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Not bad, but why bother?
This film wasn’t bad if taken on its own. But it hewed so closely to the very good Japanese original that it was impossible to avoid making comparisons and that is where it falls far short. In particular:• The pacing was off. This remake was too slow in places where it should have moved faster and too fast in places where it should have slowed down. The net result was to rest emotional resonance (not that it wasn’t plenty emotional, just not nearly as much as the original).
• That acting (particularly the leads) was noticeably inferior.
• We got a very washed-out version of one of my favorite characters (the FL's best friend).
• The original benefited greatly from being told primarily from the point of view of the FL. In switching much of the attention to the ML, they miss out on some of the best parts of the story,.
• Neither the overall production nor the OST were as good.
But despite all these criticisms, I did enjoy watching this remake as a way to pass the time.
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The title of ¨Invisible Us¨ says it all
More than a murder mystery, this miniseries is about the alienation of young adults within Japanese society. An incisive, well-written and well-acted but depressing tale that follows a reporter as she discovers not only the roots of the crime she’s investigating, but also that almost all her former classmates are already to at least some degree disillusioned with their lives only 8 years after graduating from high school. What keeps this series from being overwhelming dark is that in reconnecting and finally being honest with each other, several of these old friends manage to find glimmers of a way forward.This is not a light easy watch and perhaps not to everyone's tastes. But after a slow start, I thought it one of the best Japanese series I've watched recently.
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Begins well but loses focus
I finally managed to finish this series, which turned out to be yet another drama that after a promising start slowed to a crawl and lost its way as the season went on (which helps explain why it took me so long to finish).It was at its best when focused on the intrigue and suspense surrounding the two female spies/assassins who have infiltrated the Gong palace. Will they be found out? Will they work together or against each other? Will they persevere with their dedication to their original mission once they develop relationships within the palace? Will they discover the truth about their own pasts?
If only the plot didn´t keep meandering into long aimless overly dry pseudo-mystical monologues and conversations that don't go anywhere, when it’s not getting sidetracked into a rather predictable and poorly developed storyline centered on sibling rivalry and power struggles among the Gongs. As if that weren't enough, the drama ends on something of a cliffhanger, failing to provide an unambiguous conclusion.
At least most of the fight scenes were fairly good.
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Disappointing
I watched this after having watched a couple of seasons of the original Korean version. I started with Season 2 simply because it’s much higher rated than Season 1 here on MDL. As this Chinese version follows the same general format as the original, it was impossible not to compare them.The main positive is that I found the panel of this Chinese version much more tolerable than the Korean panel. Or at least they got less on my nerves, despite all the squealing. It helps that the panel took up a bit less screentime that could be better dedicated to the participants, though it was still too much for my tastes.
The negatives compared to the Korean version include:
1. The participants go into the house with much more competitive mindset, while not making the same effort to develop close or lasting friendships with those of their same gender the way they tend to do in the Korean version. This was particularly true of the men early on who seemed to be mostly focused one-upping each other. I’m not at all surprised that most of women immediately gravitated towards the dreamy eyed laid-back unthreatening guy who basically couldn’t care less what the other guys were up to.
2. One result of the above is that I didn’t really like many of the contestants. I took an almost immediate dislike for most of the guys (though Junjun did start growing on me). With the women it was more one of those cases where I ended up sympathizing with the underdog, only I would have picked Wen Pi right from the beginning long before it became apparent that none of the men were interested in her (which certainly didn’t improve my low opinion of the guys). Two of the other girls had that infantile overly cutesy act going that I can’t stand but I guess must be popular among at least some Chinese men. I wonder if this is a cultural thing as none of the women in the Korean reality shows I watched even came close to that extreme and the two women from the Japanese Terrace House I can remember trying to put on that act eventually got found out and ridiculed, even though they didn't act nearly as extreme as these two on this show.
3. The method for selecting the final critical dates seems almost purposefully designed to discourage any couples that were beginning to be formed up to that point. I can see the value of pushing participants into dating different people, but that should come earlier in the season. If the producers were really interested in romantic outcomes, then they should allow the participants to select their own final dates. If not, you end up with a bunch of final climatic dates in which most are disappointed either by who they were forced to date or by the lack of romantic interest from their date (but kudos to the participants for at least attempting to fake enthusiasm). The fact that one of the couples might still be together doesn't really change my opinion.
4. The product placement is ridiculously over the top, to the point it was distracting. Featuring the participants in ads throughout the season may have at least earned them some additional income (one hopes), but it wasn’t always even clear what was an ad and what was supposed to be part of the action (assuming there was any difference to begin with). I’ve gotten used to a certain amount of product placement in k-dramas and c-dramas, but this went way beyond anything I’ve seen before.
I’m not sure I’ll watch any more Heart Signal seasons (either Korean or Chinese) as this simply isn’t my favorite format for this genre. I’m finding I much prefer the approach taken by the Korean “EXchange” and “My Sibling’s Romance” series. And my two favorite Asian dating shows continue to be the Netflix one-off “Nineteen to Twenty” and “Offline Love”.
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Good Cast, Poor Panel
This was my first season of Heart Signal. The cast was on the better side, with an interesting mix of quite likable personalities that made it easy to get more emotionally invested than I usually do. It doesn’t hurt that this is one of the most physically attractive group of participants I've seen on any of these shows. All 4 women are simply breathtakingly beautiful, and the guys aren't far behind.The show also successfully maintains some suspense until the end on who people were going to select, having developed multiple reasonable matches for most of them. I do wish though that some of these women had realized a earlier that Hyun-woo was one big walking red flag. I was completely fed up with him by the end of the season. Everyone else grew on me, but this guy went the opposite direction.
But this show has one much bigger problem that seriously detracted from my enjoyment as a viewer: Way too much screentime is given to a terminally unfunny and uninteresting panel at the expense of the participants themselves. Among the things I found particularly galling was that in order to allow this gimmicky panel more time to show off their pop-psych idiocy, they deprive us of seeing the reaction of the participants to the texts they are asked to send anonymously each evening to the person they find most interesting. Watching those reactions is one of my favorite aspects of some of the subsequent reality shows like EXchange and My Sibling’s Romance. It was sorely missed here.
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Major Disappointment
The overall plot pretty much follows a very standard predictable sports movie formula. That in itself isn't necessarily bad if you can identify with the characters enough to root them on. This film falls flat because there is pretty much no character development that might make you care what happens to our poor overmatched volleyball team. I was also outright dissapointed in Song Kang Ho. He may have been an award winning lead actor in several of the most notable films in Korean movie history, but here he seems to simply be going through the motions. Even much of the humor falls flat.Was this review helpful to you?
Tropey and Unimaginative
A potentially entertaining short series held back by a tropey unimaginative plot centered on school bullying and populated with mostly stereotypical mafia and teen drama archtypes. The few female characters were almost laughably superficial, as were most of the school bullies and adult gangsters. The only character with any real depth was the second male lead, but even in his case there is a noticeable disconect that comes from the fact that many of his actions are only explainable if he's madly in love with the first male lead, only the show keeps trying to insist they are just buddies.Was this review helpful to you?
A Sad Melancholic but Ultimately Uplifting Tale
I happened to come across this film on an airplane halfway across the world from Japan and gave it a try.It's a slow melancholic but ultimately somewhat uplifting tale centered on how parents mourning for their daughter and a woman mourning for her best friend are eventually able to find comfort as they uncover a series of (mostly very positive) surprises about the life of the dead girl, whose example eventually helps encourage them move on with their own lives.
The acting was good, but they could have done more with this plot to make a bit more lively.
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Highly Supenseful
I was a bit unsure how much I was going to like this show at first given that the shocking brutal violence in the initial episodes seemed more graphic than necessary and I worried that it might devolve into a typical weekly plotted all action revenge story. But it proved so much more than that. Above all, this was easily the most suspenseful show I've watched all year. It had me on the edge of my seat for the entire back half of the season with a more complex than expected plot, unpredictable twists that surprised without completely stretching credibility, and a magnificent performance from the cast, particularly the two main female leads, as well as Lee Ho Jung as the antagonist.Was this review helpful to you?
A Good One Even for Non-Fans of Dating Shows
I'm not particularly a fan of dating reality shows and only tried this one on an impulse becuase the gimmick made me curious. I'm sure glad I did.The struggles of these Gen Zers to get by without their devices is quite amusing and they treat us to a lot of gorgeous shots of the scenery in Southern France in early Spring. But what really makes this show stand out is a great cast featuring a diverse array of mostly likable “real” people who geniunely do want to find love. It helps that they don't go out of their way to create either villians or excessive drama through the editing .
Finally, they really lucked into a great character like Nanami, who really tugs on the heartstrings with her growth over the 10 days and provides an emotional resolution to the overall series. There are several other memorable characters as well and no one I truly disliked.
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