Sean Akizuki's East Asian Drama and Movie Blog

While I can enjoy Kamen Rider Kiva, I also would like to say I felt like that it had some weird romance plots at the same time.  Toshiki Inoue kind of like writing romance plots.  Faiz and Agito didn't have much of it (but the whole so-called attraction at the end of Agito felt stupid)... now here's where most of his strange sense of humor KICKS IN: Men caught in between two or more women: The main protagonist Wataru is caught in between Shizuka who agrees to be his "mother" and Mio.  Aside from his love triangle with his maternal half-brother Taiga over Mio, Shizuka does have a crush on him.  Shizuka did get jealous when she thought that Megumi had a liking on Wataru which wasn't existent. For women caught between two or more lovers: Maaya who exists in the past and the future was once married the Fangire King of 1986.  It was a loveless marriage (?) and one may consider the whole marriage a marriage of convenience. She bore the Fangire King one son n...

Aside from Qiong Yao, one very important figure for Chinese drama fans that they should not overlook is the awesome writer known as scholar Dr. Louis Cha who is a lawyer and doctorate in philosophy.  His writing styles may have inspired other writers of Chinese fiction.  For one, his works were influential they went all the way from novels to becoming big screen.  He is mostly known for writing fictional martial artists, quite often doing impossible feats, non-existent martial arts styles mixed with existent martial arts styles.  One cannot deny the beauty of his fiction while he takes artistic license of using real life elements such as existing conflicts in history. His common style of writing were set at 6th Century B.C., 11th Century A.D., 13th Century A.D., 14th Century A.D., 16th Century A.D., 17th Century A.D. and 18th Century A.D.  He also was fond of creating various conflicting sects and schools of martial arts, rivaling each other aside from the im...

Normally I'm not such a huge fan of F4 and I had some disappointments with Vic Chou until his surprisingly good performance in Mars.  Black and White was one series that had a real chemistry into its cast.  Now I'd like to talk why it's my favorite F4 related series.  The series was written by Wu Luoying and Chen Huiru, both female writers.  They did a very good job writing the series and may have been very important writers as well. Here's why and I believe I can learn to write better characters by examining this drama: The conflict of  the two main characters.  Chen Zaitien is a somewhat corrupt cop while Wu Yingxiong is your honest, clean cut cop with an attitude problem.  I just love the conflict of these two was priceless or some occasional funny scenes (like when Zaitien bought underground weapons).  I thought about how Zaitien as a character was a complex character.  I also would think that both actors Vic Chou and Mark Chow carri...

Qiong Yao was a talented writer, misunderstood early on but her writing style was a revolutionary, talented writer who published 200 articles back as a High School student.  Unable to enter College, she got married to her ex-husband and had one son.  However the marriage landed in divorce in the 60s where she started to write depressing novels as a result of that traumatic experience.she relied on writing as her only income though later, she became a screenwriter.  She had to continue writing in order to survive.  And her circumstances also proved a bit of what her writing could do especially during the 1960s.  Taiwan during that time was still at a dark era, recovering from the civil war and she beautifully weaved the circumstances into her writing, as well as what she knew of China back then to make her novels come to life. What I like about some of her writings (Okay I haven't read them all) is that she's not afraid to address the weakness of both genders....

Knowing some of Qiong Yao's novels were usually set in China during the feudalistic times where chauvinism and harsh family dictum were the norm, Romance in the Rain is a commentary that shows the flaws of an unequal, unjust and harsh society. Women back then in the old Chinese society prior to women knowing their rights were not treated so well. Having had ancestry from China, I have also consulted with my elders about how life in China was especially for women. Romance in the Rain is a novel on women's rights. The whole story is set in 1930s China (or later in 1960s Taiwan depending on the version) where Lu Zhenhua a famous general in Northeastern China has taken up to eight brides who all resembled each other in some way. Yiping was born in the eighth marriage and later, Zhenhua moves to Shanghai. He had laid aside his first eight wives leaving Yiping and her mother Wenpei in poverty while he lives lavishly with his ninth wife Xueqin (who was an opera singer he married he...

So I am always a holder of many unpopular opinions but I will vocalize them every now and then, especially that I like Huadu Chronicles which was a box office flop.  Maybe it's because I'm a fan of Twins.  Now I would try to understand the symbolism of the film and what it may be a commentary of.  For starters, the story is all about gender imbalance.  The emperor's once love interest had become the empress of China, has taken women's rights to the extreme and she has become a Feminazi in her own bizarre way to the point she has also banned any form of love.  Any woman caught in the act of loving a man was already declared an outcast. The main antagonist is your wicked Empress Fei who has gotten bitter. Well maybe, the men of her day were all pigs so I can't blame her in part for what happened to her.  The backstory between the empress and her twin sister (both played by the same actress) was their love for the emperor.  The emperor slept with her i...

Although I may not encourage overly using Jerry Yan and Liu Yifei like they did to Qin Han with Brigitte Lin in the movies (it gets boring), but I want to think for once what if we could at least remake Red Dust.  I mean Qin Han's not getting any younger, Brigitte Lin is not getting any younger so I want to see more of Qin Han's movies and series remade with either Jerry Yan, Vic Chou or any competent actor. Jerry Yan has Qin Han's type of appearance, body structure and charisma.  Liu Yifei has Brigitte Lin's type of classical beauty making them almost like a mother/daughter team.  Having Jerry Yan act as Qin Han's character in the past may actually "revive" interest in classical literature to a young generation.