Teen Ghost Whisperer

When I started watching this for my Back To The Past watch challenge, I had a terrible feeling of déjà vu: the plot and the events looked so familiar. Until I realized that this must be a japanese take on that american show The Ghost Whisperer. The plot is basically the same: a girl who can see ghosts helps them with their unfinished business, and afterwards they go into the light. It is a case of the week kind of drama, though there is the main story arc that covers the whole show. The girl is helped by a young man who needs to convince his dead ghost girlfriend that she has to go into the afterlife. While doing that they fall in love incurring the wrath of the dead girlfriend.

The whole drama makes you feel warm and giddy: the actors are all good and the chemistry is just right. The special effects are a bit clunky but it does not take anything away from the enjoyment of the drama. The stories, though mostly funny and fun, deal with important questions and feelings: friendship, family, regrets, hopes, dreams and love and grief.

I liked the whole idea behind the drama that only teens can see ghosts: once you become adult you lose that capability. What is the point of that? Helps you grow up and mature, deal with the difficult period of being a teen, dealing with not being a child any more but not quite an adult yet. The FL here shows surprising kindness, open mindedness, understanding and even maturity and I wished that the writers came up with a happy ending for her and her boyfriend even though it was clear from the get go that they could never be together forever. That said, the whole drama is happy, uplifting, sweet and funny. A great watch!

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Don't stay still!

This whole web drama, even though it is well filmed, directed, acted, it should not have been a drama but two, maybe three separate short films or maybe episodes in an omnibus drama. The story follows three couples who never interact, they do not know each other, and what happens in their lives does not impact in any way the others. So I frankly fail to understand the intention behind the director's vision. Is it a social commentary? I could not notice any.

There are three couples vaguely connected by the girl in the first couple which shows up : Paki & Shane. They are enjoying their last night of lovemaking because she is getting married soon. So she decides to tell him a story about two of her friends (episode 0). But what ep.0 did not make clear is that the story she wants to tell is not about a couple but two different stories about people who do not know each other. The first couple in introduced in the first episode: Hayden and Damian, his neighbour who get to know each other through Damian's grandmother. When they meet, the sparks fly but they are both still vulnerable from their previous relationships so they decide to take it slow. When the grandma dies, Damian is depressed and with Hayden's help he manages to pull through the grieving period. The second couple we meet in a bar where Paki met Hayden for a drink. Archie is Paki's friend and he meets Kelvin, the bar owner, and his high school boyfriend for the first time after years of being abroad. They used to be in a relationship in high school but a girl liked Kelvin and wanted him for herself so she outed and shamed Archie, so much that he left. She then manipulated Kelvin into getting her pregnant and held onto him through their son. When Kelvin meets Archie and realizes his feelings for him are still the same, he decides to stop dancing to his wife's tune and to be honest about himself.

What is the point of Paki's telling these stories? One cannot stay still, immobile. You have to move on, forward, fight for your own happiness and try to be true to yourself and your feelings. I can see that but then why is she not doing it herself: she obviously has feelings for Shane but she's marrying someone else. Not everyone can be happy, not everyone can stay with the person they love? OK, I guess..

While the stories are not particularly original, the acting and production are excellent for a drama filmed on a restricted budget. The colours are all washed out, dark, sad and depressing. The stories are not: they are uplifting and hopeful. Nice contrast. The camerawork is rather interesting: obviously handheld and shaky and there are some interesting camera angle choices: all that made for an intriguing watch, never boring. Music is a bit all over the place: while there are a couple of beautiful songs we only get to hear them during credits a couple of times, otherwise it is all heavy, dramatic and serious piano music.
The actors are all amazing, very much at ease with each other which shows well in the steamy makeout scenes without a single fish kiss.

In conclusion, this is a nice bl offering from HongKong and I hope this crew makes more similarly well produced and written dramas!

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The boy next door

I have not seen many dramas from Hong Kong: their cinema is world renowned but dramas...No one speaks about them here unfortunately! But what I have seen are mainly low budget web bl dramas and they are far from slick but the stories they tell are usually raw, rough and unpolished (lots of synonyms to say the same thing!) and very real: no fluff or fairy tales in sight. This one seems to be no different!

This special is the introduction episode to the longer drama, showing us how the main characters met. It starts by a woman who, after the post coital bliss, delivers bad(?) news to her lover and then offers to tell him a short story about two of her friends: Hayden and Damian. Hayden moves into a new flat and meets an old lady and her grandson Damian.

In spite of this being only 15min long they managed to make it look long and draggy. When Hayden meets the old lady, the whole sequence is far too long. Well I guess we needed to establish that Hayden is kind to elderly but that scene went on and on and on.... The same goes for Damian: he is shown to be kind to his grandmother, looking after her conscientiously. So the characters are nice people. Handsome as well. The grandmas's white hair looked too fake to be real and they could have done without it! The cinematography is grey and unappealing though the camerawork is interestingly dynamic, the apartment building is unkempt and old and the sets in general are dark and depressing. The final credits song is very nice.

And that's about it! The two men meet briefly and take a long look at each other. Promising? Wink, wink! Oh yes, the ending delivers but the story is far from finished!

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Love through the screen

Can close relationships survive extreme situations? Can the same extreme situation help create new relationships?

I like anthology series and this one, produced by now dead production company Nadao, is definitely one of the best. Unexpectedly, an excellent covid quarantine skype drama from Thailand when the majority of these covid dramas came from the Philippines. There are 10 stories, each dealing with a different kind of relationship.
Here they are:
1. Haunted (from) Home - two brothers pranking each other at distance.
2. Lovers On The Street - a girl finds a photo of her boyfriend with another woman on Google Street View. She enrols the help of her best friend to find who that woman is.
3. The Thuang (Talk2DaHand) - a man tries to recover some money he lent to a woman who refuses to give it back. His reply is awesome. This is the shortest, the funniest episode of all.
4. Day 10 - two neighbours meet and talk through the wall between their balconies, thus curing loneliness brought on by confinement.
5. Pumpkin Can - a fitness trainer decides to help a girl who just got dumped, to get back on her feet. Generosity in hardship.
6. Close Friend - two best friends and unrequited love. Should the friendship survive?
7. Because We Know You Still Have To Leave The House - an inventor, safely quarantined at home, comes up with protection gadgets for his frail friend who needs to go out to work every day. The inventor gets angry when the banker complains about the lack of practicality of his inventions. This one made me angry: the rich guy in safety complains to the poor guy in danger and sulks when he is not obeyed.
8. Mother - Distancing - mother daughter relationship is often a difficult one. But when they are in danger, everything else suddenly becomes unimportant. As it should!
9. The Coach - a guy trying to earn money by becoming a life coach on line. Not a good idea!
10. What Happened Last Night? - a gl.

Each relationship is shown in depth and is really ingeniously produced giving us a serious look at the young people's relationships: be it between siblings, strangers, friends or with parents.

Definitely worth the watch if you are in the mood for a short drama!

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Hope in misery?

If you are looking for a nice and fluffy bl, you are at the wrong place! I understand why it has such low rating, I do not agree with it but I understand! Because it is grey: misery, unhappiness, hopelessness...mention it, it's there! But it is not all black since there is a sliver of light that appears.

It is a story of two men trying to survive, just survive the onslaught of their respective families. They have known each other a few years previously when their parents married but that marriage did not last long. Something happened between the two young men at the time, as well, that created a huge rift. We never really clearly find what it was: an unwanted, unexplained kiss? The main problem are their parents: one father is an abuser, the other a criminal but still very attractive to his ex wife using their son to finance them.

The drama is too short. It touches upon a lot of issues but it does not really have the time to delve deeper into them: mainly parents abusing of their children who are desperately wanting to free themselves from their hold. So much so that the young men are exhausted, desperate and lacking energy to do anything. We are left without explanation as to how and why that kiss (?) happened between them which ruined a friendly relationship they had when they were younger! The older one feels responsible and guilty towards the younger one. Why?

The romance comes out suddenly and is heart flutteringly beautiful, chemistry soaring sky-high but unfortunately nothing is solved by the realization. The life is too difficult to bear to do anything more than just survive. The promise of happiness is too scary to believe: when you've been beaten down by life, you lose all hope. We are left with an open ending, showing us a glimmer of hope that one of them allows himself to dare to feel.

This drama is beautifully filmed, written and acted. The cinematography alongside the animated opening credits are all in shades of grey, perfectly translating the desperation and the misery the main characters feel. The music is just as good. It has been a long time since a korean BL made me feel so many emotions: rage, pity, sadness, hope, love...

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Shiny rock and a skunk!

"There is no future for a nation who has forgotten their history. There is no past for a nation, who has lost their cultural assets."

Stealer is what you get when you mix Leverage with White Collar add a dash of Indiana Jones and Batman and a big dose of "not taking themselves seriously" kind of humour and sprinkle it with patriotism... a very fun watch, with likeable, funny characters and over the top villains!

The plot is not important; a bunch of rugtag solitary individuals are brought together to get the big bad villain down. The big bad is your ordinary baddie: a super rich, greedy guy surrounded by an army of bodyguards/killers dressed in matching suits and ties. He is looking for a treasure that will bring him eternal life of course. And he is completely mad: laughing loudly, raising hands in the air and laughing in triumph some more. An over the top bad guy!

The good guys are a trauma suffering lot: orphaned, humiliated, abandoned etc. So they are looking for a revenge beside trying to get hold on to treasure. Here's where patriotism comes in: the cultural assets belong to the nation not to rich men!

This is a fun, adventure drama: there is a lot of running around, thinking hard, getting dressed up, fist fighting, computer mambo jumbo and maniacal laughter. There is no romance to speak of, glances are exchanged, fluttering was felt but it remained there: the mission is all that counts.

I usually avoid watching previews of the next episode but they caught me unawares and I saw the one for the episode 9 and in that preview everyone was unconscious on the ground. In spite of me trying to convince myself that this was a comedy show so no major characters will die, I was really stressed while watching mostly because they kept dragging it on and on.... The drama itself is not draggy: there is always something going on and the quiet moments are few and far between and usually interrupted by an emergency!

Not the best drama out there but they managed to wrap it up nicely in 12 episodes so it is not draggy and definitely a good watch if you need to give your brain a rest!

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Growing pains

Teen years are probably the sweetest and the most difficult years in anyone's life. If you are an arts student, looking into your own memories should be enough to find inspiration. I would not be surprised to discover that it is the case here: this being an university project!

The story about burgeoning feelings between two teen boys is told with sensitivity and beauty by someone who knows what he's talking about! Two boys' friendship and certainly more, is ruined by the lack of courage and the fear of how other people perceive them.

The actors skilfully conveyed the feelings of loss, love, desperation and disappointment: their eyes seriously tugged at my heartstrings. The cinematography is lovely and the sets tell a lot about the boys feelings of confusion, loneliness and yearning for happiness, understanding and love. Unfortunately, the society, the misconceptions, the lack of acceptance, scare one of the boys who ends up running away from the promise of a different but right kind of happiness for him.

I wish this were longer and that the ending did not give us a forshadowing of not nice things to come for one of the boys. As the title puts it, one boy managed to ground the other one, stop him from flying away. But now that he is scared, he abandons the other boy not grounding him, holding him down anymore....Sad and tragic? Or hopeful that he will find the strength to go on?

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David vs. Goliath

I disliked this short film for the first 10min: it was the usual tale of rich and powerful pushing the "little" people out of the way with their money.

The silly and stupid daughter of a neauveau riche father (complete with a fake fur jacket...on him!!!) gets into a dorm and a scholarship to go to Hawaii while the smart but poor girl keeps being refused access. But the smart girl is smart and she knows how the world works so complaining and making noise is not going to get her anything. She has to deal with them in an intelligent way. And she does!

This turned out to ba a brilliant tale of the underdog coming on top.

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Lockdown to freedom

This is my first lockdown film from Japan. The Philippines have made loads of these but this short film is of a different kind.

The story follows two neighbours as they get to know each other and start dating only to be stopped by the curfews: not allowed to leave their respective apartments, not allowed to meet, not allowed to go out on to the balcony. While one girl religiously follows the rules, the other one is fed up and eventually manages to talk the first one to throw the caution into the wind: they go out for a walk through the empty streets of Tokyo....

Today I remember the lockdowns fondly: what a strange and incredible, never to be repeated experience, that was. We all went through the same feelings as do girls in this film: listen constantly to the news, util you reach the overdose and then rebel, go out and breathe free.

There is not much dialogue, and what is said is mostly just nonsense lost in the news broadcasts. The romance is shown from the beginning and through every stage of development via short scenes. The curfew put strain on it but they decided their love is more important than anything else. So they go out fully masked! The reason for lockdown was never really explicitly said: pandemic or pollution or something else....in the end it is not important!

The music is great. Acting and cinematography top notch. An interesting short film.

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Again and again and again...really fun!

Wow, just wow! What a fun film this was! I hear "time loop" and I am buying it immediately.

The story takes place in an inn somewhere around Kyoto (apparently a very well-known area!) in the winter. All of a sudden, the whole area finds itself inside a 2min time loop. After the first incredulity and shock, the staff and the guests quickly get used to the looping and bear it calmly. Until they don't. Until they do...

The film portrays magnificently people slowly realizing what is important, finally talking to each other and being honest with what they want. There is Mikoto who is angry that her boyfriend, the inn chef, wants to go to France to study cooking. She takes this opportunity to tell him honestly what she thinks of it but at the same time, while trying to figure out the reasons for the time loop, they talk more, laugh together more, come to understand each other better. There are guests of the inn: a writer with a writing block using this opportunity to rest, relax and think at peace which turns out to be very effective. There is a pair of old friends reconnecting who end up arguing and telling finally the truth, stop pretending..;

The time loop serves as a motivation behind the character growth. People are very polite and do not dare break society convention; the time loop liberates them and they become stronger and finally truthful about their hopes and wishes.

The film is funny. I loved the cool attitude the characters held. It was fun to watch one conversaton continue through multiple loops. Everyone was in the loop, retaking the same start position every time but doing different things during each loop.

One problem though which was never explained properly; the weather. They did go through many loops and since it was only local, the weather kept changing but how likely is the weather to turn from winter with 10cm of snow to spring to winter and snowing again literally from one loop to the next. I think there is a serious continuity problem here hence the rating...Other than that, highly recommended!

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One night only

"In this world, we were only meant to find each other not but not end up together"

A simply beautiful short film. A story of former lovers reconnecting for a short interlude and then separating, probably for good! They only have one night to pretend and they do: they pretend they are happy, they pretend they are on a date, they pretend that everything is fine. But there is that nagging feeling: why? They need closure. Or at least one of them does, Niko. He never really wanted to admit to himself the reasons for their breakup. But he needs to hear them and what he hears makes him regretful. He starts to buckle under the feelings brimming, brought out by this night and the presence of his first love. But at the moment he starts expressing those feelings he is brutally brought back to reality! The dream, the fantasy is over, never to be again!

Regrets remain. Feelings remain. But the pressure of the society is far too strong for him to deal with. Even though we are well advanced as a society, our tolerance is high and we are open-minded, there are still places and people for whom gay love is unacceptable and frowned upon. These two young men are their victims.

This short film was, as far as I understand, a student project made on a shoestring budget. Again, we were shown that great storytelling does not need an excessive amount of money but an excessive amount of talent!

And last but not the least, the music is amazing. The final song Leaves by Ben&Ben is so beautiful....

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Too short....

....I want more! This was too cute and I only wish it were longer, like a full drama instead of 8 short, 7min episodes.

Nevertheless, they managed to tell a sweet story about a café restaurant owner and his employers, who, when the place is closed, use it as a set in order to fulfill the owner's dream of becoming a film director. The cook has a crush on the part time waiter/main actor/her best friend and spends her time mooning over him not daring to say anything. Eventually she gets the role in the film her boss is making and has the opportunity to confess....

The main topic of all dramas, though not only, seems to be lack of communication and the courage to say what is important. The girl is in love, the boy as well. There is another couple having crushes on them but they are completely oblivious. They are young and think that they have a whole life in front of them, that they have enough time to take things slowly. But if you do not stand up and bravely face the issue, it might disappear, never to come back. Unrequited love is such a time waste! Friends to lovers is a very difficult step to take because people are afraid of losing a friend without getting a lover in return so they prefer status quo! The FL here found a way to live her romance through filmmaking. The ending is open: will they stay friends, or will this push them closer together. The FL lobbied for the role certainly in order to push their relationship gently in the wanted direction....So much clever thinking and plotting....

Another topic here is your dreams and what are you willing to do to realize them. The doubts the cafe owner has are made more evident with two incidents: a visit from a former uni friend now a famous director and a disgruntled customer raising hell. Soon enough he is shown that his passion for film making has infected his restaurant staff and that they want to continue with him. The spirit of creativity, friendship and respect has made the little group a tight unit, like a family where nobody is left behind....

The actors were all good but the main actress Deguchi Natsuki is the most beautiful Japanese actress I have ever seen. She has a dazzling smile, there is light shining out of her evident just by her mere presence. This actress is young but will go far....

Everything is warm and sunny in this mini drama: the cinematography is just full of sunshine, very uplifting ! I wish it were longer.....

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Move on and smile!

No matter how difficult the relationship turns out to be, you should not lose hope. There is always light at the end of the tunnel, and a random act of kindness from a stranger is the proof of it.

It's Christmas. Late for a date, a man remembers another Christmas, a year earlier, when he was happily in love. But that happiness did not last and his boyfriend cheated on him both with men and with women. When he eventually caught him, he punched him and then dove into sadness and depression.

This is ultimately a very uplifting short film. It is nicely filmed and acted. The cinematography with its shots of busy and overcrowded streets conveyed the feelings of being alive, rushed and happy. The actor is excellent: sad, desperate and crying, trying to come to terms with a betrayal. Still, through all the tears he manages to crack a smile: life is far from over and he will recover! Only one thing: I would like to shave off his stubble... The story is told in a monotone voiceover: the actor just read out the text. Cold and emotionless in spite of a rather poetic text.

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Emotions and how to show them or not....

Lifeline: more than friends but less than affaire is a story of two couples and their lack of communication on all levels. It is a slow burn drama showing how people deal with infidelity. But mostly it paints the portrait of two people completely incapable of showing their emotions to their respective spouses which brings them to the limit, to the point where they feel weighed down by life and in need of lifeline. The young woman and her husband's boss who lives next-door help each other get out of the place where they feel stuck. They become each other's lifeline saving them frow drowning.

I don't know if I am right, but japanese education is a very strict one. You are supposed to follow the rules, obey your elders and never ever show your feelings, never complain. You have to grin and bear it. Maiko, the FL is like this. Restrained and closed off. Only when she meets her neighbour, she sees herself in him and realizes that things cannot last like they have been going. Their respective spouses are having affairs but Maiko and Futaba, the neighbour, do not do anything about it. They sit quietly on the side waiting for it to pass. As the things ^progress, Maiko finds a compassionate ear in Futaba, so much so that she falls for him. She starts gently stalking him, waiting for him to come out and eventually she asks for more which he refuses point blank. His wife is having an affair and he is conscious of the reasons for it: they cannot have children and he thinks by letting her have the freedom to do whatever she wants, she'd be happy. Maiko's husband is having an affair because he is under impression that she does not love him or care for him, she always acquiesces to whatever he says, never tells him anything that may be disagreeable but all that is actually the very things he finds unbearable!

The main topic of this drama is the lack of communication born from the long marriage, strict upbringing and obeisance of rules. But all of that makes for four very unhappy people. When finally, they do start talking it is somehow too little too late. By the end of the drama, Maiko splits from her husband aware that she needs to stand up for herself. Fukada is transferred to another city. He leaves with his wife who, in spite of being childless and having devoted her life to work, sees a younger woman promoted in her place because of the politics: the woman is married with kids and the politicians, because of the low birth rates, demand of companies to show that the women can be mothers and successful at work.

The drama pictures the pressure the main characters are under really vividly: in her imagination, we see her tied to and pulling a tire and drowning in the sea. After they meet, she sees him throwing her a lifeline to save her. But eventually, when they realize that they had come to depend upon each other too much, he tells her to learn to swim so she does not need a lifeline, ever again.

The drama is slow moving, maudlin. Maiko is not a very likeable character: very pushy with the neighbour and subdued as wife. I felt actually sorry for her husband: he went looking for warmth and laughter elsewhere since all he got at home was a cold and polite housekeeper who never said a word wrong and kept a tall, unbreakable wall of politeness and efficiency between them.

This is a short drama with good production values, excellent acting and some really good music. An interesting watch though a bit depressing...

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Spoof historical

"No Contract Change Allowed" should not in ANY case be considered seriously. You were warned!

I needed a drama for my alphabet challenge and I decided to watch this short c drama. It took me almost 10 episodes to actually comprehend which genre this drama is: a comedy spoof of historical dramas. Everything is nonsense in this drama but eventually everything makes hilariously sense.

The story follows a stressed out painter brought to baldness and exasperation to hire an embroidery loving assassin to kill a customer. But the customer turns out not to be the person she thinks so they both embark upon a quest to discover the real customer. Along the way they meet a cast of characters each more outrageous than the previous one.

If you think you are getting another short chinese historical drama you are in for a surprise. It looks like it, it sounds like it but it is not it. They take the usual drama tropes and put them upside down. And it starts with the first episode when the assassin explains some forms of killing cannot be broadcast.

I was a bit disconcerted with the genre and I kept waiting for this to turn into a serious historical drama but it never did and it was eventually great.

What I liked:
- assassin killing with fruit being afterwards whitewashed (costume going from black to white) with a fan
- bromance was bromancing over the top (smouldering looks🔥)
- taking mickey out of a variety reality shows: confession interviews, dancing competition, survival shows
- anachronistic lines of dialogue
- using tropes the unusual way (a man used as a woman)
- one actor playing a myriad of different incidental roles throughout the drama
- Lord Pei's disguise in layers
- silly visual effects cheap looking on purpose
- awful dubbing
- Harry Potter inspired duels (Adava Kedavra etc....)
and a lot more!

The production is excellent: writing and acting on top! I am not a big c drama watcher but the piques at the historical genre abound and I am certain that the more seasoned watchers can come up with a long list of dramas and tropes referenced in this one.

If you need something light and a good laugh, you cannot go wrong with this one.

Last but not least, thank you Subbing Paws for the subs! I enjoyed the bickering and the nonsense some of the characters were uttering.

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