Garota de Fora (2018)

A well-constructed concept that fell short to direction and the anthology setting

The GOOD:
I was planning to watch Girl From Nowhere for ages- the premise seems wonderful. The physical reincarnation for karma steps into the world to avenge wrong-doings and show wrong-doings lead to nowhere but to you ultimately falling into the pit you have dug out for others. Brilliant.
Kitty Chica's acting is tremendous, I hope she continues to grow. She plays Nanno's character brilliantly, so well, in fact, that everyone else's work seems to fall short of her. She is a powerhouse and every move she makes on-screen had me absolutely riveted.

The BAD:
Sadly, not even Kitty Chica's acting could have me ignore the certain absurdities with the storyline. The format goes this way; in every new episode, Nanno is in a new setting, and new characters get their share of karma. Anthology series are hard to master, especially those with a new story or setting every new episode and as I knew, that is where Girl From Nowhere fell short. The first off-putting thing even from the first episode was how karma seems to fall onto all the people associated with the wrong-doing. It made me slightly ill seeing the professor, who rightfully deserved his fate, have his daughter die. What was the daughter's fault? Or the mother's fault? I do not like the concept of women having to pay for the crimes and misdemeanours of the men in their lives. A daughter does not deserve to pay for the crimes of her father; this carries on that sense of women being the ones having to inevitably suffer in this cycle of things. I hope karma is not as blind as shown here.
Also, at times, the evil has no build-up. It makes no sense.
There is no 'snap', there is nothing to show as to why a person would follow through with such heinous actions and that does not justify the true premise of the story. Human beings are not inherently 'evil', it is very easy to put them in a box like this. I wish we could see the build-up and art of story-telling behind the actions of these individuals but it was just abrupt, bloody and not entertaining. Bland execution, to put it that way.

CONCLUSION (?):
I am not keen on the nihilistic view that Girl From Nowhere presents (other than a few bright spots). I think it could have been much better done. All I can recommend is that you watch a few good episodes, or binge through it as I did. It's good for a one-time watch. Total rating: 3.5/10. And 10 stars for Kitty Chica's acting.

Leia Mais

Not What I Expected

I watched the first 3 episodes and the beginning of episode 4 before I dropped this series. On a positive note, the acting was great. Kitty Chicha Amatayakul did a great job with her character. Unfortunately, it fell short on what the series claimed it was about. The series had an interesting story concept but failed on the execution. The first 2 episodes were ok, but I began to see the flaws by episode 3. I realized by the 4th episode that I did not like the series and could not finish it. I usually can stick with a series if it is somewhat entertaining. However, not this one. This was my first Non-BL series that I dropped.

Leia Mais

great potential, outrageous results

I made an account just so I can write a review for this show. Personally, I live for the horror theme, and I had great expectations for this show, like many others. I’ve read other reviews on this show, and these are the points I agree with:
- her laugh sounds forced / feels awkward (love her acting though)
- some of the people wouldn’t have gone so far as they did without her probing

It feels like she’s pushing people into committing these heinous acts that they wouldn’t have otherwise. Others may feel differently, but I definitely think none of the punishments were worthy of the crimes. It’s always the innocent ones that somehow get punished.

** spoilers **

Starting off right in the first episode, it was a teacher rapist. The man had a great loving family of mother and daughter. Someone dies here. Who is it? Not the rapist. The daughter. Why the heck does the daughter die. She’s innocent, and all the father gets is jail. I get that seeing someone close to you die is a horrible punishment, but she did nothing to deserve that.

Second episode, also rape theme. Bunch of kids group up on Nanno and kill her. It was because of her provocations. Her friends were actually supportive of her, but Nanno intentionally made them feel bad. What kind of friend makes goo goo eyes to their friend’s crushes?!?! She was in part to blame, but what the “friends” did after was unforgivable. She doesn’t kill anyone though. She just haunts them. Like hello?!?! They committed murder and that’s what they get???

Third ep, she purposely led a girl into plagiarism. If not for Nanno, the girl would not have become twisted to that extent. Although she did harbor envy and greed, I don’t think it would have gone so far without Nanno. The outcome? She frames another girl for hammering her hand. Why?? The girl didn’t do anything. I don’t remember if she was rude before, but she profusely refused to injure her friend. She didn’t deserve to be framed for something she didn’t do. Yet another innocent victim. And the one that lied about it all and framed someone else? She got her fame and stardom. I get that it leaves her feeling bad, but why did her friend have to be punished to??

Fourth ep was about a guy that pretends to be rich. He has hardworking parents that do their best to pay off debts for their child to go to school. What does the kid do? He steals their money to keep up the ruse of being rich. Then what? Nanno makes the parents play the role of servants as the spoiled brat and his spoiled friends played Russian roulette. (Sorry if the story doesn’t make sense in my explanation, I’m not trying to go into much detail). Anyways, the end: his parents got beat up and bled so much I thought they were dead. They were just brutally beaten up while the son did nothing. It was never even revealed that the kid was lying while his parents, who did everything they could to give their son a good life, lost so much money and got physically and mentally abused.

5th ep: she seduced a guy to cheat on his bf. Once again, I don’t think he would’ve cheated without her provocations. Of course, cheaters are the ones at fault, but she is too for purposely going for someone she knows is taken.

**spoiler ends**

Anyways, I will definitely keep watching, but so far, I do not agree with how the story is being brought about. Like, make the punishments worthy. If they’re gonna be severe, they better be severe on the person doing it, not innocent people on the sideline. I do love the actress though. Her smirks ( ^ω^ ). Her laugh ಠ_ಠ.

Leia Mais

Through 3 episodes and love Nanno...interesting concept..I am from USA and engrossed in all Asian shows....saw lots of cutesy dramas so this is definitely a departure.
The lead is awesome, it seems that you would want to hate her, but i love her. The first episode set the tone, in which not only did the guy who deserve what he got get his, but the daughter who was innocent paid the ultimate price (i mean innocent of the father's misdeeds). I was surprised about her biting it at the end, however it seems that no one is safe if they are connected to the naughty person that is the wrath of Nanno's fury. Although i found the first couple of episodes fairly predictable as they moved along, i still enjoyed them.
Nanno reminded me so much of little boy Damien from the 'Omen'. for those that dont know, this is an American film, the first of a trilogy, of Satan living as a child in part 1, teen boy in part 2 and adult in part 3, paving the way to ruling the world. In part one as a child, in the final scene, Damien looks back at the camera and has a devilish smile- i immediately thought of this when watching Nanno calmly and carefully setting up her prey. Even if you think she is doing good deeds in giving these creeps what they deserve, i am in the camp that she is the devil, entertainingly exposing every weakness in us humans, and dishing out the consequences. So Nanno is the devil- judge jury and executioner. Definitely can see the parallel to the Twilight Zone.
cant wait to see the remaining episodes.

Leia Mais

One critical problem.

I have a problem with this drama. Look, I loved the concept but one thing that falls apart is the very thing this series is revolving in: Nanno. Nanno is omniscient which makes everything so predictable. The only thing the omniscient Nanno was executed properly was on episode 2 which kind of needed Nanno to be omniscient. But as for everything else, I would have preferred it to have another leading character except for Nanno. Having Nanno makes everything so predictable, and instead of it being a mystery, this seems more like a documentary. Also, there are times that Nanno feels very... odd. She feels very different each episode, very inconsistent. I mean that could be a style, but I would have liked it better if each episode focused on a different girl character but with the same actress.

The concept of Nanno is so flawed that I would have wished her to be gone instead. *Sigh*

Leia Mais

It seemed interesting at first but....

I couldn't really finish watching the 3rd episode.
The first two episodes were really interesting when I was watching them but the next day I started feeling weird because of it. I've watched darker stuff so it was definitely not because I couldn't handle it or anything. The reason remains a mystery.
Another factor that led me to drop this was that I expected the story to be different. I was expecting a consistent, horror+thriller+supernatural show. I had no idea that each episode had a different story and that they were not interconnected in any way; not that it's a bad thing. I once read a webtoon that had a similer theme in which different ghosts shared their stories and I absolutely loved it. But this one didn't really excite me...
Nevertheless, the actress who played Nanno has done an amazing job (if you ignore her loud laugh that is. It sounded too unnatural to me). And she was also one of the reasons I started watching this.
But well, at the end, it wasn't my cup of tea. I might change my mind to continue this some other time but not anytime soon.
PS: didn't really pay much attention to the music so gave it half rating~

Leia Mais