I swear to you I will not be impartial when I review his drama, it is not possible to me. Let me tell you why. Around 10 years ago there was a girl who was fan of amines/manga and went to a convention of it in her city. There while walking around with a friend comes across a room where they were exhibiting “doramas” and she decided to check it out. It was a decision that changed her like the most, changed her preference in music, movies, tv and even books. It was not changes that happened sudden, they happened during all those 10 years after entering in that room and it changed an enter person life in many ways. And in that room she watched 2 episodes of Hana Yori Dango and two episodes of Garo.

I never watched Garo again, tokusatso was never my thing. But Hana Yori Dango helped make the person I am today and it is saying a lot.
Let me tell you about Makino and her never ending fight for what she thinks is right and for the ones who are unfortunate. Captivates you in a way that few can and makes you see yourself in her place and smile with her, cry with her, hate and love with her and after 10 years still say “arienayitsuno!!” for anything that is unbelievable.

Let me tell you about Hanazawa Rui who will be your teenager dream ideal guy and make you forever see yourself as a second lead syndrome girl, even if it is in general very difficult for you to prefer second lead guys in the future (it just happened one time more in those 10 years). Who you will decide is your favorite actor and after that you will follow his career very fondly and many others of his work will became your favorite.

Let me tell about Domyoji who in Makino’s words is “stupid, selfish, self-centred” and have bad hair, and is the only main lead that in the same time is the comic relief in a drama. Can make you love and hate him as much as Makino loves and hate him. Who is a complex character that should be an example for every personage which is a bad guy turned good in storytelling. Those three together compose the best triangle love story that ever was made.

Hana Your Dango is above all a story about friendship, the relation between the F4 and how the support each other thought life is something memorable. In the first glimpse you think they are just a bunch of spoiled rick guys but each and every one of them are so much more. The complexity of Hana Yori Dango characters is what makes this amazing. And let’s agree that the F4 was the Bromance before bromance was a thing.

I think I can say that Hana Yori Dango Format was one of the best things Asia ever made. And is in the recommendation list of every drama fan in the world. Choose your poison it is Hana Yori Dango, Boys over Flower or Meteor Garden, I’ve chosen mine. I never watched the other versions, this is the one drama I can not compare, will never compare with anything, but by the popularity of the other versions is saying something it do not disappointed.
So go for it, enter the room and change your life forever. This is worth.

Leia Mais

First, I have to say that this movie holds a special place in my heart, since it came out back in 2014, I waited for various months until it was subbed like a crazy stalking woman and I was not disappointed.

The Mole Song: Undercover Agent Reiji is a over the top, too much like an anime, makes you laugh for no reason, kind of movie. It can be very silly and if you are not in the mood for nonsense and foolishness, don't watch this movie, you are not gonna like it. But if anything is game, enjoy, i laughed my ass off.

At first look it is just the simple plot of a bad police officer ending up in a undercover mission, how it is in Japan it is obvious on the Yakuza. But what makes this movie different is the take out on the hero journey, from the moment of been chosen for the mission and the process of entering on the yakuza clan. It is just so crazy and unexpected, you never know what it is gonna happen on the next scene. And it gets you, you can't stop watching.

And believe me, there is a song.

My real reason to watch it was because of Ikuta Toma, who is one of my favorite actors in Japan, and it had been years since I last saw him in a comedy. If you know him, you know Hana Kimi and if you watched it you know he is a master of comedy. So when you hear about him staring in a comedy movie, you get excited. And his work in this movie is excepcional, he shows a character that is stupid and cute and a pervert and an innocent at the same time. You can not do anything but laugh.

Apart from Toma other performance I really liked was the yakuza brother, Masaya Hiura. The actor made a great job and the development of the character, it is very well done. Hightlights for the relationship between him em Heiji, for me it was more interesting than the romance betwen Heiji and the police officer Wakagi Junna. It was a bit out of the place and there are scenes that i asked myself what she was doing there, in my opinion they should have done a different pace on the romance, but in the end it served to its proprose.

Other point i want to make is about the fashion and the concept of the movie, it is out of this place. it is gangster funk cartoonish kind of vibe, remembers a lot of animes from the 80's. For me, it gives a nostalgic feelings of my childhood.

Overall it is a pretty outstanding movie and i recommend, it is a great fun. And to watching Toma in comedy is always amazing, makes me miss nakatsu... hum, i want to watch hana kimi again!!!!

Leia Mais

This may come as a surprise but when Globin started airing, I had no interest in watching it. Let’s say I love Asian Culture and entertainment, that is why I watch dramas but one thing is true, Asians are not good in doing description and to me Goblin sounded lame, over de top fantasy/comedy. I can say for sure that none of those words above can be used to describe it in the end.
There has been a long time since a drama moved me in such a way like this one. It is a touching and sincere love story and have the one thing I love the most about romance, it being drama, movie or book. Goblin has “great love”. For the ones who doesn’t know, “great love” is that genuine love that the person is capable of sacrificing everything for the other one, without selfishness or jealousy or greed. It is just pure love and it is great. Many love stories try this line but few achieve it, Goblin does.
If you are reading this, you probable already read de description on the top of the page, it is terrible so let me tell you. This drama is the story of a goblin, a darned creature, who was crushed to walk on earth forever and see all his loved ones die. The only person capable of ending this curse, so he can go to ashes, is his bride. So he goes on waiting for the bride to appear. That’s all you need to know.
It is beautifully made, the tempo of all drama is well done, none of it gets boring, in the end of each episode you will die wanting more. For the drama veterans, it don’t have almost any clichés of Korean dramas, no second league guy, no annoying girl, no mother in low or and to me it fells new and refreshing. It has one thing that is cliché but this one is to you to find out.
And the acting, I can say that Goblin revived a lot of carriers and impulse new ones, for sure. Gong Yoo as Kim Shin was a gift to me, it had been such a long time I watched and loved a drama with him. I love Coffee Prince, and I love him on Coffee Prince. So to me watch him doing so good as the Goblin makes me really pound. Kim Go Eum was a nice surprise, I watched some episodes of Cheese in a Trap, but I didn’t finished it so I couldn’t tell mush of her background, in Goblin she is refreshing and funny and a strong female lead, you can relate to her and both of them together is explosive .
In the beginning I thought the age difference between the characters would make it a little weird, not because the Goblin has more than 900 years, but Gong Yoo is in this late 30’s and Ji Eum Tak is in high school. She even calls him “ajushi”, but you buy it and you buy their love, by the way, she is over eighteen.
For the second roles, Lee Dong Wook as the Grim Reaper was other acting as was really happy to see revived, he was not long gone like Gong Yoo but the last few years I was happier watching him in Roommate than in a drama, and it is sad. But he did so well in Goblin that I hope the next drama he does are the same incredible. Yoo In Na, Sunny, did also an amazing job, I don’t know if I’m being mean but seems like In Na has a face of a mean lead but do so much well as second one, not saying she is not talented but she did so well in this character that I want to see her do it again.
One very important point I have to talk about is the Grim Reaper and Sunny story line. Technically is the second story line but it is so well treated here that it feels like main one. The two story lines need each other to be excellent and neither of them feels less because of it. It is something really hard to do in story telling. So applause to the Globin team for archiving it.
About the sound track, “Never far Away” is my favorite music high now. I listen to it 5 or 6 times a day. So it is enough to say I love it and if someone say it is not good, they are crazy. The rest of the songs too, are amazing.
And about the end, it is something very important to me in a drama. It can break or make the drama for me. There was so many drama that went down on ranking to me because of bad ending, I was afraid this one would too. It didn’t. The end is not fairytale, it is not necessary happy… it is beater sweet I would say, but it is as much of beautifully made as the rest of the drama. And now if I think about it, for the entire drama there was clues of the end, you just don’t realize it.
So, you may be wondering why my score was 9,5 and not a 10 if I liked it so much. Well, even if it was an amazing drama, there were some questions and inexplicable aspects that this drama didn’t answer. Things that I found out in the internet but it was the drama that had to give me it, but how it was nothing major I just took 0,5 a point.
Overall Goblin is a jewel, worth of watching at least one time or three or four. I’m for sure coming back and watching it again.

Leia Mais

That I was going to watch this drama, I had no doubts.
I need no excuse do watch Sato Takeru anyway…
Love last Forever or Koi wa Tsuzuku yo Doko Made mo is about a Girl who falls in love with a man, 5 years ago. And she knows he is a doctor and where he works. So for the next 5 years she studies to become a nurse and work in the same hospital. When she achieves this, she discover he is not the gentle guy she remembers but the Devil Doctor.
Well, it is a fun drama to watch, for sure. It does not have a lot ups and downs on emotional rollercoaster, bit it tries and it is where it fails. I felt like Love last Forever got all the drama cliches and put it all together making this drama fells tiring at times. They made a big deals of unnecessary things and trying to add drama when there was no necessite. And even if the drama is still fun to watch, it is perfect to marathon in a weekend it fails to be good. I think if they only choose one factor and focused in it, this drama would have been a lot better.
About the acting on this drama, Takeru did a great job portraying Tendo-sensei, but that is it, everybody else was just square, mainly Kamishiraishi Mone as Nanase, she is cute and all, I think that is what they were going for, but she lacks a little bit of caristma, so in great part of the time, I don’t care much what happens to her, but much of that comes from the inability of Love last Forever created any seizure in the viewers. The rest of the cast is the same.
From this you can see, I started watching because of Takeru, I finished because of Takeru.
One thing I really loved was the soundtrack, I don’t know if it is because I started watching Japanese dramas first and it is nostalgic to listing to someone singing in japanese, or if their soundtrack are really the best because I really got into the music here. The music saved a lot of the drama, let me tell you.
And after all that I said before, will I rewatch this drama… Yeah, it is fun, even with everything else, I had fun watching it and I would watch again...

Leia Mais

There are dramas that rule a time, that no matter how much time passes after it’s airing they are still reference and still talked to this day of what made them excellent. They are the classics. Full House, Boys Over Flowers, My Love from the Stars, Secret Garden, Goblin to say some of them. Now I dare telling Itaewon Class is to become one of them.
Let me try to tell you why:
Iteawon Class is a classic revenge story. Rich people destroying someone’s life just because they can, not seeing that the one suffering will do whatever necessary to make they pay. I am a sucker for revenge stories. It can make me a little bias, but it also can make me very critical and I know bullshit when I see bullshit. I can say Edmond Dantes (The Count of Monte Cristo) would be proud of Park Seruyi.
I.C. has all the classical aspects of a revenge story but it is made so fresh, everything seems new and surprising. The way the plot is constructed is so well made, the pace is on point, everything is done so perfect, not one minute of this drama is boring. And the clefhangers, it gave me goosebumps and anxiety problems. This is the King drama of clefhangers, just to let you know.
About the acting… Lets honestly talk about Park Seo Joon.
I choose to watch this drama simply because I wanted to watch something fun and I can always have fun watching Park Seo Joon, that's why I began to watch it, you can see that I really like him, but he is an actor of one only character. I’m saying he is a bad actor, no, Marilyn Monroe was an actress of one character and no one can say she was a bad actress.
The problem with this situation is that it can be a hit or miss in a drama, Fight My Way was spot on great, What is Wrong with Secretary Kim was not, let’s be honesty here we watched it for the eyecandy (:/). And on I.C. it was just on the line, good, not great I can think of actors the would do a better job being Park Seruyi, but Park Seo Joon doesn’t disappoint. He does not because the real Queen in this drama was Kim Dami as Jo Yiso.
I felt that everything on this drama was made for her to shine. We went back every week to watch her, to see what she was gonna do, she was the star. And truly for half of Iteawon Class I thought she was the second lead girl, I just convinced myself when I rewatched the trailer and saw that Soo Ah is not featured there.
This drama made the annoying segund lead girl, she is a bitch, follow the guy around even if he does not like her, hates and torment the girl the guy is in love with. She is everything we supposed to hate, but here we are on her side, we cheers for her, we choose her. This is the reason why Iteawon Class will be a classic.
On everyone else, everybody does a great Job… Nara as Oh Soah, Ryu Kyung Soo as Choi Seung Kwon, Yoo Jae Myung as President Jang… man, this man can act, I could empathise with him, even him as a villain.
One thing I want to talk about too, is about Lee Joo Young as Ma Hyun Yi a transgender character, I have to applaud Korea, being a very conservative country, having a saying, a very small, but present saying in this discussion so current all over the world. I see on this a new step for more diversity in Korean dramas and it gets me excited.
And for the last the ending, it was a little bit more slow than the rest of the drama, but there were one scene the final conclusion the winned it all me. And even if there are a lot of people who did not agree with me, I loved this drama, truly.

Leia Mais

You know that one movie you watch when you have a bad day and want to relax, Beck is that movie. You know that movie you watch when you don’t have anything to do, Beck is that movie. You know that movie you watch that make you feel nostalgic and you don’t even know why, Beck is that movie. You know that movie that no matter who, old, new, friends, family or a random person on the street, is your number one recommendation, Beck is that movie. If what I said above did not convince you to watch Beck I will give you a few more reasons.

Beck is not my favorite movie (Lord of the Rings), not even my favorite Asian movie (The Brain Man). But it is the movie that makes me feel the best when I watch it. It is almost a gild pleasure, but I don’t call it that because Beck is a Good movie and gild pleasure I reserve for the movies that are bad but I like it anyway. Beck is not that. It is a movie with a great plot, wonderful acting and an amazing sound track.

Simply saying, Beck can satisfy vast public. If you are an anime and manga fan, Beck is an adaptation of both and it is faithful to the source. If you are a drama fan you will find a lot of familiar faces there. And if you are just a fan of plain and old rock ‘n roll, Beck is one of the best band formation stories that I ever saw. It is worth watching, truly.

About the familiar faces, this movie has Sato Takeru. You don’t need me to tell you how talent this guy is, go whatch Rurouni Kenshin or Bitterblood or Bakuman or anything he ever did, the guy is good. And in Beck it is not different, his portrayal of Koyuki is very fitting, makes you relate to every happiness and worries. He is the perfect viewpoint that make you immerse in the story and empathize with everything.

And he is not the best performance in this movie, this is reserved to Mizushima Hiro there is no one in my mind that would have made a better job in being Ryusuke as much as Hiro-san and this is that word of someone who is a manga and anime Beck hardcore fan. He is in that THAT level of perfection. Well done Nanba-senpai!!! (for the fans of Hana Kimi \o/) And in a special place in my heart I have to congratulate Kiritani Kenta as Chiba, he will make you heart tremble, Chiba will end up being you favorite.

For this amazing quest is the reason I say I don’t want Beck 2. How it is a manga/anime the story is a lot vaster than what you see in this movie but, everybody is older now, too old to be those characters one more time. And if they changed the actors it would not be Beck.

But let’s talk about the sound track, it is awesome. It is a band movie you expect the sound to be amazing and it is. Evolution still to this day in my top favorites on my playlist and youtube most watched videos. It has been a fill years since I watched Beck for the first time. One thing that is important to mention and I don’t know if everyone will agree is that I loved the way they portrayed Koyuki voice, being that so called “perfect voice”.

And for the last it is very much worth rewatching. I did it several time and I still do. So go watch Beck, it is a wonderful feel-good, I can bet you will became a fan.

Leia Mais