Love Shuffle
Posted on April 24th, 2009
Love Shuffle
[Rating: 9/10]
Genre: Drama, Romance
When there is a power failure, four individuals find themselves stuck in a lift together. While waiting for the electricity to start up, they start talking about themselves and their love lives, forming a unlikely bond as a result. In order to answer the question of whether there is really only one fated partner for each person, they decide to put their relationships to the test and play “Love Shuffle”, whereby they exchange partners for a week.
For what started out as a seemingly romantic-comedy bent drama, it actually got pretty complicated in the last few episodes. But I loved every minute of it. The premise of the story itself is of course a little ridiculous because in real life a random bunch of strangers wouldn’t exchange partners, but it wasn’t as scandalous as I thought it would be. I think that anyone watching this drama would rooting for a particular pairing in the drama, and the shuffle revealed a whole bunch of possibilities you wouldn’t have thought of. I was delighted when the three pairings I was rooting for actually happened in the end~ It was surprisingly layered with quite a bit of backstory on the characters, so certain individuals I did not like at first I actually grew sympathetic towards and sparked a new liking in me.
The selling point for me and what got me to watch the show in the first place is the cast. Many big names, but good actors~ Tamaki Hiroshi, Karina, Matsuda Shota, Tanihara Shosuke… I could go on… they all brought their characters to life and it was impossible to really dislike any of them! The members of the love shuffle all had amazing chemistry with each other and didn’t try to jump into each other’s spotlight but shone in their own way. Extra brownie points go to Yoshitaka Yuriko who played Kairi because the stone blank face and playing someone with a psychological disorder must have been challenging!
Probably the best romantic drama I’ve seen in a while, and I really recommend this to anyone who loves love stories with a bit of bite.
Filed under: ** jdrama, romantic comedy