Vincenzo

I love vigilante show

I like this show. Initially, I don’t want to write the review but i read some of the reviews here and I’m gonna defend this show. Well the story is about evil vs evil, so you don’t need to expect the main character to be pure hearted like super hero, even the female lead is also savage. This is what i like about this show. No bullshit. Some people said they are out of character or they are too much in punishing the criminals, I don’t think so. For criminals who bribed the whole government to do evil deeds, they cannot punish them in the normal ways coz justice doesn’t work for them, in fact the whole justice system has been serving their evil deed.

While the show is not perfect, it doesn’t deserve a 5 or a 6. The show is really funny, i enjoyed watching it, it’s rare for me to enjoy kdrama show right now, as i am bored with the same formula and tbh i am in my kdrama block right now. So this show is quite surprising that it’s still fresh and funny for a total of 20 episodes. Definitely a keeper!

Read More

No matter what I say my words won't do justice to this wonderful series

The production was amazing and the casting was more than perfect. I found myself; feeling sentimental, crying, being angry, emotional, happy and tired of laughing. The drama was absolutely perfect and I already found myself wanting to re watch certain parts when I wasn't even finished. The music was over the top and flawlessly added to the atmosphere. The only one thing why I gave the story 9.0/10 is because Vincenzo's father was never discussed and we only ever got to see his mother and the other is that we never truly get to know about Cha-young's mother except when we see her shouting at her father and blaming him. Like I said my words can not do this series justice so you should just go and watch it, trust me if you haven't watched this you're missing.

Read More

this was just wow

I'm a big fan of crime/mystery and comedy dramas and this drama was just the perfect amount of each genre. This drama made me fall in love with all the characters, especially Vincenzo. His character was so attractive personality and appearance-wise. I think they picked the best actor for the character because Song Joong-Ki really brought Vincenzo to life. And I had the biggest crush on Hong Cha-Yeong because she is just so, amazing. Personally, Han Seo was my favorite. His background was so sad it touched me. I usually never cry watching a drama but I cried at the ending of Vincenzo. The villains did amazing & the story was chef's kiss.
9.5/10

Read More

I got an account just for this!

I finished watching the last episode a few minutes ago and honestly, I just need to talk about this drama so .... here we are.
it took me a few episodes to actually get into vincenzo. I even stopped three episodes in and took a one week break ;I just could not see what everyone was raving about... but after picking it up again...well .. here we are. opening accounts and all.

I'll keep it short.
this are a few of the best parts of vincenzo...at least for me;
1.The characters are consistent and their arches feel plausible. plus the acting is solid . especially after the third ish episode
when the story gets going, you can feel them settle into their roles and just pop.
2.the writing is lethal . it pulls no punches. its one of the few dramas that actually delivers on a promise and doesn't just play it safe (up to the point of making me uncomfortable, but in the best way, I promise.)... like i said , it takes a bit for the story to get going but when it does, it DOES NOT STOP. it really does not. from the action to the emotion it just does not stop.
3. i don't know why its classed as a romcom but it so much more than that honestly ,and that appealed to me. it can be silly and funny the switch up and become very dark, very fast and somehow not feel like unmatched puzzle pieces. it just fits . somehow
4. last but not least...that has to be one of the most memorable last episodes i have watched in a while. this is because of the first two reasons i gave, solid consistent characters and ruthless writing. What a ride. If i was in a theater I'd stand and clap, i really would. If for no other reason .... watch it for the finale

all in all... a story with badassery, heart, laughs and tears( or screams, depending on how you vent... i nearly lost my voice this last hour. ( I'm not over it!!!! i mean they just.. they just... I'm trying so hard not to spoil! Do watch to understand my devastation))

Read More

One of the Worst KDramas in history! Period!

I don't even understand where to start with! I honestly, on a very serious note, beg you to not get swayed away by these high ratings on MDL. After all these 26 hours of utter headache, I can very rightly say that all these are either paid or written by crazy, illogical, shallow Song-Joong Ki fangirls. And the entire show just seems to be a total SJK fan-service, and nothing else!

There are several reasons as why to this show piqued my frustrations levels, so let's get to the point with what went wrong with the drama.

WHAT WENT WRONG?

1) STORY/SCRIPTWRITING:
What the heck was with the story??? It merely felt like the show was written by a mere 16-17 year kid expecting the audience to get apalled by lame comedy, which can't even be called BLACK, just dumb lame. The ML just sitting blindly staring at his TV predicts every move of the villain from GOD knows what kind of premonitions. One skinny ken doll crippling an entire mob of gangsters? A middle aged guy stabbing thugs with scissors? The villain killing off all sorts of guys without even bringing a trace of doubt to the public? An international security service police fan-boying a Mafia? Lol even kids can write a better story than this! And don't even get me started on INZAGI!!! Like wtf!! Am I sitting here watching a cartoon in the name of black comedy? The entire point of Vincenzo coming to Korea to come and retrieve his Gold and ends up keeping it back in Korea as a bed for his lover? The main villain can kill off every damn person involved in his heinous deeds, but failed to harm an ant from the Geumgo Plaza? My goodness, it felt like I'm watching some illogical bollywood movie just earning in the name of a Hero!

2) ACTING:
The FL (X_X), I would've been really happy if she was the one killed off first instead of her father! Like honestly, how can you even look at yourself in the mirror after all those indigestible doses of overacting! Like you can call yourself a righteous competitive lawyer and can't even fight a single case with sincerity? All the slapstick comedies from the supporting actors were way too overdone and lame, I couldn't even bring myself to a chuckle, they were all plain annoying! The writer seemed to shock the public with innumerable deaths like some sort of a GOT genre, but failed to bring out even an ounce of emotional attachment for the deceased for such bad character developments! It was majorly Taecyon's and the Female villain's acting that desperately tried to save the show from churning to pieces, but in vain!

3) EXCESSIVE GLORIFICATION OF VIGILANTE JUSTICE:
If some people might be thinking that the core concept of the show was this, let me correct you, it is not. The main character was just an egoistic self righteous dickhead who just wanted to procure his belongings, but got stumbled upon nonetheless. Vigilant justice should be never be, at least in my opinion, ever be justified. There are layers and layers behind any sort of criminal case with loads of loopholes and connected people and it should always be dealt with sensitively with a lot of afterthought. Unlike here, where the law was turned into an entire state of mockery.

4) EXCESSIVE AMOUNT OF QUEERBAITING/ HOMOPHOBIA:
The number of times the show portrayed really unnecessary uncomfortable queer-baiting scenes, with the ML being a total homophobe. Even the gay character was portrayed in such a cliché manner with such terrible portrayal of lgbt characters, as if South Korea doesn't have it's fair share of innate homophobia!

5) NO RESPECT FOR RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS:
There wasn't any direct attack on anyone's religious sentiments, but it wasn't even shown in a good light, but was instead portrayed as a mere comedic tool!

WHAT WORKED???
Well, I really tried to find it but couldn't! :( No hate here but there wasn't a single likeable element in the entire show that I felt so far. It was a total waste of my time!

I usually have really high expectations out of any KDrama, cause they have never actually ever let me down, at least not to this extent that this drama did, solely the reason that I pulled myself together to finish this hoping something might pull the strings! But Alas! If would've been my 2nd or 3rd Kdrama I would've totally stopped watching KDramas altogether XD! It is really disturbing to see to what extent people can go just to support and promote their favourite actor/idol, even if they make utter shit! Luckily I've chose my dramas list carefully and trusted my instincts! :P

Read More

Good potential marred by poor scripting and character development

WARNING: This review does contain a fair amount of spoilers, and is meant for people who have watched the drama and are here to commiserate.

First off, Vincenzo is not a bad drama. It is well produced, entertaining and the cast is sufficiently charismatic enough to make one feel invested. But it always feels like you’re waiting for that Great Plot Moment to happen, rather than actually getting said Great Plot Moment.

Make no mistake, this is not for lack of trying on the scriptwriter’s part. In fact, often it feels as though the drama is trying to serve up an entire buffet of iconic screen moments - a la romantic sit ups from Secret Garden that people will reference for years to come - rather than to tell an actual story. The basic bones of the plot has the potential to go quite deep, and being constantly offered this sort of shallow entertainment instead of something more substantial left the bad taste of dissatisfaction after every episode.

To begin with, we had an infallible hero pitted against a one-dimensional villain.

Vincenzo is a Mary-Sue. His plans never fail. He knows everyone who is anyone. Everybody loves him (except of course, the baddies). He always manages to light his iconic lighter on the first attempt. He also gets hit by a truck and makes a complete recovery, without so much as needing physiotherapy or even recovery time after waking up. He escapes an entire intelligence organisation (make that two intelligence organisations) continuously throughout the show, AND to top if off, he kills off side characters in the same offhand way as the villains but never ever faces any kind of consequence for it. Clearly, god's favour - that being the scriptwriter - rests on him.

On the other hand, poor Tacyeon received no such blessings. Jang Joon Woo is portrayed as an absolute villain. He is violent, self-serving and psychotic. He has no redeeming qualities, no deep motivations for his actions, no sad backstory to humanise him. He is simply there to be the villain. Even his cute puppy love for Hong Cha Young is ephemeral, serving no plot purpose except possibly comedy and 2PM fan service. It appears that Chaka-nim did not love him enough to make him an actual person. Chaka-nim used him simply to drive the plot forward and give the audience a 100% pure unadulterated evil character to hate.

Next, the themes of the drama were not properly developed.

With the hero and the villain being such polar opposites, there is no meaningful way to explore the theme of good and evil — a theme one would fully expect from a show such as this. Both Vincenzo and Jang Joon Woo are bad guys, so what makes us root for one over the other? What, exactly, is good and what is evil? These are the thoughts that the drama should have provoked in the audience. More deliberate side-by-side lining up of these two characters, muddying up the lines between them would have made for a more compelling story. Yes the drama does frequently drop reminders that Vincenzo is no angel, but still expects us to love and adore him all the same, as shown by the ensemble cast.

Similarly, so much more could have been done with Hong Cha Young. Her motivations and character development in the drama are vague, to say the least. She has no clear growth arc. She initially appears motivated by revenge, but her father’s death is quickly forgotten once it has served its purpose of bringing her and Vincenzo together. Does she change as the story progresses? Does she become more like those she is trying to destroy? Does she grow into fully inheriting her father’s legacy as the “Last Straw”? We don’t know because, like Jang Joon Woo, she is there merely to serve the plot and the romance. It is such a waste because she is perfectly positioned to explore how a person might become evil, sort of like a possible origin story suggesting how the male leads might have ended up being who they are. She would also have been a much more suitable adversary to Choi Myung Hee, driven as she is by personal revenge, as well as possibly being the younger version of Choi Myung Hee had the drama made use of that potential direction. Which, as with so many other opportunities, it didn’t.

Finally, a note about the drama’s presentation of violence.

Watching Vincenzo, I felt uncomfortable with the way the drama handled violence and gangsterism. It was not Jang Joon Woo’s rampage scenes that bothered me, even though those were graphic. Those were clearly portrayed as wrong and undesirable. It was the way the drama permitted its heroic couple to casually kill off side characters with no reprimand or consequence. Vincenzo and Hong Cha Young engage in their own share of violence, either directly or indirectly, killing off those they wish to seek vengeance on, who are in their way, or who have outlived their usefulness, but their position as heroes is never once questioned. They continue to enjoy the adulation of all the ‘good people’ in the drama and, by extension, that of the audience too. I understand that this is a show about pitting a lesser evil against a greater evil, and the writers wanted to highlight the morally ambiguous aspect of Vincenzo, but they definitely have double standards for Vincenzo and Jang Joon Woo’s equally criminal, and equally selfishly motivated acts, presenting Jang Joon Woo’s crimes as abominable while excusing Vincenzo’s deeds. This, more so than the actual violence itself, makes me feel that the drama fully deserves its M18 rating on Netflix.

Read More

All spectacle, Less Substance.

This drama had an interesting premise. Not only that, it had a good star-studded cast. It's just that I felt that this drama was overrated.

Before I lay out the issues I had with this drama, I'm going to start with what I enjoyed. I enjoyed the cinematography of this drama from start to finish.

There were also episodes that spark creativity. One episode was when it opened with the painting of the French Revolution. Then, the whole episode was built around it and it comedically culminated in the characters of the drama doing a paint-me-a-picture of the said painting.

Now, I get down to the issues.

First is perhaps the most minute of them all. For me, Soong Joong Ki doesn't really strike me as a consigliere who experienced a lot from the mafia because he looks... too clean... and soft... This is just personal preference but hey.

Second was how it wanted to be serious and not serious at the same time. This leads to a very confusing mix of genres. As other reviewers have pointed out, these two elements didn't really work together. The comedy kills the seriousness that this drama has while the gory and violent scenes kills the comedy. When balanced well, it could lead to a good drama. In Vincenzo, the tone is a confusing mess.

The third problem I had was how shallowly written the characters in this drama were. This became more obvious when I watched the screenwriter's other work, the Fiery Priest which had better-written characters. Characterization was where a lot of the missed opportunities that this drama had.

First, is with Hong Cha Yeong, her father's death could've been an interesting point for her character to grow but she gets sidelined into sometimes an obnoxious FL as the focus has been on the titular ML. Knowing her character can be something more, this is why I am not buying into the fanservice thrown by the drama as I don't see the point of it story-wise despite it being eye-candy for the audience. For me, it feels forced.

The second one is with this show's villains. Taecyeon's character was introduced to be a cunning and cruel psychopath and it was good until he revealed himself. I was expecting for him to be an active villain but he was more of a passive, spoiled brat who doesn't take part in the scheming of bringing Vincenzo down and instead leaves it all on the female prosecutor-turned-attorney of Wusang and complain that when the schemes fail.

The fourth issue, while minor, I had with this drama is when they tried to lighten up Vincenzo's character when they tried to introduce an animal companion, the scenes end up cringey. Though, I kinda like how it got concluded though it seemed ridiculous.

If you want a popcorn drama that has little struggles to offer its protragonists, has spectacle, the actors that you like seeing onscreen without having to think deep into the plot, you might like this drama.

Read More

Song Joonki is the only reason this show has done so well

I’ll start by adding that I don’t pay attention to music so I gave it a 5 because I can’t say if it’s above or below average.
Anyways.
So first, let’s talk about the plot. People praise it for having a strong plot line, but really there’s so many plot holes. Like why would the villains decide to kill his mom when they could’ve kidnapped her? What was going on in their brain to make them think he would just stop because his mom died and not be even more motivated to get revenge… That’s just one example, there’s plenty.
As for the comedy, which is supposed to be dark comedy but really the show is just a mix of action and forced funny moments, it’s very meh for me. Some moments I laughed at, but as I already mentioned, there’s also some parts that feel very forced. Also wtf was that scene where the pigeon saved him?? I mention it now because I assume it was meant to be a funny scene, but really it felt stupid.
As for the characters and the actors portraying them, I think it all could’ve been done better. For Vincenzo, they should’ve chose an older actor with a more mature/rough looking face. Song Joonki’s acting wasn’t bad but his face really didn’t fit the role. Also Vincenzo’s character was way too overpowering, like he always had a plan for everything and seemed to almost never listen. It took away from the suspense because you could always trust that he’d get out of the problem he’s in. As for the villains, they seemed to just be there for comedy, like a cartoon villain, which would be fine if not for how smart Vincenzo is. The female lawyer villain carried her team, it’s amazing how stupid everyone else (and even her at times) was. Like really, how hard can it be to kill one man? Even if he is a mafia, he still has a limit. As for the female lead, I don’t have a problem with how energetic she is, but she literally did nothing. Her only purpose seemed to be giving the two male characters (main villain and male lead) dimension. It was always Vincenzo’s plan, she never came up with a helpful or vital idea. It amazes me that she was a top lawyer defending such a problematic company and yet she acts so stupid when working with Vincenzo.
The pacing isn’t great either. It should’ve been a few episodes shorter, I think, because the first few episodes are really slow and the last episode was filled with villain deaths, which should’ve felt satisfying but there was no suspense to them so they felt empty.

Overall, not the worst thing to watch if you have nothing else to do, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch it or recommend it to someone trying to get into kdramas because it’s not that impressive (if anyone is trying to get into kdramas, I’d recommend Mr Sunshine, My Mister, Sky Castle, Hymn of Death, Hotel Del Luna, and Mr Queen).

Read More

taecyeon playing a crazy CEO serial killer pretending to be a naïve lawyer is by far the best part of the show but I literally hated everything else. Vincenzo is a self impressed self righteous sum bag with thinks he's hot shit when he's just as bad as the villain's and not even half as fun. does terrible shit and facing no consequences for his actions and is honestly rewarded for all the bad things he does. the female leads and the tenants of the apartment building are all in a different show. the tine is all over the place. not fun the only thing I cared about was taecyeon and anything he was doing he's the only reason this was not dropped

Read More

I DON'T GET THE HYPE..... BUT I DO

As someone interested in the genre I was rlly excited to see VINCENZO.
I think almost everybody recommended it to me.
After the show I was utterly disappointed😞.

The story was nothing but plot holes. (Nd I just can't bear plot holes 😤)
The illogicality blew me away.

The acting was the only reason which stopped me from dropping it.

Initial episodes were ok, but then it went downhill. Again the show got a hold of itself in the midways nd wrapped it up terribly.

As the title say, I don't get the hype with such an awful story line ......... but i do 😶 (U KNOW WAT I MEAN RIGHT)

🚨NOT RECOMMENDED AT ALL🚨
WATCH AT UR OWN RISK!!

Read More