You would not want to sympathize with anyone in this movie. See life? Nothing’s fair…

This was what I had posted more than a year ago about the Japanese movie, Confessions.

I first saw the movie after skimming through different cable channels then tumbling upon it at Screen Red Asia. I’m a big fan of East Asian movies that piquing interest on this movie was not an issue but what really got my interest was the overall tone of the movie.  The movie has already started and had been playing  for a couple of minutes. From that scene, I understood that the movie was set on a high school but what was unsettling was the color palette,  it was dark. It was a movie with what I may first distinguished as children with the scenes that are heavy, aside from overtly dramatic but also on an angry, horrific, and murderous way. I could really sense a horror aura, well, maybe as experienced from watching The Grudge or The Ring. But then, the movie proved to be horrific minus those white entities. Horrific of the idea that the said plot could really/have happen/ed.

The movie starts and end with Teacher Yoko Moriguchi played by Takako Matsu.  She started the with a sad soft announcement and ending it with a indurated laughter.

Technically saying (Pardon me, I’m No EXPERT!), the story was well weaved with the  movie. The actors and actresses played their characters so well that I greatly sympathized with them. I cried when they feel the need to cry. I feel frustrated when they were eaten by frustration. I greatly wonder what puts them at those situations giving a wider perspective, a greater sense of open-mindedness. The overall plot movement was so appropriate, so  mysterious, so intimidating, so dark but still puts its audience with awe and wonder. Different forms of psychological trauma were its main plot.

The movie was like a trial with the Teacher as the main prosecutor aiming to look for evidence to  implicate (or find justice) those culpable. She wants to understand why things had happened and she wants people to be responsible of that. She wants to teach the pain that she had felt for this prosecutor does not intend to jail anyone physically but to imprison them emotionally. She was just a bystander that became the innocent victim. Eventually, the incident made her more plotting and vengeful.

I cannot speak with morality because each characters has been played by their emotions that I have never experienced and would never commend but weirdly, I find to understand. Help should have been greatly yielded during the right times. Intention should be cleared for sincerity is always questioned for those people  broken.

One would not likely accustom  with children killing even with the fads like Chuckie, the doll. Still, even with the rare instances of real-life child killers (Crime Channel’s Killer Kids). The action itself is not something that could be normed. But then, it really still feels unlikely for these innocent people to do the action alone, with their young mind controlling what they could actually do.. The adults shoulder the greater part of the problem. “Cause as witness from that movie, things happened through ignorance.

The movie tells a message. More especially on first world societies like Japan. With their Baby Boomers working their ass off to provide better for their families, children’s mind are at stake with the kind of attention and treatment that are left provided. The good intention pays dearly if guided well.

So far, I have watched the movie thrice and it never fails to make me feel what a heavy heart could children feel with negligence and without that proper guidance. It creates a domino, usually unstoppable at the right moment.

DISCLAIMER: this is not a recap nor has any synopsis. this is more of a review, a rant, to a drama that could have been more…

this is a drama that started with a light tone and moved on to getting darker and darker for every new episode. i am actually writing this post because i was very much affected upon how the drama turned out. i felt pain, unsatisfaction, and cheated. i actually can’t figure out why (i’ve felt that way) or maybe because of my great wonder of how EPIC (in all sense) the love story was. especially after knowing that this story may have happened in reality and was just blurred or burned in Korea’s history. SPOILER!!!!!

i could say that the ending was a happy one but  i am not satisfied, not with the ending, but of how the story went out. you get what i mean? (to those who have watched already) i have that lingering feeling that there are issues left out or that things should not have gone that way.

the writing was not the problem but more of the morality of it. i surmised that their world was of an endless struggle that is  so much like normal lives. but the story had more, in a sense, about life, death, greed, pain and revenge. like how a drama should be, it was very dramatic.

all the characters were interesting and flawed more because of how they reacted or/and affected by the actions of the people around them. very human! one should commend the writer for writing characters that has an impact on every other characters’ lives. no character were used simply as an extra. they made an impact. they were memorable and for some, they were lasting.

but what hurts me was with how the story unfolded to be just about one great tragic love. a love that sprouted from a wrong start to their supposed lasting happy ending. all the other people were used as instruments upon how this love could be tested,  challenged, and ‘survived’. the couple in-love are also bounded by their emotional and political ties. i could say that these two people have the most convincing love among all the other dramas I’ve watched. their love knows no boundaries even death and hatred and I was greatly affected with the selfish ending of living ‘dead’. it was like they should have done that from the start but then their love with each would not be strengthened and the individual maturity would not come at bay. making me feel that the story was really just about them. i was cheated because after writing those good supporting characters the story would just end with them. there might have been a change but the deaths that happened was just in vain. it was necessary for the story to move or maybe, as a reminder, upon how cruel this world is. relationships (familial, friendships, etc) were severed for this love.

i finished the whole 24-episodes with no skips nor fast forwards in just two days proving how engaging the series was.  i did not care much about the acting for the story and the music itself was enough to convince me of their ‘acting.’ the costumes were never an eyesore and very much appropriate. well, the hanboks were beautiful. as implied, the OST was timed well with all scenes. KUDOS to its musical director and of course the composers and singers! the music plus the acting really brought out all of this post’s feelings.

but the after taste, was not engaging. if you ask, ‘if i’ll watch it again,’ i might think for awhile and answer, ‘maybe just all the lovely scenes.’  ill skip the killings. overall, if you want a historical intrigue, long-haired Park Shi Hoo, and a convincing love story. watch this drama, and witness their reality for yourself.

i lost my revenge. i gained you.