I have just finished watching this dark film, which has left me triggered, frustrated and enraged at the ignorant, vile, callous, judgmental and slanderous aspect of human nature.
To those of you wondering and debating: THE MAIN PROTAGONIST WAS A VICTIM through and through. NOTHING, and I repeat, nothing, justifies and excuses what has happened to her. There is something intrinsically wrong with society as a whole for letting this child down. Every single one who has laughed at her in life or thereafter, gossiped about her/defamed her, not paid attention to her, used and abused her is responsible for her demise.
RUMOURS DO KILL! Always watch what comes out of your mouth (or the tip of your fingers) about someone else. That last stare into the camera lens was absolutely haunting: this can happen to any one of us.
This film is a lesson to us all, and its last scene was a resounding message: what a sad world we live in!
Nowadays (though not always fortunately), one is more likely to draw attention, motivate action, and obtain help by yelling "FIRE!" or "FIGHT!", than by yelling "HELP!". In our self-servingly individualistic, net-addicted, constant-attention-seeking, 15-minutes-of fame-ish societies, people are not willing to get involved and help unless they derive some form of benefit from their intervention (making it to the evening news, an increased number of likes on social media, etc). When someone is in danger, our first and foremost thought should ALWAYS be to help; help intelligently depending on the circumstances, but help nonetheless.
Granted fear, cowardice and selfishness can be a deterrent, but that could only be understood and excused to a minute degree. People would, for instance, rather stand aside and record with their phone cams (often live-streaming to a social media platform) instead of intervening and saving a life, or would not help with a murder investigation from fear of its impact on property value: that to me is just absolutely mind-boggling!!!
I initially thought about dropping the series after a couple of episodes, but am glad I did not. I ended up liking it and even learning a thing or two mainly because of its very realistic perspective on adult relationships.
If one goes past the façade of the involved characters and takes the time to study them, then you get an even greater understanding and a sense of satisfaction in watching the dynamics occurring amongst them. Saeko is incapable of love; the only person Saeko has ever loved and will always love is herself. Do not let her airhead bit fool you! She is extremely smart, and a master manipulator who has done nothing but manipulate Sota (and everyone else) from Day 1 until the very end. She possesses many narcissistic personality traits: she did not/does not love Sota; she just wanted a vacation and wanted to be with someone who would make her the centre of his attention, which Sota did. Very interesting characters indeed!
I was only disappointed by the ending since the male lead did not end up with the only fit (in terms of personality) and emotionally stable girl out of the three objects of interest. I would nevertheless still recommend this.
the step father of the small girl in episode 2 is pure evil!
I wanted to watch Episodes 2 and 3 while having dinner last evening, but had to stop eating at the sight of the bruises on the little girl. I just could not put food in my mouth after seeing that. Pure evil indeed! And to think that there are scores of children just like Mayumi all over the world breaks my heart.
Gosh, I'll never forget this drama! This was as makjangish as they come! The aggravation almost sent me to the hospital; EMIL p*ssed me off so much that my blood pressure spiked. It is memorable not because of its brilliance, but because of the strong emotional response it triggered in me akin to When A Man Loves and a few other blood-pressure raising dramas.
The first half of the series was great, but it somehow failed to retain my attention until the end. I would still recommend it because of the topic it tackled, and its realistic perspective.
My take on this? It is the tale of an angel and a demon who are merely doing their job: one is ushering as many impure souls to hell as he can, while the other is trying her darndest to save as many souls on earth as she can. And who has won the battle? In my opinion, both.
If the members of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA) are as incompetent as Detective Lee, then I wonder how Seoulites have been faring against crime all the while! :-)
This is my favourite of all Kimura-san's dramas (& I have watched pretty much everything of his available online). Exceptional storyline, superb cast and stellar acting performances. Very well done!
Loved, loved, loved this! Light and hilarious for a political drama. That 25 minutes speech in the last episode is why I admire Kimura-sama as an actor. What a great performance! I have always been a fan of Fukatsu Eri's, so seeing her and KimuTaku together was fantastic. The series is perfect without any romance, but it would have been nice to have a kiss or two.
I had forgotten what a little gem this film was! I saw it years ago, and revisited it again last night. An absolute delight. Tokuhei was the real MVP in this story :-).
Yi Wei was a cutie patootie 10 years ago, and is aging like fine wine. He has now grown into a much sexier man. I just saw him in Dying To Survive. His acting skills are still on point.
A sad film; the last scene had me in tears. People are dying and dying to live in many places of the world because of the monopoly, malice and greed of pharmaceutical companies. I'd suggest to anyone interested in the subject to watch Fire in the Blood (2013), a documentary by Dylan Mohan Gray depicting pharmaceutical companies and certain western governments' intentional obstruction of access to low-cost antiretroviral drugs. It is always about GREED with multinationals; the money is NEVER enough. What a loathsome world we live in!
To those of you wondering and debating: THE MAIN PROTAGONIST WAS A VICTIM through and through. NOTHING, and I repeat, nothing, justifies and excuses what has happened to her. There is something intrinsically wrong with society as a whole for letting this child down. Every single one who has laughed at her in life or thereafter, gossiped about her/defamed her, not paid attention to her, used and abused her is responsible for her demise.
RUMOURS DO KILL! Always watch what comes out of your mouth (or the tip of your fingers) about someone else.
That last stare into the camera lens was absolutely haunting: this can happen to any one of us.
This film is a lesson to us all, and its last scene was a resounding message:
what a sad world we live in!
Nowadays (though not always fortunately), one is more likely to draw attention, motivate action, and obtain help by yelling "FIRE!" or "FIGHT!", than by yelling "HELP!".
In our self-servingly individualistic, net-addicted, constant-attention-seeking, 15-minutes-of fame-ish societies, people are not willing to get involved and help unless they derive some form of benefit from their intervention (making it to the evening news, an increased number of likes on social media, etc). When someone is in danger, our first and foremost thought should ALWAYS be to help; help intelligently depending on the circumstances, but help nonetheless.
Granted fear, cowardice and selfishness can be a deterrent, but that could only be understood and excused to a minute degree. People would, for instance, rather stand aside and record with their phone cams (often live-streaming to a social media platform) instead of intervening and saving a life, or would not help with a murder investigation from fear of its impact on property value: that to me is just absolutely mind-boggling!!!
You can watch The Witness (2018) on the 2 sites below:
https://www2.ondramanice.tv/drama/the-witness-2018-detail
https://kissasian.sh/Drama/The-Witness-2018
Happy birthday!
If one goes past the façade of the involved characters and takes the time to study them, then you get an even greater understanding and a sense of satisfaction in watching the dynamics occurring amongst them. Saeko is incapable of love; the only person Saeko has ever loved and will always love is herself. Do not let her airhead bit fool you! She is extremely smart, and a master manipulator who has done nothing but manipulate Sota (and everyone else) from Day 1 until the very end. She possesses many narcissistic personality traits: she did not/does not love Sota; she just wanted a vacation and wanted to be with someone who would make her the centre of his attention, which Sota did. Very interesting characters indeed!
I was only disappointed by the ending since the male lead did not end up with the only fit (in terms of personality) and emotionally stable girl out of the three objects of interest. I would nevertheless still recommend this.
And to think that there are scores of children just like Mayumi all over the world breaks my heart.
The aggravation almost sent me to the hospital; EMIL p*ssed me off so much that my blood pressure spiked. It is memorable not because of its brilliance, but because of the strong emotional response it triggered in me akin to When A Man Loves and a few other blood-pressure raising dramas.
https://kissasian.sh/Drama/Hidden-Man
Exceptional storyline, superb cast and stellar acting performances. Very well done!
That 25 minutes speech in the last episode is why I admire Kimura-sama as an actor.
What a great performance!
I have always been a fan of Fukatsu Eri's, so seeing her and KimuTaku together was fantastic. The series is perfect without any romance, but it would have been nice to have a kiss or two.
I saw it years ago, and revisited it again last night. An absolute delight.
Tokuhei was the real MVP in this story :-).
He has now grown into a much sexier man. I just saw him in Dying To Survive.
His acting skills are still on point.
People are dying and dying to live in many places of the world because of the monopoly, malice and greed of pharmaceutical companies.
I'd suggest to anyone interested in the subject to watch Fire in the Blood (2013), a documentary by Dylan Mohan Gray depicting pharmaceutical companies and certain western governments' intentional obstruction of access to low-cost antiretroviral drugs.
It is always about GREED with multinationals; the money is NEVER enough.
What a loathsome world we live in!
https://kissasian.sh/Drama/Dying-to-Survive