Excellent music for an alert thriller
Three reasons for this drama is a must see:1. The soundtrack is a master piece. Actually, I came to watch it because I liked the music very much
2. The story is keeping you alert, it goes several time in unexpected directions.
3. The acting is excellent, not only for the main leads.
A drama that is worth its watching time.
I have not seen the original K-Version; it should not matter too much if you saw it,
because at least two of the previous reasons stand by themselfs.
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Worth its time!
I saw this movie during a Festival of Japanese Movies.Directed by Keitaro Sakon, the movie catches his audience like a storm.
A young woman with a very strong character pushes all strings of her psychological
ability in order to kick out of resignation the members of her family.
While pursuing her aims she hurts the feelings of others and of herself in unexpected way.
I liked very much the interpretation of the main lead (Morita Kokoro) but also the other
actors did a great job. There was no second when I felt bored or when I had to excuse the creators for their art or choices.
The final of the movie is open, it is fully unclear what should we expect to happen next.
Surprisingly, this open end does not feel unsatisfactory!
This movie is definitely worth the time invested in watching it!
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another K standard
This is another 2025 K standard. It has cute and good actors, nice music, good camera work and direction, yeta very foreseeable script with some humoristic situations and a slight of romance. Obviously, it is possible to gather and train many cute and good actors, camera operators, directors and all the industry, yet creativity and awareness cannot be gained by training alone. Having all that great cinematographic power puts even higher demands for the script writers. Under the pressure for fast and numerous scripts, the quality has to suffer..
This drama is not an exception and it is only about 50% worth its watching time.
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Can the director/writers be fired?
... because the director fully missed one of her/his most important tasks: to ensure that quality control takes place,which definitively did not happened. The writers were also careless or incompetent (as usual, I may add):
obvious unacceptable mistakes appear almost everywhere, yet most in the first third of the series, but not only there.
The writers did such a bad job, that the actors had no other choice but to improvise and change the dialogs a lot - accordingly to the interviews given by the actors. Fortunately, the main idea is good and the actors are all extremely good; together with the rest of the working teams (camera, costumes, make up, music) they made decisive contributions to this overall valuable series. If only director and writers did their jobs, the series could be one of the very good ones.
What this series has and many other do not have:
+ beautiful views filmed outside (a lot in Canada and Italy, a few in Japan),
+ deeply motivated feelings and experiences,
+ psychologically motivated movements.
Despite its flaws, this series fully deserves to be watched.
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Masterpiece of acting, bumpy story
The acting of the FL is an absolute masterpiece, I have rarely seen actresses with such a complex expressiveness.The drama seems also to be conceived to put her power of expression into the right light: the story is complex and bumpy
(I had big reservations at he beginning, because some situations are far from credibility), the camera work is excellent
and the music is perfectly aligned and also worth listening also without the drama. The other actors also do a good job,
especially if we consider that they have to stand near the stellar actress.
This drama was 100% worth my watching time and I'd recommend.
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almost everything is missing
This is another beautiful example how excellent actors plus budget plus a good idea might add to nothing.The episodes feel void. Either a reduction to two episodes or better dialogues or some sort of filling might have
help. Instead of this we have 11 long episodes of nothing. It might be still nice to simply watch the beautiful actors
and listen for their voices, in case you really have nothing else better to watch or to do in life.
From my point of view, it does not deserves attention even for 1% of its running time. Big disappointment!
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good writing and acting
I wasn't expecting much, yet it is probably one of the best of the first quarter of 2026. The writing was surprisingly good,maybe a bit hurried up at the end, the mediocre director seemed inpatient; by the way, it seems that the majority if K-directors never went stars gazing; they should be send by their school on a field trip by night :-). Anyway, the acting was excellent by all actors. It was nice to get some views not only of Seoul, but also from Gangwon and other provinces.
I rarely get the feeling to start watching a series again when it finishes, but this one did it!
100% worth watching!
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Worth its time
The writing, the camera work and the realization are excellent, we have here top Korean cinematography at its best.There are a lot of pretty fcaes, of course, but also very good actors like Go Hyun Jung and Yoon Sang Hyun. The cuts
are very intriguing at the beginning, I had the feeling of following a hriller or a fast criminal series, but it has a lot of psychology and harsh views on a for sure very hurtful world. Everything s packed with beautiful music worth listening
on its own. All in one I can say that this drama is worth its view time.
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Timeless Love Letters to My Classmates
2 people found this review helpful
Unexpected funny
This series is surprisingly funny, it excels in almost every component,despite the fact that it kept very modest.
The name and the plot description do not seem promising, everything looks
simple, but in reality every detail is mutinously prepared. Watching it, it felt
like feeling a sweet spring breeze. The excellent acting of the main leads didn't felt
forced, even in the situations that may not simply occur. The story is fun and warmly
captivating, the camera work is kept simple and efficient - everything leads to relaxing
enjoyable fun. This show is 100% worth its time watching!
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Fun!
Yami Baito Kazoku is a lighthearted funny comedy in very Japanese style.The dialogs are fun and with various links to the usual stereotypes of the criminal yakuza series and other common places, nicely blended with some moments of sensibility.
Even if the story is at some point foreseeable, the amount of jokes and the absolute stunning acting of some of the trendy
Japanese actors help the scenario to a sufficiently interesting and captivating.
I found the theme song so cool that I always listened to it wholly, which I rarely do.
There are a few too obvious mistakes that could have been easily avoided when putting the cuts together, which is a pity, yet one can not take it too seriously, it is just a fun show.
All in one, it is 100% worth its watching time!
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Unusual
It is absolutely captivating! It has xcellent written story, stellar acting, perfectly matching music.It is not at all a standard Japanese drama, at least I have never seen something similar among them until now.
Be aware, it is very creepy and emotionally hard, very revolting and in every respect surprising.
Even if it was a hard one, I must say that it deserves 100% its time watching.
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Pleasant and Modern
I watched this movie with English subtitles at a Japanese Film Festival.I liked very much the movie, as most of the movies by this director.
While it is for sure an rt film, it is good enough to have success to the larger scale of audience.
Very impressive in this movie are the beautiful views: nature with mountains and lake with strips of fog,
but also the small streets in the shopping center in Tokyo, the lovely details of the old public bath,
the authentic small Japanese (but also Ethiopian) restaurants, the lovely portraits of the old men and women.
We feel the delicacy and the love of the film creators towards their subjects.
The story is credible at every moment and I feel it gives a good slice of life. It has the right amount of tragic
and of poetics.
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Aboslute fun!
The time you invest in watching this drama is 100% worth it!I came rather by hazard to this drama, hence I didn't know
anything about the actors, director and screenwriter.
Hence, I was not preconditioned by anything.
The acting of the two main leads is beyond any expectation.
They create a great atmosphere and bombastic fun and
convey the story a pleasant taste, When you'd expect that the
story line would start to go around, the writer put unexpected
ideas. In three words: better than expected!
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Heart breaking and beautiful
I have not watched such a beautiful and heart breaking series since "When life gives you tangerines".While being a fully different story, the used cinematographic techniques and the atmosphere are similar.
The actors are beautiful and do an excellent job. The music is absolutely fantastic and very well coordinated with
the action.
Of course, this is not meant to be watched all in one day, it needs time to be appreciated, it is no low cost, fast speed.
This series is 200% worth its watching time.
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Hybrid Chaebol-Historical-Fiction Kitsch
Who wants nowadays another standard chaebol story? Well, the combination with fictional historical style is not standard, but everything else has been shown 1000 times and more already. However it is fair: the kitschy title says all, so if you do not like this kind of kitsch, then you should not watch. Myself I had to fight to keep watching, Because of the story I was almost throwing every five minutes. I endured it in order to enjoy the acting of IU and some other actors; all of them are very good matches (yes a prince is supposed to be expressionless and dumb, what else?), as expected, the whole team is highly professional, they are not joking around. The music is excellent and worth listening to outside the drama, too. The only part of the writing that I liked were the two episodes where the writer seemed to embrace the irony towards the historical type of drama. Unfortunately that part ended fast and the banality filled everything else. After seeing it all, I think that I wasted my time. IU played in dramas that are more worth watching than this one. Go for them, if you have time!Was this review helpful to you?
