I couldn't warm to the lame comedy in this story of two country bumpkins trying to survive homeless on the streets of Shenzhen with someone's abandoned baby, and I gave up after half an hour.
That damn school bag - its zipper jams at the worst possible moments, and so one time Sakura is running down the street clutching her panties unable to hide them away in her bag, another time her mother's vibrator and she runs into the neighbours.
Problematic subtitles which gave a peculiar tone. The main character and the first half scenes were played as comedy which shifted into high melodrama and tragedy in the second half. Propaganda for the common man (and of course it's a man's world, for both the rich and the poor) and against the corrupt ones in power. We're expected to admire the obsession of the main character and his mapmaking on behalf of all the people, which is supposed to compensate for the terrible price he pays in his fanaticism. Plenty of cruelty like so many Korean movies, including a side story about the persecution of the early Christians. When we see the assembled map finally near the end, it's with a pang, for the land that is no longer whole, and was divided in the Korean war.
It has a slice-of-life tone, but there's in incident in which the children meet an old woman (the cat-eating hag) who may actually be a traditional spirit, and on the night of O-Bon the main character meets the spirit of her aunt who died of starvation after WWII. The child who is at the centre of this enjoyable film spends most of the movie shouting, or else singing rude childish songs with her playmates (somehow they're mostly about dicks, but girls have always been adaptable), or greeting each other with ritual chants involving farts. Her "international family" is a rarity in Japan, except maybe around the American base in Okinawa: her old sister was evidently fathered by a white American, her older brother by a black American, while her father is Japanese and apparently quite accepting of his wife's past pecadillos. There are many scenes of Okinawan town and country, along with traditional music and dance.
Good article and thank you for your research and work. Most of my favorite Japanese dramas were written by Yuji Sakamoto, who writes mostly realistic stories and good dialogue, and my favorites of his are "woman" and "quartet". "Nobuta wa Produce" is rather good - I like stories about characters who develop during the series. Also, "The Queen's Classroom" and the Korean remake.
Can anyone tell me if it's in Cantonese or Mandarin? (please only reply if you know for sure, no speculation). If it has Chinese subtitles, do they match the speech?
The movie begins with a typical set of overacted caricature misfits who we're apparently expected to deride, and therefore feel no sympathy for. Aragaki Yui, whose acting chops are limited at the best of times, fails to convince as the nerdy high-school girl suffering unrequited love for the school's prize baseball pitcher, and looks about five years too old for the role and her classmates. So I fast-forwarded to see the end, and as expected, they've all become impossibly adept and cool, but somehow still the movie failed to engage. At least it was interesting to see the Japanese version of cheerleading, male-dominated and martial-arts-influenced.
A low-key slice-of-life movie about an assortment of young adults who take a summer job harvesting sugar cane in Okinawa. As you might expect, the work toughens them and bonds them, the backgrounds they have fled from gradually emerge but are often understated or just implied. The sweet elderly couple who own the farm know they can count on this alchemy to ensure the harvest will be completed on time, without any slave-driving.
Man, seeing comments like this annoys me to no end. And it's not because of Ryu Hwa Young. I think I've only seen…
Interesting discussion. A good point made: this show is much more than one of the actors in it, it is the product of many people. Should an artist be judged only by their work, not by their personal actions? A famous debate is whether Wagner's anti-Semitism makes it impossible to enjoy and value his operas. And yet: bullying is totally unacceptable and in some cases drives people to suicide or murder. Bullies need to know that they are known, and are being watched, and they must face up to the consequences of their behaviour. As media consumers, we should be aware of what goes on behind the scenes to create the products we enjoy. Show biz is a highly competitive field and often exploitative of the artists. I don't know anything about the details of the bullying events in this case.
Several decades of censorship has a damaging effect on people's ability to think, to imagine, to understand human psychology, and this shows in the relatively poorer quality of writing in many chinese dramas. So often the characterization is not consistent, people do stupid things for stupid reasons, etc. The best IMHO would be Nirvana in Fire, The Long Ballad, and Le Coup de Foudre (b/c it made me laugh so often), and the Light on Series especially The Bad Kids. Some of the better chinese-language dramas were made in Taiwan, one of the most progressive countries in Asia, including The World Between Us, Someday or One Day, Candy Online.
No way would I try to watch this. For a start, the idea of being accidently inseminated is outrageous and completely unbelievable. Then if it could happen, the outcome would not be extremely fraught, certainly not a comedy. Add to that the prudishness of Korean public television. No way this could be a worthwhile watch.
Most of my favorite Japanese dramas were written by Yuji Sakamoto, who writes mostly realistic stories and good dialogue, and my favorites of his are "woman" and "quartet".
"Nobuta wa Produce" is rather good - I like stories about characters who develop during the series. Also, "The Queen's Classroom" and the Korean remake.
https://comment.rlsbb.cc/memory-eclipse-s01-720p-dsnp-web-dl-h264-playweb/
At least it was interesting to see the Japanese version of cheerleading, male-dominated and martial-arts-influenced.
Should an artist be judged only by their work, not by their personal actions? A famous debate is whether Wagner's anti-Semitism makes it impossible to enjoy and value his operas.
And yet: bullying is totally unacceptable and in some cases drives people to suicide or murder. Bullies need to know that they are known, and are being watched, and they must face up to the consequences of their behaviour.
As media consumers, we should be aware of what goes on behind the scenes to create the products we enjoy. Show biz is a highly competitive field and often exploitative of the artists.
I don't know anything about the details of the bullying events in this case.
Some of the better chinese-language dramas were made in Taiwan, one of the most progressive countries in Asia, including The World Between Us, Someday or One Day, Candy Online.