I haven't read the manga so I will just talk about the series itself. While the series can be viewed on one level as a cheesy soft porn fantasy land of horny teenagers ... there is actually a lot more to it. There was a complexity in the plot that I was pleasantly surprised by. Like most Japanese quirky dramas and movies, this one has a lot to say about control, society and people's drivers. I was impressed with the depth and detail of concepts that the plot incorporated. They masterfully worked some comedy as well. I loved the plot concept, I thought it was executed really well and all the actors did a brilliant job ... it is classic Japanese acting and I love it ... Komiya Rio is just brilliant in his role of Inuta. Yes ... it was a very good, thought provoking and funny series ... I loved it.
I liked this short movie a lot ... it was a sad but beautifully done. The music was wonderful and costumes were…
Even though Xiao Wei and Wang Sheng did the old heart swap-aroo thing, Wang Sheng continued to love Pei Rong for the rest of his life and even after death ... Pei Rong still loved Wang Sheng even though his heart was now in Xiao Wei's body ... so what is it that is loved and what/where does that love for them come from ... is it more than heart deep ... is it soul deep π€?
I wondered about Xiao Wei and that lock of hair ... did he want to keep Wang Sheng away from Pei Rong in the next life by giving him some stranger's hair ... OR ... did he realise that it was not the object of Wang Sheng's affection (Pei Rong) that Xiao Wei loved but Wang Sheng himself (Xiao Wei did say earlier on in the movie that Wang Sheng's love was so pure) and he gave Wang Sheng a lock of his own hair, thereby ensuring that they will bound together in Wang Sheng's next life ... now that would make a good next movie π.
I liked this short movie a lot ... it was a sad but beautifully done. The music was wonderful and costumes were beautiful ... they were lovely highlights to the melancholy sunshine-less world they lived in.
I also liked that it was thought provoking ... what is it about a person that is loved and what part of you does that love come from π€.
WOW ... that kind of left me speechless ... talk about the "rain falls on the just and unjust" ... in this movie it is raining carnage everywhere and it doesn't give a shit if you are good, bad or indifferent.
The fascinating thing for me was that, even if you can document that cause and effect of a thing, that information just doesn't seem to be enough of an answer to satisfy the "why" of it all. When Im Hyung Taek's wife asked Seok Tae "why" ... I thought his answer was perfect for such a godless / god forsaken world ... "Ask when you get up there. He' know for sure."
For this kind of genre, I thought this movie was absolutely brilliant and I loved the plot twist and connections ... and OMG, Yeo Jin Goo was absolutely brilliant as Hwa Yi ... Jin Goo was around 16yrs old (western reckoning) when he did this role back in 2013. Such incredible acting for such a psychologically complex character.
TRIGGER WARNING: if you are squeamish for death and carnage and blood and abuse, I would give it a miss because it is a visually and psychologically brutal movie in every sense of the word.
Awesome short series and π Fan Zhi Xin π ... OMG he totally rocked his character Qin Li ... I am blown away by his performance ... he nailed some really complex psychological states ... just brilliant.
The drama is scripted so well ... tight as a drum, no gap fillers, the characters were all interesting and the plot was brilliantly fleshed out and kept me on the edge of my seat all the way through ... I am glad I waited until all the series dropped so I could binge watch it. I rarely have ever wished for more episodes, but I did for this one as there is so much more to the story of the very damaged Qin Li and his elder sister. Also, the scam side of things that Qin Li's elder sister was running was fascinating due to its prolific and real life occurrence across China and South East Asia.
The acting was totally on point ... even the humour was brilliant and small things like the intro with the graphics was cleverly done.
The movie started off pretty good ... post WWII ... shifts in the power balances ... not just on an international level with the US presence everywhere but also at a local level ... yakuza families having to realign themselves with the new post WWII world ... shifts in power balances ... challenges to traditional ways of doing things etc ... that side was very interesting.
I liked the concept of Nick as a character and as an 'outsider' looking in and taking up the yakuza life and Jared Leto is a great actor, no doubt about that ... but I did not like the whole great American gaijin / outsider saves the honour of the Shiromatsu yakuza family arc ... it didn't make sense to me at all in the context of the whole story. The script writers (whoever they were) portrayed Nick as some magnificent solo hero come to show the Japanese yakuza what honour is π. To me it was a bit of a slap in the face as the residual Shiromatsu yakuza brothers had just as much, if not more, respect for their "Father" and their yakuza traditions as Nick ... there is no way they would have just stood idly by while the great American white hope went after the Shiromatsu's traitor ... at the very least it should have been a team effort to take the traitor down, not a solo American Gaijin thing π. I see enough of the "American saves the day" story lines from Hollywood so I wasn't a fan of seeing it infest itself into the Japanese arena especially in something that is so intrinsically Japanese with a long history and culture.
On a different note, I did like seeing the ritualistic side of yakuza life ... the traditional tattooing, the making of a 'son' etc ... crime is never a good thing but I did like watching these traditions play out.
IMO it reeks of hypocritical sanctimoniousness π ... they have no sense of proportion ... he may have committed a crime under Korean Law but he hasn't hurt anyone except himself ... he needs help not cancellation. People should still be able to see their dramas and movies whether or not they have committed a crime.
How many of Yoo Ah In's works have people seen while being in a state of ignorance about his personal drug problem? They didn't have a problem then but NOW there is a problem ... suddenly his movies and dramas are a threat to Korean morality, that his mere involvement is going to 'corrupt' the minds of the watchers ... smh ... meanwhile Korea happily pumps out, and profits from, movies and dramas that are full of political/business corruption, murders, serial killers, rapes, family violence, bullying, suicide, gangsters, death games, prostitution, drug use, psycho religious leaders abusing their 'believers' etc etc ... and KBS and co are worried about Yoo Ah In???? My god ... what unbelievable hypocrisy ... I have nothing but contempt for their double standards.
Korea (like everywhere else) has a truck load of corrupt politicians and big business people ... they more or less all freely roam around the country and can make their squillions of Won with impunity ... but they don't get cancelled in any shape of form ... the products of their work don't get cancelled BUT if you are a celebrity and you slip up ... you get cancelled to death ... way to go Korea π
I just finished watching this on Netflix ... a big thumbs up for this series from me ... it has hot Kiritani Kenta, some kick ar5e fight scenes (though why they persist with the whole baseball bats, pipes and the odd blade mystifies me ... maybe shooting is just too boring π) ... and a script that had several layers to it which I always like in a production.
The thing I really liked about this series was not so much the good vs evil (it had the whole incestuous thing between politicians, big business, police, media and yakuza down pat as well as a mysterious psycho manipulating behind the scenes) but the concept of family ... 'family' which abandoned their children at an orphanage with no details of who their parents were or 'why' ... the 'family' created by the boys in the orphanage ... the new 'family' the boys came into when they got adopted ... the 'family' that is the yakuza ... the 'families' adopted when one of the parents die ... and what happens when those family ties come up against each other ... especially when, as an individual, you have multiple 'families'. That was very interesting to me and I liked how it got challenged and played out.
The ending was what I had hoped for ... because there are some 'family' bonds that very much run deeper than blood and all the blood spilt in the name of 'family'.
Interesting review, but I think you misunderstood the end, at least in part. You said, "Even the last scene at…
I see where you are coming from ... yes there was only one beach scene ... I was referring to how Wataru kept coming back to Koichi time and time again throughout the series, not just in the beach scene. Perhaps I should make that clearer in the review ... but I will leave it as is and hope any readers will make it to our comments for clarification πΈ
WOW I am giving this an overall 10/10 because it I found it so profound. The pace of the movie is a bit slow so I upped the playback, but still, it is not bad for a 2004 production. I thought the acting was a bit average ... but it didn't bother me because the story line was so compelling (for me anyway). I thought the visual FX were pretty good too for back then. There are slight differences between the movie and the anime (which I just finished watching prior to watching this movie), so I want to read the original manga (published in 1972) as this story has a hell of a lot to say about humanity; good and evil; god and demon etc. It reminds me a bit of Alice in Borderland ... I just love that kind of in your face mental / psychological challenge.
I came because of Takahashi Issei and I wasn't disappointed ... he always brings his X-Factor to whatever he is in. This series had moments or real slowness for me, but I kept going because there was an underlying story that slowly slowly revealed itself more and more as the episodes progressed, particularly in the last two episodes (imo anyway) ... and with 'cancel culture' going full blown in this present day ... it is an important story to be told.
None of our lives have gone perfectly ... some lives have gone worse than others ... some have had it really rough and did what they could do to survive, which in turn resulted in harsh condemnation much more than deserved ... others were vilified for no other reason than rumour ... while others got away with their scams and deceits ... life is unfair ... and yet despite our weaknesses, quirks, wrong doings ... there may be a little bit of 'beautiful' hidden within the less than perfect human being ... a little bit of 'beautiful' that, with some kindness and encouragement, can become more and more. This is the power of kindness and acceptance of the potential good in people, not all are perfect, we all make mistakes ... and some will continue in their 'bad' deeds, but not everybody ... some can turn their lives around for the better and be a better person than what they were before and be a positive change in the world they are in.
With 'cancel' culture in the entertainment world at full throttle ... where anonymous people can sentence people to a cruel death by cancellation for their past and present mistakes as if they, the judgement makers, have done no wrong themselves, as if they have every right to sit on the judgement seat and cast judgement without mercy, without acknowledgement of mitigating effects, without access to verifiable evidence etc ... this little series shows the dark side of that, throws a light on a need for a sense of proportion as everything is not always as it seems ... it shows that a little bit of kindness can go a long way to changing the lives of some people who ... while they did make mistakes ... the mistakes were not worthy of 'death by cancellation' ... that at their core, they were people who wanted to do good things, who wanted to express the beauty within.
For that, it was very well done, very poignant indeed.
A hard hitting 2006 story that takes you on a roller coaster ride. It is powerfully scripted and very, very well…
Spoiler: even though I have seen this movie a several times ... it always has me in tears .... those last few scenes of beautiful Ga Ram (Kim Dong Wook played that character beautifully) ... are just heart crushingly tragic ｑ:οΎ(;Β΄β`;)οΎ:ｑ. Why do the beautiful souls go so soon?? When Song Jae Min is calling Lee Su Min and can hear his phone call in the car park ... I just want to scream out μ κΉ λ§μ !!! The movie really draws you in ... it is that good ... AND there is a cheeky surprise ending \(βΎβΏβ)/
A hard hitting 2006 story that takes you on a roller coaster ride. It is powerfully scripted and very, very well executed by the actors and production team. I wish I could add that in BOLD type ... the movie blew me away. Korea has produced a few golden oldies in this genre that are absolutely first class ... and this is one of them in my opinion. I have watched this several times and have absolutely 'no regret' doing so, there is always something to take away from watching it ... how to be a better human being.
It makes me wonder what the hell happened since 2006 that made Korea go all coy on these more realistic life stories ... not that I don't like the current crop of post 2020 Korean BL's but I like these stories too because, more than anything, they cast a powerful light on the human heart and all the complexities of thought and emotion that surround the character's world view of life and love and attraction and struggle and pain and death and what makes you keep on going ... or not as is sadly sometimes the case.
I really liked this series ... I was in the mood for some angst ... the angst was there but i was surprised with…
The scripting for each character was strong ... I think it was purposefully like that so you could form a strong opinion about them ... only to have those opinions broken down when the PoV was changed in the next episode. This technique of revealing the inner mind of the characters was really clever given the title of the series. I couldn't help but wonder over and over at how drastically our opinions change when presented with the truth ... it is not just the lies that alter perception, it is the truths that remain unspoken that alter perception as well.
The zigging and zagging with what they told each other and what they didn't was super frustrating but, instead of ended up in an abyss of misery, it was heading somewhere. There was a lot of personal evolution going on with the characters and I liked watching how that unfolded and seeing the type of catalyst it was that fueled that personal progression.
I was very happy at how the ML Ichikawa Kazuya finally found himself ... he leveled up from a troubled 15 year old in an adult's body to a man matured who knows his own mind, faces the truth and is willing to put it out there ... and all without burning his bridges ... I was impressed β(α΅βΏα΅)β
Communication is a powerful thing ... truths omitted are just as bad as lies told ... life is tough enough already with plenty to suffer over, no need to add the pain of regret for truths untold and lies spoken ... and this story portrayed that theme very well.
Such a beaitiful review! The manga is one of my favorite and the movie is a subtle yet intimate adaptation compared…
πΈπ ... I am still in the beginning chapters of the manga but am enjoying it very much ... glad to read that they had a happy ending compared to the movie .
I wondered about Xiao Wei and that lock of hair ... did he want to keep Wang Sheng away from Pei Rong in the next life by giving him some stranger's hair ... OR ... did he realise that it was not the object of Wang Sheng's affection (Pei Rong) that Xiao Wei loved but Wang Sheng himself (Xiao Wei did say earlier on in the movie that Wang Sheng's love was so pure) and he gave Wang Sheng a lock of his own hair, thereby ensuring that they will bound together in Wang Sheng's next life ... now that would make a good next movie π.
I also liked that it was thought provoking ... what is it about a person that is loved and what part of you does that love come from π€.
The fascinating thing for me was that, even if you can document that cause and effect of a thing, that information just doesn't seem to be enough of an answer to satisfy the "why" of it all. When Im Hyung Taek's wife asked Seok Tae "why" ... I thought his answer was perfect for such a godless / god forsaken world ... "Ask when you get up there. He' know for sure."
For this kind of genre, I thought this movie was absolutely brilliant and I loved the plot twist and connections ... and OMG, Yeo Jin Goo was absolutely brilliant as Hwa Yi ... Jin Goo was around 16yrs old (western reckoning) when he did this role back in 2013. Such incredible acting for such a psychologically complex character.
TRIGGER WARNING: if you are squeamish for death and carnage and blood and abuse, I would give it a miss because it is a visually and psychologically brutal movie in every sense of the word.
The drama is scripted so well ... tight as a drum, no gap fillers, the characters were all interesting and the plot was brilliantly fleshed out and kept me on the edge of my seat all the way through ... I am glad I waited until all the series dropped so I could binge watch it. I rarely have ever wished for more episodes, but I did for this one as there is so much more to the story of the very damaged Qin Li and his elder sister. Also, the scam side of things that Qin Li's elder sister was running was fascinating due to its prolific and real life occurrence across China and South East Asia.
The acting was totally on point ... even the humour was brilliant and small things like the intro with the graphics was cleverly done.
Yep π10/10π drama for me.
I liked the concept of Nick as a character and as an 'outsider' looking in and taking up the yakuza life and Jared Leto is a great actor, no doubt about that ... but I did not like the whole great American gaijin / outsider saves the honour of the Shiromatsu yakuza family arc ... it didn't make sense to me at all in the context of the whole story. The script writers (whoever they were) portrayed Nick as some magnificent solo hero come to show the Japanese yakuza what honour is π. To me it was a bit of a slap in the face as the residual Shiromatsu yakuza brothers had just as much, if not more, respect for their "Father" and their yakuza traditions as Nick ... there is no way they would have just stood idly by while the great American white hope went after the Shiromatsu's traitor ... at the very least it should have been a team effort to take the traitor down, not a solo American Gaijin thing π. I see enough of the "American saves the day" story lines from Hollywood so I wasn't a fan of seeing it infest itself into the Japanese arena especially in something that is so intrinsically Japanese with a long history and culture.
On a different note, I did like seeing the ritualistic side of yakuza life ... the traditional tattooing, the making of a 'son' etc ... crime is never a good thing but I did like watching these traditions play out.
How many of Yoo Ah In's works have people seen while being in a state of ignorance about his personal drug problem? They didn't have a problem then but NOW there is a problem ... suddenly his movies and dramas are a threat to Korean morality, that his mere involvement is going to 'corrupt' the minds of the watchers ... smh ... meanwhile Korea happily pumps out, and profits from, movies and dramas that are full of political/business corruption, murders, serial killers, rapes, family violence, bullying, suicide, gangsters, death games, prostitution, drug use, psycho religious leaders abusing their 'believers' etc etc ... and KBS and co are worried about Yoo Ah In???? My god ... what unbelievable hypocrisy ... I have nothing but contempt for their double standards.
Korea (like everywhere else) has a truck load of corrupt politicians and big business people ... they more or less all freely roam around the country and can make their squillions of Won with impunity ... but they don't get cancelled in any shape of form ... the products of their work don't get cancelled BUT if you are a celebrity and you slip up ... you get cancelled to death ... way to go Korea π
The thing I really liked about this series was not so much the good vs evil (it had the whole incestuous thing between politicians, big business, police, media and yakuza down pat as well as a mysterious psycho manipulating behind the scenes) but the concept of family ... 'family' which abandoned their children at an orphanage with no details of who their parents were or 'why' ... the 'family' created by the boys in the orphanage ... the new 'family' the boys came into when they got adopted ... the 'family' that is the yakuza ... the 'families' adopted when one of the parents die ... and what happens when those family ties come up against each other ... especially when, as an individual, you have multiple 'families'. That was very interesting to me and I liked how it got challenged and played out.
The ending was what I had hoped for ... because there are some 'family' bonds that very much run deeper than blood and all the blood spilt in the name of 'family'.
There are slight differences between the movie and the anime (which I just finished watching prior to watching this movie), so I want to read the original manga (published in 1972) as this story has a hell of a lot to say about humanity; good and evil; god and demon etc. It reminds me a bit of Alice in Borderland ... I just love that kind of in your face mental / psychological challenge.
None of our lives have gone perfectly ... some lives have gone worse than others ... some have had it really rough and did what they could do to survive, which in turn resulted in harsh condemnation much more than deserved ... others were vilified for no other reason than rumour ... while others got away with their scams and deceits ... life is unfair ... and yet despite our weaknesses, quirks, wrong doings ... there may be a little bit of 'beautiful' hidden within the less than perfect human being ... a little bit of 'beautiful' that, with some kindness and encouragement, can become more and more. This is the power of kindness and acceptance of the potential good in people, not all are perfect, we all make mistakes ... and some will continue in their 'bad' deeds, but not everybody ... some can turn their lives around for the better and be a better person than what they were before and be a positive change in the world they are in.
With 'cancel' culture in the entertainment world at full throttle ... where anonymous people can sentence people to a cruel death by cancellation for their past and present mistakes as if they, the judgement makers, have done no wrong themselves, as if they have every right to sit on the judgement seat and cast judgement without mercy, without acknowledgement of mitigating effects, without access to verifiable evidence etc ... this little series shows the dark side of that, throws a light on a need for a sense of proportion as everything is not always as it seems ... it shows that a little bit of kindness can go a long way to changing the lives of some people who ... while they did make mistakes ... the mistakes were not worthy of 'death by cancellation' ... that at their core, they were people who wanted to do good things, who wanted to express the beauty within.
For that, it was very well done, very poignant indeed.
It makes me wonder what the hell happened since 2006 that made Korea go all coy on these more realistic life stories ... not that I don't like the current crop of post 2020 Korean BL's but I like these stories too because, more than anything, they cast a powerful light on the human heart and all the complexities of thought and emotion that surround the character's world view of life and love and attraction and struggle and pain and death and what makes you keep on going ... or not as is sadly sometimes the case.
The zigging and zagging with what they told each other and what they didn't was super frustrating but, instead of ended up in an abyss of misery, it was heading somewhere. There was a lot of personal evolution going on with the characters and I liked watching how that unfolded and seeing the type of catalyst it was that fueled that personal progression.
I was very happy at how the ML Ichikawa Kazuya finally found himself ... he leveled up from a troubled 15 year old in an adult's body to a man matured who knows his own mind, faces the truth and is willing to put it out there ... and all without burning his bridges ... I was impressed β(α΅βΏα΅)β
Communication is a powerful thing ... truths omitted are just as bad as lies told ... life is tough enough already with plenty to suffer over, no need to add the pain of regret for truths untold and lies spoken ... and this story portrayed that theme very well.
As an aside ... it was nice to see SatoTaiki and Mikami Ai getting into their kiss scenes
Ω©(βΏ ^α΄^ )ΫΆ