Completed
XS33
0 people found this review helpful
Jun 6, 2024
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 6.0
Story 7.0
Acting/Cast 10
Music 5.0
Rewatch Value 1.0

Not a fan of Sci-Fi genre

LIKE

The efforts put in for those action scenes.

I enjoyed watching Jo Dong Hyuk (loved him from Bad Guys).

DISLIKE

If not for the action scenes, I would have rated a five for story as it was pretty okay.

I cannot believe this drama had a cliffhanger ending my god..

MUSIC

Not to my liking so rated a standard average five stars

REWATCH VALUE

Nope
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Dropped 16/16
Хайрлас Айнаш
0 people found this review helpful
May 29, 2020
16 of 16 episodes seen
Dropped 0
Overall 10
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 10
Music 9.0
Rewatch Value 6.5
Fantastic I'm very excited this drama
It's very interesting, and I think the scenes are the best The acting was really good. It seemed like the characters were very well expressed
A stories was very interesting I liked all the characters Actors seems like really talented this drama I think tehnologhy and human greed is very dangerous Nice! ♡♡♡♡
Ocn drama series is the best I really really liked
~~~~~~~~~~##~~~~~~/₩₩₩♤&^^^^^~/%%%₩₩/^^^♡♤^^^^=/♤♤%₩₩^^^^^^^///♡&:^&**&♡&♤&&&&^; ₩~~:♤♤;//&; ₩jbfjjngffhjbvvvhbbccdrhgvdxxccvggfvvhyg/^=/=÷~₩♤♡₩/; ₩₩&♤&^₩&₩&♤&; ₩^:%/~%♡*/^&; ₩♤;^₩;:₩&;^;/₩♡♡*^~~=^;




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Completed
Melun
0 people found this review helpful
Jun 27, 2020
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 7.5
Story 6.0
Acting/Cast 10
Music 7.0
Rewatch Value 5.0
Story did not make sense most of the time, but Cast and acting really made it worthy to watch! Choi jin hyuk never disappoints and he did fantastic job in this drama as well, but Park Sung Woong (Antagonist) totally stole the spotlight for me, his acting left me speechless, even though it was my first time seeing him in a drama. rest of the cast was great too. I really loved AI/Tech side of the show, it was cool to see heros with different AI parts. It was mostly Action, thriller show but there was many wholesome, heartwarming scenes which portrayed friendship between main leads. I would say, if you like action, good quality fighting scenes and eye candy *wink wink* definitely go for it!

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Completed
50FiftillidideeBrain
0 people found this review helpful
Mar 1, 2025
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 3.0
Story 2.0
Acting/Cast 6.0
Music 6.0
Rewatch Value 1.0

Eye-Roll ✋️ The 6-billion-Won Flopper °2.8° °Dude, it's Awful!°

What did anyone ever see in this?

R is the show that severed my commitment to finish all of a feature before I write a review. I made myself sit through the whole thing, but I can't figure out why. It was /painful/ and I gained nothing from the effort. In fact, I think I emerged from the experience partially split, as if the show is some kind of mind experiment.

Choi Jin Hyuk (Tunnel-8, The Heirs-7.3) portrays our lead, Kang Ki Beom. I like Choi Jin Hyuk, just not in this show. He's an unappreciated cop. There's a home invasion. His wife is killed in a brutal gang slaying and his eyes are gouged out. Hospitalized, he's ready to die, but instead, he's recruited to be in a special-bionic-biometric-super-cool-force team, thing. From there, it's transhuman experiments (he gets bionic eyes), some of the experiments are brutal, there's gangs, cops who are worse than gang members, inner fighting, personal struggles, grief, and wheels within wheels within more wheels. Take those wheels and roll away. Watch anything else. Rugal is ruinous.

Kang Cheol Woo is the director who brought us Mouse, So I Married an Anti-Fan-6.8, and My Secret Romance-7 (which I actually love, despite its shortcomings). Screenwriter Do Hyun has no other credits. Mina (Jung Hye In) is tiny; Teeny-tiny. Yet she takes down 2 or 3 thugs at a time with no modifications, whatsoever. She's in an elite fighting unit comprised of modified humans, but she's an 80lb powerhouse - no enhancements needed🙄. They wasted her looks in R too: They have her in a mullet. She's drop-dead gorgeous in Sisyphus-8.

R has everything it needs to be good - great cast, a winning concept, an adequate budget - it has everything except directing and writing. That's like saying a person has everything s/he needs to live - except air. I consider it unwatchable. That's because I couldn't watch it, even when I was determined to do so. The conflict within me spilled out into ADHD riddled notes that make no sense, though some are funny. Here's a sample of my notes as evidence of the toll this show took on me:

So bad.
Worse.
Cartoonishly simple.
Progressively nosediving.
Now painful.
Cheap deaths that fail to evoke a sense of tragedy, and thus, degrade humanity.
Failure to make an emotional connection with the audience.
Failure to humanize the characters because they created them as hollowed out shells with nothing in the inside.
Where, oh WHERE is the humanity??? Did empty flubobs make Rugal? That could be cool....
Oh! Right. Focus.

Some of the music is fun. Cheesy fun, but not bad.

Failure to create a bond within the team.
It's cold.
It's corny!
Eyes rolling.
It's on, but I'm not watching. I keep forgetting to.... It's pain avoidance! Now I feel anxious about the pain....

Is everybody gonna die? Eh, I don't care what happens to any of them at this point.

His eyes are cool! But why him? Choi Jin-hyuk- I've always liked him. He was good in Tunnel.... Ya know, Tunnel is really GOOD. I wanted to show it to my son when he visited, but it disappeared from Netflix! How dare they?! I can't believe the number of features listed on IMDB with ratings over 8 that aren't available for streaming. Should I get Roku?

Oh, wait, that stupid show's still on. What's happening? They're all shot again? I don't care. I CAN'T care! I refuse to CARE that I don't care.

It hurts us, my precious! Ya know,,,, it's been awhile since I've watched The Lord of the Rings. Maybe I should put that on… Rugal?? It's awful.

blehkkk ehh... is this a love triangle? Seriously?

Grrr..ahh... Hmmm... Should I rewind? Go back and see some of the stuff I missed? Perhaps I should, in good conscience. Great. Now I'm in a conflict of conscience. Rugal evokes deep thoughts: Thoughts of pain and escape.

Did they actually use the same fight scene twice? Huh?

Is all of this merely a prelude to the killer robots? The GREAT cleanse? Tapping might help with the anxiety...there's some great videos about it on youtube….

Oh, just die. You die too. Die in a way that's interesting. Do anything to help me.

Die! DIE! You die too!
Get outta here!

/What!/ They're still 41 minutes to go!? I won't make it. I'm not going to make it.

There's no meaning! There's no point to any of it! How utterly bleak.

Welcome to my nausea. (breathe, try.. 2.breathe)

Self-preservation mode. Shut down.


QUOTE🗣

Koreans can put up with anything but slow internet.


〰🖍 IMHO

🎬2 📝2 🎭6 💓2 🦋0 🌞3 🎨6⚡ 6 🤢8.7 🤔2 💤9 🔚? Couldn't do it. It wouldn't be prudent.

Age - don't even think about it

Re-📺? I'll opt for Barney reruns. 😑


Recommendations:

Watch /anything else/. Signal-8.6. Tunnel-8.1. Sisyphus-8, Stranger Things-8, Frequency, DP-8.4. Inspector Koo-8.4 is fun the whole way through. Peaky blinders. Ozark. Watch a YouTube on how to make homemade body lotion. The Expanse is one of the best sci-fi features I've ever seen. Bosch is a great cop drama. It's like those 70s cop shows. Skip the last season though. Oh My Ghost-10 is a masterpiece though it doesn't get the credit for it because it's a rom-com. Everybody knows Crash Landing On You-9.1 is great fun. Oh My Venus-7.4, and A Witch's Love-7.8 are worth the time. The Romance of Tiger and Rose-9.8 couldn't be any cuter. Love and Redemption is a 10 among the tens. I had to go to pop a Xanax but I couldn't stop watching. You like edgy cop stuff? I rewatched Se7en-9 not long ago. It gets better every single time. It's magnificently horrific. Parasite-9. If you thought you'd like Rugal then you would love Parasite. The Umbrella Academy-9.5 is shocking and brutal in a superbly snarky way, but not gory and the acting, directing, & script are just raining down excellence. It could hardly be better. My Mister-9.5 will wreck you. Black-9 is a complete mind-r@pe and I'll watch it every year - except it doesn'tseem to be available anywhere right now😡. Start anime. Trollhunters is one of the most adorable things I've ever seen. The Dragon Prince-8.7 is great. It's made by the same people who gave us Avatar the Last Airbender-10. Demon Slayer-9.3 for sure. Fill up on Fullmetal Alchemist-10, or Jujutsu Kaisen-9. Anime has some top tier romances. Maid Sama-10 could not be improved upon. Yo! Mare of Easttown-8.5 is an excellent small town crime story. It's official: Kate Winslet is an Artisan Among The Artisans. Squid Game-8.4. Of course, Kingdom-8.3. It's Okay to Not Be Okay-9, Rocket Boys-8.3, Mind Hunter, EX Machina-8.2, Archive 81-7.8 if you can bear it. It would take years to list all the features that are better than Rugal. The short list is the ones that are worse: Greenland-1. I'll watch Reefer Madness 16× in a row before watching this again.

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Ongoing 11/16
Izzu162
2 people found this review helpful
Apr 16, 2020
11 of 16 episodes seen
Ongoing 0
Overall 9.0
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 9.5
Music 9.5
Rewatch Value 9.0
This review may contain spoilers
I swear the moment I saw that Choi Jinhyuk's the lead I'm anticipating the series airing lol. Even more when the teasers had been amusingly

That aside, so far the series starting out really good. Love the SFX, fight choreography and ost.

I'm still in the process of finishing the series so this review may still end up being revised again later on. But suffice to say, that I love what the drama was trying to bring out. I skimmed the remaining few episodes earlier on, and it turned out that the drama did still took on a lot of the main plot from the webtoon. Including the parts that I wished turned out differently compared to in the webtoon because it was very poorly executed and written almost to a point that it seems as if it was there purely for shock value. It was partially the reason I kinda slow down on following the plot as it was released. Because the webtoon frustrates me so much.

But turn out, the drama did well to create their own story while staying quite close to the webtoon. In fact, the drama did a lot of things that were much better than the webtoon in terms of pacing, plot development as well as character development. I love the fact that the drama took time in fleshing out the characters' personality aside from Gibeom and how the drama also paid enough care to have the Argos main/side villains have their own distinctive traits as well. It was something that I find lacking in the webtoon, which mostly focuses on action scenes while neglecting to put much depth to the characters besides Kang Gibeom and Hwang Deukgu. Also, I like how the drama gave Mina, Gwangcheol and Taewoong a lot more back story on how they ended up being in Rugal compared to the webtoon, which had a lot more side characters included in the team, resulting on their back story not being developed enough.

Also, one thing I'm grateful for the drama, as much as it did end up following the original webtoon plot regarding the real truth behind the attack on Gibeom's family, the drama didn't pull a cheap trick on how the wife (and daughter, which was non-existent in drama) ended up dying. Because the way the webtoon did it was just plain distasteful. As if the main setting in the webtoon hasn't already enough internal corruption. The drama also did better on the portrayal of Chief Choi, in which I prefer how drama laid his end compared to in webtoon. I much preferred how the plot went on once Gibeom went rogue in the drama compared to in webtoon, which ended up having an even messier plot.

Overall, while the drama itself had its own weaknesses and cliches it is much more enjoyable (to me) compared to the webtoon. With great songs, soundtracks, action sequences and sfx, the series didn't fare too badly in giving an enjoyable experience. Also, the ending was pretty much sweet and satisfying, which is MUCH better than the webtoon plot has been the last time I caught up with it so I have no complaints.

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Completed
Matz9thch1ld
0 people found this review helpful
Jan 22, 2025
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 10
Story 9.5
Acting/Cast 10
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 10

5 words: The hate train is real

Ever since I Found out about this movie, I have come back to watch it when I have nothing else to watch. The amount of hate I've seen for this sci-fi criminal movie is crazy. I love every bit of it. The only thing is that I wish that it had more seasons. Please add another season, I beg. If someone would recommend me more like Rugal, I'd be delighted.
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Completed
Nikirika
0 people found this review helpful
Jun 21, 2020
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 10
Story 10
Acting/Cast 10
Music 10
Rewatch Value 10
Just concluded the drama series "rugal". I must commend the writers on such an amazing plot twister and story-line. Park Sung Wong character (Hwang Deuk Goo) acted in his role so perfectly. I was very impressed with the villain plot and acting, it was very professional, realistic and the story line was deep. I wish i knew more about Hwang Deuk Goo back story and not just the little snipet of him being a test subject in the early era of Rugal. However, I enjoyed the drama very much and I could re-watched it over and over. Also, I wish they will do a season 2 of the series, I can see the characters growing and developing to the point where society accepts them and they become mentors to other young peacemakers looking to uphold justice. Best drama ever!

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Dropped 3/16
daydreaming
3 people found this review helpful
Sep 7, 2020
3 of 16 episodes seen
Dropped 0
Overall 4.5
Story 4.5
Acting/Cast 4.5
Music 4.5
Rewatch Value 1.0
This review may contain spoilers

The biggest disappointment of the year for me

I was SO excited and looking forward to watching this for the sci-fi genre, premise and actors ever since they 1st announced it. I was really hoping for it to be a badass sci-fi thriller with a good story but that was not what I got. Since it was based off a popular webtoon, I didn't even entertain the idea that they could go so wrong. It started off really cool but by the 3rd episode, I was so disappointed I had to drop it.

THE GOOD:
- It had an Intelligence/Almost Human (American shows) vibe to it which I was really enjoying.
- I liked how, at first, they made the ML face the consequences for being so emotional during his mission (his wife did just get murdered so it made sense for him to be emotional and they were doing a good job of showing that transition of him trying to come to terms with it).
- The cinematography was great (typical Kdrama-esque with it being very clean and stylized).
- I enjoyed the fight scenes. They were well choreographed and realistic enough.

THE BAD:
- Why choose the MC for Rugal in the 1st place if he's so overly emotional, uncooperative and immature? (apparently there never really was a reason why it HAD to be him)
- Why did the people at Rugal never explain anything to him about what was going to happen (like when he had to escape from the hospital or when they uploaded those images to his eyes...like really, would it have hurt you to warn him or at least give him a little heads up?).
- I was really hoping there would be no romance especially because of the way they introduced the main leads (but I was told later on that unfortunately wasn't the case...)
- The all-talk-but-no-show thing they had going on got old real quick. They kept telling us he's this badass guy whose supposed to be really strong but he got his ass whooped 5 times already?! They kept hyping him up with nothing to substantiate it so I had a hard time gauging his character. It was just not done convincingly.
- The characters all felt very 2 dimensional. I was really trying to give them a chance to grow but I wasn't feeling anything for any of them.
- THE ACTING. For a cast that's as good as this, I was shocked to find the acting was very disappointing and even cringey at times. I was completely thrown off in the scene where the female antagonist witnessed her husband being killed in front of her. I was so sure she was in on it because her acting looked so ungenuine but apparently that really was her in distress. They probably did the best they could with such poorly written characters but even the more experienced actors looked awkward.
- All these things together made me feel disconnected from the story because I kept thinking it could have been done or executed better. It simply made no sense and wasn't logical because nothing was ever explained properly (its the type of drama you have to leave your common sense and logic at the door but I didn't get that memo before starting this so...)

I think this drama could have had a lot of potential if it had been developed properly cause it was such an interesting idea/concept. Since I went in with such high expectations this was a really big let down for me. I don't regret dropping it since I've heard it doesn't get any better. I should probably just stick to reading the webtoon.

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Dropped 4/16
Roomie
0 people found this review helpful
Aug 4, 2021
4 of 16 episodes seen
Dropped 0
Overall 1.0
Story 1.0
Acting/Cast 5.0
Music 2.0
Rewatch Value 1.0

Very disappointing!!

The premise of enhanced agents working covertly to bring down a criminal organisation isn’t new but I was looking forward to seeing actor Park Sung Woong as a baddie. Park didn’t disappoint as the charismatic, menacing and ruthless Hwang Deuk Goo. Unfortunately, he was let down by the writer, director and the rest of the cast. (Park deserves a '10' rating for his acting but he's let down by the rest of the cast so hence the '5' rating.)

There are too many baddies we don’t care about vying for position when it is obvious to viewers that Hwang should be the kingpin. The same goes for the Rugal agents. It is customary to have a team of with complementary skills and personalities working together to take down the baddies. After watching the first few episodes, I got a gist of how each of the four became suitable recruits for Rugal but I didn’t get a sense of who they are as people. Aside from superficial traits such as Kang Gi Boem’s (Choi Jin Hyuk) tendency to go off on his own, endangering himself, his fellow agents, the Rugal agents and supporting team just aren’t interesting enough to hold viewers' interests.

Poor characterisation and a muddled story means I dropped it after only four episodes.

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Ongoing 8/16
sanjushinchan
0 people found this review helpful
Apr 20, 2020
8 of 16 episodes seen
Ongoing 0
Overall 9.0
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 10
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 9.5
I was more of interested in romantic and comedy k-dramas but since devilish joy i liked Choi- Jin- Hyuk's performance overall. so i started watching this crime/action/thriller drama just because of him and "rugal" doesn't disappoint me in any manner. I found it bit boring when i watched first episode but just because of the cast's great acting i thought of going on forward with other episodes too and guess what I'm enjoying this drama and whole cast is truly working hard to give their best. Every episodes leaves you in kind of mystery and suspense that you start thinking what will happen in the next episode, you cant predict any of the episodes and that's what is great about this great k-drama.

I hope people just don't expect anything from a sci-fi cum action drama....i dont expect romance in it....its a joy ride for action and crime investigation lovers .
thank you.

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Ongoing 6/16
jyvlynnnn
0 people found this review helpful
Apr 25, 2020
6 of 16 episodes seen
Ongoing 0
Overall 10
Story 10
Acting/Cast 10
Music 10
Rewatch Value 10
This series deserve a lot of view. The characters are amazing, the production deserve all the praises. The concept is unique and brilliant. I hope it will be watched by so many people. Also more project to come to Choi Jin-hyuk. I'm so impressed on the action scenes. The antagonist are super effective, the viewers definitely feel irritate at the same time amazed. This series would make you feel thrilled, excite, amazed and so many other feelings. It is all in there so I really suggest this series. I'm amazed with the touch of science in here.
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Ongoing 1/16
Asian_Princ3
1 people found this review helpful
Mar 29, 2020
1 of 16 episodes seen
Ongoing 0
Overall 9.0
Story 8.5
Acting/Cast 9.0
Music 9.0
Rewatch Value 9.0
This first episode from start to finish was quite impressive in the way they brought in all the main characters early on, and set the tone for the rest of the series. Choi Jin-Hyuk is an incredible actor, with great charm and aggression for those of you who recognise him, and Lee Min Ho's older brother from The Heirs. Park Sung-woong playing his typical specialised role is perfect for his character. My only concern is seeing how the rest of the series plays out, seeing as the main story line has been revealed. Overall, wonderful fast paced action series, with cool Sci Fi themes. This is one of those series that you want to binge watch, but don't mind anticipating, and guessing the themes each week.

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