A Sleeping Forest (1998)

"Once upon a time, in a Faraway land.. There was once a Sleeping Beauty whose 'herself' remain asleep for a very very long time in the hauntingly beautiful forest.."

This drama is a modern 'Sleeping Beauty' dark fairy-tale mystery and romance. Again, it's a deep-rooted Mystery. 'Sleeping' is not literal here rather it gives a psychological explanation and I will leave it to find out yourself. It can be an enchanted or haunted place where a dream/memories remain long-forgotten.

The storyline is more than a labyrinthine with so many nail-biting twist and full of surprises though it's a bit slow. Seeing a cliffhanger makes me want to re-trace everything from the beginning as I start collecting clues that was dropped along the way while watching this. Ooppss.. I can't discuss anything here that may gives spoiler.

Anyway, just to tell you all the while watching this, the more I'm going further with the story, the more my head messed up with all those endless clues. It will throws you some red herrings to make you doubt about your assumptions earlier. Brilliant, isn't? *wiping my bleeding nose* :D

This is a downgraded version of 'Ice World (1999)' and they were from the same writer so you could feel that they are in the same atmosphere though this one is not that enjoyable but it's more tragic because everyone is involved with the 'Sleeping Beauty'. I couldn't hold back my emotions as I wept at the cruelty of life. Well, that's the 'Twist of Fate', they say.

The ending will.. Ooopps!! I will leave it to find out yourself. And.. one more thing is, you may have to be attentive with the "Camouflage" opening song. I like it, by the way. Haha. :)

I like this drama even you'll have to cast out Takuya Kimura, the story will be the same. So it's highly recommended, don't be discourage just because this is an old drama. Just ride in an enchanted rollercoaster as you begin your journey to watch this. There's a mystery awaits you in the secret place. Enjoy! :)

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A Sleeping Forest is a drama I would never think of watching – it’s really old (’98) and shares many similarities (murdered family, trauma, lost memories, parental abuse etc.) with another Japanese drama – Innocent Love, which I absolutely hated. Despite this I’ve decided to watch it and… well, I’m really disappointed with it. Why?

Let’s start with the plot. As I mentioned before, a story with a heroine who was highly traumatized in her childhood and lost her memories is used quite frequently in Japanese dramas, so I wasn’t really enthusiastic about this premise. Nevertheless the writers managed to catch my interest – mostly because of the dark, eerie atmosphere and some plot twists, also because of interesting characters. So why am I disappointed? Well, there is one thing in this drama that sucks big time – and this is the real culprit and his motive for murdering three innocent people. It was painfully obvious from the episode one who might be the murderer, but I kept on watching thinking “It surely can’t be so easy, Certainly, the writers have something up their sleeves!”. Well, they didn’t. And let’s not forget about this guy’s motive: it was absolutely laughable! I refuse to believe that somebody would kill three people just because of THAT (well, I can, but not in that context and not with this explanation!). Another thing that pissed me off was that there were many loose ends – something is important in one episode and then it magically vanishes in another to never be mentioned again (like the problems in fiancé’s work or why did Minako’s father kill her friend).

The acting was decent. Kimura Takuya did a good job as always – his character was a bit ridiculous at times and had this highly annoying trait of pushing his hair back in a ‘sexy’ way (well, I didn’t find it sexy at all, but I can guess that it was aiming to be so), but he’s just an actor, he has to play what is given to him, so it’s not his fault. The main female lead – Nakayama Miho, is charming and I’d like to see more dramas/movies with her.

The music was pretty good too, but they used U2 “With or without you” way too many times.

Would I recommend this drama? Yes, because it was fairly entertaining – it had some good points and Kimura Takuya in a sleeveless shirt, so the time I spent watching wasn’t entirely wasted, but I’d advice you all to not have your hopes too high. I had and well, now I’m disappointed.

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