The movie is for lovers of the drama, and has much less time to explain things. I watched the drama almost 2 1/2 years ago (and loved it), the delay may have contributed to my confusion in following the movie. Just as someone mapped the drama (see the wikipedia series article, also https://time.graphics/user/648704), the movie needs a diagram to help keep track of what's going on (maybe copy the one directly from the movie). The movie benefits from having dropped the serial killer subplot. We don't get much chance to see Mo Jun Jie's part in the story, including his feelings for Yun Ru. The three leads are just as charming as they were in the series. I think I'd like to watch them all again together.
Set in a dreamy fantasy slice of the real world, inhabited only by teenage girls. Two meet for the first time when they become step-sisters. The parents remain in absentia overseas throughout. One girl, shy, inhibited, and deferential, is extraordinarily knowledgeable and skilled at cooking. The other, impetuous and wears her heart on her sleeve, is willing to lend a hand, but especially loves to taste the productions of their kitchen, as well as take secret photographs of her new sister at work. Mutual cooperation ensues in yet another variation of the Japanese food drama. The adoring gazes (at each other, not just the food), the electric accidental touches, the ecstatic faces, are unmistakably symbolic, and this is the nearest thing to shoujo-ai without actually being so.
Not a through review but i havent felt like it was made for a male gaze while watching it. It was shot with a…
Thanks. I guess I need to watch some of it. I was wondering about the action in the series, what that is expressing/representing about women's roles, abilitites, etc. Given that the production is almost certianly dominated by men.
I watched so many Japanese dramas that I became immune to their faults; and then so many more that I became intolerant. Abe Hiroshi's bad guy looks like a nice teen trying to look tough in a school play. The story is typically overwrought maudlin, but in case you can't follow the melodramatic script, loud emotional music will be your guide. As so many dramas do, this one relies on secrets and miscommunications to drive it forwards. If people just stopped to listen to each other, the story would fall apart. Four episodes were enough for me; I can guess the rest without watching it.
It shouldn't surprise us that behind the magic and romance of anime is a typically Japanese workaholic corporate world, where the cynical mercenary higher-ups, mercurial creatives, and ruthless producers duke it out. The plot is driven by the race for ratings between two production teams, like a typical sports movie/anime, and while the production process is interesting, it's hardly enough to fuel a movie. See the anime Shirobako for another account. As it drives towards the climax, artistic integrity overtakes the crass wish to win, and in its service the whole team finally pulls together. This whole movie is secondary to the anime world at its core, and necessarily the climax itself has to be provided by the two anime series' final scenes, rather than the conflict between the various humans, who we can't really care about because we don't know them, other than the FL director's fairly sketchy childhood story (we've seen this before in other videos about anime e.g. Juuhan Shuttai!)..
This story consists of a reasonably interesting mystery, solved step by step in the usual overwrought and mannered Japanese movie style, and nothing otherwise of interest in the characters and their interactions.
https://time.graphics/user/648704
There doesn't seem to be an English version either official nor scanlation.
As it drives towards the climax, artistic integrity overtakes the crass wish to win, and in its service the whole team finally pulls together. This whole movie is secondary to the anime world at its core, and necessarily the climax itself has to be provided by the two anime series' final scenes, rather than the conflict between the various humans, who we can't really care about because we don't know them, other than the FL director's fairly sketchy childhood story (we've seen this before in other videos about anime e.g. Juuhan Shuttai!)..
https://www.justonecookbook.com/netflix-the-makanai-recipes/