The Ghost in the Machine °7.4° °Good°
🅰® ➡ Alternate reality. The mind makes it real. Isn't that what Morpheus told Neo?
Jung Hee “Joo” moved to Spain w/ her family when she was young. Her parents died /too/ young, & she ended up being responsible for her grandmother & younger siblings. Brother, Jung Se Joo (Park Chan Yeol) is a reclusive gamer. As the show opens, he's developed a groundbreaking RPG (role playing game) & is attempting to sell it. She knows about none of this b/c he's mostly non-communicative w/ the family by nature. He comes & goes sporadically w/ little or no notice. Yu Jin “Woo” works for an investment company & is always on the hunt for new tech. Bro, Se-joo, wants to sell his game. Woo wants to buy it. Before they can meet & make the deal, things go terribly wrong. Se-joo flees. Woo easily gets hooked on the game, but then the game gets its hooks in him. He can't let Joo out of his sight until her younger brother comes back home, as he /must/ purchase that game. That's the setup, & the struggle is real.
MOA, 16 60-min eps in all, is quite different from other Kdramas. I went into it w/o any inform, & it went in never anticipated directions. Our ML must not only run from the police but dodge virtual bullets & knives as he's doing so, b/c he's trapped in the game, & death in the game means death IRL. MOA also ➰🔄➰ through time in circles, cycles, & loose loops. It's not linear. It reminds me of basting stitches: The science, plot drivers, character development, technology, romance, motivations ~ almost all its elements 🅰® not tightly bound & tied off. We kinda wander through it w/ our protags. Park Shin Hye & Hyun Bin can carry a show, & they do: They 🅰® both outstanding. MOA is a fun ride, it just could have been better. It's the disease: 💰BBD, big-budget disease. Sometimes the money gets in the way & distracts from what really makes a feature great. The whole show operates alittle bit like the Bonita Hostal, apart from the 💰.
Is this a romance? Not quite. It's much more of a slow moving thriller that contains a romance. This is only my 2nd Hyun Bin feature. He plays ML, Woo, & is so completely different from CPT Ri in Crash Landing On You-9.1 (make sure to watch that one) that I kept doing double takes. Ri always holds himself stiffly - being near robotic - always speaks in level tones, & his behavior is nearly too perfect. Woo is a jerk. The contrast underscores the acting skills. Most impressive. He lost his first wife to his best friend & she's pregnant now. He's in a rebound marriage & second divorce as the show opens. They fail to go into his psychology, so he remains much of an enigma - we only get glimpses of his backstory & his motivations 🅰® unknown. Is he likable? Dunno. Hyun Bin is likable. He can humanize any 2D NPC. Woo displays negative qualities for most of MOA & then seems to magically morph into a stunning male lead w/ no growth 📶chart or explanation, which is MOA's 〽systemic bug🐜. Park Shin Hye plays FL Joo/Emma, & she already had my 💘. She often plays someone vulnerable, but you should see her snarky @$$-kicking in Sisyphus. She's fantastic. {Woo… Q. Why does she like him? A. He's Hyun Bin (and that's enough? It is, apparently.) That's fair.} There's beautiful romantic moments carried by the actors alone w/o the help of directing or writing. If we knew more about each of them, it would be more rewarding.
Lee Re as Jung Min Joo (Hee Joo's younger sister) is a pistol. She is wonderful in Hello Me-6.7 also. Her relationship w/ our ML is one of the best things in the show. The kids in Kdramas 🅰® mind-blowing, & this kid is the real deal. MOA is visually beautiful. Shot in hi-res, from the start, the filming is big budget. The shots of Spain 🅰® thrilling & feel like a real visit. Some of the suspense music is 80s techno - I couldn't help but smile. 🎶Shazamed: "Is You", by Ailee. Very nice.
This ain’t no feelgood feature, though. Many sad things happen & the air always feels weighty with the constant pressure weighing on our protags. “Given a choice between grief & nothing, I’d choose grief,” wrote William Faulkner. If there is a theme to MOA, it's sadness. Love, loss, & sadness. Our FL is sad. Her friend is gloomy. Her guitar playing is mournful. Our ML is lugubrious, his aid is grimly determined, his best-friend-and-rival is miserable… Well, it would be easier to list the characters that aren't thoroughly morose: Jung Min (Joo's lil sis). That girl is a ray of 🌞. My advice is: Listen to the tune that they 🅰® playing. It's not like they aren't forecasting the heavy rain.
"The crazy have their own logic & even a crazy world has its own rules," concludes Woo. Saying stuff like that does not give show creators leave to throw anything they want into the mix w/ no plausible explanations. MOA has many logical⛔deadends, so it's not for the thinking viewer. To a certain degree, one must turn off the brain to enjoy it. There's nothing wrong w/ that; such entertainment has its place. Every person has h/h tolerance levels, & everyone has h/h needs. They were so close to something exceptional - that is what frustrates. I still enjoyed it, & most watchers do. It does baffle that they felt no need to come up w/ workable explanations for most of the crazy things that happen. They 🅰® too comfortable w/ their inconsistency, & they 🅰® slightly insulting of their audience, given some of the premises… seriously, they want us to take a Blue 💊❗
The cadence is methodical. It doesn't drag…too…much… but it is right on the line. The fact that it's calling attention to itself means some faster pacing certainly wouldn't have been detrimental. Is it slow-paced to fill all 16 eps? (Just make 10 or 12!😤) Before I got to ep16, my wandering eyes read that the ep is "all flashbacks". That's not quite true. They flashback to things we have seen already but also things we have not. We get a look at the future as well. This is the episode that I'm always missing from most Kdramas. More often than not, we get a curtailed ending w/ little or no wrap up, which always feels deflating. Unfortunately, MOA's ep16 didn't reinflate…
Fans 🅰® clamoring for a S2. Who wouldn't 😍 to see them fix the bugs that they left in S1? The actors' schedules 🅰® bound to be a problem so here's a proposed compromise: They don't have to stick w/ only the same primary couple. I would pick it up w/ her siblings, introduce a new character at J One, & get into the geeky side of what's been going on. The Joo/Woo story could be wrapped up ~ more tightly ~ as part of S2 but it needn't be the whole of it. That gives them a chance to make all their romantic fans happy & to scoop up a bunch of Sci-fi fans along the way. I don't think it's going to happen. Those of us that 🅰® asking for it 🅰® projecting what we want onto the ending: We would like for our entertainment to be a little more fulfilling than real life, but we don't always get what we want, do we? Just put one lens on when you watch the show & leave the other one in the case, so that you don't lose sight of what the show is & where it's really going.
Knowing what I now know, would I watch again for the 1st time? Yep. The closeups of Hyun Bin alone 🅰® worth the 16hr investment. Hopefully this helps inform your decision😜.
QUOTE🗣
Why are you apologizing after doing everything that you wanted to do?
〰🖍 IMHO
📣68 📝74 🎭80 💓65 🦋7 🌞65 🎨80 ⚡72 🎵/🔊74 😅20 😭55 😱45 😯67 😖35 🤔40 💤33 🔚67 /100
Age 14+ w/ these cautions: pr!(k × 2; $h!+ × 2; F💣×2; B!+ch × 2; Blood & video game style fighting w/ lots of shooting; A graphic fall that's hard to watch. Rated TV-MA: Mature Audience Only.
Re-📺? Won't say never
Would this be in the top 20 kdramas I'd recommend to a newbie? No.
I am smitten by Asian entertainment, so naturally I'm on a quest for the best recommendations in hopes that my friends & family will enjoy it w/ me. MOA requires a too-high suspension of disbelief. For Sci-fi/action/thrillers/ my current choices 🅰® Sisyphus-8 (same FL), Tunnel-8.1, Signal-8.6, Black-9, & Private Lives-8.1 - imperfect as they 🅰® + some of these 🅰® more romantic than others. Sweet Home-8.4, Kingdom-8.3* & Squid Game-8.4* have plenty of action but also horror. As for romance… Crash Landing On You-9.1* (same ML) is a sweeping feelgood epic, like a Roger's & Hammerstein w/o the musical numbers (but the soundtrack is BOSS), Oh My Ghost-10* is a fantasy-romcom masterpiece, & Touch Your Heart-8.2 is a good-old everyday life Mars-crashes-into-Venus. I don't watch anything that I don't hope to enjoy & am not looking to criticize - I was looking forward to this one, but I can't help but be a bit disappointed by all of the logical sinkholes.
*My family members enjoyed
⚠⚠⚠
⚠❗SPOILERS FOLLOW❗⚠
This is not sci-fi; it's a fantasy about technology w/ 🅾 scientific basis. I stopped bothering over listing the probs b/c they 🅰® recurring 🐜s. Here's examples:
He's attacked while logged out of the game
The lenses 🅰® supposed to be essential, but people 🅰® playing the game w/o them
At what point did NPCs start killing IRL/for real? They didn't in the beginning when he was learning the game & dying constantly
The logic in episode 11 (You've proven your point vs You've proven yourself crazy) & Turn on the server vs Turn off the server is twisted up like a pretzel.
If the brother is hiding, why doesn't he get in touch w/ them? He provides an inadequate explanation. If he was frightened of the game, why didn't he shut down the server? If he was hiding in the game why didn't his body die from lack of food & water?
A video game cannot evaporate matter like bodies, blood, & clothing. That's too far of a leap. Unless, say, the mathematics in the game managed to breach another dimension. Now THAT would be cool. They aren't even trying to make sense of it, though😥.
Jung Hee “Joo” moved to Spain w/ her family when she was young. Her parents died /too/ young, & she ended up being responsible for her grandmother & younger siblings. Brother, Jung Se Joo (Park Chan Yeol) is a reclusive gamer. As the show opens, he's developed a groundbreaking RPG (role playing game) & is attempting to sell it. She knows about none of this b/c he's mostly non-communicative w/ the family by nature. He comes & goes sporadically w/ little or no notice. Yu Jin “Woo” works for an investment company & is always on the hunt for new tech. Bro, Se-joo, wants to sell his game. Woo wants to buy it. Before they can meet & make the deal, things go terribly wrong. Se-joo flees. Woo easily gets hooked on the game, but then the game gets its hooks in him. He can't let Joo out of his sight until her younger brother comes back home, as he /must/ purchase that game. That's the setup, & the struggle is real.
MOA, 16 60-min eps in all, is quite different from other Kdramas. I went into it w/o any inform, & it went in never anticipated directions. Our ML must not only run from the police but dodge virtual bullets & knives as he's doing so, b/c he's trapped in the game, & death in the game means death IRL. MOA also ➰🔄➰ through time in circles, cycles, & loose loops. It's not linear. It reminds me of basting stitches: The science, plot drivers, character development, technology, romance, motivations ~ almost all its elements 🅰® not tightly bound & tied off. We kinda wander through it w/ our protags. Park Shin Hye & Hyun Bin can carry a show, & they do: They 🅰® both outstanding. MOA is a fun ride, it just could have been better. It's the disease: 💰BBD, big-budget disease. Sometimes the money gets in the way & distracts from what really makes a feature great. The whole show operates alittle bit like the Bonita Hostal, apart from the 💰.
Is this a romance? Not quite. It's much more of a slow moving thriller that contains a romance. This is only my 2nd Hyun Bin feature. He plays ML, Woo, & is so completely different from CPT Ri in Crash Landing On You-9.1 (make sure to watch that one) that I kept doing double takes. Ri always holds himself stiffly - being near robotic - always speaks in level tones, & his behavior is nearly too perfect. Woo is a jerk. The contrast underscores the acting skills. Most impressive. He lost his first wife to his best friend & she's pregnant now. He's in a rebound marriage & second divorce as the show opens. They fail to go into his psychology, so he remains much of an enigma - we only get glimpses of his backstory & his motivations 🅰® unknown. Is he likable? Dunno. Hyun Bin is likable. He can humanize any 2D NPC. Woo displays negative qualities for most of MOA & then seems to magically morph into a stunning male lead w/ no growth 📶chart or explanation, which is MOA's 〽systemic bug🐜. Park Shin Hye plays FL Joo/Emma, & she already had my 💘. She often plays someone vulnerable, but you should see her snarky @$$-kicking in Sisyphus. She's fantastic. {Woo… Q. Why does she like him? A. He's Hyun Bin (and that's enough? It is, apparently.) That's fair.} There's beautiful romantic moments carried by the actors alone w/o the help of directing or writing. If we knew more about each of them, it would be more rewarding.
Lee Re as Jung Min Joo (Hee Joo's younger sister) is a pistol. She is wonderful in Hello Me-6.7 also. Her relationship w/ our ML is one of the best things in the show. The kids in Kdramas 🅰® mind-blowing, & this kid is the real deal. MOA is visually beautiful. Shot in hi-res, from the start, the filming is big budget. The shots of Spain 🅰® thrilling & feel like a real visit. Some of the suspense music is 80s techno - I couldn't help but smile. 🎶Shazamed: "Is You", by Ailee. Very nice.
This ain’t no feelgood feature, though. Many sad things happen & the air always feels weighty with the constant pressure weighing on our protags. “Given a choice between grief & nothing, I’d choose grief,” wrote William Faulkner. If there is a theme to MOA, it's sadness. Love, loss, & sadness. Our FL is sad. Her friend is gloomy. Her guitar playing is mournful. Our ML is lugubrious, his aid is grimly determined, his best-friend-and-rival is miserable… Well, it would be easier to list the characters that aren't thoroughly morose: Jung Min (Joo's lil sis). That girl is a ray of 🌞. My advice is: Listen to the tune that they 🅰® playing. It's not like they aren't forecasting the heavy rain.
"The crazy have their own logic & even a crazy world has its own rules," concludes Woo. Saying stuff like that does not give show creators leave to throw anything they want into the mix w/ no plausible explanations. MOA has many logical⛔deadends, so it's not for the thinking viewer. To a certain degree, one must turn off the brain to enjoy it. There's nothing wrong w/ that; such entertainment has its place. Every person has h/h tolerance levels, & everyone has h/h needs. They were so close to something exceptional - that is what frustrates. I still enjoyed it, & most watchers do. It does baffle that they felt no need to come up w/ workable explanations for most of the crazy things that happen. They 🅰® too comfortable w/ their inconsistency, & they 🅰® slightly insulting of their audience, given some of the premises… seriously, they want us to take a Blue 💊❗
The cadence is methodical. It doesn't drag…too…much… but it is right on the line. The fact that it's calling attention to itself means some faster pacing certainly wouldn't have been detrimental. Is it slow-paced to fill all 16 eps? (Just make 10 or 12!😤) Before I got to ep16, my wandering eyes read that the ep is "all flashbacks". That's not quite true. They flashback to things we have seen already but also things we have not. We get a look at the future as well. This is the episode that I'm always missing from most Kdramas. More often than not, we get a curtailed ending w/ little or no wrap up, which always feels deflating. Unfortunately, MOA's ep16 didn't reinflate…
Fans 🅰® clamoring for a S2. Who wouldn't 😍 to see them fix the bugs that they left in S1? The actors' schedules 🅰® bound to be a problem so here's a proposed compromise: They don't have to stick w/ only the same primary couple. I would pick it up w/ her siblings, introduce a new character at J One, & get into the geeky side of what's been going on. The Joo/Woo story could be wrapped up ~ more tightly ~ as part of S2 but it needn't be the whole of it. That gives them a chance to make all their romantic fans happy & to scoop up a bunch of Sci-fi fans along the way. I don't think it's going to happen. Those of us that 🅰® asking for it 🅰® projecting what we want onto the ending: We would like for our entertainment to be a little more fulfilling than real life, but we don't always get what we want, do we? Just put one lens on when you watch the show & leave the other one in the case, so that you don't lose sight of what the show is & where it's really going.
Knowing what I now know, would I watch again for the 1st time? Yep. The closeups of Hyun Bin alone 🅰® worth the 16hr investment. Hopefully this helps inform your decision😜.
QUOTE🗣
Why are you apologizing after doing everything that you wanted to do?
〰🖍 IMHO
📣68 📝74 🎭80 💓65 🦋7 🌞65 🎨80 ⚡72 🎵/🔊74 😅20 😭55 😱45 😯67 😖35 🤔40 💤33 🔚67 /100
Age 14+ w/ these cautions: pr!(k × 2; $h!+ × 2; F💣×2; B!+ch × 2; Blood & video game style fighting w/ lots of shooting; A graphic fall that's hard to watch. Rated TV-MA: Mature Audience Only.
Re-📺? Won't say never
Would this be in the top 20 kdramas I'd recommend to a newbie? No.
I am smitten by Asian entertainment, so naturally I'm on a quest for the best recommendations in hopes that my friends & family will enjoy it w/ me. MOA requires a too-high suspension of disbelief. For Sci-fi/action/thrillers/ my current choices 🅰® Sisyphus-8 (same FL), Tunnel-8.1, Signal-8.6, Black-9, & Private Lives-8.1 - imperfect as they 🅰® + some of these 🅰® more romantic than others. Sweet Home-8.4, Kingdom-8.3* & Squid Game-8.4* have plenty of action but also horror. As for romance… Crash Landing On You-9.1* (same ML) is a sweeping feelgood epic, like a Roger's & Hammerstein w/o the musical numbers (but the soundtrack is BOSS), Oh My Ghost-10* is a fantasy-romcom masterpiece, & Touch Your Heart-8.2 is a good-old everyday life Mars-crashes-into-Venus. I don't watch anything that I don't hope to enjoy & am not looking to criticize - I was looking forward to this one, but I can't help but be a bit disappointed by all of the logical sinkholes.
*My family members enjoyed
⚠⚠⚠
⚠❗SPOILERS FOLLOW❗⚠
This is not sci-fi; it's a fantasy about technology w/ 🅾 scientific basis. I stopped bothering over listing the probs b/c they 🅰® recurring 🐜s. Here's examples:
He's attacked while logged out of the game
The lenses 🅰® supposed to be essential, but people 🅰® playing the game w/o them
At what point did NPCs start killing IRL/for real? They didn't in the beginning when he was learning the game & dying constantly
The logic in episode 11 (You've proven your point vs You've proven yourself crazy) & Turn on the server vs Turn off the server is twisted up like a pretzel.
If the brother is hiding, why doesn't he get in touch w/ them? He provides an inadequate explanation. If he was frightened of the game, why didn't he shut down the server? If he was hiding in the game why didn't his body die from lack of food & water?
A video game cannot evaporate matter like bodies, blood, & clothing. That's too far of a leap. Unless, say, the mathematics in the game managed to breach another dimension. Now THAT would be cool. They aren't even trying to make sense of it, though😥.
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