Skip to main content

Lovely

I've seen two versions of the Japanese drama My Happy Marriage; the animated version on Netflix, and the live action version which is presently free with ads on YouTube, and while the cartoon is longer and explains the story better, the live action is pretty gorgeous and well-acted.

Here's the premise: In an unspecificed time period Japan is riddled with demonic spirits that gifted soldiers and individuals fight with familial superpowers. Miyo Saimori, a girl who was born without a gift and lost her mother, is subsequently abused by her father, stepmother and half sister, and then sent to live with and ultimately marry Kiyoka Kudo, an important soldier with massive superpowers. He's handsome but a jerk, and is hateful to her for about five seconds before he realizes how badly she was treated by her family. Just as they start falling in love, the girl's maternal family steps in to reveal she has massive superpowers. Meanwhile, a conspiracy to release the imprisoned demonic spirits ensues, and all hell breaks loose.

Although the world building is a bit shaky -- it might be based on cultural mythology I'm not familiar with, too -- I really enjoyed the romance in this drama. It's all emotional, so don't expect anything in the way of love scenes -- there's hardly any physical contact between the leads. Ren Meguro, who plays Kiyoka Kudo, is stellar in his role, and portrays Kiyoka Kudo with subtlety and finesse while looking amazing the entire time. Mio Imada is incandescent as Miyo, and has so much chemistry with Ren that they don't need any love scenes. I highly recommend the live action version as the one to watch, especially since it's free right now. :)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Old Loves & Such

My guy kindly bought me my favorite Chinese take out the other night, and my fortune cookie offered up an interesting story starter: This sounds sweet, right? Only the first thing I thought of was an old love coming back from the dead . . . . must be October. In other lovely news, my favorite hand-dyed thread artist, Lorraine from Colour Complements , is moving her business from Etsy to her own web site. Many of my favorite sellers on Etsy are leaving due to the whole "free shipping" coercion debacle, which has also soured me on the site. To show support I did a little shopping at Lorraine's web site and got in these: I love her threads and trims; you simply can't buy anything like them anywhere. Her work makes my specialty thread box look like a treasure chest: At night I'm spending just as hour working on quilting the scrap project runner, and I'm making slow progress: I'll keep quilting the runner while I try to decide on a design for t...

Wild Ride

Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds is an epic, dazzling film that hurls you into the Korean version of the afterlife while showcasing some of the most impressive special effects I've ever seen in any movie. The story begins with the death of firefighter Kim Ja-Hong (Cha Tae-hyun) who jumps out of a burning building with a child in his arms. The kid lives, but he dies at the scene. Two strangers inform him that he has passed away right on schedule, and toss him into a vortex that takes him to the world of the afterlife, where he meets his three guardians: Gang-rim (Ha Jung-woo), Haewonmak (Ju Ji-hoon) and Lee Deok-choon (Kim Hyang-gi). At the gates of the afterlife Ja-Hong learns that he is considered a paragon (an exemplary person who lived a noble and self-sacrificing life) and is eligible to be reincarnated -- but there's a catch. First he has 49 days to make it through seven hells in which he will be judged on his sins. His three guardians will help and defend...

Progress

My guy is back home safe, sound and exhausted. I think he just realized he's over seventy now. :) I didn't finish a sewing project while he was gone, but I did make some progress on the beach bag. I've tacked down all the fabric elements on top of the old backing fabric I quilted. Time to break out the embroidery thread box and have some fun.