To be frank, I was undecided on whether to watch this movie. I'm not a fan of Song Seung Heon and a remake of Ghost didn't seem particularly exciting although I have not watched the original before. I only saw parodies of that famous hug-from-the-back scene in Japanese variety programmes. However, I went ahead with this despite lots of bad reviews and I guess not having expectations made it easier for me to enjoy this movie as a whole.To summarise, the movie is about a woman entrepreneur Hoshino Nanami (Matsushima Nanako) and a potter Kim Juno (Song Seung Heon) who meet by chance and eventually get married. However, their happiness is short-lived as Nanami dies due to a freak accident. Nanami's spirit later finds out that her death was not an accident after all and tries to stop the murderer from trying to harm Juno with the help of a little girl spirit (Ashida Mana) and a medium (Kiki Kirin).
As you can see, the story is really simple and not much of a roller-coaster ride in terms of emotions. The so-called suspense is also a no-brainer because the clues were too obvious right from the start. Anyone who has watched enough J-thrillers or mystery stories would be able to catch it before Nanami died. Moreover, Matsushima and Song's onscreen chemistry is just passable so that could be why reviews were mostly negative. They seemed really uncomfortable with each other as if Song is in awe of Matsushima and there's an invisible line between them. Even the highlight of the movie i.e. the hug-from-the-back scene wasn't executed romantically enough to make the female audience squeal with delight. The film was trying its best not to be overly adventurous (maybe for the sake of those who had watched the original film) but in the end, it put people off because it was playing safe. It was too safe, in my opinion. Since they had planned to do a remake which is not entirely the same as the original story, there should be greater flexibility in trying out new stuff. By doing a little of everything i.e. romance, thriller and humour, the film loses focus and alienates viewers because we simply can't feel for the characters involved. Ther separation at the end was supposed to be a tearjerker but I felt like an emotionless bystander. Nonetheless, Ashida Mana and Kiki Kirin managed to make things more bearable with the heart-warming and humourous scenes or the movie would have been a total bore.
The biggest saving grace for me was the theme song Aishiteru by Hirai Ken. He's really a master when it comes to ballads and thankfully, that gave this lacking movie a little bit more punch. I can't say the same of Hirai's version of Unchained Melody because the problem doesn't lie with the song but rather when it appeared with that signature scene in the movie, the visuals made me cringe so I can't really bring myself to like the song. Unchained Melody will never sound the same to me again.
And my ratings for this movie...
Story: 2 out of 10 (It was like trying too hard to make things stick to the formula and backfiring because it was too conservative)
Acting: 3 out of 10 (The supporting characters were more eye-catching)
Theme song: 8 out of 10 (Hirai Ken's theme song was a great match)
Visual effects / Scenery: 4 out of 10 (The execution of the scenes were rather smooth but there's not much scenery or special effects except the exploding bulbs.)
Teamwork / Chemistry: 3 out of 10 (Especially lacking between the leads)
Total: 20 out of 50
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