I just watched this movie today and I didn't understand why I cringed so much. Darren Wang's acting was really good, but the girl's acting was too cringy I attempted dropping the movie a couple of times.

Darren Wang is one of my favorite Taiwanese actors. Him playing the lead role in my favorite Shoujo anime made me watch the show. HOWEVER, I felt so bad not loving this version. Maybe because the Japanese drama version (Love in Tokyo) hit me so hard I couldn't love any other versions. Love in Tokyo was my favorite among all Itazura Na Kiss versions. I couldn't think of any reason why I wasn't so impressed with this movie other than that.

I watched the anime version and read parts of the manga, I'd say they were funny and cute. I tried watching the Taiwanese drama version way back in 2006 but I dropped it because I hated the lead girl. I tried watching the Thai version but dropped it again after the first episode. I didn't bother watching the Korean version tho, due to lots of negative reviews.

So back to this film.. I really had high expectations- because why not? It's another Itazura Na Kiss version, Darren Wang's playing the lead role and it's a Frankie Chen film (She was also the director of OUR TIMES -one of my favorite Asian movies). I thought this film will give me good vibes as the Japanese version did. But boy, I was wrong.

I was disappointed with Jelly Lin's acting, I was disappointed by the fact that Darren's mother was useless in this film (in the anime, manga and other versions, she was the MVP), I was disappointed with the other characters who didn't really play their roles as they should, I was disappointed with the other characters who didn't really match the description and so on. I guess they just want the story to revolve to the two main characters. But hell, didn't they realize that the other characters made a huge impact as to why and how (Naoki) fell in love with (Kotoko)? While I appreciate the effort of making this film a little different from the other versions, I still couldn't find the attachment and I really felt bad about it.

I was disappointed, but I don't hate it. Some of the INK fans may think the same, and this is only my opinion. I don't usually write reviews, I just can't help it. I'd like to send a warning to my fellow INK fans to not expect too much from this film.


Oh, and BTW. No matter how much I adore Darren Wang as an actor, nobody can nail the Irie Naoki role like Yuki Furukawa did in Love in Tokyo (INK Japanese drama version in 2013-2014). Yuki gave justice to the role, he was GREAT in it! It only took me a few minutes watching the first episode to fall in love with him.