Tsuki no Koibito
Posted on August 12th, 2010
Tsuki no Koibito
[Rating: 6.5/10]
Genre: drama, romance
A poor chinese factory worker gets entangled with the dealings a Japanese furniture king who is thinks only of expanding his empire. Will she be the one to melt his cold heart?
This drama was surprisingly short, and the ending kinda threw me off a little. I not sure whether the ending was saying long distance/multi-cultural romances are not worth it and it is better to stick with someone closer to home, or that it was trying to be more realistic in that Cinderella did not get her Prince and as a modern woman found her niche and is happily living with her family. The cast at first glance was a hit and miss for me; Shinohara Ryoko is one of my favourite actresses, and Lin Chi Ling (who I had only seen as Xiao Qiao in the Red Cliff movies) sounded intriguing as it is rare you get non-Japanese cast members play a main role in jdramas. However the lead being Kimura Takuya did not appeal to me despite him being one of the most popular Japanese actors and lots of women fawn over him- personally I don’t find him that attractive and I’ve not been too impressed with the shows of his I’ve seen (Beautiful Life, Hero, Mr. Brain, Wonderful Life)… He was a little better in Tsuki no Koibito though, but it could be because this time the story wasn’t boring and the other characters helped made the show more interesting. One thing I enjoyed was Lin Chi Ling’s character, Xiu Mei, who was the rather cute and fresh element of the show and as a person learning Japanese, she spoke in simple sentences that I could understand with my limited knowledge of the language. I was also quite impressed by Matsuda Shota and Abe Tsuyoshi who spoke pretty decent Chinese, though I am not sure if their chinese lines were dubbed… in any case Abe had to speak Chinese for his entire role, as his character didn’t know any Japanese, and Matsuda for about half his role. Even though the latter’s character turned out to be the bad guy, I actually preferred him to Kimura’s. Ren was rather annoying most of the time, leading the two girls around… not to mention he’s so chauvanistic, which I found was a big letdown with the male characters. Maemi could do so much better than Ren best friend or no. I actually quite liked her with Sai/Cai… Another strong role was Keitagawa Keiko’s, who really developed from a spoilt model to a somewhat wiser and independant lady. She could have spiralled further and become the stereotypical vengeful ex-partner but once she pulled off the jealousy/selfish googles, she was rather likeable and provided a nice contrast to Xiu Mei.
This drama would suit those who like soap opera type romance in a drama rather than romantic comedy, as it does get a little angsty in some parts, but nothing depressing thankfully. And while I felt it could have lasted a little longer, eight episodes is pretty compact for someone wanting a quick jdrama fix and don’t want something too fluffy and happy.
Filed under: ** jdrama, drama, romance