoying busybody
- the mother: I still think she's the villain behind everything
- gay basketball mafia clan
- ridiculous last scene

Apparently there are more thing that I liked than those I did not but what I liked are just the details. The biggest problem is the writing which is all over the place. This is a kind of drama you watch while doing something else, stop to look at Ping's puppy eyes and sweet smile and basketball games for a couple of minutes and then go back to doing something else while this is playing in the background! It still is a fun summer watch....

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My Boss, My Hero
0 mensen vonden deze beoordeling nuttig
met Shasha
aug 5, 2024
10 van 10
Voltooid 0
Geheel 6.0
Verhaal 8.0
Acting/Cast 6.0
Muziek 8.0
Rewatch Waarde 1.5
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Pudding loving yakuza idiot boss

Well, I never expected to finish this since I almost dropped it 10min into the first episode. But my laziness got the better of me and I forced myself to finish the first episode. Before I knew it I was at episode 5, enjoying the drama a lot. And then suddenly, I was bored and annoyed....

The plot is original: a 27yr old yakuza heir, more brawn than brains, is forced back to high school. He has to pretend to be 17 and he has to graduate. I liked this premise and once the school started, it was fun and interesting to watch. The events moved forward very quickly, a bit too quickly sometimes. I found the pacing off. So much so, I lost interest in the second half because of the repetitiveness and the overacting.

The best part of this drama is the cast of secondary, support characters: the gardening aficionado school principal, the embroidery aficionado yakuza, the mysterious nurse uttering the words of wisdom and, of course, a whole classroom full of different types of characters.

The worst part of this drama is the main lead. I don't know if he was written like this or if this was the interpretation by the director and actor but he was just awfully overacting. I have to give it to the actor, he has incredible facial muscles and his jaw moves in mysterious ways. The mafia voice, the grimacing and the jumping around is worth of the best manga adaptation. Apparently this is not one of those. Still, they used many of the manga tropes. The actor, when he stops making faces, is so handsome, to die for. But those goggly eyes, twisted mouth, protruding jaw were weird. What I find the most incomprehensible, is that nobody found his jumpy, grimacing behaviour strange and weird!
The burgeoning romance was cringy at best, completely lacking any chemistry but it helped to confirm the main character's lack of maturity: he is basically an unruly child in an adult's body. And even though he matures through learning, he reverts to his primal state every time he dons his yakuza attire.

The drama stresses the importance of education and how Makio, reluctant at the start, realizes the advantages good education can bring him as a yakuza boss but mostly as a person. The representation of yakuzas does not seem very credible. They mostly look like comedy relief characters in a comedy: ridiculous and, again, over the top with their special salutations and costumes (black suits gang vs. hawaiian shirts gang). The most ordinary looking were finally the kids bringign a sort of balance to the outrageous comedy. Which I did not find funny. At all!

I liked the pudding though I was shocked that a school would not order enough for all who wanted it or allow its pupils to fight over it. Once they dropped the pudding from the plot, the drama somehow lost its flavour.

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Temptation of Eve
0 mensen vonden deze beoordeling nuttig
met Shasha
jul 19, 2024
4 van 4
Voltooid 0
Geheel 7.0
Verhaal 7.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Muziek 7.0
Rewatch Waarde 1.0
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Gritty, twisted and unapologetic!

I needed a drama for my Back To The Past challenge, and this one seemed interesting with the added bonus of being short.
Well, this was something different, definitely not what I expected to watch though when I found the first episode on a porn site, I should have started wondering.....

Thank you, ParkMin for the title: I borrowed it from your short and to the point comment!

Temptation of Eve is an OCN anthology series of four feature length (90min) independent erotic thrillers featuring stories about the fascination women provoke in men and the lengths the men are willing to go for them.

The Good Wife - a wheelchair bound man asks a friend to follow his wife, suspecting her of cheating.
Kiss - a photographer is intrigued by the strange behaviour of the new neighbours, suspecting abuse.
Her Own Technique - a plastic surgeon, valuing beauty above all, is fascinated by a woman with a perfect body and a butterfly tattoo.
Angel - a policeman investigates the murder of a plastic surgeon's husband.

The stories are all twisty, twisted, and nothing is what it seems at first glance. Each ends with an unexpected twist. Though after the shocking ending of the first episode, I was just waiting to see how they were going to bring the twist around in others. And it was a surprise every time. So the writing of the thriller element was definitely top notch.

Now that I finished the four stories, I am trying to decide whether the writers of these are women haters or if they admire them. Because here, the women are perfect gray characters, they have the upper hand they hide perfectly well, letting the men think they are being macho helpful and protective. Men on the other hand are the primal selves, out there doing everything they can to protect the woman, who is apparently weak, innocent and abused. Nothing is further from the truth, though! The women here are presented as smart, beautiful, independent, wilful and intriguing, manipulating the men by pretending to be weak females. Here, the men are stupid, comforted in their position as a dominant gender of the species and never doubting the women.
So, I'd say that the writers are in awe and admiration of women but are also afraid of them! Their writing skilfully balances on the thin line between misogyny and misandry. And we are all left feeling uncomfortable. Because the main male characters in each story are not bad or evil people, just stupid, gullible and who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time!

Women in these stories use sex to dissipate men's suspicions so there is a lot of love making and nudity here, though no full-frontal! Everything is tastefully filmed and is necessary for the stories since it shows how the women get to control the men., who in their presence behave like brainless idiots.

I watched this in low quality on ok.ru so I cannot say much about the cinematography, though some camera angles and play with shadows were interesting. The costumes and make up looked outdated. It was weird seeing all those flip phones but I liked the retro feel of not relying on mobiles as much as we do today.

Temptation of Eve is not for the faint of heart, nor for today's young adults: I can see them screaming at how not PC it is. I liked it though, exactly because of that: it shows the human nature the way it is in all its greyness, and not the way these young utopians would like it to be. So I would say this is for the 40+ crowd: no one younger should watch this: because if I started listing trigger warnings for them, it would take me a couple of hours!

Hell hath no fury as the woman scorned!

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And Yet, You Are So Sweet
0 mensen vonden deze beoordeling nuttig
met Shasha
jul 14, 2024
Voltooid 0
Geheel 7.0
Verhaal 7.0
Acting/Cast 7.0
Muziek 7.0
Rewatch Waarde 7.0
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Forgettable cutness and fluff

Well, this was ....watchable? A cute school romance, nothing more, nothing less. Unfortunately!

Maya is considered ugly in her school and when she confesses to her crush she is violently rejected. When the school heartthrob sees her unhappy, he offers to help her get over her crush by pretending to be in love with him. And it works better than they could have imagined!

First: Maya is not ugly. The actress is very pretty and I checked the manga as well, she is not ugly there either. So I guess my western eye cannot understand the japanese notions of beauty. Maya is rejected because she is considered ugly by a boy who is actually ugly: both inside and outside.
Second: it took me some time to understand the point of playing the unrequited love game with the school top popular boy. It was his a bit sneaky way to get her to know him better because he had already noticed her before and wanted to get closer to her. I found this very weird but then again teens are not known to have smart ideas when hormones are raging!
Third: it is a shame that japanese mangas do not do cross overs. Sometimes in the last third there was another possibility of romance was hinted but unfortunately it rested on the bromance level. That would have been a surprising twist giving this film an edge. But, well, maybe next time? In my dreams...

The film has no depth either of characters or the plot. As usual when based on a manga, these teens have no parents present. The school is not too harsh an environment and Maya seems to be coping well with repeated humiliations (as in she does not really care or she cares for about 5 seconds!). Some people complained about the lack of expressiveness in ML but I did not mind his unmoving, stony face: he was supposed to be high above others, a king on his throne, unreachable and difficult to get close to and understand.

This film is a cute and forgettable piece of fluff, a perfect Sunday watch!

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You Made My Day
0 mensen vonden deze beoordeling nuttig
met Shasha
jul 14, 2024
5 van 5
Voltooid 0
Geheel 7.5
Verhaal 8.0
Acting/Cast 9.0
Muziek 7.0
Rewatch Waarde 2.0
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Cute ad....

Well this was cute but basically plotless! It is an add for some kind of refreshing herbal inhaler. It must be a thai thing since it is the first time I'm seeing this kind of usage (we are all familiar with Vick's inhalers for stuffy noses! This does not seem to have a similar purpose!).

The plot, if one can call it that, is about two best friends (on to becoming more one day soon maybe?) visiting main tourist attractions in Bangkok (as if Thailand needed more promotion with the current overpopulated tourist spots worldwide!) which are beautiful and full of history (and tourists!). Bom and Tar seem to be reprising their roles from I Will Knock You! Bom is cute and sweet and looks 15 (when he is actually 28!). Tar has grown taller since the drama and in spite of being only 19, he looks and acts more mature than Bom. They have great chemistry together and I would love to see them in something else, together: something in costume would be nice since they both looked hot in thai traditional clothes in ep 2 & 3. It is just that Tar needs to fix his awful haircut and they both need less lipstick.

The ads purpose has completely failed for me: I have no wish to buy one of those inhalers and especially not to give it to anyone as a birthday present. But I liked seeing the sights of Bangkok where I will never have the chance (money!) of going....

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Don't Call it Mystery: The Movie
0 mensen vonden deze beoordeling nuttig
met Shasha
jul 9, 2024
Voltooid 0
Geheel 7.0
Verhaal 7.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Muziek 7.0
Rewatch Waarde 2.0
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Curly hair mystery

As much as I was glad to watch Totono again, this film is a slight disappointment since it is missing everything that made the drama such an unmissable watch: Goro, curry and police! Well Goro does show up for 30sec at the beginning and the police are the extras in the last scene.... Still, definitely not enough! And the film is worse for it!

Totono is in Hiroshima (there is history there but we are not let on it! Yet!) and is dragged into a family inheritance mystery. Well, the mystery is unfortunately very predictable and the culprit is obvious the moment he shows up. Totono does his Sherlock Holmes thingy and the culprit is caught red handed and turned over to justice. THE END

The story behind the mystery involving "demons" and curly hair was quite interesting: showing the lengths the people are willing to go in order to gain and to keep the wealth over generations. There is another issue connected to the previous one and it concerns how the adults treat children who are, according to Totono like "wet cement": getting information from kids is like writing on wet cement, once it is dry, the marks remain and the kids are scarred for life! The young girl, who pulls Totono into this mess is an example of such damage having been done to.

Totono actually made this worth watching: with his quirks, his scarf and his dead pan revelations deliveries! I was also happy to see Machida Keita (Cherry Moon) being his understated extremely charming self and Higawara Riku (Utsukushii Kare) being a weirdly explosive self.

As usual I find the background music (classical) out of place in this film, just as much as I disliked it in the drama. The songs are nice but why do japanese like using western classical music so much?

Overall, it is a watchable film, well produced and acted but poorly constructed plot of the mystery. I'd recommend it only for th e die hard fans of Totono.

And finally, I would like to thank the Machida Keita fan who brough this to us with some amazing subs! Thank you so much!

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Limerence
0 mensen vonden deze beoordeling nuttig
met Shasha
jul 7, 2024
Voltooid 0
Geheel 7.5
Verhaal 8.5
Acting/Cast 7.0
Muziek 7.0
Rewatch Waarde 1.5
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Extreme love

Wikipedia says: "Limerence is a state of mind which results from romantic feelings for another person, and typically includes intrusive, melancholic thoughts, or tragic concerns for the object of one's affection as well as a desire to form or maintain a relationship with the object of love and to have one's feelings reciprocated."

Tawan and Tunn are a couple of students, dating. But increasingly, Tunn does not want Tawan to interact with anyone else but him. Until one day he chains him up in his bed, the reason being the word is a bad place and Tawan needs to be protected and taken care off.

This is definitely NOT a nice and fluffy BL but a serious drama about mental health where the main characters happen to be gay. The story is scary, difficult and tragic: Tunn has been so traumatized in his childhood, abandoned by people he loved that he does not want to take any chances of that happening withTawan therefore confining him, without realizing that he has gone completely bonkers and overboard.

The actors are surprisingly good for a school project: the one playing Tunn really gave me the creeps, so much so I FFW a lot for the first time ever. They are very much at ease with each other and the skinship scenes were rather smooth. The direction and the filming was rather correct and though it is obviously a low budget film, they tried hard. The sound recording is bad and the subs are awful!

I liked the twist in the end: the whole story was just a school project so we have the final clap and the discussion between the actors, now being themselves and the director about the mental health issues. I personally found those a bit unclear and strange. There is also a final unexpected twist in the last minutes which actually gave me a fright!

The film is a bit too long, it should have been shorter for my taste. But that is just me!

One final question: are there really groups of girls at universities in Thailand, screaming at men they ship together ? Maximum cringe!

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Beats Per MIZU
0 mensen vonden deze beoordeling nuttig
met Shasha
jun 23, 2024
Voltooid 0
Geheel 7.0
Verhaal 5.5
Acting/Cast 7.5
Muziek 8.5
Rewatch Waarde 3.5
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Water, water everywhere....

I decided to be generous and reward this short film with a correct rating. It was Ok and somehow it wasn't. I liked the quirkiness of the beginning but they just had to go and ruin a cute story with stalking. When kids stalk each other it is often cute, here we are talking about adults so even though her stalking is not threatening it is definitely creepy and immature and not romantic. Still, they gloss it over completely...

The story is simple: a young woman who cannot help but hear the pattern (BPM beats per minute) in every sound, longs for the underwater silence and has only one friends, falls for her friend's boyfriend's friend Mizu and starts stalking him trying to figure out why her own heartbeat accelerates when she's near him. She records everything in a notebook titles Beats for Mizu.

The acting is excellent, the cinematography pretty, watery, subtle and light. There is a lot of water in this film starting with the story of little mermaid up to the ML's name. The music is excellent and it delivers emotions when the main characters cannot. The friendship between two young women is precious. I almost wanted this to go the GL route! The first boufriend/kis scene was hilarious: the awkward youth!

Nice short watch!

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You Make Me Dance (Movie)
0 mensen vonden deze beoordeling nuttig
met Shasha
mei 26, 2024
Voltooid 0
Geheel 7.5
Verhaal 7.0
Acting/Cast 7.0
Muziek 7.0
Rewatch Waarde 3.5
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Pinky promises

I remember watching this as a drama a couple of years ago and not liking it very much: I found it messy, lacking chemistry and with low production value. Ever since then, I keep stumbling on occasional review and feeds post and they are all praising it highly. So I decided to rewatch it as a movie and to see if my original appreciation still holds!

Unfortunately it does! Even though I like this concept of red string of fate, it was nevertheless underwhelming. The motif of the red string is repeatedly used in different ways throughout the film which I found rather original: scarf, rope, pinky promise.... The characters are complete opposites: a cold debt collector and his fiery dancer debtor. Their relationship and bickering was nice, the actors were very much at ease with each other and yet still something was missing. They looked like they were not in synch while filming. The rest of the characters are just caricatures, barely sketched clichés: the cruel lady boss, the idiotic flamboyant sidekick, the mean rival (actually we never find out what happened to him after they spent so much time on him and when he left their last showdown with a cocky smirk!). And the sets? Pretty winter scenery but no heating inside: it was very cold on sets - that is very obvious!

Again, we have a korean mother who abandons her child after getting him in debt and cutting all means of communication with him. Are korean parents really this cruel? This is something that keeps repeating in k dramas so there must be a sliver of truth there. And that truth is ugly and it paints korean parents in a very bad light!

But everything considered, it is an OK single watch!

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Koi to Yujo no Aida de
0 mensen vonden deze beoordeling nuttig
met Shasha
mei 22, 2024
10 van 10
Voltooid 0
Geheel 7.0
Verhaal 7.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Muziek 9.5
Rewatch Waarde 4.0
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Between Love And Friendship

Never had a drama a more fitting title!
Never was there a drama for me where I did not want the main leads to end up together.
Never had I seen a couple of utterly dislikable characters with horrendous and extremely weak personalities.
Never were the truer words said than when the ML finally admits to his own shortcomings 5 min before the ending!

As the title says, this is a story of two friends who want to become more but they are just caught in a string of missed opportunities, lack of courage, misunderstandings, lack of courage, lies, lack of courage and of course, lack of courage. They are both so insecure behind the hard surface that they do not dare to speak the truth to each other. But the reason was never the obvious one: to keep the friendship intact because their friendship, even though they were close, was never really deep and sincere. They liked spending time together but both of them wanted to become more while neither of them dared to say it. It turned out to be an extremely frustrating watch.

What it proved, as if the proof was needed, is that the men are weak creatures, without spine or courage but who talk big. Women on the other hand are not afraid to talk and lie, to fight what they want, to abandon what they do not need anymore.

What I liked about this drama is the structure of it: the same story is told from the both main characters' point of view as each episode tells about the same events. What I did not like very much is the usual overuse of voiceover but that is such a j drama thing so we end up getting used to it! I loved the music : the final song was beautiful. But I did not like the ML: he is the most annoying, spineless, cowardly, stupid, idiotic ML I have ever watched. What I hated about this is the predictable ending: I did not want them to end up happily ever after! They had so many opportunities to be happy together but they let every one of those slip through their fingers so they can wallow in misery and pretend to be happy. They actually deserved to remain alone and really miserable while having huge regrets and never acting on them! It was never clear what they liked so much about each other: probably they recognized each other's flaws in themselves: they are both equally insincere!

The drama's 10 episodes, 5 from Rina's POV and 5 from Ren's, span a 7 year period: it took them over 7 years to finally realize what they wanted (especially Ren: he is an idiot when he needs his ex-wife to explain some truths to him!) and timidly try to do something about it. I really thought that Ren was going to run away again in the end when she said "No way!" to his proposal..

Interesting concept but annoying characters with an undeserving happy end! Watching suggestion: watch the two versions at the same time in this order: episodes: 1, 6, 2, 7, 3, 8, 4, 9, 5, 10.

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Unintentional Love Story
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met Shasha
mei 7, 2024
10 van 10
Voltooid 0
Geheel 6.5
Verhaal 6.0
Acting/Cast 6.0
Muziek 3.0
Rewatch Waarde 3.0
Deze recentie kan spoilers bevatten
It took me forever to finally watch this drama and the reason is that I can still vividly remember the webtoon I read a couple of years ago. And I can still remember disliking the main couple. And also wanting to see so much more of the second couple.

And lo and behold, this adaptation is very much faithful to the webtoon and therefore, I disliked the main couple and wanted to see more of the second couple (fortunately there are some nice webtoon side stories about them).

WJ has problems at work so he has been suspended. he goes to a tiny seaside town and meets by accident a well known pottery artist who has been hiding for the past two years. The artist is WJ's boss's favourite one so WJ sees this encounter like a possibility to earn some points and get reinstated. WJ, with his cheerful nature breaks slowly the walls around the artist. Until they actually fall in love and WJ's scheming comes to light. Now ensue a string of misunderstandings and lies which are mercifully quickly resolved! The second couple has a more interesting story: I cannot really remember whether they were real cousins or just friends but the drama lightly touches upon (mentions once!) the family homophobia: blink and you miss it!

The story is messy with a lot of inconsistencies and illogicalities. There is this particular feeling about K-BLs, and this one is no exception: they are cold and empty in spite of warm cinematography, the acting is stilted and unnatural, the kind of music featured has been heard already so many times and is extremely boring, the writing is rather superficial. The actors were mostly cute but the main couple had zero chemistry: more often than not even when they were together, they looked like they were on different planets. The webtoon characters had more sparks flying between them than these two real people. And don't start me on those fish & passionless kisses: not even kisses, more like tiny pecks on lips! Fortunately, there is character development, a slight one but a growth nevertheless: one matures and grows a backbone while the other rediscovers joys of life. While I was watching the office worker played by Gongchan, I kept thinking of Suits, the US show: he reminded me so much of young Patrick J. Adams. And once I thought of that, I could not unthink it, unfortunately! The other couple's thuggish guy reminded me of the farmer boy, loud and direct, from Love Tractor.

This is a most unremarkable drama, correctly produced but lacking soul, a spark or something which would bring it to the top.


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