उपयोगकर्ता समीक्षाएं

Watching Coffee & Vanilla meant for me... wondering which scenes I was re-watching from western eighties/nineties movies. First I was admiring how this live action version matched the manga, but soon I felt myself looking at downtuned scenes from movies like 9 1/5 weeks (1986), Wild Orchid (1989), Sleeping With The Enemy (1991).

Plot

Coffee & Vanilla has the same plot as these other western movies, a shallow twisted Cinderella story that is meant to glue the emotional, intimate scenes together. There is this naïve girl from the country, without an impressive resume or pedigree, who doesn't realize how pretty she is. She gets discovered by a mundane rich guy, full of tricks, but tired from his own lifestyle. Without breaking a sweat he conquers her, takes her in, starts to cuddle and experiment with her, apparently enjoying her freshness, but after a while even this dum girl feels there's something really weird going on. Her Prince becomes suspicious, at times alienated from her, showing signs from some psychic disorder or traumatic event in his former life. The outside world doesn't seem to matter to both of them. No questions or background stories are asked, parents, family, and friends are strangely unimportant. In stead of that, the outside world gets more hostile for this girl. She starts to feel like a helpless chick, a burden to people around her. Main question is, has Cinderella found her Prince Charming, or not?

The Good

I guess it is this long lasting question that the makers are aiming at. "Can I jump to happiness with my prince, letting him in control or better not?" Perhaps the western eighties movies, and also this Japanese version, fill a need. Thirty years ago young western women started to compete for a well paid career of their own, unlike their mothers. It was the Age of the Yuppies, working hard, enjoying luxury at short intervals. The paradoxical result was a collective longing to Cinderella stories. In this series both lead actors are well known, good in acting, so it doesn't hurt the eye to see them. Also the message of this series has some serious undertones. 'Girl, keep your wits when someone starts sweet-talking to you' but also 'In fairytales a girl can break a curse with nothing but her courage and steadfastness.' Both elements are nice to know, and reassuring.

The Bad

Unlike the movies I couldn't feel a spark of eroticism between the couple in this series. A romance can be based on instant attraction and passion, but their story didn't convince me. The casual remarks of the male lead that he already knew her, wanted her, prepared even a house for her, was creepy to say the least. I know there are many people who think otherwise, but I've really had my fill of male obsessiveness, male harems, or males saying Kawaiii all the time. If someone would pat my head like the male lead did to others...I would pinch his face real hard.

Verdict

So, can you spend your time with this series? Yes you can, if you've have been working like a dog all day, got yourself in a black mood, then you can tune right in, enjoy some candy sweet moments and a few unintentional laughs.

The female lead is annoying. She always has this stupid and surprised look. She doesn't really have a real character except that she is pretty. That's all. She's also a real pushover and all that she does is act cute and vulnerable in front to the male lead. The guy falling in love deeply with her is very unconvincing coz of the woman's lack of character and it doesn't help that the acting from the actress was bad.

There are lots of steamy scenes but they all look really awkward, like the FL isn't enjoying the man's touch and just going with the flow. The dialogue in those lovey dovey scenes is also repetitive.

"Coffee and Vanilla" was just too vanilla.

The romance was too sudden and that's why the intensity of it was thrown out of the window. There was an implied love triangle that was easily swept under the carpet only to be mentioned towards the ending. The mature parts were okay, but it looked a bit robotic and forced, lacking any emotion and romance overall. So, the drama was just like this : boy falls in love with popular but childish and naive girl, they get together, many try to set them apart, boy comes to the rescue every single time, happy ending. There was no character development, no love story build up and no surprises. Plus, the leading lady was, as you can guess, the vanilla of the story, and rightly so. She had no personality, claimed to be immature, but she never actually changed, even though there were some scenes that had potential. Her love interest was a more complicated that was never explored.

So, four out of ten.

I am not gonna lie. It is bad. There are so many things wrong with it, but I'll mention the ones that are most important: the acting is bad, there is no chemistry between the main characters, the dialog is terrible and clunky, the color grading is weird, and all the characters look like they are 15 years old and they slapped "grown-up clothes" on them to make them more credible. I could keep on going.

Actually the worst part is the first episode. 20 minutes in and they already love each other and by the end he has talked her into sleeping with him, after he ignored her for a week. It gave me really bad vibes.

It is so unbelievably bad, I hated myself for watching it. It's like that sordid curiosity that keeps you going while hoping it takes a turn for the better. Nope, it only gets worse. The lead actor is very, very hot, and that's probably I kept watching... just turn the sound and subtitles off maybe??

With that said, this series is twisted in all the bad ways. As a woman, it was flat out infuriating. I realize that some cultures want the women to be subservient and docile, but this was perverted and insulting. It tries to be "steamy" without coming close to pulling it off. It ends up being vulgar, unrealistic and cringey.

The character does what i think.

Luv this style.

The best series i have ever wached.

The female lead's innocence? Cute at first, but it quickly crosses the line into "how is she this naïve?" territory. At times, it feels more like stupidity than innocence, and it can get frustrating to watch.

Watching her let every single man around her make decisions for her is beyond frustrating. At one point, you just want to scream, "Girl, make up your own mind!" Her complete lack of agency really drags the show down, and it's hard to get behind a character who can't seem to think for herself.

And let's not forget Dori Sakurada's role. Don't get me wrong, the guy's talented, but he's totally overplaying his role here to the point where it becomes uncomfortable to watch. It's so dramatic, so extra, that I honestly had to pause a few times just to breathe.

I still watched the whole series. Despite all the ridiculousness and eye-roll moments, Coffee and Vanilla is one of those guilty pleasure shows that's just so easy to binge-watch. It's dumb, it's cheesy, but yet a guilty pleasure.

This drama was a mix of 50 Shadesof Gray and 91/2 weeks thrown in with a little typical romance novel love story. I loved it and it didn't hurt that the hero reminded me of Suga from BTS. It was cute and binge worthy.

I loved this show. It was sexy and romantic, the characters are captivating, and the story kept me needing more as each episode ended. My only complaint is that it's one of Japan's short 10-episode shows, but it was a very enjoyable 3 1/2 hour binge.

This is my first j drama. It doesn't look like forced romance. He always gives her time to get comfortable, cares about her, and respects her decisions. Dori and Haruka look so cute together. Dori as Hiroto is something else and their sweet moments give butterflies. Love the ending!

Loved this Japanese Romantic Drama - one of my favorites as it was very romantic, easy going, pretty stressless but also had enough mystery and doubt making you wonder what's really going on - what kind of secrets does the lead male have? Being from the US I am always late in watching these drama as they seem to get attention here more lately on different services that we have and recently noticed DORI SAKURADA on Perfect Crime so searched for more since I enjoyed his acting and now I think he might be one of my favorites. The female lead played the perfect naive, awkward, low self esteem character and it makes you wonder if she is getting taken advantage of by the more esteemed, intelligent, more experienced CEO who travels alot and seems to disappear for days at a time. Really lovely love story with dedication on both sides.