Tsuki No Koibito ~ 月の恋人

 

I'm just plain bored and work or CPA does nothing to lift up the mood, at all. So, I ended up picking up the drama that I've left of, and start using the fastforward button. There's only 1 reason why I stopped watching this drama when the hype was there, and it's Lin Chi Ling. She is pretty, but boy her voice is just annoying, and her expression is just, literally killed the excitement for the whole series. As I finished this series, I still don't like LCL, especially when she just keeps showing up in last moments of the final episode which set me to the edge of throwing the remote control. But setting aside the LCL factor, how is the drama actually fare?

I find that the story is an old school type of drama. You'd find this similar theme on 80s J-dramas or the usual T or K dramas, after all, with the OST, it really sort of reminds me of Long Vacation but let's not go there or people will flog me if this drama is to be compared with the classics. You'll get to see a cold hearted but successful furniture company CEO, Renzuke, who is ambitious with his business and now decided to advance its production line to China, and then he met Xiu Mei, and had a change of heart. Xiu Mei is not the only lady in Ren's life, apparently, there's Maemi, Ren's long time buddy who's been through thick and thin with him, and there's also the young model, Yuzu, who had crush with Ren since she's little. Hmm, complicated enough? It's not a drama without second male lead who won't get the girl, Kazami, Ren's right hand man with suspicious motives. But the good thing is, unlike K-drama, Kazami is not perfect. Audience may see him as a bad guy in fact, but I find him to be charming that I actually want him to be ended with Maemi.

From the plot department, the phasing of this drama is just nice. It starts out rather messy on the first episode with the Shanghai and Tokyo setting back and forward, but after episode 3, we get to see more exciting stuffs and it gets more interesting with the business dirty tactics, Kazami scheming, Maemi wavering and Ren change of attitude. Well, everything is OK except for LCL. As the episode progress, her character doesn't really change. Maybe they try to say that Xiu Mei is still pure heart or whatever till the end, but I find that it's too much. Even the change of attitude of Yuzu looks refreshing compare to Xiu Mei's vacumness (can't really find the right word, but that's what I feel from Xiu Mei's character, or my hateful bias towards LCL overshadow my judgement, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who think like this haha), and I'm not even a fan of Keiko Kitagawa's pouting.

The first pulling factor of this drama is obviously Kimutaku, though I'd still watch for Matsuda Shota, but majority of the ratings is definitely contributed by Kimutaku's popularity and those fans (including aunties and grandmas) have dutifully endure LCL and keep on watching week by week, and the high rating of this drama proved it. Well, speaking of Kimutaku, he's always been kakkoii and taking kakkoii roles, and this drama is no different. But, if you compare to his previous roles, I find that this one is lack of challange for Kimutaku. I'd expect more acting chops from Kimutaku although he's portraying Ren's loneliness very well. On some moments I find Kimutaku's lonely expression is very similar to Ohno's of Ryo in Maou. But if we are talking about acting, I cannot leave out the reason of me continuing to watch this drama is because of Takenata Naoto. His role in here is just a small role like what he has in other gazillion dramas (if you watch J-drama tentatively from 2004 onwards, you'll see him EVERYWHERE). His character here is a drunken regular in Xiu Mei's apartment small Chinese restaurant. But his antics brings out some laughter in the middle of serious drama.

Off course, we cannot leave out the very very cool OST sang by Kubota Toshinobu with title 'LOVE RAIN ~ Koi no Ame ~'. Sounds familiar? He's the same singer of Long Vacation OST and this time, he used the same style. So for fans, it gives out a nostalgic feeling of the drama.

One not really related trivia, 2010 Fuji TV's GetsuKyuu dramas are all full of JE boys, from Code Blue 2 (Yamapi) to Tsuki No Koibito (Kimutaku) to Natsu Niji (Matsujun) and ended with Nagareboshi (Goro). So does this mean only JE boys can pull such ratings? Well, they broke the chain for the Winter 2011 season, we'll see if they'd get back to the pattern.