Amor en aguas turbulentas

What could be worse than being confined for days at a time as a cruise ship passenger along with four thousand others? Answer: Being a staff member servicing these passengers! And even worse than that, being the principal go-to staff member for all less-than-happy passengers and other paying trouble makers. This is the underlying plot here with a delightful off-the-wall budding romance injected into the mix. Great light-weight escapist fare! Familiar actors deliver over-the-top performances (as is expected in a movie of this genre) with female lead Aoi Miyazaki being a standout as a romantic lead - she steals just about every scene she is in! Direction and editing suffer from an over abundance of obviously staged scenes. Special effects, especially animation, are theater-movie quality level. Cinematography and lighting as well as sound field are fine. Music is a bit on the intrusive side. Subtitles struggle (sometimes successfully) with rapid-fire dialog - may be best to turn them off, if possible. Well worth rewatching. Viewed on Netflix. WILLIAM FLANIGAN.

Thought that this movie was a cute and whimsical love story with a bit of a murder mystery mixed in on a luxury 5-star cruise ship that has rich cliental. The ML and FL meet on the ship - he is the top butler and she is not a client but a girl who runs on the ship at the last moment to catch her cheating boyfriend - who happens to be not on the ship, but off on a hot springs trip at a different location with the butler's girlfriend. The FL gets stuck on the ship as it pulls away from the port. The characters in the film, namely the murder suspects, are all theatrical in nature and their costuming. Easy to watch and the murder is solved with an easy going cute ending to a love story as the ML and FL try to solve the murder together since they witnessed it but no one, including the Captain of the ship believes them.

Here, it's In Love and Deep Water. Currently on netflix, from japan, this one starts out as a cross between love boat and murder she wrote. One of the ship stewards teams up with a stowaway passenger to try to solve a mystery. There's a rich family aboard, and they don't want to be cut out of the will. Lots of talk of class differences, a captain who wants to look good for the camera, which seems to be following her around. Gang members, movie stars, doctors. For most of the two hours, it's silly and fun. Then it kind of falls apart right at the end. Not sure if it was an editing issue, or they just ran out of steam at the end of the script. It ends rather abruptly. And so many loose threads that never get sewn up. It's entertaining, but a stronger ending would have helped.

Japanese Movie '' In Love and Deep Water '' is a romantic comedy/ cozy mystery. It takes place on a cruise ship where two people who had been cheated by their partners witness a murder the victim of which goes missing.

The movie tries to blend in two things, the mystery-crime case and the love story. However, as it is a movie, it doesn't have enough time to have them both developed nicely. Thus, both of them end up half-baked.

However, the story isn't that bad. The mystery is indeed intriguing and, in the end, I do wish that it was better presented, as it had lots of potential.

The love story was cute as well. From the prompt that brought the two of them together, to the progress of their relationship, it was enjoyable to watch, and it would have been great if they had more time. The couple had chemistry as well, which helped with the enjoyment of the romance.

Finally, the performances were great by everyone in the cast and, especially, the kids!

So, overall, six out of ten.