The cycle of hate

First of all, I think the synopsis here and on many other sites is misleading. Just read the first paragraph, and ignore the second one.

This is a melodrama thriller inspired(at least in premise) by Wuthering Heights. However, it's so much more than english adultery classic.

Rather than love and social status, the main theme of this drama is how hate prolongs hate. It's a revenge drama. But unlike many other revenge dramas, you are not supposed to "root" for anyone in particular. This story portrays humans as they are: multidimensional and complex. Everyone has some good and bad sides to them, and some reason for doing what they've done. However, in course of pursuing their desires and ambitions, they often end up unknowingly hurting others.

The abuser often isn't even aware that what they've done hurt someone else, but the victim remembers their entire life.

Now, what is the victim supposed to do? The answer is, to move on and live on. An old saying says that a person who pursues revenge should dig 2 graves, one for their target and one for themselves.
But this drama proves that saying wrong: a person pursuing revenge should dig a whole cemetery because countless innocents will get entangled in their retribution. Someone is someone's parent, child, friend, or benefactor...if you hurt that person, you will hurt those who like them and depend on them. And more grudges will be generated, and now you will find yourself a victim of someone's wrath.....

Yet, it's not easy to forgive. After all, neither forgiveness nor retribution can heal wounds, only time and an individual's conscious effort can. But it's easier to scratch these wounds open and cause them to others.....finding solace in mutual pain.

Before watching "reflection of you" I was told two things. That this drama has a happy ending, and that this drama has a unique ending. I can agree with the latter, but not the former. The ending is tragic and divided the fans. But it did fit thematically.

The strongest character is definitely Goo Haewon, and the people who watched this show either think she was a victim and did nuffin wrong, or she was a total psycho and did everything wrong. Personally, I think she did some things wrong but that didn't stop me from rooting for her and adoring her onscreen presence.

Technicalities:

The acting was spectacular, especially from the main cast. Except for Kim Jae Young, his acting was as plastic as his face, but in this case it was actually fitting considering the character he had to play.

However, the strongest part is the scenery and costumes. The color schemes of whatever Jung Heejoo or Goo Haewon are wearing at the moment represent their mood and mental states. I can't recall the last time I've seen a drama that would put attention to such detail, most of the time the characters are wearing whatever they look good in or one and the same outfit the whole story long.

The music was good and did a great job setting the mood most of the time, tho certain insert songs were a little overused.

Overall: hard recommend and more people need to watch this underrated drama.

Leia Mais

I looked for copper, I found gold

Disclaimer: I never played Detention game, which this series is an adaptation/sequel of and to.

At its heart, it's a drama/tragedy/romance. If you are expecting a spooky horror, it's not it. The scary moments are very few, and quite amateurish. But where the true horror lies is in exposing what assholes humans can be to each other.

The story follows two timelines.

First is the one in 1960's, where the action of the game takes place. There some students and teachers organize an illegal book club, and get violently persecuted in return.
The second timeline, where we're gonna spend most of the series, is in 1990's, and follows a schizophrenic transfer student who hopes that writing poetry will bring her broken family back together. Over the course of that, she gets possessed by a ghost from the past, and enters a risque romance with her teacher.

Both timelines are intervened with flashbacks and parallels.

This is not a particularly light or optimistic story. It's a romance, but a toxic and tragic one, not what most people associate with that genre.

The direction, scenography, and actors did their job well. This is especially true for Huang Guan Zhi, who did a great job of playing an awkward but well-meaning teen. Considering that this show was his debut, I think this actor has great talent.

Shoutout to the ending song too, it was one of the rare moments when I didn't skip credits just so I could listen to it.

Note: Netflix version of the show is using wade-giles instead of pinyn for eng sub transcription of Chinese names. For what reason, I dunno, but it made watching it a bit confusing.

Leia Mais

Good supernatural mystery

Pretty cool supernatural thriller. Not really a horror, I didn't find it scary, even when it tried to make me feel afraid.....but maybe that's just me.

The main issue are the main characters having communication issues. Too many times they phone someone, say they have crucial info, then hang up and say "will call you later", of course they never call later and they are punished for that.

Also, when the recipient isn't picking up....do none of them know that phones have "text message" function? They could just write all the important info there instead of having to TALK.
For this reason, the story feels like it was set or written in the early 2000's, not 2018. Also, why do none of the police people carry guns?

And the characters charge into danger way too eagerly. For the main trio it's somewhat justified, as they are all described as hot-headed, and they aren't even main offenders. The main offenders are various side characters, like Kang Gil Young's mother in the first episode. Like she went into a house even tho the guy who opened the door had literal blood on his hands, and didn't call reinforcements until she found dead bodies inside? Like what? And this pattern of suicidal stupidity will repeat multiple times. Fortunately, the story has enough decency to punish these idiots for that each and every time.

The various mysteries presented in the story were pretty good. The writer did an overall very good job at setting the clues and red herrings, and I'm ashamed to admit, in the end, I was tricked too! So well done, well done. The actors delivered their roles spectacularly too, and the camera play and scenery were on point.

Last but not least, I will never forget the name of PARK....ILL...DOOOOOO considering how many times it was screamed in this series.

Warning: The show features lengthy "previously" sections at the beginning of each episode. You know, where they narrate what happened until now. And it's the longest "previously" I've ever seen, in one episode it lasted for whole 10 minutes! Just skip, or enjoy if you like this kinda stuff.

Leia Mais

Bad

This randomly appeared in my netflix suggestions today. The movie is totally new, it has no reviews, only one comment, and almost no genres and tags defined. So, I was pretty much going in blind.

The story begins with a body of a woman being found. Then it follows two storylines: that of a troubled detective with suicidal thoughts and her incompetent sidekick, and of ex boyfriend and sister of murdered woman. Both sides are working independently at first to find the killer, but eventually their paths cross and they start working together.

Doesn't sound particularly original, right?
However, merely being unoriginal isn't this movie's greatest vice. After all, if you're a fan of detective noir and thrillers, you might enjoy it even if you've seen something like this many times before. But....

-Every character is a dumbass, making baffling, irrational and suicidal choices over and over again. Also, they have severe communication issues.
-The police is incompetent.
-In reality, the story wouldn't even happen. Fl, who tried to commit suicide with a police gun in the beginning of the movie, would have been involuntarily locked in mental hospital, not assigned a murder case.
-The acting from everyone except the main leads is bad, to the point that some scenes that were meant to be serious look like a parody.
-The representation of Thai people is bad, they are all short, brown and ugly. For a movie that's trying to put them in a sympathetic light, it isn't working.
-What could have been a good soundtrack is masked by constant screaming. You don't know how to build drama? Make them SCREAM.
-The pace is slow, the narrative is trying to use vague flashbacks and prolonged slow slice of life scenes to give these characters more depth then they actually have.

Overall I don't recommend it, there are many better thrillers out there.

Leia Mais

The curse of humanity

Go Hyeran is a larger then life character. She has iron will, and unfathomable ambition. She's smart, confident, powerful. She never bends nor retreats, but when faced with adversity, with ruthless efficiency she pushes onward. She doesn't just hang from the rope, she climbs it.

All of that to create a just society where truth prevails and wrongdoers are punished. This is a single goal she devoted her life to, due to a traumatic event in high school that set her on that noble, tho self destructive path.

Unfortunately, Go Hyeran is still human. For all her strength and passion, she is burdened by curse of humanity. That curse made her involuntarily develop feelings to two, arguably three men in her life. She knew it's a weakness, she didn't want this to happen. She knew it will cause her trouble, that people guided by feelings rather then rationality make mistakes and bring misery to their own lives and lives of others, but it still happened.

There are all kinda people in these show. Cowardly people, weak people, jealous people, petty people. As long as Hyeran opposes them, sees them as enemies, she can defeat them, even turn them into allies circumstance eventually. But developing feelings for someone weak and undeserving is nothing short of tragedy, and brings tragedy and pain to her life and life of others.

That tragedy is the main plot of Misty, a character focused melodrama with elements of thriller and mystery. The who dunnit and how dunnit isn't as important here as why dunnit. As various people's ambitions and feelings clash, sparks fly and turn into raging inferno that swallows everything and everyone.

This is not a story with a happy ending. Yet what a story it is. I can not not recommend it to anyone and everyone who still happens to suffer from having a semblance of heart, and wanting their heartstrings to be cruelly pulled over and over again.

Leia Mais

Wasted potential

What not to expect:
-lotsa action and monster hunting
-revenge story

What to expect:
-Slice of life filler
-Monster of the week filler
-Endless flashback filler, sometimes repeating the same flashbacks or parts of earlier episodes
-Plotholes
-Plastic romance between a woman who can't act and a man who looks 15 years older than her(actually 600)
-Characters making dumb choices then crying about it
-A villain who keeps toying with the mc instead of winning when he had the advantage
-A big reveal, hyped up for 15 episodes, accounting to silly little nothing
-Mc who keeps brooding and reminiscing all the time, even when the situation is urgent
-Awesome music and insert songs
-Good CGI with overused stock groaning sound effect
-Actually good action scenes, too bad they are so few
-Melancholy and melodrama
-Poorly written ending that makes no sense lorewise

Overall, a show with a great premise and a good first episode that was brought down by poor writing and was far too long for its own good. The story could have been told in 4 episodes, didn't need 16.

Leia Mais

Confusing mess

Great production values but.....

Spoiled by characters doing stupid things, getting scared of nothing, not communicating properly and running in circles for most of the movie. This applies not only to "good guys" but also to "bad guys", the entire plot makes little sense when considered from bad guys perspective as well. Clearly the focus here was to throw plot twists at the audience without much logic binding them together.

The movie is also sacrilegious. It felt like the author tried to mindlessly throw random references to buddhism, christianity and other religions without much knowledge or depth in them. Example: in the final scene where the antagonist revealed himself looking like oni from japanese mythology, with stigmata on his hands (suggesting he's a christian saint) and calling himself a devil while making photos with old style camera I couldn't help but laugh.

There were many other moments in the series that were supposed to be scary but ended up laughable (like the "zombie" fight scene, seriously, wtf was that? Bunch of armed guys can't deal with a limping dude trying to bite them?).

Ultimately this title is more confusing then scary. What made me keep watching is desire to solve the underlying mystery behind it all, only to have a messed up ending that provided more questions then answers. I've read some theories online and all of them feel stretched and not at all convincing, also the director apparently admitted in some interview he made the movie confusing on purpose.

"The Wailing" fails as both horror and mystery, but thanks to good cinematography and direction it succeeds at giving some one time thrills.

Leia Mais

Psychological slice of life

I went in expecting a dark crime thriller.

I did kinda get it, but not really.

Simply speaking, the "whodunit" isn't the main focus here. The culprit is revealed very early, and then the story is stuck in a situation where the audience knows, the main characters know, the side characters don't know and misunderstandings, paranoia, and tragedies follow.

The main appeal of this series is watching these people destroy themselves, and observe their personal tragedies over the span of 20 years. Here I have to commend the actor playing Lee Dong-sik, he did a spectacular job playing a conflicted and disillusioned cop who was done dirty by life and society. He was an extremely likable and sympathetic character, which unfortunately can't be said about some other characters, including the other male lead. Han Joo-won, for the most of the story, is busy being self-righteous jerk who can only see what's in front of him and jumps to conclusions way too quickly.
However, unlike in some other works of fiction, this is not meant to be because he is a surrogate for a clueless viewer. His attitude is certainly meant to be a fault of his-as by the time the audience already knows the killer, he still kept grasping at straws and making a mess. I felt like maybe the authors were making fun of typical crime drama protag here, but the parody was neither particularly funny nor compelling.

The villains(other than the killer, that character was pretty cool all things considered) were also a miss. These people were very one-dimensional, and felt a bit like they came from Saturday cartoon(is that still a thing?) than a serious psychological drama. Including their various character gimmicks that were a bit silly, especially that horrible broken russian, really I can speak Russian so it was just really really bad. The drama admits that the character in question can't really speak Russian well, so his russian is supposed to be bad, but that doesn't make it any less jarring.

The pacing is slow af, so that's a thing too. Not what I'd normally expect from this kinda series. I had to kinda force myself to watch some episodes, even tho the payoffs were usually worth it.

Leia Mais

Dropped the ball, still good tho

The first season was spectacular. Easily 10/10 from me. The intrigue, the ost, the acting, and production values were all top-notch. These things carried on. The second season is still very good. But it suffers from some serious issues that were absent from its predecessor, such as:


-Extremely fast pace. Things happen way too quickly, like tl;dr from one plot point to another without proper buildup.
-Diabolous and Deus ex machina galore; characters making stupid or overly competent decisions for the sake of pushing plot forward; especially in final two episodes where it was like wut just turn off your brain and don't try to predict what happens next
-The protagonists made two 'merciful' and illogical decisions regarding sparing people that, fortunately, this fiction has enough decency to show terribly backfire. Still, it was incredibly frustrating.
-When you have zombies pilled up below impenetrable city walls, you can just shoot them from above. Surely you have more arrows, blackpowder, and other weapons than there are zombies?
-Armor is not paper, please stop showing blades cutting through armor like that. Also, bows are not guns. Especially medieval bows. You can't just draw it and hold it drawn for a prolonged period of time without tearing your tendons.

Leia Mais

Rollercoaster

+Fast pace, no fillers
+Every episode has something unpredictable happen
+Memorable and likable cast of characters
+Good acting from mains, especially the ML
+Humor mixed with serious moments
+Good soundtrack

-Soundtrack is occasionally too loud and in your face
-Some of the overacting and dramatic camerawork fails and gets cringe instead
-The overall cartoonish style of characters talking to themselves, punching walls and being overexpressive might not be for everyone

It is, however, fine with me and I enjoyed Tengoku to Jigoku a lot.

Leia Mais

Amazing cast, story, message

This drama is hard to describe in just one or two words, it mixes a lot of genres(soap opera, satire, melodrama, mystery). So I'll just list what it has to offer:
-A cast of colorful, dysfunctional, and likeable characters
-A satiric yet so true view on society, not just rich people
-A melodramatic story with lords and servants set in modern times
-A peacock
-Women changing dresses several times during episodes, always looking stunning
-Great acting and production value
-Sad and tense moments mixed with comic relief
-A good mystery that keeps you guessing
-LGBT representation and feminist message

If you like these things watch it and have fun like I did!

My favorite character was actually Min-su, partly for her clever personality, partly for amazing job from the actress who can make soo many facial expressions, some comic, some tragic, but you could always guess what she's thinking about and it was so great! I love that actress tbh(Park Sung-Yun).

Leia Mais

Thriller and comedy? Yes!

If you've ever wondered how is it possible to combine two genres that seem to be complete opposite, and do it well, watch Glitch.

This shows has everything.....cool mystery, plot twists, tense moments...combined with fun adventures feel, occasional slapstick and tongue in cheek self awareness. The sismance is real too!
I should probably say more about the plot...but actually, it's probably best to go in blind! Just.....expect the unexpected, and roll with it!

Also, great performance from Hong Yeo Been, who once again proved what a versatile and talented actress she is. If you got used to her in Vincenzo, prefer to get mindlbown because her acting is TOTALLY different here! Also, in my opinion, she looks much better with shorter hair and not too much makeup on.

My only complaint is that music is....really nothing special. It kinda is there, and fits its purpose; lotsa chill and offbeat tracks; but it's nothing really great or memorable.

Leia Mais

I was told it was great.

And surprise, it turned out to be great.

It's hard to say what this drama is about without spoiling the plot. So instead of talking in detail about a spectacular, might-blowing story that made me cry on several occasions(I don't usually get emotionally invested in fiction), I'll talk a bit about the form, without spoiling the content like I usually do in reviews.

And the form is, of course, amazingly done too. This drama has some of the best cinematography I've seen in Korean dramas so far. The music, acting and pacing all combine to deliver an outstanding series.

Though speaking of acting....I'll be frank, I don't like Kim Hye Soo. I know she has many fans, but I seriously dislike her plastic face that can only play with overly large eyes and slight tilts of mouth. This made it somewhat annoying to watch the series at certain moments, considering how much screentime her character has. The fact that her character wasn't particularly likable(though she was written like that on purpose, so it's not a fault of the drama) adds the fuel to the fire.

But I digress. Both male leads were great, and the villains were actually hateable. Yes, I usually sympathize with villains in dramas. Usually, they do something bad, then get severely punished by protags, and if they happen to have some sad backstory, it usually makes me empathize with them even further. The only thing that usually makes me root for protags, and not sympathize with the antagonists, is when the antagonists are shallow/overly black/saturday morning cartoon caricatures. But then that means what I really hate is bad writing, not the characters.

But in Signal, we have some villains that are psychologically deep, complexly written, with multilayered motivations behind their actions, yet....at no point does the show make me sympathize with most of them or stop rooting for the main characters.

I also liked how the ending sequences showed the previews for the next episode....by showing scenes that would only happen many episodes later, or not happen exactly as they were shown at all. This added to the entire time travel and chronology confusion feel of the show, by playing with the viewer on meta-level. Well done!

In the end, some things weren't explained. But perhaps they weren't meant to be explained. Thematically, the show is about not giving up hope when fighting for justice, and putting down those who feel beyond law and punishment and making a mockery of police and innocents. It's also about cause-and-effect, and how we might not always get what we want. These themes are executed to a satisfying conclusion, and that's what matters the most.

Leia Mais

Unoriginal, annoying MC

First couple of episodes were rather strong.
Then it devolved into unoriginality. All tropes of the genre are here.

Bad guys turning on each other. Bad guys using bigger crime to cover smaller one. Mc pushed into corner by bad guys, it backfires. Mcs never compromising on their ideals, winning through deus ex machina. Ex husband saves the day. Hidden recording ex machina. Hiding evidence for own crimes instead of destroying it, it backfires. Bad guys can kill everyone except the mcs. Threatening wealthy officials always works (when it's done by good guys, bad guys need to bribe them). Good guys win and take responsibility for smallest crimes, bad guys are ruined, justice wins blah blah.

All of that is rather digestible, if you like this kinda storylines. But the character of the mc, Hawng Do Hee, is insufferable. Her motivation makes no sense, she was doing dirty work for corp for a decade, yet sudden suicide of one of the workers sents her rebelling and crying her eyes out. Then eventually winning through a combination of plot convenience, deus ex machina and plot induced stupidity (she's quite dull, although narrative paints her as brilliant).
And gosh, she cries a lot. When she isn't being cocky or laughing like an old witch, she's either crying on on the verge of crying.

She also look 20 years older then her character is supposed to be, really funny when matriarch of chaebol calls her an adoptive daughter when they look the same age.

If this was the story about a corrupt fixer fixing rich people's fuck up, it would have been better. If this was a story about Oh Kyong Sook's inspiring rise to power from activist, it would have been better(her character was far more likeable). But with narrative focusing on Hwang Do Hee so hard, I found it really hard to enjoy this one.

On the side note, all villains were well acted and decently written, so it was a shame to see them lose. Especially Kim Se Byeok as Eun Chae Ryung(the inheritor daughter of chaebol) and Seo Yi Sook as Son Yong Shim (the matriarch).

Leia Mais

Eichmann in Jerusalem

Frankly speaking, I've slept on this masterpiece for quite a while, and I don't think there is much I can say that wasn't said already. So I'll just write some points that were surprising for me, or that I wish I'd known beforehand

1. There is a lot of black comedy. The series likes to parody various aspects of society, and does it well. I laughed at something in every episode.

2. Uncharacteristically to the genre and unexpectedly, there are a lot of slice of life scenes. They are pretty good. Lots of food porn too.

3. The antagonists are well written, entertaining and hateable. They have the upper hand for most of the story, so the main character is the underdog to root for.

4. This is not vigilante porn, nor does it glorify vigilantism.

5. There is no bromance between the male leads, people who say so are delusional. There is a lot of sex tension between Yohan and Seona tho.

6. If you read somewhere in reviews or the comments that Gaon is a dumbass, you weren't lied to.

Leia Mais