Sean Akizuki's East Asian Drama and Movie Blog

So here's another TV drama I overlooked for reviewing namely Green Forest My Home.  This was another stage in Chinese beauty Esther Liu's stage as a TV drama actor.  Now here's a typical drama story but somehow cuts through Qiong Yao's stereotypes to give you a good ending.  The start of the story is where Sophie has her promise to her "prince charming" William who leaves for England.  She is stuck in a love triangle between two guys- William and the other guy Owen.  For William, she is also stuck in a love triangle for him with her adopted sister Susan whose biological family was of their driver's. Well I do have to admit I really hated Susan at first with her scheming attitude but that mellows down since she's not all that antagonistic.  She had her lover Brian, who is William's executive.  I thought the whole story here is where Sophie is a proud teacher of the pre-school Green House and has to compete with the prestigious university she is l...

Well it's not really time for me to discuss about this or is it?  I just felt seeing me and my best friend over a girl who he won.  So where does this love triangle begin? Xerya's well he's an unknown orphan who has no relation to the Hsu family believing himself to be the bastard son of the family.  In the past, he met Tian Bian at the St. Teresa' Orphanage where the two started a childhood friendship.  Tian Bian was the bastard child of the Hsu family's patriarch which disgraced the whole family.  Xerya kept searching for her from childhood.  Looking at it, they have known each other since childhood and Xerya well, is a better character than the other guy Xiaogang. On the other hand we have the Hsiaogang/Tianbian pairing.  So while Xerya is engaged to his adoptive sister Shanni but the real suspense was to who gets the girl. If you think of Xiaogang he's pretty crude and rude (he is a picture of me in a way) and Tianbian is meek and quiet. ...

Here's a list of my favorite Chinese drama couples namely: Jerry Yan and Barbie Xu- In Meteor Garden, they became an item for two seasons though they never dated in real life.  For Jerry Yan, he has the charisma of senior actor Qin Han and for Barbie Xu, she has the charisma of Liu Xue Hua.  Too bad they never got beyond Meteor Garden.  I mean they could have actually made a good couple for Qiong Yao TV drama.that was previously done by Qin Han and Liu Xue Hua. Vic Chou and Barbie Xu- They had a short relationship that didn't last.  I did think that in Mars, they really had a good chemistry.  While they didn't become a match in Meteor Garden, in Mars they did. Vic Chou and Michelle Chen- I love their performance in "Wish to See You Again" in a rather lighthearted romance series.  But I'd like to see them do serious. Vic Chou and Fan Bing Bing- While I'm to complain to how incredibly teary eyed Last Night of Madam Chin was but the two had their ...

So this is really one film I watched for Rin Takanashi but overall, it's pretty bizarre and just didn't get my interest.  The role of Rin here is the hot high end prostitute Akiko who is dating Noriaki.  Really, I just thought the morals here are pretty loose.  So Akiko gets sent to be a client to an elderly guy named Takashi a much older professor who is more interested in making dinner than intimacy (phew) but still, disgusting considering the age gap. This results to a series of complication which makes me think about the real condition of people here.  For Akiko why does she choose to be a prostitute than choose any other job?  Does she have any budgeting problems?  I guess the whole film does highlight the degeneracy issue of just anybody, no race involved.  I would say that even as a fan of Rin Takanashi, I didn't like her taking that role! For Noriaki, it really is something that he doesn't know he's dating a prostitute and he later discove...

With the upcoming movie of Showa Riders vs. Heisei Riders, I think there is really the deal of fantard wars even among Kamen Rider fans.  We have Kamen Rider fantards and Super Sentai fantards (who might also have Power Rangers fans who like Super Sentai but hate Kamen Rider) then even among Kamen Rider fans, there are some who really can't accept the changes the Heisei era underwent.   During the Showa era, well you have to admit that some fans were too stuck on the ideas of the late Shotaro Ishinomori and his writers.  For one, the whole Kamen Rider of the Showa had a different formula.  It followed the standard of one monster a week rather than the standard two episode arc, villain organizations that made rather complicated and seldom REALLY STUPID plans to conquer the world like Super Sentai villains and well it just didn't really draw a difference line between Kamen Rider and Super Sentai in terms of differences.  Except here, "One main hero, Sentai ha...

Tokusatsu is defined in the Urban Dictionary as, "literally special effects, a genre of Japanese live action audio-visual entertainment usually but not always involving super heroes/heroines combatting evil monsters whether life sized or gigantic." or shows that use a considerable amount of special effects or "special filming" in Japanese where either science fiction, fantasy or horror are involved in action. Tokusatsu in particular refers to the sounds, special effects, costumes and props used in creating the adventure of the said heroes ." The term was purely Japanese and has been used to categorize the likes of Kamen Rider, Super Sentai and Ultraman but eventually it also might be applied to the likes of Power Rangers which is the ADAPTATION of Super Sentai, the American originals like Tattooed Teenager Alien Fighters and Saban's own original Knights of Tir Na Gog.  But can we consider Wuxia as Tokusatsu? Let's think about it. Even we hear of Kore...

I was thinking about how Toshiki Inoue wrote stuff.  So maybe he brought conflict to Hibiki but looks like the Shirakura/Inoue tandem isn't that good. Looking at how Hibiki was under Inoue's writing its second half it did suffer some problems like adding that annoying jerk who really irritates everyone.  Well she has more similarities to Inoue than differences but here's where she stands out over Toshiki Inoue are the following: Doucebag protagonists in her shows.  Maybe you saw Kamen Rider Ryuki which came before Kamen Rider Faiz.  You had to face Shinji, Renn and Shuichi but none of them can annoy you like Masato in Faiz.  I don't think that annoying kid Kiriya would be that annoying.  Looking at her writing the douches, they are not all that annoying compared to those in Kamen Rider Faiz. In Super Sentai, most of Yasuko Kobayashi's finale arcs are pretty well-written to passable most of the time compared to Inoue's in the long run. Okay she wrote tha...