rje1

For a bunch of highly-trained health professionals, their diet based almost solely on junk food and take-out is something to behold. And the sizes of the serves they have, notwithstanding the running joke of Song Hwa's healthy appetite.

You're right, they're both good movies. I enjoyed learning about the historical context of Love Lies - the 20th century gisaengs, the Japanese occupation, the Korean jazz music, but it's a grim story of envy and revenge. Always was entertaining enough.
I looked up your member profile - yes I agree the ending is paramount and can make or break a drama. I prefer happy endings as long as they're convincing and have been earned e.g. My Mister, the Korean version of Mother. What about you?

Bittersweet love story, teaching us to make the most of the moment, to treasure first love but not hold on to it desperately, punctuated by Greg Hsu's cheeky grin. Tends to be episodic, and our lead pair pass 15 years from teens into adulthood without visible ageing. Evidently is a Chinese production, set in some vaguely unspecified Chinese location, and Hsu speaks Mandarin with his Taiwanese accent. Is this the sort of thing that we can expect if the CCP invades Taiwan?

Bittersweet love story, teaching us to make the most of the moment, to treasure first love but not hold on to it desperately, punctuated by Greg Hsu's cheeky grin. Tends to be episodic, and our lead pair pass 15 years from teens into adulthood without visible ageing. Evidently is a Chinese production, set in some vaguely unspecified Chinese location, and Hsu speaks Mandarin with his Taiwanese accent. Is this the sort of thing that we can expect if the CCP invades Taiwan?

Unique? to see a Japanese movie addressing Japanese wartime atrocities. This movie is suspenseful with unexpected twists in the first half. and then becomes fragmented, almost dream-like in the second half, and the story seems full of gaps. It feels like a biopic, sticking to the facts at the expense of an engrossing narrative and losing its thrust in the second half, but apparently it's fictional.

Episode one: a woman is persistently sexually harrassed despite clearly saying she is not interested, and for a few moments is actually expecting she will be raped. The only way this makes sense as entertainment is to think that women say no and mean yes, a woman naturally resists although secretly wants sex, and this must be overcome by the man using a manipulative game. This episode therefore harms the causes of women's sexuality and women's safety: the right for women to enjoy their own sexuality and to make their own decisions without the domination of men and of institutions. Not sure if I am going to see this series to the end.

If you don't take this drama seriously then it's a lot of fun. North Koreans watching smuggled copies of this must be laughing their heads off grimly at the distorted depiction of their country. But who cares, underlying this is the Korean yearning for and terror of reunification. All the actors play over the top and there are many re-playable scenes (that's my definition of a much-enjoyed drama). The second half drags a bit, a common fault in dramas that gradually lose their sense of fun and so start dipping in the box for melodrama tropes to keep things going. The lead romance is constructed on top of a whole series of coincidences that are gradually revealed. Like I said, don't take it seriously, just sit back and enjoy yourself.

It must be said these are very much G-rated. Each episode is more like only 10 minutes if you skip the recap at the beginning and the ending credits. Apparently they're made for busy housewives with a quick 15 minutes to watch TV in the morning between ? and ? (sending the kids to school? and doing the housework?). They are a good intro to Japanese culture and life, including many different locations, local slang etc. When I was cycling Tohoku in 2016 I stopped at the harbour at Sodegahama in the late afternoon, three years on from the dorama. There was no-one around, but a lot of faded posters in shop windows, and a loudspeaker playing Shiosai no Memorii.

Feel-good/feel-sad movie that plays out as you'd expect from the beginning premiss: terminally-ill mother writes birthday cards for her daughter's future birthdays up to age 20. The only mini-surprises are the the episodes along the way, but everything goes in conventional G-rated directions, none of the minor stories and characters are explored in any detail, and the mother's final card and bowing out, occurs when - you guess.

Oh. So unless you have multiple personality disorder, my suggestion was of no use. It was two years later than your comment....

Not so much a coming of age story as a slice of coming of age story. Filmed by an ethnic-Japanese Hokkaido native, but otherwise the actors are Ainu and the setting a well-known Ainu village. The story is thin, and padded out with many outdoor seasonal scenes, and scenes of Ainu cultural activity that are not directly relevant to the plot. It follows a mid-teen boy, wanting to escape his Ainu heritage, while the elders gently try to attract him into their traditions. Their mistake is involving him in the secret traditional bear-sacrificing ritual, although the ending was ambiguous. The marginalization of the Ainu and the ignorance of the majority Japanese is satirized.

Beautiful slice-of-life movie about sisterly bonding, with a small-town vibe. Not an overarching plot and therefore episodic in structure, held together as life passes through the seasons. By the end one almost gets a sense they're going to stay together forever. Some of the men are failures, some are likeable, but none can provide what sisters can. The theme music is gorgeous.

Presumably in Kamakura? South West of Tokyo on the coast. Several other movies and dramas are set there e.g. Antiquarian Bookshop Biblia's Case Files; Destiny: Kamakura Monogatari.

You're welcome. One of my all-time favorite movies too. Along with the two Japanese movies Little Forest, and Our Little Sister/Umimachi Diary.

Superb movie, one of my all-time favorites. I was already well familiar with the culture of Japan through numerous movies, dramas series, anime, read mangas, not to mention two long cycling trips, and a couple of years of studying Japanese, and yet the first time I watched it, I felt deeply immersed me for over two hours in an alien world.
Toda Erika and Mitsushima Hikari are two brilliant actresses playing strong women characters, each making their own personal way in a man's world, along with the sensitive man played by Oizumi Yo.. The scenery around the temple through the seasons is gorgeous and restful. The story is of healing and redemption. The climactic scene is thrilling.

Woman with past romantic troubles (which are gradually revealed during the movie) places an ad looking for a husband. It's significant that she chooses to conceal that she's a dentist (or was it a doctor) i.e. she can't even count on being able to be herself in dating encounters. This doesn't bode well for her hopes in an ongoing relationship. In the movie someone comments that all the decent men are settled in relationships e.g. the sympathetic male friend she occasionally meets with and discusses her liaisons. The movie is a therefore a series of teahouse encounters that catalogue the worst of Taiwan's single males that she meets, giving viewers plenty of laughs and cringeworthy moments .

Do you read these in Chinese? Or in English translation? I can read about 500 hanzi so I think it'll be a long time before I can manage a novel... Maybe manhua first....

Do you think it was similar to the movie Secret? By similar, I guess you wanted something that induces a similar mood?
The Korean movie The Beauty Inside (not the drama series)
The Taiwanese drama Candy Online
The Japanese movie, Japanese series, or Korean movie of Be With You (all 3 versions are good)
The Japanese/Korean movie Virgin Snow
good luck!

The Taiwanese drama Someday or One Day. Many people here loved it.

One-hour TV comedy about a young woman who enters a Go competition in the hopes of winning enough money to pay the rent. The game itself is hardly mentioned. It mostly consists of gags featuring the various weird competitors, and the lead character's cynical responses.