:: Sixtwentyseven ::

Okay. This may be the first and last time I may be doing this in my blog. Basically, I've reconverted SNSD's "My Best Friend" & "Hoot" performance on MBC Music Core to a more managable filesize for those with lesser hardisk space.

Screencap:


File:[perf] SNSD - My Best Friend & Hoot (MBC Music Core 101030).AVI
Size: 256MB

The links for the performance:

.001 file
.002 file

Use HJSpilt or 7zip to join the files.

SNSD's newest MV Hoot is finally out! I'm so glad that at long last Soo Young gets more exposure in this MV! ♥♥♥

Seriously,

After watching this MV, it's very hard not to NOT fall in love with these 9 ladies....

♥♥♥


Credits: port87.blogspot.com

As I've mentioned in my previous post I've been watching quite a bit of Korean Variety "We got Married". Because the artistes involved all comes from the Korean music scene, I began to find out more about their music.

I don't usually listen to any form of dance numbers but this song by Brown Eyed Girls really got me hooked on. Firstly, the MV is of a different standard from conventional Korean MV as it has an international feel. Secondly, the dance is really sizzling hot and the song arrangement is absolutely fantastic. I'm definitely not surprised that this song won best Korean Dance Track at the Korean Music Festival 2010.

Oh by the way, Ga-In of B.E.G is part of the Adam Couple in "We Got Married".

Recently, I have been watching a lot of Korean variety "We Got Married" and I got to say this variety really has got me hooked on it. I can understand why people would like this variety even though it's not the real deal. Basically, "We got Married" pairs celebrities up and they will live the lives of a married couple and do things together.

Through this show I got to know a band C.N. Blue due to the participation of their band leader Jung Yong Hwa, who was paired up with SNSD's Seohyun. I find this song especially touching as Yong Hwa wrote the lyrics of the song as he thought of Seohyun and the lyrics really fit her perfectly.

I could say I'm quite of depth with older Japanese movies. In fact, if not for an extensive back-dating of major Japanese movie releases I may not even know that this movie existed. However, how I encounter Sand's Chronicle wasn't through my back-dating of major releases. Instead, it was through the movie's theme song "Kaeritaku Natta yo" by Ikimonogakari that this movie caught my eye. There were scenes from the movie in the PV for this song that I thought was familiar and that piqued my interest in watching this movie.

Sand's Chronicle tells about a story of a girl called Minase Ann (Matsushita Nao/ Kaho) who couldn't get away from the shadows of her mother's death. When Ann was young, she followed her mother to the countryside to stay with her grandmother after her mother was divorced. She was touched by the villagers' kindness and espcially the companionship of Daigo (Shunya Isaka/Sosuke Ikematsu). However, her mother was too overwhelmed by the divorce that she killed herself in the hills one night. Ann saw her mother leave the house and even told her mother that she will follow to wherever she was going at that moment but was powerless to do so. This incident became a scar and hampered her whenever happiness seems to arrive. However, Daigo is determined to pull her away from the past and to pull her closer to him where he could guarantee her happiness.

Sand's Chronicle's pace isn't fast, but then again you wouldn't notice that time flies by real quickly as you watch the movie. The movie format is similar to another movie "Crying out Love, in the Centre of the World" where they intersect the past and the present regularly to tell the story. Another similarity between the two movies is they both have pretty good young actors to helm the show. "Crying out Love" had Nagesawa Masami and Moriyama Mirai, while "Sand's Chronicle" has Kaho and Sosuke Ikematsu. In fact, I found Kaho very familiar when I started to watch Sand's Chronicle. I only realised she is the girl with the one in Otomen. However, I felt her acting in Sand's Chronicle is much more natural, and she has less baby fat on her cheeks, making her prettier. If you find Sosuke Ikematsu familiar, he appeaered in the movie "Dive!" as well.

Overall, the movie is well written but of course compared to "Crying out Love", "Sand's Chronicle" has some way to go. Nonetheless, it is still an enjoyable love story and I definitely need to introduce the theme song for this movie, which really is a great song from Ikimonogakari.


Credits: port87.blogspot.com

Sunao Ni Narenakute or loosely translated as "hard to say I love you" is written by Kitagawa Eriko, who is famous for works such as Tatta Hitotsu no Koi, Orange Days, Overtime and Long Vacation. Hence, when this drama was announced, there was much anticipation. Furthermore, with cast members like Ueno Juri, Eita, Seki Megumi and Tamayama Tetsuji, one can expect this to be a good drama.

The story is about 5 person who follow each other on twitter and decides one day to meet up for a gathering. "Linda" is the main organiser, who is actually a magazine editor trying to get a story out regarding the usage of twitter and the effects it has on the people involved. "Haru" is a substitute teacher for a prestigious private school who just couldn't pass the examination to become a full fledged teacher. "Nakaji" is an aspiring photographer who could only get work taking photos for AV models while also living under the shadows of his dad. "Doctor" is an ethnic Korean struggling to make ends meet as a underperforming salesman selling medical products. "Peach" is the last member to join the group, who is Haru's real time friend but has a troubled past being a mistress of a married man and getting shunned by him after she got pregnant. The story tells the struggles of every character and how they overcome it through each other's support.

At first when I watched the first 3 episodes I was afraid this story will be like "Last Friends" where Ueno Juri and Eita were in it as well. Among all the Japanese dramas I've chosen to watch, Last Friends is considered to be one of the dramas that has the heaviest and darkest content, talking about domestic violence, lesbianism and incest. Sunao comes close, however it did not go that deep, which I feel luckily it did not. I will not comment much on what happened in the show but I do have to admit Kitagawa Eriko's scriptwriting is indeed different from the rest of the scriptwriters. In her shows, it seems to be more precise and more dense, making the content richer.

However, it is still disappointing that there are quite a number of characters which I thought seems excessive. Haru's brother Shu, who has a drug problem, together with one of her students who is also into drugs and even main character Peach herself, Kitagawa did not give them much room to grow, or to end these characters well. In a well scripted drama, having these loopholes is somewhat disappointing.

Have said that, the drama is still a pretty good production. The soundtrack for the drama is rich as well and differ from other dramas by using not self composing their own tunes but instead used various international songs to provide the background music. Expect a lot of music from the Ting Tings that is featured in the drama.

Moteki has be one of the more entertaining dramas that I have watched over the years. In fact, TV Tokyo has been producing some pretty quirky productions and they have made this their selling point for their dramas. And since Moteki is a late night drama, you'd expect some scenes to raunchy according to Japan TV standards, which is still pretty conservative as compared to other regions.

Moteki is a general term in Japan for someone becomes popular and attractive to others. Moriyama Mirai stars in this drama as Fujimoto, who is unpopular with girls, not fantastic in work and basically no direction in life. All that changed suddenly when four of his female acquaintances suddenly called him for a catch up. Will Fujimoto, the Moteki finally find love among the four?

And since it's a late night drama and the theme of Moteki is about being popular with girls, eye candy is natural for this drama. In fact, the actresses featured in this drama is pretty popular, such as Nonami Maho, Matsumoto Rio, Kikuchi Rinko and Mitsushima Hikari.

Okay, I got to admit I watched this drama for eye candy and I pretty much know that TV Tokyo's offerings is more on the entertaining side, especially for this genre of dramas. However, the only difference of this drama is that the actor and actresses who agreed to star in the drama are pretty power packed themselves. Hence, despite the loose plot, I thought each of them gave their best abilities to act out their respective roles. Hence, if you're watching this drama, just take everything with a pinch of salt and just relax and enjoy all the fun on offer in the drama. Afterall, why so serious for a after midnight show?

Onslaught with my review of Japanese dramas! This year's summer drama is pretty exciting and quite a number of well known actors and actresses are back with new dramas this season. One of my favourite actress is Ishihara Satomi and I was pretty pleased she's back with a decent drama in Tobo Bengoshi. I liked Satomi-chan ever since H2 era (she was exceptionally kawaii in that drama!).

Tobo Bengoshi, or Fugitive Lawyer, talks about an upright lawyer who was framed for murder, arson and embezzlement. Kamiji Yusuke of "Celeb to Bimbo Taro" stars in this drama as the main lead Narita, who was framed for killing his mentor, setting his lawyer firm on fire to destroy evidence and embezzling money through shoddy paperwork. In order to prove his innocence, he escaped from police custody to become a fugitive so that he can search for evidence to prove his innocence. Along the way, he met ordinary citizens who were bullies by people abusing the law and decides to help them as he continue to search for clues.

The line up of this drama is pretty heavy, with experienced actors and actress such as Kitamura Kazuki, Yada Akiko, Sato Jiro, Toyohara Kosuke in the drama. Hence, the acting quality of this show is pretty good. Also, since Tobo Bengoshi is adapted from a manga of the same title, and usually manga adapted stories are better in story telling, the pace of the drama is well even out as well. However, just like Shinzanmono, the drama is slow off the blocks are I thought the first few episodes are slightly draggy. Because the ending focuses on the main plot, I thought the sub plot towards the end where the lawyer continues to help ordinary folks can be shelved off and instead continue to develop on the main plot itself. Nonetheless, Japan scriptwriters does not disappoint on detective stories and this is no exception. The ratings for this show is also pretty decent with 9..1% viewership average.

Do catch this drama if you're a Ishihara Satomi fan, as I thought her previous outings on popular dramas is a tad disappointing.

Summer seasons usually provide the best line ups of dramas and this season is particularly exciting as all the tv stations are going all up with a wide array of dramas to choose from. In fact, I'm already breaking my personal record of catching up with 8 dramas this season. Usually on average, I only catch up with 4 dramas per season. Hence, this shows the potential for this season. I shall kick off my review with this season's tearjerker, Mioka.

Mioka is the name of the main protagonist acted by Yoshitaka Yuriko who finds out that she has an incurable brain disease and has the most one year to live. She ran up to her school's rooftop where she often hanged out, intending to jump off the building to end her life. However, she is stopped by a fellow student Taichi, who himself has a fear of height but still prevented her from jumping. From that incident, love blossomed between them but the cruel fate of time is still ticking away from Mioka. Will the love between the two stand the test of time?

As you progress to watch Mioka, you can't help but compare Mioka with Ichi Ritoru no Namida, one of the most successful tearjerkers starring Sawajiri Erika. Afterall, the disease affecting Mioka seems to be very similar to the one in the latter show. However, that is where the comparisons between the two stop. In Ichi Ritoru no Namida, the storytelling is more about the struggles of the main character, and in the end how she accepted her fate and live her life to the fullest. In Mioka, the emphasis is more on love, between the two young lovers, between the family members and between friends. It tells of the gratefulness that even though I may have this disease, you're still there to love me till the end no matter in what state am I in, and for that I'm truly grateful that I exist in this world and thank you for loving me.

Even though I termed Mioka as a tearjerker, I'd say the tear content is minute as compared to Ichi Rotaru no Namida. In fact, I hardly recall shedding a tear in this drama. That is not to say this show is poor. On the contrary, the show played perfectly to the theme of gratefulness of love, and the soundtrack emphasizes on that. The theme song "Hotaru" by Fukuyama Masaharu is an excellent choice for this drama and bascially you can feel the lyrics of the song in the drama. Do give it a go for this drama, and the average 10% of the Japan population will agree with you that they enjoyed watching it as much as you do.

Doing some quick fire posts trying to cover some backlog since I've watched so many dramas and yet not sharing it here. As I've said in previous posts, there's quite a few good dramas this spring season and of course there's some really disappointing ones (read: Tsuki no Kohibito and NO, I don't feel like reviewing it because I think it's a waste of time). Japan scriptwriters seems to be still in the mood for detective stories, hence besides Zettai Reido which I reviewed it earlier, Shinzanmono is another that is available for this spring season.

Abe Hiroshi stars as Detective Kaga, who is new to the Nihonbashi police precinct as he has just transferred over to. Newcomers to a particular location are called "Shinzanmono", hence the title of the show. The first case Kaga is handling is the murder of a woman named Mitsui Mineko, who like him, is also a shinzanmono. Detective Kaga will need to use his keen sense of deductive reasoning to find out the real killer in a town where everyone seems to be keeping secrets that they do not want others to find out. Kuroki Meisa and Mizobata Junpei are the other notable names in this drama.

Usually, dramas or movies with Abe Hiroshi will not disappoint. However, I do feel that Shinzanmono, although is nice to watch, is somewhat lacking in the story telling department. As usual, Abe Hiroshi gives a solid performance with his confident acting and the rest of the cast gives a good performance. However, the story is a bit slow moving in the beginning even though as one progresses with each episode, it should lead the detective closer to the real killer. The story only gathered pace at the later half of the series, which a tad disappointing as the potential for the drama is there.

Nonetheless, it is still an enjoyable drama to watch and the Japanese clearly love their detective stories, giving it a 14.9% rating. However, fans of Kuroki Meisa may complain as she clearly does not feature as much as the leading female character in the show, who is already murdered. Thus, if you want to see more of Kuroki Meisa, I's suggest you watch "Dance, Dance Subaru" instead.

I'm not sure what is the trend of previous years, but 2010 spring season has sprung quite a number of good dramas. One of those is Team Batista 2: General Rouge no Gaisen. People who have been following the series on the movie screens shouldn't be unfamiliar with this series since this has been shown on big screen with Takenuchi Yuko and Abe Hiroshi as the main leads as Taguchi Sensei and Shiratori respectively. I've also reviewed Team Batista no Eiko, which is the part 1 of this series, both movie and drama versions.

Ito Atsushi and Nakamura Toru reprises their respective roles in part 2 of this series where instead on dealing with medical malpractice within the hospital, a bigger scandal looms when the ER department lead by the brilliant but erratic Hayami sensei is quietly building up discontent among the department. However, when both of them dig further, they uncover something bigger which both of them may not be able to handle.

As per normal, people may start to compare the movie version with the drama version. No doubt there may be similar characters such as Hayami Sensei. However, that's where the similarities stop. Compared to Part 1 where the drama and the movie version is pretty similar, albeit with an extended version for the drama version, this second drama series takes a life on its own, which I personally feel is a good move by the writers. There's no point for the drama version to be the same as the movie version as there's no link at all between the two.

The overall feel of the drama is pretty positive, with each case ending at the end of each episode, of course with the main exception for the main plot that is building up as the drama goes along. The pace for the show is good and atypical of medical dramas. Acting is good with experienced actors such as Kato Ai and Shirashi Miho complementing the three main characters. The average ratings for this show is 14.4% (Kanto Region), which is considered very good for a drama rating. Do catch it if you can, and of course if possible, do watch part 1 of the series first to get a basic understanding of the two main characters. However, if you decide to start on the series, it's still fine as the drama does not carry any baggage from the previous series.

Just realised for the past few reviews that I have made was all on movies or other stuff that I have posted and the last drama review I made was way back in March and it's not even a new drama. Hence I thought why not I update the scene a bit with a new review for a drama.

So far, the summer season for the Japan drama season has ended for a couple of weeks. However, they are still a few dramas that chose a later start date hence it's still screening currently in Japan. I've caught a few nice dramas since the start of the year and I thought I kick start the drama review with a Spring drama called Zettai Reido, or "Absolute Zero" in direct translation.

Zettai Reido talks about a special department in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police where unsolved murder cases will be sent to this department for storage and to be reviewed if any new lead or testimony comes up. Each case has a statutory of 15 years, after which the case will be dropped and all evidence retrieved disposed of.

Ueto Aya stars as the main lead in the show as Sakuragi Izumi, a rookie in the department. Although she is most inexperienced of all of her colleagues, she has an uncanny ability to be able to feel how the victims think before each of them met with mishap. Of course, this is not about some special ability but rather able to sense.

I would say this is the first show that I enjoyed with Ueto Aya in it. Previously, I really couldn't stand her over the top acting in dramas like "Attention Please!" which i thought was plain irritating. It was nice to see her deviate from those cutesy pie image to one of a serious actress (although I do admit I enjoyed Celeb to Bimbo Taro). As with most Japanese scriptwriters, they truly excel in writing up detective stories, hence this drama will not disappoint with each case that crops up. This is also backed up with a very decent rating of 14.4% during the Spring season. The insert songs for this drama is pretty good too, with Love Psychedelico providing both the main theme and the insert song. In summary, this drama is a pretty entertaining drama and deserves your 45 minute attention for 11 episodes.

Honokaa Boy is what I would call an arthouse film for a few reasons:

1. The pace of the movie is slow, and I mean really slow.
2. Beautiful scenes throughout the movie through sight and angle of normal places.
3. Few characters in the whole movie in total.

I wouldn't say the above points are reflective of all arthouse films. It's just that I feel most films have these few characteristics to be included in this genre.

Okada Masaki is the Leo, the male lead and main protagonist of this movie. The movie started off with his girlfriend and him going on a trip to Hawaii and they passed by this little called Honokaa when they got lost and had to ask for directions. Eventually, the girlfriend dumped him because he thinks he's too boring. Leo then decide to stay in Honokaa and got a job at a local theatre. He meets a quirky old woman named Bee (Baisho Chieko) who make a nice pastry called Malasoda and sells it at the theatre. Bee forms a friendship with Leo and prepares his meals everyday. However, that friendship is put to the test when Leo falls in love with a local girl Mariah (Hasegawa Jun) and starts to miss the meal appointments.

Overall, I'd say that I enjoyed the movie as the story does not seek the spectacular but instead tells a story through the relationships between each of the cast. What holds the movie together are the human emotions in the story. Afterall, you seldom see an old lady getting jealous over a young nubile and purposely adding the ingredient that she hates most while preparing a meal for both her guests. But then again, understanding why she did that and the various actions by each character is more important than the actual event itself. Hence, I did enjoy the movie quite a bit. I just wished the movie wasn't that long through...