Sean Akizuki's East Asian Drama and Movie Blog

House of Flying Daggers is a Wuxia and love tragedy, which features three characters in focus namely Jin, Mei and Liu.  What's better for me is that they are played by Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Ziyi and legendary actor Andy Lau (who I first saw in Magic Kitchen and later saw him next in Internal Affairs).  Also this film was in the memory of the late Anita Mui, who died of cervical cancer before she could be cast.  Now for the review. The film had the Peony Pavilion where Mei sings a song which arguably was the theme of the whole film.  The song goes to describe of how a gorgeous woman then appears which causes ruin from a Han Dynasty poem.  Made me think that I would actually want to see a Wuxia inspired by the Trojan War someday.  In this film both Jin and Liu are both caught against each other, because of Mei's beauty which happens later in the film.  And the whole plot also revolves on the house of rebels as the Tang Dynasty is already in decline...

Black and White is not just a standard police series.  I would even say that the first series of Vic Chou to take him to new heights, is more or less which is all revolving around the anti-hero Chen Zai Tian and his partner, the more honorable Wu Ying Xiong (who is also a douche at times)... which tries to connect these... Chen Zai Tian's identity was a mystery.  So he was supposedly adopted by the mafia leader of San Lian Hui, where he got an identity change.  As the anti-hero, he has one mysterious past which goes to "Well he is... then he isn't..." which actually, his true parentage was never fully covered (weak point).  Then the mysteries move to Wu Ying Xiong, whose shady past is revealed as the series progresses forward. Another of my favorite mysteries in the series is... who is the real main antagonist?  The whole mystery between the Sarkozy and the San Lian Hui is something.  And for one, where in the world did Sarkozy get all that resources? ...

So this is the first version of Mischievous Kiss I've seen... I haven't seen the Korean or the Taiwanese version.  I'm usually more inclined to watch the Taiwanese version tha the Japanese version.  Now my thoughts on this version and I'm ten episodes so far. So Yuki Yamada and Miki Honoka are former Toku actors.  Yuki Yamada was Joe Gibken in Gokaiger and Miki Honoka was Mezool in Kamen Rider OOO.  So okay, I better be careful not to go pedo mode over Miki Honoka... and we have Yuki Furukawa who has not been in Toku. Another familiar face is Kanna Mori from Kamen Rider Decade.  I'm not all that surprised considering after playing the role of Kotaro Minami, the actor Tetsuo Kurata played in J-Drama with Megumi Mori as sidekicks in Hey Brother (which I haven't seen). So my thoughts this is a pretty silly story since I was thinking, Miki Honoka compared to Ariel Lin as the leading lady, is underaged.  And I was thinking that the story itself is more o...

Toshiki Inoue's writing in Kamen Rider is basically getting you mixed.  He wrote several good episodes in Kuuga, the he wrote his magnum opus Kamen Rider Agito (which was basically would not be possible without Kuuga).  Now for what went wrong with him! His bad sense of humor.  Introducing Megumi into Ryuki just ruins the supposed tone of Ryuki as a darker and edgier show.  If that's not all, you might consider the forced comedy he does a lot and I mean a LOT!  In Kamen Rider Blade, episodes 29-30 is a WTF cooking battle.  In Kamen Rider Kiva, I find the show enjoyable but some jokes in the show like Nago tend to get flat.  I think the worst part about him is that he thinks he's so funny. -_- Getting too dark and edgy with a load of douchebags.  I use this picture to show something.  Kamen Rider Faiz was a show with great potential, I enjoyed the human vs. Orphnoch war here.  But the problem was that Faiz introduced the worst char...

Now here's my latest viewing aside from "Mischievous Kiss" which I am slowed down on it, here's something that keeps me interested is Kamen Rider Gaim.  At first, I have my biases on how silly it seems but I am starting to get interested.  So here's what I think about it- nothing wrong with recycling ideas, sometimes some ideas were great but fail the first time.  And plus, I have to avoid my pretending to hate Naomi Takebe already.  It's getting old. Right now I'm just eight episodes and I say I'm liking where it's going.  I can't really analyze much of it since I hardly know Gen Urobuchi.  Kouta and his fellow members at Team Gaim for me, are really a great set of protagonists.  They have their battles in the Inves games, which are established by Yggsdrassil Corporation which is the show's main enemy organization.  And I am also introduced to Pierre Oren the artist/fighter villain who I think can go from annoying because he's a bragg...

With the surging back of Meteor Garden back (but really, please get other shows already), I was also thinking of the rather coincidental events in Meteor Garden that happened in Romance in the Rain or at least, similar plot elements.  Here they are: Dao Ming Si and Shantsai to 1986 version of Shuhuan and Yiping- I can talk about the actors Jerry Yan and Qin Han with their leading ladies Barbie Xu and Liu Xuehua.  In both stories, the relationships are POINTLESS.  I mean, pointless.  I mean, whenever the leading ladies try to get away from their leading guys, the leading guys can go as far as to pinning the leading lady to a fence or it's very kiss/slap/kiss relationship.  I mean, I even felt like Shantsai should have broken up with Dao Ming Si already and same for Yiping and Shuhuan.  And Shantsai like Yiping was out there fore revenge at first and in order to love a certain man, plucks their spines away and are left defenseless.  Shantsai during Me...

With the ongoing proposal to ban Koreanovelas and the like from the Philippines and protect Pinoy garbage, one might really consider what's wrong with Pinoy Drama.  Here are some that I can name and what I can learn as I progress and learn from my mistakes as well: 1.) The protagonists tend to encourage rebellion and the idea that the poor are always oppressed and worth pitying even if it's not always true.  On the other hand, you might see in the Chinese, Japanese and Korean drama that though they may be blinded by revenge or rebellion at first, they do see through their mistakes and start to become better persons. 2.) The antagonists on the other hand seem to be very trim and proper, always rich and are always pictured with the misconception that wealth is evil (by the Pinoy leftists).  I was thinking that many of the protagonists are always pictured to be dignified villains all the time rather than a mix of different protagonists. 3.) Over-extension of the story...