pash
Italy
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Poor script + too much focus on unappealing characters
I was drawn in by the first episode, which was by far the best, and by my love for choral stories, focused around a large group of characters. And indeed, the parts I really liked were the ones regarding the different families leaving on this Mayang Street, their daily lives and struggles, etc.Too bad, after a few episodes, the focus started shifting, slowly but surely, to the relationship between Tan Songyun's and Xu Wei Zhou's characters, and that deeply annoyed me for a coupla reasons: first and foremost, their characters are, imho, really unappealing (particularly the guy, whom the writer tried waaaay too hard to make us like with huge doses of lazy writing - how many times do they show us some Mayang Street person getting in trouble, only to have him/her so conveniently saved at the last moment by Xu Wei Zhou's "Deus ex machina" character? - a character whom I really despised BTW - such a selfish person, sacrificing others and their feelings only because he wanted to be an undercover cop - and then again, had it been so as to stop some terrorists or other types of reeeeally dangerous criminals, I might still have had some sympathy for him...but no, all that just to stop a bunch of *smugglers*...how can that be even remotely worthy of provoking his own granny's death and bringing grief to everybody else around him?!? Sorry, but I don't get it...). Secondly, I have the feeling that those actors are the weakest ones in the cast (please note I haven't watched anything else with them, so it may very well be that thy're not so bad and my impression just depends on the poor script and on the director's orders, who knows...but judging solely on what they showed here, I'll have to borrow a deliciously caustic definition the brilliant Youtuber "AvenueX" used for other actors and say that "one's a vegetal, the other one's a mineral". The former has the expressivity of a plant (always with that annoyingly faint smile or a faintly sad expression - in both cases veeeeeery faint, almost imperceptible...it gave me the feeling someone's scared of getting wrinkles otherwise, URGH), the latter as expressive as a rock (dude, poker might be a better career option than cinematography, seriously). They're both good looking, I'll give 'em that. But good *acting* is something else, in my book. Like, something else *entirely*.
Another huge fault of this dorama is, as I briefly mentioned earlier on, the poor script: inconsistent, incoherent, cheesy, lazy. Always taking the easy way out, always giving me the strong impression the writer couldn't care less for *conveying* messages but rather chose to *force feed* them down the viewers' throats. It was really hard, for someone like me who can't stand poor writing, to keep on watching it till the end, seriously. I think I should have trusted the gut feeling I had while watching those überbland opening credits and steered away from this.
Anyway, the only redeeming points (and the reasons why, a) I kept on watching after all, and, b) I don't give it a lower grade) are, firstly, that the rest of the cast did a pretty decent job (particularly considering the poor material they had to work with!) - and here I want to give honorable mentions to Niu Jun Feng and Li Mu Ran: such nice characters, and so nicely played, that they had me smiling inside every time they were on camera; secondly, as I mentioned at the very beginning of this review, the choral parts of the script weren't bad after all, so those kept me hooked enough that I wanted to see what would happen to the other characters; thirdly, after the (again, imho) total yawnfest of the middle part of the dorama, I kinda enjoyed the last few episodes (the ones after the time skip - those that most other MDLers seem not to have enjoyed, BTW) that brought some closure and - as far as I'm concerned - what I'd define a "happy" ending (given how much I disliked Xu Wei Zhou's character, the fact that he was finally removed from the picture felt like a happy ening to me, what can I say...^_^;...had that character been totally expunged from the series - and had they chosen another actress for the FL's role - I might've liked this much, much more.
As is, nevertheless, the passing grade is beyond reach of this drama, imho. 5/10
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If you, like me, love comedy, and even more so *Japanese* comedy (owarai), for its peculiar flavor and its many facets (manzai, konto, oogiri, etc. etc.), then you too might find this "Beshari Gurashi" aka "The Kings of Laughter" particularly interesting.A word to the wise, though: don't expect this series to be only comedy, there's quite a bit of drama mixed in there (definitely more than I expected, in all fairness - more on that in a jiff), as we could sum this up a glance behind the scene of the geinin/owarai world.
The cast did a pretty good job indeed, the "packaging" / production value and the music are also of quite high quality levels, and the script is very well written, portraying the harsh reality of the comedians' (geinin) lives, and the sweat and tears hidden behind those laughs. I would've honestly given this an even higher grade, weren't it for the fact that I personally found one of the dramatic moments, well...waaay too dramatic - it was honestly like a punch in the stomach!!! >_______<
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SPOILER AHEAD
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(I'm referring to the ending of the fifth episode)
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After a few years, having myself become a bit of a fan of a coupla idol groups (namely, Keyakizaka and its offsprings Hinatazaka and Sakuraza), I went back and decided to give this "Amachan" another chance, as now I knew I could enjoy more than before its second half.
All in all, there are a few nice scenes here and there in this asadora, but also a lot of "meh" moments, therefore I'd totally say this work doesn't belong, alas, to the better ones originated from Kudo Kankoru's pen, It's my humble opinion that the writer was a bit out of his depth here - but then again, to write an asadora is an herculean task (tantamount to writing 26, yep, TWENTY-SIX movies with the same characters to be aired in a 26 weeks time-span - indeed, not a feat every writer can accomplish!) so I can't actually blame him too much!
The cast also gave mixed performances, with Koizumi Kyoko being the best of the lot imho.
The music was pretty good but also terribly repetitive (basically, one song repeated over and over, plus a coupla sidetracks).
A decent production value completes the package. It would be more of a 6.5, but since I don't use decimals, I'll round that up to 7. An OK watch, but no masterpiece, as far as I'm concerned.
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Unsatisfied with the vast majority of the current season's J-dramas, I decided to go and try one of the many "Golden Age" ones I still hadn't watched, and picked this "Aishiteiru to Itte Kure".Well, sometimes even older dramas can be a real let down, as it was the case here, alas.
First things first, what I liked: namely, the *marvelous* OST (WOW, seriously, perfect 10 there!), the unmistakable "90's Flavor", and the always good performance by Tokiwa Takako - whereas the rest of the cast, imho, didn't do so well; most were sub-par, but I don't think it's entirely their fault, as the material they had to work with was the real problem.
In a scriptwriter's career (even when we're talking of someone like Kitagawa Eriko who's done some real masterpieces!) there's bound to be the occasional lousy work, and this was precisely such a case.
It started quite well, except for the honestly annoying subplot involving the stepsis; but then in the second half it became more and more trite and poorly written, with the last episode being particularly terrible, to the point it ended up being involuntarily ridiculous. HUGE spoilers ahead so stop reading NOW if you wanna avoid those!
*****SPOILERS*****
Misunderstanding after misunderstanding, the FL convinces herself (and wrongly so) that the ML has cheated on her, so she goes and cheats on him with her childhood friend, the 2nd ML (who took advantage of the situation, ok, but then again she had been taking advantage of his kindness for the whole series, so hard to cast the blame there, imho). Even after the misunderstanding got cleared, FL and ML still break up, she has apparently realized that it's better to be loved than to chase after someone rather cold (which might have been less romantic, but I was still fine with such a development, it would have been mature and adult and realistic and honestly quite a nice change after all). So she's bound to move back to Sendai to marry the 2nd ML and help him run the family inn. All fine and dandy, right?
But then the Nth set of coincidences unleash (seriously, the way the characters keep running into each other by chance, you'd think this series was set in a small village, rather than in the tentacular metropolis, LOL) and she runs into the ML, goes with him to an apartment/villa at the seaside ('cause yeah, what normal Japanese wouldn't have a seaside house with a fireplace, right? Mattaku...), where they open up a bottle of champagne ('cause yeah, the house is uninhabited, but of course there's a fine bottle on hand just in case!), almost have sex but stop midway after he picks up her keys ('cause yeah, what normal dude wouldn't pick up some keys while going at it, right?) and she notices the keychain belonging to the 2nd ML, thusly bursting in tears.
Come dawn, a *ridiculous* scene on the beach ensues, where we discover that deaf people apparently have the superpower of being able to understand what you say if you just put your throat on their shoulder (seriously, Kitagawa-san?!? Or was it Stan Lee who wrote that scene? Who knows, maybe the ML got bitten by a radioactive mosquito? Again, mattaku...)
Then she gets back to the 2nd ML, who's the usual, understanding nitwit and leaves alone, brokenhearted but with a big smile (oh, boy) while she stays in the Big City to pursue her acting career.
Three years later, she's been so "successful" that her single-line scene gets cut, but apparently that pays well enough that she's dressed all in style with Italian/French designer's clothes. And then the leads meet again by chance in front of an apple tree (more like, a completely different plant to which some poor sap of AD has glued half a dozen apples bought in the closest supermarket!!!), and so they can live happily ever after. *BARFS!*
Wasn't it for the OST and for Tokiwa, the grade would be even lower. 4/10
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I feel like I need to make a short premise: in my humble opinion, if you have a certain amount of interest in the idols phenomenon (you don't have to be a die-hard "wota", just not someone who can't stand it, LOL), then you're most probably gonna appreciate this "Idol Shikkaku" more than otherwise - just like humble me appreciated it.I really liked the production value / "packaging" and the script (with the sole, partial exception of the ending; more on that in a jiff). Oh, BTW, in case you don't know, the story is based on a novel written by an active member of NMB48 (hence a colleague of the four girls acting as members of the fictitious group "Tetra").
The acting was good as a whole, with some doing better than others as it is to be expected.
And now on to the ending and why I didn't like it too much (spoilers ahead, so stop reading if you don't want them!!!):
I honestly found it way too unresolved, on the one hand realistic, ok, but on the other hand a bit bland/bitter and uninspiring. It would have sufficed to have the ML's phone ring in the last scene where he's looking at the sun to make it right, imho!!!
Still, a totally solid 8/10 in my book.
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I must confess I started this "Miwa-san Narisumasu" without really having high expectations about it. On the one hand, it's a "yorudora" (similarly to the "asadora", many short episodes of 15' each, credits included) which made me wary it could've been aimed (as somehow more typical of the yorudora, in fact) at a much younger audience than poor old me; on the other hand, as you might already know if you've read my other reviews, romance ain't really my favorite genre.I'm happy to be able to say that this drama totally exceeded my expectations!
First of all, romance isn't really such a big part of it, but rather a side ingredient (just like the pinch of sugar we Italians like to add to our tomato-based pasta sauces, if you get what I mean, LOL). Secondly, it felt more mature and a little deeper than the usual yorudora, which was also a very nice surprise. Last but certainly not least, the whole cast did really well and contributed highly to the viewing pleasure.
So did the pretty high production value and the generally very nice script, although this latter wasn't absolutely perfect imho. In all fairness, I felt a few parts here and there were a bit weak, and most of all, the ending was way too rushed and left some things way too open (but then again, I've watched this RAW so chances are some details, and even more than that, escaped me...?)
I can still wholeheartedly recommend it though. 9/10
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I'm really happy I finally decided to pick it up, as it really exceeded my expectations!!!
If you, like me, appreciate when writers manage to accomplish a well-done character development, then chances are you'll like this series too!
The leads slowly-but-surely develop, in fact, from the almost unbearable characters they are at the beginning (LOL, you'll need some patience, believe me!) to the more open, warmer, kinder and more humane persons they'll get to be in the end, all thanks to the help from those sorrounding them and to the fact that, as imperfect as they are, they can still become a little less imperfect just by staying together - and to this humble reviewer, that alone is a gazillion times more romantic than the usual "Cold male CEO x buck-eyed, eyelashes-batting Cinderella"!
(Too bad they kinda ruined it with the useless SP episode...but that's another story...)
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Although the genre (high school romance) isn't really my favorite (on the one hand, I'm probably too old for it, LOL; and on the other hand, my favorite genres are rather comedy, iyashikei, horror, mystery, etc.), nevertheless I actually liked this lil' movie that definitely managed to exceed my expectations: the story is clean, straight-forward and nice, the leads are both very good and so is the "packaging" (directing, editing, photography, music,...).
Totally solid 8/10!
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Both works, in fact, share the same fascination with time loops and the technical prowess required to portray them through sequence shots. And of course they are from the same director and share a relevant part of the cast.
I personally think that the story here is just a lil' bit weaker, and the setting a lot less fascinating (let's be honest: beautiful ryokan in the hills around Kyoto beats small family restaurant/café in an anonymous city side street any day of the week!!! ^_^;;;....), hence my grade.
It's still another wonderful movie I can wholeheartedly recommend, though! 9/10
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This was clearly visible in the story, which might result a bit (heck, even more than just a bit) too naive and simple for the older audience, as it's been the case of yours truly. Indeed, although I deeply appreciated the innocence and purity of it all - something one would actually expect from NHK, but nevertheless is always a nice "surprise" when compared to the ever-surging wave of "hollywoodian" dramas made in Japan - on the other hand, though, I'll confess the story was not really that interesting to poor old me, sorry...^_^;
Still, the acting was very good (Koyama Sae is so talented it's scary, seriously - how can she act so well at that age? >____<), the "packaging" totally ok, and the music decent enough.
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As I've already said a few times, I'm a sucker for time-travel related stories, and it was therefore with pretty high expectations that I started watching this "Toki wo Kakeru Bando" - the title reminiscing of the überfamous "Girl who Leapt through Time" also had something to do with that, as well as the presence in the cast of two of my faves from the current generation of J-actresses, Ohara Yuno and Shiraishi Sei.The script had its good moments but also some not-so-good ones. As far as I'm concerned, too little focus on the time-slip part and too much on the music - note that this "light music" (in the Japanese sense - "K-On", short for "keiongaku") ain't really my cup of tea, so there's that too (had this been about classical music, or jazz, or blues, or tango, or bossanova, or any of the dozens of musical genres I like better than pop, I think I would've like this series a lot more).
Anyway, the acting was pretty good, particularly from Ohara & Shiraishi but also from Miura.
The production value was OK, and the music objectively catchy.
All in all, not a masterpiece but still a decent series imho. 7/10
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