Sean Akizuki's East Asian Drama and Movie Blog

It does really look like that the digital age can provide a lot of distractions, right? Yup, I decided to give Zenkaiger yet another pause to explore other stuff that I haven't watched last decade. I remembered watching Pride and Prejudice some time ago  which was a combination of romance and legal drama. How does Suspicious Partner hold out in that regard? Some may think about the J-Drama and Anime-style humor entertaining here. After all, much of Korean entertainment is Japanese-inspired, right? At first glance, it may seem Mio Kudo and Erika Toda had a project together last 2017. Instead, we have Nam Ji Hyun (who looks like Mio) and Kwon Nara (who really LOOKS LIKE Erika) with the cast. I was thinking about how the show seems to a richly-flavored cake in contrast to how Pride and Prejudice was run. For some Filipinos, they watched it badly-dubbed sometime in 2019.  The opening doesn't seem to focus on legal drama. Instead, we have the tale of cheating that opens it up. Eun ...

I guess fanboyism can affect your grades right? I could remember having this weird fanboyism going on and how it affected my final exam grade. I could remember it was the 2000s when I was nearing my graduation year. It was the finals week and I didn't flunk in any of my midterm subjects. I wasn't outstanding but I didn't get bad grades either. It was time to review for my finals exam. It was really mandatory to study, don't watch TV, and GET SOME REST before taking the exam. Well, I had a closet fanboyism at that time. ABS-CBN and GMA-7 were airing certain Koreanovelas. There was  Forbidden Love  on ABS-CBN and  Love Story in Harvard  on GMA-7 - both having Kim Tae Hee on it. What I actually fantasized about back in college was marrying the 25-year-old actress while I was a 20-year-old student .   It was one day before the final exam for that particular subject on ethics. I guess I got complacent with my good midterm grade that I didn't care too much about...

Back in 2001(that would be 20 years ago) - the Taiwanese adaptation of Hana Yori Dango or Meteor Garden was made. I was thinking about the comments on the chemistry of Jerry Yan and Barbie Xu-Wang as Doumyoji Tsukasa (Daoming Si) and Makino Tsukushi (Dong Shan Tsai) in the said TV series. I still feel Barbie has been the best Tsukushi ever and Jerry portrays every side of Doumyoji (an insecure bully who changes for the better) oh-so-well. Meteor Garden's first season aired in the same year as the remake of Romance in the Rain which the 1986 version starred Chin Han and Leanne Liu . I decided to try watching the 1986 version (even without understand almost all of it) and decided to only see the similar scenes between the 2001 and 1986 versions. So, I wonder was Chiung Yao trying to make her 2001 remake a high budget or what? I even wonder what if Jerry and Barbie were Shuhuan and Yiping instead of Daoming Si and Shan Cai back in 2001.  Meteor Garden got so popular that a second seas...

I remembered watching the Rurouni Kenshin Trilogy which broke quite a record in Philippine cinema. Unfortunately, the two films that served to wrap things up with the finale  then we had the origins of Battousai - all before Kenshin decided to get a reverse-edged sword when he swore never to kill again. The whole movie is a condensed version of the Trust and Betrayal OVA series. The finale deals with the late Tomoe's younger brother Enishi. This one explains why the final movie went that way (and why it NEVER became the Anime finale is really confusing IMHO).  The whole era here was the Tokugawa Shogunate. I could remember a bit of my Japanese history in high school now! Okay, Rurouni Kenshin is just a story but you can learn some Japanese history. The Tokugawa era created an isolationist policy against Western influence. Much persecution of western ideas happened during the Tokugawa era. Much of the grudge that Shogo Amakusa (Muto, actually) was because of the loss of his Cat...

I wasn't that big into K-Drama. I didn't immediately watch Autumn in My Heart no matter how pretty I found Song Hye Kyo was. Then there was one time I started to watch K-Drama in college for the sake of a stupid crush - it was Kim Tae Hee. I could remember watching Forbidden Love on ABS-CBN, and IRIS , Stairway to Heaven (where she was the evil stepsister),   and Love Story in Harvard in GMA-7, and I had this obsession going for her but it wasn't vocal about it. I was usually after younger women and older women weren't my type. However, she was a weird case of fanboyism going too far for me. I would like to remember the precise moments when I fell for her. I would probably be 20 to 21 years old when the shows came. I could remember how I often stayed up late to watch the shows where she was involved - only skipping them because of (1) exams, and (2) I had to get up early because school was tomorrow. I remembered how I would actually save up money for a bootleg DVD of an...

I guess I've become a sucker for police-type drama, right? While I decided not to pursue the dangerous career of criminology - I always find it fascinating when I pretend I'm either a cop hunting down a dangerous criminal or that I'm a dangerous gang leader and weird stories are born. I decided to watch Beyond Evil which has a series of mysteries (and a LOT of spoilers) especially with dealing with a serial killer.  The story has Sgt. Lee Dong Sik (Shin Ha Kyun) is now demoted to doing all menial and tedious tasks. Meanwhile, Dong Sik faces off against his partner Han Joo Won (Yeo Jin Goo) who is accused of being a part of a serial killing. The mysteries behind the serial killing are thrilling. Severed fingers? Fortunately, we don't see the very act of doing it. I'm just reminded of Robert G. Durant from Darkman who would cut off the fingers of his victims when he's really pissed. Whoever makes a living also collecting human body parts is just plain sick. What r...

I guess by now you'd notice that I don't give updates - I REACT to updates! Right now, my wish for the first DINOSAUR-THEMED Kamen Rider has come true! 2017 was the year when I got my wish for a space Super Sentai and we had it in Uchuu Sentai Kyuranger . I confess that the last two dino Super Sentai just didn't give me much of what I want. Now, thanks to Orends Range,  I got the update,  and here's the first update that I felt I wanted to give my own reaction towards: In the series, our heroes will fight a demon worship organization called Dead Man. This organization uses a mysterious stamp called Bi-Stamp to materialize the devil hidden inside humans to create a monster called Deadmen. To protect an important family from the hands of a Deadman, Ikki Igarashi forms a contract with the device called Vice to transform into Kamen Rider Revi, while the devil transforms into Kamen Rider Vice! Playing the role of Ikki Igarashi is newcomer Kentaro Maeda, while Vice will be vo...