“Your life doesn’t need to be evaluated by other people and you don’t need to fit in”

The topic and age gap make this definitely controversial. However, if you’re more open minded and are looking for something different, I’d definitely recommend it. There are several elements I liked:

- It reminds you to not judge others by their appearance, and that it’s ok being the way you are too.
- It shows that when you love someone, sometimes that means letting them be happy without you, and that you should also value yourself.
- It’s full of beautiful and wise dialogues, I found a lot of them to be very meaningful and accurate.

The relationship between the leads is very pure, their romance is intellectual more than anything, and I think they’re good for each other. I wish they hadn’t made this a bit stereotypical with the “I grew up without a father and now I’m attracted to an older man” thing, maybe a beautiful friendship between the leads would’ve been better; but it’s still a nice story, so give it a watch if you’re curious and into unusual stories.

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A sad but touching story

I wanted to watch this movie because I’m into forbidden love tropes and the setting seemed quite original. However, more than a love story, this is a short movie depicting a man’s lifelong journey dealing with the grief of losing the love of his life and the guilt he feels about it, which leads him to make a trip to “The tunnel of love” hoping to see her again (in this life or the other from what I understood). The ending is kinda open and the movie itself is a bit trippy, so it’s hard to tell what’s happening in real life and what might be in the ML’s head.

Overall I enjoyed it, the cast did a good job portraying the characters’ emotions and I liked the forest setting (not sure if they really filmed this in Ukraine, but the place does exist). I’d recommend it for one of those days you just wanna watch a slow-paced emotional kind of story that only the Japanese know how to do :,)

(Thanks again to rjgman56 for subbing this!)

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This is my all time favorite drama, so I decided to write a review.
I picked up this story because I’m into some of its tropes, but ended up completely surprised. More than just a simple teacher-student love story, this is a drama that’ll never go the way you expect it. The cast did a wonderful job portraying the humanity of the characters, there are no perfect people here and many times you’ll probably hate them but then maybe you’ll feel huge empathy for them, or at least they’ll show you different sides of human nature.
What’s love and what are its boundaries? Do I love this person or do I need them to feel better about myself? Do I have a right to be selfish under certain circumstances? These are some of the questions this story makes you reflect on; in a mixture of sweet moments between the main characters, cruel realities and heartbreaking situations.
Sometimes I still go and watch my favorite episodes (which is unusual as I don’t usually rewatch dramas), so it’s definitely a drama I recommend.

Note: I watched the older one too (1993) after watching this one, so it’s not totally necessary to watch one to understand the other and I like the 2003 version way more, but it’ll help you see more of some characters stories if you’re interested in them.

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