Each episode was filled with little surprises and full of human emotions.

Eh, not in the same league as Drive My Car basically tuned out during the last one.

All the boredom of Drive My Car, except this time there's not even a car. Three romance short stories that look like they'd be more interesting to read than watch.

Three apparently simple stories pulled off with Hamaguchi's elegance and subtlety in both writing and directing. As the original title "Chance and Imagination" suggests, all events start as merely the result of fate, but are ultimately unraveled through the characters’ fantasies. The interminably long takes with just people talking might not appeal to everyone, but I thought it was an interesting anthology nevertheless. As with “Drive My Car”, I like how Hamaguchi always manages to throw in weird deadpan gags during the most intense moments to loosen the tension. Unfortunately, the level of the performances is rather uneven. Especially in the first two stories, it often felt like the actors couldn’t fully express the subtlety of the script.

I don't know why Ryusuke Hamaguchi is so well regarded and his films have such high scores. Drive My Car (2021) is the only particularly good one I've seen. But even that had extremely boring visuals. Basically what you would expect from a soap opera. Asako I & II (2018) was quite good but again the visuals... His last film, Evil Does Not Exist (2023) is the only one of his films I've seen that doesn't have soap opera visuals actually. But it wasn't a good film. This one is a snoozefest. Three separate tales, none of which are particularly interesting shot in the same boring style as 90% of his films. I wouldn't bother with it if I was you.