Nobuta wo Produce / 野ブタ。をプロデュース

Producing Nobuta



2005 Japanese drama that starred Kamenashi Kazuya and Yamashita Tomohisa.



It's based on a Manga turned Anime about three high school kids who come together in an unexpected but interesting way and end up fast friends.

Kazuya-san is Mr. Popular, but he doesn't, really like people and wants nothing to do with them.
He fakes it, placates, and conforms in school, but then he returns home to be himself and take care of his father & younger brother.
His mother is an oddity, traveling the world making or searching for good food while her husband is left to look after the boys.

P-chan's character is from a rich family, but he lives with a tofu cook in a tiny restaurant/house near the school and he goes out of his way to annoy and turn off everyone in school.
He's weird in a cool sort of way, being himself to the opposite of Kazuya's character as a fake.

Anyway, at the beginning of the story, Kazuya is riding his bike to school, and every day he makes sure to detour in order to touch a willow tree growing along the river when he discovers to his utter dismay that the tree is blocked off by construction on the pier.

He makes his way to the tree against the wishes of the construction crew, and there he meets an even weirder girl who looks like



She's super-shy, extra introverted, and a total push-over on her first day at school, so naturally, every bitch-hag pop girl targets her for torture, humiliation, and unnecessary name-calling while doing nothing whatsoever to try and get to know her.

Not Kazuya's character, though.

He's mildly intrigued, and with Yamapi's character, they end up forming what they term a 'Produce' plan to make her over into the most popular girl in school.

The title of this drama fooled me and kept me away for awhile, because I kept thinking of 'produce' from the vegetable and fruit sense (ha ha ha ha).

I really enjoyed watching this 10-episode drama, and I especially loved being able to stare at two, hot guys for the duration as well!

Yamapi went from absolutely nothing in my mind to being one of the top-ten most sexually appealing guys to come out of Asia.

Kazuya's music got me first, and now that I'm seeing him in more movies & dramas, he's beginning to grow on me as well.

They both did slammin' fine jobs in this one, and I highly recommend you check it out if you haven't already.

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Shadows in the Palace / 궁녀

2007 Korean movie (horror is the bill) that starred Kim Nam jin as the main nemesis, yet he didn't get any billing at aznv.tv - go figure.

I'm not into horror, scary, occult, voodoo, what-have-you that gives me the creeps and keeps me up at night.

KIM NAM JIN, though!

I had to watch it despite the fear and reservations in my weak heart.

It turned out not to be as horrifying as I anticipated, and everyone at aznv.tv had a hard time understanding the ending, when the wrist or palm was slit - no one seemed to know what it was meant to symbolize.

It's an old-time piece about a nurse who gets killed, or is hanged, or she hangs herself after something bad happened to her, and her ghost continues to haunt the palace - and if I'm not mistaken, she possesses a concubine when this movie begins.

It was noir in the sense that a lot of the scenes took place after dark, leaving the viewer to squint at the screen a majority of the time so as not to miss anything.

Kim's character was a bad-boy palace guard (or something), and he was the one messing with all the pretty ladies, making them sad or angry when he'd love & leave them.

BOY did he die a miserable, if not gruesome death.

Wait - is that a spoiler?

I don't think so - you have to watch this one to judge for yourself.

I just tuned in to stare at Kim for a few hours. ^.^

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The Naked Kitchen / 키친

2009 Korean movie that stars Ju Ji hoon.

Boy and girl grow up together in a small community, become adults, graduate and get married.

She is cute and very supportive of her husband, who decides to quit his lucrative job in order to open a restaurant.

She goes to a gallery to buy him a gift when she bumps into hotty Ji hoon's character, and they end up behind a display wall to get it on.

Being cute, she tells her husband what happened and he forgives her, so they both decide to let the matter go when his best friend arrives to help out with the restaurant, and it's the same guy she screwed at the gallery.

The synopsis made this sound like a romantic comedy with a lot of delicious food thrown in for affect -

I don't remember much comedy, OR any tasty food, but the romance factor rated kind of high.

It was quirky in a kawaii sort of way.

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Sono Toki wa Kare ni Yoroshiku / Say Hello For Me

2007 Japanese movie that stars Takayuki Yamada as a mild-mannered aquatic plants store manager, Masami Nagasawa as a pretty model who returns home to see her two, good friends again, and Takashi Tsukamoto, an artist struggling to survive now that he's an adult.

They became fast friends as children, and Yamada's character was always in love with Nagasawa's character.

When she arrives at the plant shop, he doesn't recognize her right away, but he does allow her to spend the night inside the shop (which he lives above in a tiny room).

Eventually, he figures it out and falls in love all over again, but it wouldn't be an Asian movie without some difficulties thrown in the mix.

When they finally locate Tsukamoto's character, he's in a coma in a hospital, where they meet his girlfriend, who shares with them the sketch book he had as a boy.

Then she ends up with this really weird disease and goes into a coma as their friend is coming out of his.

It sounds weird, and it was, but in a really good, interesting way.

I recommend you give this flick a try, and I hope you will enjoy the story as much as I did.

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Ong-Bak 2

2008 Thailand movie that stars Tony Jaa as Tian, a young boy who witnesses the brutal massacre of his wealthy family.

He ends up escaping, but is soon captured by a ruthless trader who intends to sell him on the slave market.

Tian is furious about what he saw back at home, and when he's given the chance to fight for his freedom, he does so with gusto, panache, and mad fight skills.

A guy witnessing the show takes him in and trains him in just about every form of martial arts known to man.

Tian grows up with the hatred still in his heart and a desire to avenge his family, but when the chance finally comes for him to accomplish that goal, he is met with a ton of brutal sh*t at every turn.

I'm not paying for online anything, so I didn't get to see the first Ong-Bak, and the third installment is totally screwed up at aznv.tv (it's labeled as 3, but it's actually Tom Yum Goong).

The hype over the first movie made me curious, so I watched 2 for free, and while it was an interesting story with some spectacular moves here & there, I'm left to wonder if I missed out on something amazing, or if everyone over reacted to the first movie, I don't know.

Still, I recommend giving Ong-Bak 2 a try, and if you're lucky enough to have seen Ong-Bak, tell me if I did miss anything totally amazing, ok?

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Happy Life / 즐거운 인생

2007 Korean movie about guys in their 40's who lose a close friend, and one of them takes the news really hard.

They were a garage band group back in college, but they never made it to the finals in a few contests, so they broke up and went their separate ways.

The distraught guy is determined to revive the band for the sake of their late buddy, and though it's a rough start, they end up making a go of it with the help of the late guy's young and talented (also hot) son, (Jang Geun suk) their new lead singer.

This was a feel-good movie with a lot of reality / comedy thrown into the mix, and I highly recommend it.

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Love Exposure

2007 Korean movie that stars Lee Mi yeon, Lee Tae ran, Kim Jun seong, Yun Jae moon, Marco, Kim Byeong choon, and Kim Hwa ju.

It's about a plain-Jane girl photographer who has an affair with her married co-worker (or boss, I wasn't quite sure), and her best friend, who is happy to discover her husband is fooling around until she learns that the young girl he's messing with wasn't chasing her husband, but the other way around.

The photographer girl was weird in a cool sense, being a slob who never wore make-up or cared much about style, yet she spends her days taking pictures of totally beautiful people in totally beautiful settings.

The married man she's sexing is typical, Korean hot and married to a typical, model-esque rich woman with flawless everything.

In reality, nothing made sense about this movie.

Maybe I'll never understand what everyone else sees in other people, why they do the things they do, or how they manage to survive with the feeble brains God gave them.

MARCO was in this one, though, and that's all that mattered to me.

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