Your Eyes Tell (2020)

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Story/Acting/Cast/Characters
The storyline follows 93% of "Always" (the Korean version) in the storyline, characters, and even dialogue. Yet, the subtle changes made me enjoy this version a lot more than I thought I would. It differs from the Korean version in that it has less of a romantic melodrama feel. Even some lighthearted comedic scenes didn't make it to the Japanese version. The warm lighting from the Korean version was missing, and instead, we get more cool tone coloring. Another thing was the age. I thought it was off seeing such a young-looking actor play the male lead who is supposed to be in his 30's, but instead, they changed the Japanese lead character to be 24 years old.

The main difference that I see from the drama would be with the male lead Antonio/Rui/Ojisan. In the Japanese version, he becomes more stoic. He doesn't talk much, expresses himself less, and comes off a bit more aloof. In my opinion, this adds to the change in Antonio's past that I found lacking in "Always." With the slight change, I feel like the story shifts, and the screentime focuses more on Antonio and less on Kashiwagi Akari.

Yoshitaka Yuriko did great at expressing a bright Kashiwagi Akari, but I had trouble feeling her conviction when it came to the emotional scenes. I'm not too familiar with her, nor do I watch many Japanese movies/dramas, so I'm not sure if this is a difference in how culture's express emotions that I'm not used to.

Music
It's interesting to see the use of music and how it gets incorporated into dramas/movies. In the case of this movie, music wasn't present here. There were two distinct moments where I remember the music was when "Your Eyes Tell" made a presence in the movie. There were many silent moments where it's just dialogue and the natural crickets and street sounds. Instead, the silence made the focus of the dialogue a lot more important and matched the feel of the show a lot more. Unlike most dramas/movies, the lack of music made it so that the movie didn't try to extract emotions from us at dramatic moments in the storyline. Yet, we still got those same emotions due to the acting and directing, which was worth noting.

Overall Comparison Likes and Dislikes (spoilers included.)
Positives:
1. The theme of "おかえり" and "ただいま" was truly heartfelt in this movie. It tied into Antonio/Rui's backstory of being an orphan who never felt a sense of belonging in the world and, along the way, makes decisions that aren't the best.

2. Antonio's character setup leads to the writers wanting to create some character development for Antionio, and we see that and done quite well for a movie like this. Antonio wants redemption for himself, and even though he got his sentence and left the group, he felt like it was not enough. Especially with the reveal of his connection with Akari. His internal struggle was always there, being his weakness and now his strength to move on.

3. While I don't find the story of Romeo and Juliet beautiful, I do find that Shakespear writes beautifully. The line used in both movies, "Her eye discourses; I will answer it." I love how there was just a little bit more focus on in the Japanese version (literally one extra scene of Antonio staring at the braille words of it). So, in case you don't know, this was when Romeo was comparing Juliet's eyes to stars and how they shine ever so brightly. I found this line kind of ironic in this movie but so fitting. Akari's lack of sight is what brought them together, but at the same time, her eyes were the barrier to their relationship. And when I say "barrier," I mean in terms of how she lost her sight.

4. Some dialogue that was altered for the movie added more emotional depth to their relationship. I can think of three main dialogue scenes: the trip, the talking about the future, and the ending scene.

5. An extra positive point, I enjoyed the kickboxing scenes here, probably due to the angles and cuts. Yokohama Ryusei doesn't wear a tank top like how So Ji Sub did in the Korean version, so you'll definitely see his abs.

Negatives (specific scene spoilers. For this part, I suggest watching it first and then coming to read this to see if you have similar or different opinions):
In my opinion, there were three scenes in the Japanese version that were lacking for me and were pivotal to the movie.
1. Face tracing scene by the window. This scene should have emphasized her tracing his face and less of Akari holding Antonio's face. I thought this scene was so beautifully done in the Korean version from both So Ji Sub and Han Hyo Joo. The way she slowly traced his face with her fingers and tried to envision how he would look like. On the other end, he was shy and felt so much emotion for the woman in front of him. I didn't feel those same emotions in the Japanese version and was disappointed with the lack of emphasis. The reason why is that later on, when the female lead goes and tries to sculpt his face, she closes her eyes and tries to remember his features that she felt through her hands. We know that she was trying to remember this exact scene to recreate his face. In the Korean version, how she traced the sculpted clay was similar to how she traced his face in that scene.

2. Back Massage. While it was short, the back massage scene had a bit more emphasis in the Korean version and made sense later. Jung Hwa sat on his back longer to massage him while they talked, with cuts of her fingers massaging his back. Later on at the hospital, it wasn't until she flipped him onto his stomach and massaged him the same way that she felt the familiarity of the man she was massaging. The Japanese version had less focus on her massaging him on the bed, and she didn't even turn him on his back in the hospital later on but still felt the familiarity of him.

3. Reveal of Ajusshi/Ojisan. The way that the Korean version had it set up so that Jingga was the one who hinted that it was his dad came in sets: when Jingga ran to Ajusshi and knocked him over, Jingga and Jung Hwa staring at Ajusshi's back, and Jingga kept barking while they were inside. How they got the dog who plays Jingga to cooperate and made its body language seem like it recognized Ajusshi, along with the focus of Jingga was seamless. Suku is still a cute dog, but how the director included everything but the part where the female lead and dog stared at the male lead's lonely backside limping off. That part was replaced with the focus on Akari, saying, "What's wrong?" and then back to Ojisan with Akari and Suku blurred out. Then inside the store, instead of facing the door and barking, Suku was just barking. I don't know, this seems silly, but I feel like it added a lot to the reveal of our Ajusshi/Ojisan.

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This movie was a very heart warming movie which talks about struggles of leaving a bad situation, disability, guilt and romance.

Romance:
The romance was truly rewarding and well paced, I loved how their love grew through time and eventually they dated which was truly warm and made the romance really smooth and got us audience to attach to the main romance very well. I also loved the scene where she gave him a massage and I genially thought it was going to lead to a sex scene but turning into a hug was very satisfying and beautiful to watch. Little moments like these makes the romance feel genuine and gives it a special meaning to the reason they got together which felt natural.

Disability ( WARNING IN THIS PARAGRAPH I TALK ABOUT THE SEXUAL ASSULT SCENE):
It was satisfying to finally see representation of a person who has a disability that is not wealthy and actually has to work and provide for herself, which is more common. One thing I loved about his movie was about how she was represented as and shows the struggle of hardship she faces as a blind person trying to survive in a non adaptable society. This was clearly demonstrated in the scene where she wants to ignore the sexual assault to keep her job, shows the desperation of need this job and also the hardship of even finding on or another one.

Guilt:
I have decided to not write a paragraph on leaving a bad situation, and her rather decided to focus on guilt because it is an interesting topic that was explored in the drama.

The fl felt guilty because she was driving and got distracted leading to her parents dying in a car accident
The ml felt guilty for betting someone up, which led to suicide.

Ignoring the rest of the plot the ml has committed crimes and multiple of them has been assaults. The victims family or the victim never got the justice and instead the ml redemption is him being guilty and praying to god everyday to forgive his sins is crazy. He never even decided to turn him self to the police or even apologies to the victims family which frustrated me because despite him being redeemed since her will likely never perform such actions because of his trauma, the victims never got justice. This movie only focused on the ml and his guilt. I feel like if he actually turned himself in, went to jail and served his time, then he will finally be redeemed but instead we are suppose to feel pity for him because of his trauma but none for the victim and his family?

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It was so touchingly good. Everything hurts.

You know with the tragic past / medical dramas that you'd better be going in with a box of tissue.
The acting was amazing -- well of course, we got seasoned actress Yoshitaka Yuriko and upcoming rising star Yokohama Ryuusei
And villain-wise we got Machida Keita which was a hugeeee surprise for me <3 (known for Cherry Magic!)

I really like the way this was shot, with some slow and fast development
The best part was seeing that dog grow up LOL. Suku is so cute (and no it doesn't die in case you needed to check #DoesTheDogDie)
The main storyline... Well I don't really agree with some of the things the male lead did, but since it's a movie it didn't lead to an overbearingly stupid draggy plotline so I don't complain
In fact his decisions brought me the biggest crying point of the movie where I continued crying until pretty much the very end because of how touchingly sad everything was.

Anyway, watch if you're ready for a feels trip and enjoy good production value, good acting, and a cute dog. Don't watch if you like happy movies because this is obviously not it.

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I have watched it already 4 times now...

What would I do to watch it for the first time. The best film if you want to watch something on a rainy day... The warm hug you need of encouragement... The feeling of being alive and the feeling of HOPE... I just love it sooooooooooooo much ... Worth every second! If you like the plot of someone blind but not everyone pitying them, this one is for you ! The main leads did an amazing job in portraying the characters. The chemistry was there and
Spoiler:







it has a happy ending, despite how it looks in the last 15 minutes. Everything was sorted out, I at least didn't have any more questions.
I loved it....

If anyone has movie recommendations like this movie please PLEASE write it down below.

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My Heart Hurts…. in a good way

I’m not usually a fan of this type of ending, but here is was very well done, I cried hard but still loved it. Not going to lie, this was a pretty heavy and emotional movie. They had a really rough time, but they became each other’s home. I also liked that you could see Rui brighten around Akari. She also seemed to have a pretty positive attitude towards life, despite everything she’s had to go through. Suku was adorable too. I loved the theme song, it fit the movie wonderfully. Ryusei is probably one of my favourite Japanese actors, I like how he portrays his characters.

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sweet movie

I had a difficult time not comparing this to Always (the Korean version). The actors/characters in Always are older, so I think I related more to that one because the main characters seemed lonelier, and I appreciated them finding one another more. The thing that really stuck out in this version, when he was trying to convince her to have the surgery, he was talking to her about being able to see her children. When he talked, it was like he was talking about her marrying someone else and having children. In Always, he asked her "what about when WE have babies" - that touched me so much more.

Yokohama Ryusei and Yoshitaka Yuriko both did a good job and were cute together. The actor that played his coach overacted quite a bit and that was bothersome for me.

The bonus for me was the BTS song Your Eyes Tell.

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Assista

Realmente vale a pena assistir esse filme. Adorei ver o romance nascendo entre os protagonistas e fazer os dois superar juntos suas dores e medos. Eles eram tão lindos juntos queria que o filme nunca acabasse.
Adorei a atuação dos protagonistas principalmente a protagonista feminina , no inicio eu realmente achava que ela era deficiente visual.
Adorei a fotografia , enredo e roteiro tudo bem feito e executado, conseguiu me emocionar e me fazer feliz, foi bom e leve de assistir apesar da história triste.
Em fim recomendo gostei muito , é um belo romance para se assistir.

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