Zíza

Absolutely brilliant comedy. There's nothing else to it. I mean, get this: some pharmaceutical company invents a drug that kills you for two days and then you wake up again. The main character is a rebellious daughter who is good at chemistry but currently sings in a metal (though really more of a rock) band. It's built upside down. But it's built brilliantly, and in the end it's a bit of a romantic comedy gone wild. I'll admit I didn't really trust Hirose Suzu in a comedic role at first, but in the end it wasn't as bad as I feared it would be. She was actually quite likable (in her role) and Yoshizawa Ryo was a great second to her. Another bonus was that even the small roles were well cast with big Japanese showbiz stars, so it was almost a parade of famous faces. They didn't steal space for themselves, they were just there and the "connoisseurs" enjoyed it. A hilarious comedy, with good performances, the script was a bit weak, but we'll forgive that because even the running time wasn't excessive, and that's something to admire in Japanese stuff. :-D A weaker 4 stars.

For being only eight episodes long, it manages to have so many clichés that I couldn't even keep count. It reminded me a bit of 90's soap operas, and my husband, who was sitting on the sidelines and constantly wanting to comment on what was going on, was also reminded of those soap operas. It's just loaded with melodrama. Love, hate, kisses, punches, misunderstandings, understandings, beautiful kimonos, ornate wagashi, all in the familiar Kanazawa style. Perhaps all the clichés of the genre really came into play in some form here, to the point where some may find it annoying, but I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. I found the main heroine to be fine, oddly enough (she simply knew how to pick herself up off the ground; she had some smarts, she didn't need to be handheld all the time), the main character wasn't the kind of prince dandy who kept all his feelings bottled up inside, but was quite honestly able to get them out. The setting is beautiful, you're constantly looking at ornate kimonos and tasting various Japanese traditional sweets, and for me it starts with my favorite "arranged marriage". I mean, it starts with the arranged marriage, but to agree what will come after is another thing. Anyway, the series both delighted and slightly disappointed me with the classic genre crutches used. Basically, what you watch for sixteen, twenty, thirty episodes in Korean series manages to happen here in eight. I found it a little too rushed at times (otherwise it had a fine pace), but I suppose that's partly due to the COVID situation. In the end, a relaxing matter that can keep you distracted. An improved 3 stars.

I actually didn't find it that bad, then I saw the rating here and the reviews. Sure, it can't aspire to be movie of the year, but it's not even close to being the worst. It's actually sort of an attempt at an American romantic comedy, which we just don't get much of here in Central Europe. It’s a completely mediocre attempt, but perfectly watchable. Sure, it's all abbreviated, shallow (too many characters, too many stories played out, the relationships fail to have any depth afterwards), and everything has to have a happy ending (or a film with no message), but it's a romantic comedy anyway and it's good to watch while doing the ironing. The 52% it's got right now is perfectly adequate.

I'll start with the negatives. Scene editing – some scenes didn't build on the previous ones, maybe they started where a character in the previous scene had already gone. Even the actors had different makeup at times (for example, wounds, at one point the blood was flowing, the next it was wiped, then it was flowing again). Add to that some unsuccessful tricks in the portrayal of the monsters (the dog, and even the turtle not great). Some of the sets looked really cheap, polystyrene instead of stone. Some fights looked almost ridiculous; their choreography wasn't particularly well thought out. In addition, the storyline in the past was too long. The pretending to be a village family, too. I can see why it was there, but I found it too long to the point of being annoying at times because I wanted to get immediately into the present and solve these mysteries. Luckily, I made it to the 33rd episode... But other than that, I enjoyed it. Character development, no one was black or white. They all had their motivations, their characters, and they stuck to them. It never happened that a character suddenly acted illogically, out of character. And with so many characters, that's really incredible. The story was well thought out, the author knew what she wanted, she set the characters in it and played it out very well. It jumped onto the screen without the BL elements, but who cares when the strong bond between Wei and Lan can be seen so clearly. Why? It's not just a good script, but very well acted characters. As for the acting, I actually have nothing to complain about. They all played their complex characters with verve and quality. The characters went through various developments, and the viewer could watch them and either sympathize with them or hate them. But you couldn't say that this or that came out of the blue. Everything had its place and meaning. That logic and great acting were all wrapped in this beautiful setting, caressed by gorgeous music, and adorned by lovely costumes (that is, as far as the clans were concerned; ordinary people = ordinary clothes). For someone who is not a wuxia fan (I don't really care for the genre), I enjoyed it and was very pleasantly surprised. I probably wouldn't be afraid to recommend it to anyone.

Shun'ya and Akira travel from Tokyo all the way to Kagoshima Prefecture to meet Shun'ya's grandfather. Akira's husband and Shun'ya's father has died, and the two of them now have nowhere to go because of their debts. Essentially, we're watching several generations come together who are not actually particularly distant from each other – not in this film. This is probably because each of them (especially Akira and Shun'ya) have to go through a separation. I mean a proper goodbye. It's not about the funeral, it's about the realization that after the death of a loved one you're basically dependent on (whether financially or emotionally), you have to stand on your own two feet and, more importantly, come to terms with it. It takes time. Especially in Japanese society, where these issues aren't particularly aired out loud. It's a slow film, quite deep at the beginning, which, while it does graduate towards the end (as only the "slice of life" genre can), unfortunately it also becomes diluted. At least it felt that way to me. Somehow I found the ending, perhaps idyllic (though I wanted it, of course), and so poorly delivered. I guess it was because of what Shun'ya, meaning the actor Kiyama Ryusei, said at the end. A bit of a cringe for me already. But otherwise I liked it. Granted, Arimura Kasumi's acting was uneven, sometimes “hey" and sometimes “ew", and Sakuraba Nanami didn't suit me at all, but Kunimura Jun was beautifully down to earth as an actor, so it was awfully nice with him and his character. He didn't advise, but he helped. A nice sad snapshot of life and from trains. A weak 4 stars.

I can't help it, even though the series was engaging and had an interesting cast, it failed to fully hit me and somehow I never really liked the main character Aoi Midori. I didn't find her as interesting as Ishihara Satomi's previous roles (Jimi ni sugoi, Takane no hana, Unnatural), even her performance seemed weak to me, kind of passionless. I had to question the procedures the whole time, I don't know why, it constantly felt off. The hospital setting, the cases; it just didn't quite grab me. Sure, there were touching moments, I enjoyed Tanaka Kei and Narita Ryo tremendously, but actually as a whole (although there were refreshing things where we didn't get rid of all the characters right away and used them later) I found it mediocre. It doesn’t really stand out from the pile of other work-based series. Sure, a nice average, enjoyable to watch, but it doesn't really add much more than that. Then again, why always look for something extra, right? When it can still entertain.

Nogi Akiko simply doesn’t disappoint. She understands her craft and knows what the modern viewer wants. She doesn't stick to the old tried and true methods, she makes new paths and uses stereotypes and clichés as shoes, not as intersections. MIU 404 was fun, suspenseful, moving, and well-paced (everything mixed wonderfully together and dosed correctly; clever and witty dialogue coming from the mouths of characters you believe). Not only was it free of the distraction of bad acting performances, on the contrary, the cast boldly supported characters who were constantly evolving. The central duo/foursome of cops had great chemistry with each other and most importantly, they were all reasonable, human, and malleable within the confines of their characters. Ayano and Hoshino were great partners and I just hope to see them together in these roles again soon. The setting, the premise, the tools, the colleagues, the victims and perpetrators, and the random bystanders all fit right in and Nogi Akiko never throws them away after using them. She knows they’re there, that the viewer knows them, and so she isn't afraid to reach for them. In so doing, she has created a clever villain for us to think about for a long time. And as if Nogi’s work wasn't done, she still created all of this in a world that is familiar to us from her previous series, Unnatural. She even has two characters cut cameos. I enjoyed it immensely. It was suspenseful, fresh, funny, and gritty. Oh, and Suda Masaki spoke in his Osaka accent. Who is this guy?! A strong 4 stars, maybe when I watch it again without my kid after me I'll bump it up to a 5 stars.

My enjoyment watching it was like the same swing as Muranishi going bankrupt and coming into money again. Yamada was awesome, Mitsushima had a great transformation, Kunimura was amazingly sharp. It was interesting how it seemed like pure comedy at the beginning, then it descended into drama, from which it never returned but instead sank into it deeper and deeper. Certainly an interesting show that runs away with itself at times, and gets pretty lame at times. The acting was great, the music even better, it had a great opening that I listened to every time. Definitely worth a watch. People who don't have that much experience with Japan will just get the general "Japanese people are perverts" vibe, while people who do have experience with Japan will think this wouldn't pass muster on cable, and in it’s way it's very open-ended. An interesting insight into the history of porn in Japan. 76%.

I've seen this show about three times now (the first time without skipping some scenes, then later I did). It simply has something in it that makes me want to watch it from time to time. It's just the right amount of misery. The heroine suffers wonderfully in this series. Just badly enough, not to put too fine a point on it... Plus, the heroine is actually great; funny, suffering, happy, in love: going after what she wants. She hits rock bottom and then bounces back, with her family there to support her. After all, her mom was great, too. But then there's the main character, who has trouble expressing his own feelings. To be honest, I like Eric better when he's not laughing. Especially here. That's about all I could write about the main character, he's basically bland and flavorless, his family and friends are much more interesting and fun. The series is fairly well balanced – he suffers for a while so the next character can make a mess. For me, a terribly enjoyable suffering diversion. Did I mention that there is a lot of suffering in this series?!

I was very skeptical, but ended up liking it. Like other Korean series, this one had some tone-deaf spots, plus an awfully long running time per episode, but I didn't find any other major "flaws" that would prevent it from making for a comfortable viewing. Sure, it's not a traditional Korean romance, but I guess that's what makes the series so good. At the beginning, because of the main nursing character's expression, I thought that either this Kim Soo-hyun had forgotten how to act during his break from acting, or he's just playing his character exactly as he's supposed to: rather hard to read, with a weird fake expression. I give it 4 stars, you can guess how it ended up being. Considering his character was supposed to be such a bland, flavorless character, he couldn't really shine; he was mainly playing an ordinary guy and they can't even let that shine on screen. But in his place the heroine, played by Seo Yea-ji, was brilliant, and damn did she play it well. I'm not just talking about her extravagant gowns, which suited her perfectly, but also the nature of the heroine, a whimsical child hiding behind a tough adult. And speaking of kids, the mentally challenged older brother played by Oh Jung-se was great. It wasn't so much the way he spoke, but all the little or bigger gestures and movements he made. The wiping of his nose, the unnecessary extra steps, the back and forth, the hand movements. Awesome. Those three were central characters, but I also loved this series because of the supporting characters, whether it was the director of the institute, the friend who always follows the brothers wherever they go, the landlady and her daughter, or the co-founder of the book publishing company and his subordinate who pretends to be younger. They all had their own thing going on, they stuck to it, they didn't break out of their characters, which weren't two-dimensional. They were all unusually ordinary and together they were terribly comfortable. There were a lot of little things I liked about the show, including the fact that the climax basically came in episode 14 and we kind of floundered for the last two episodes. But it was different from the way other shows tend to do it, where they still hastily come up with some kind of hilarious twist, because these two episodes made sense. Of course, I understand that some may find it long, boring and with too few awesome dates, but I'm awfully glad to have gotten out of Seoul and to the sea, even if it was to the mentally disturbed. I guess I liked it mostly because despite everything (the premise, the main character, the murder of her mother) it stays grounded. A little slice of life. A strong 4 stars.