Lily Lac

I disagree. Even if there is an age gap, the reason why age gaps are icky, beyond the sex stuff, is because the older partner is taking advantage of the younger to get what the older desires. The older has already experienced what the younger is experiencing or wants to experience, so that makes it that the older can quite easily manipulate the younger, which is exacerbated in a relationship where the partners are together most of the time. But in Goblin, although on paper has all red flag stuff, such as the material/experiential gap or that the two are always together, the context makes them inapplicable.

As an immortal, Kim has been living a perpetual nightmare whenever he tried to pursue his own desires. He developed many relationships: acted as a son, a father, a grandfather, a teacher, and a friend, but soon all of his relationships came to an natural end, whereas he continued to live. Eventually, he stopped pursuing life altogether because he didn't want to deal with the inevitable suffering of memory when his relationships end.

Ok, with that as the backdrop, when FL enters his life, Kim doesn't pursue her for himself. He has already lost any desire to pursue life itself. He initially views the FL as a key to end his suffering. Then, he slowly begins to fall in love with her when he starts exploring the little things in life once again, alongside FL. At every step, he's afraid of pursuing even this tiny desire because once she dies, she'll remain just in his memories like his previous relationships. Finally, by the time he can fully pursue his romance after purgatory, FL is a middle-aged careerwoman.

So, formulaicly, this drama fits as a coming-of-age story that was also handled with care (Kim never pounces FL in the bedroom and for extra measures FL is of legal age), even if it doesn't match the traditional coming-of-age story where two teenagers address and explore life together.

This is nothing like the "coming-of-age" Western movies/shows with large age gaps, where the hot, young teenage girl seduces the balding 50 year old man where the characters are "liberated" and end up sleeping together. That's just a (predatory) male fantasy disguised as a coming of age story.

Fair point, but I think the complaint should be directed at investors. Why are agencies and contractors folding so easily?

You might want to read the quote in full context because I explain what I mean:
"You're attributing things that end careers as toxic, but it's not? People can choose to support or reject a celebrity for whatever reason they want."

"Percentages from both countries is a much better indicater, not land acreage or population numbers."
Yes...this is literally what I am saying... The percentage of supporters and haters in America and Korea for entertainment are about the same but haters have a stronger economic impact in Korea because the overall number of people is smaller.

You're attributing things that end careers as toxic, but it's not? People can choose to support or reject a celebrity for whatever reason they want. They can stop supporting them for their political allegience, whether they are an animal lover or not, whether they are in a relationship or not, whether they got caught with drugs or not, whether they got caught in a DUI. Who are you to say people must support a celebrity when they don't want to and tell them how they ought to support them??? It's like if I want to only catch red Pokemons: Idc if it's not the most optimal, it's how I want to play the game.

Dude, American celebrities are also cyberbullied to the extreme. I gave an example with Amber Heard, but the list can go on forever. The difference is that America is huge (to put into perspective, Korea is the size of Indiana...) so celebriries have way more opportunities to bounce back. But again, as I argued before, celebs aren't entitled to "bounce back" in Ameeica. In most of these cases, and Sae Ron's situation, "rock bottom" is literally just being a normal person. Only an entitled person will think a normal life, especially in a developed nation, isn't good enough.

Lee Kyung Young's scandal happened in 2002. Korea in 2002, hell, pre-2010 is considerably different than today... Cancel culture especially with the prevalence of social media is a recent phenomena. Instead of giving me a single example that happened more than 2 decades ago, give me recent example where Koreans (not fucking judges or its judicial system which is another topic altogether) are welcoming proven abusers. Because I have never seen one and I'd love to be corrected!

Idk what you'te referring to when you say Korean society makes it hard for fallen celebs to find a normal job. I can't find anything about cancelled celebs unable to find employment so they end up as bums. Only thing I can find was an article where online commentors were shaming Sae Ron by the potential prospect of meeting her working an actual job. If that's what you're referring to... oh no, the fucking horror! Yes, the online commentator(s) is/are fucking assholes, but does that mean celebs can't work a normal job because an occassional lowlife is going to make a smart comment? What is this coddling nonsense? Work a regular retail job and you'll encounter assholes and stuck-up people all the time. Treat those lowlife internet assholes like an asshole customer. If it's caught on CCTV that there were people actually harassing Sae Ron while she's working, but the cops didn't do anything, and people keep hounding her, then okay, you have an actual point. But for fuck sakes, over online comments? Are you fr? That's not even including the fact that celebs in Korea can sue trolls for defamation, while in the West it's protected speech. Furthermore, she doesn't have to work a service job. She can find admin work, remote work, or try out a different career path. And unlike idols, she's not restricted by her age to pursue acting so she can keep on going to try out in other occassions to see if someone will accept her.

Even if I agree with you that Korea can be more excessive in supporting celebs, I don't see what your point is. As I repeated over and over, I don't see being a celeb as a right people are entitled to. Being an influencer is essentially a popularity contest. And for the small price of fame, celebs get abundant resources, respect, prestige, and other benefits. And maybe the difference between Korea and the West is that it's easier to break out of conventions in the West because there is a greater amount of reach (not only is the size of the West just larger in sheer size, but English is a universal language). Ok and? Life is unfair. By being a celeb, they were already a lot more fortunate than others. Then, they simply lost it. You spend your money and time however you want and let Koreans spend theirs however they want to. Even in the worst case, it's not a travesty that celebs become normal people beceause there are plenty of examples of Kpop idol who couldn't break into top stars doing perfectly fine after when they are forced to disband.

Start complaining about Koreans when there are real life stalkers and harassers (and I don't mean isolated events where a celeb encounters a psycho, but hordes of people chasing down and harassing celebs) and then I'll think there is a serious problem. Otherwise, you're just describing the cons of being a public influencer and you're the one ignoring the reality of how industeries that rely on influencers works.

Westerners saying Koreans have a bully culture is like the pot calling the kettle black. Westerners are WAYYYY more invasive and interested in their celebrity scandals than Koreans. Like look at the amount of memes and cyberbullying of Amber Heard? Look at the amount of coverage y'all have of celebrity court cases like it's some sort of reality TV show. Just the other day, they were filming A$AP Rocky's acquittal like it was some melodrama and of course it's trending on YouTube. The only exception I can think of was the mass media coverage of Lee Sun Kyun's investigation, which we later found out was related to politics...
Y'all need to stop saying Koreans NEED to support a celebrity for whatever they do. First of all, being a celebrity is a massive privilege. Maybe Westerners think once you become a celebrity you have the right to be one for whatever you do so long as you aren't a convicted felon (or maybe even then that it's okay for people like Roman Polanski, you psycho fucks), but yeah, no. You can lose supporters for whatever reason and gain supporters for whatever reason. Stop this celebrity worshipping madness. It was never fair that less talented folks can become mega stars with industry connections. It was never fair that celebrities and entertainers are overpaid. So, if they happen to lose their spot, and you think that that's "unfair": well, such is fucking life. People vote with their dollars, so if you don't like the fact others aren't interested anymore, quit your bitching and go support them yourselves.
Kim Sae Ron wasn't in a 10 billion won debt like Lee Sun Kyun. She could have lived as a normal person working a normal ass job or work on smaller film projects for a few years and go for a comeback. If she didn't like hate messages, she could have gone private and avoid SM for a while. Her "rock bottom" is literally just your average person. How detached from reality do you have to be to think you don' deserve to be at the level of mere normal people. Get a grip y'all.

Edit: I stand to be corrected. She owed about $500k in damages due to her DUI.

I agree, she ages like wine.

He's also a phenomenal actor. I'm at my wit's end here, but I'm staying for JHI. Hopefully the chemistry improves.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I also share your feelings for this show, but I think that has more to do with a lack of maturity with how the characters handle things yet the drama portrays them in a super serious and deep manner than their neurotic behavior. Lots of us are banking on the fact that there will be development, but I think it's somewhat problematic if we begin with such immature characters from the start.

I think it's to give people a sense of familiarity with the neurotic couple as it feels more natural and instinctual, but that can obviously backfire as we're seeing.

I think you're on to something about the trend with SE, NGNL, and LND coming out at the same time with similar tropes. The producers might be test running.
But you also need the chill the hell out. No one is attacking you nor will this be permanent. We'll always have Disney rom coms around because that's the staple; we may have additional types of rom coms if these test runs end up successful.

You don't have to like Burning to be a cinephile 😂😂, but I get what you mean. And yeah, you do you! I wish the majority of cinephiles would also have the same mindset as you do and simply rate movies on whether it was enjoyable and meaningful to them instead of the weird, pretentious hive mindset that I'm so used to seeing.

Letterbox is pretty reliable (at least more reliable than MDL for my preference) even for foreign films if you put them into their little tiny separate boxes. Like, if you compare Korean films with only other Korean films, Japanese with other Japanese, Canto with other Canto, Chinese with other Chinese, and Western with other Western. But all the database sites have similar problems like those of MDL except MDL is more obvious about it. If you want accurate rankings, you still need to make the same adjustments as you do with the other sites, which are based on genre and release dates by era. Because when you compare the films altogether, even sites like IMDB or Letterbox become less and less reliable, unless you really believe the recent releases of Past Lives, Perfect Days, and Poor Things are all rated 4.2, or roughly Letterbox's Top 200-250 of all time, are valid scores (at least IMDB is a little more sober about the ratings for these films except it gave Poor Things an 8.4 which is such an IMDB thing to do). Those are just the recent releases too. I'm not even including the various superhero and pop culture films that automatically get loved and praised for no apparent reason.

I was in argument mode, my bad. Also, I'm a different person. The part about rating this masterpiece as1 star was sarcasm. I don't think this drama was a masterpiece and I don't think there are hordes of people downvoting this because they saw breasts, but due to legitimate reasons. I thought you were also trying to gatekeep with your cinephile comment but I may have misinterpreted what you were trying to say. I think it's great that you rate Jackie Chan and Stephen Chow movies highly. I'd take your watchlist over the pretentious film critics that rate mid movies highly because Kubrick or Scorsese is in the name.

I hope you are including yourself in the non-cinephile group because you are overrating Stephen Chow and Jackie Chan movies 🙄🙄. I guess I need to remove myself as a cinephile because I love Hyun Bin. See how stupid that sounds? All databases have their flaws and everyone has their biases. There is no perfectly objective list. If you think the drama is good, defend it by arguing against those providing legitimate complaints instead of hiding behind some ghost reviewers who are apparently rating this masterpiece a one star because they saw breasts. Just notice the quality of the comments that are praising and criticizing this drama, and that just shows it's not as good as y'all want to believe.

I don't know if you have read my other comment, but people usually have different standards for different genres. I am a lot more strict with traditional thrillers than romance or action. This is the same for other movie databases too like IMDB sometimes, and more frequently, in Letterbox. I think the reason why you see more people who are extra harsh for thrillers is because those types of people flock to dramas like this, and the crowds that are very generous with their 10s don't or lose interest. It's not the other way around where people become more strict because they see breasts or something (I seriously don't see any evidence of this). Again, I am not saying there can't be slight biases because you have a wide range of groups on this site like the K-pop fandoms, the BL fandoms, and the outright Koreaboos that won't be the majority in other databases. However, I do also see a lot of valid complaints, and it's by far the majority, so it's bizarre to me when people pretend those complaints don't exist and imply people are only complaining about the breasts.

Sites like Letterbox and IMDB have many flaws too especially with foreign films. IMDB just deflates a lot of Korean movies by an entire score and give the film culture little to no respect. And according to the rating system for Letterbox, the new Korean-American film "Past Lives" is one of the greatest Korean films ever produced above all the films we have mentioned so far except Bong Joong Ho's stuff, which is a big fat joke 😂😂. Or, take a look at the numerous Romance and Coming-of-Age films that hover around 4.0 and even upwards of 4.3-4.5. When I first searched up "Memories of Murder" on Letterbox, it had an appalling score of 3.9/4.0, and people were recommending "The Chaser" and "Zodiac" over it (which are both extremely fun movies, but they are no Memories of Murder), yet after Bong Jong Ho won all his accolades, the film jumps up to a 4.4? And guess which site maintained Memories of Murder as the top thriller for the longest duration prior to "Parasite?" MDL. Also, go and take a look at the score for "The Departed." A 4.3. The original? 4.0 The Korean remake? 3.8. I can nitpick all day. If MDL has people who don't respect the film culture, then sites like Letterbox are the opposite. They respect the culture too much and artificially inflate scores because other people enjoy the film or other people give them rewards and respect. Basically cinema bandwagoners. Directors with flops also get a hard pass just because of brand recognition. Personally, I would rather much prefer authentic reactions, as flawed as they may be, than elitist and superficial ones, as accurate as they can be.

I brought up the co-complainers because you said that you don't see many discussions being pinpointed about nudity in other platforms. My observation is that the only reason why it seems the comment section is flooded with the nudity complaint for this drama is because of the co-complainers. In any other fandoms and discussion sites, people will air their dirty laundry and move on. There have been complaints about GoT when it first aired (whether you disagree or not) because of the gratuitous sex and people of either aisle understood. They don't diminish those complaints and they certainly didn't focus on those complaints and try to stir up continuous debates about it. They just agreed or disagreed, and moved on. On this site, anytime a few groups complain about something, there's a larger group that tries to gatekeep and obsess over the complaint. You can't be surprised when the comments get flooded then. I have surfed through comment section and it was a single comment thread 3 days ago and a single review about how the sex was unnecessary, which is a valid complaint because I got confused by the scene too. And then a few handful of comments here and there that brought it up without garnering much attention. Now, compare that number to the number of co-complainers.

When this drama relies on a reliable unreliable narrator (one of my least favorite), people are going to get frustrated and chalk it up as bad writing. Even films that use an unreliable narrator, which is a lot more intentional and consistent, get heaps and heaps of flack. Put another way, ignoring the nudity completely and that scene is still confusing. When people get confused and shocked, they will resort to noticing what was different, which is the inclusion of breasts, but if they look closely, those confusing moments are riddled throughout this drama because this drama enjoys randomly jumping scene to scene and providing vital and irrelevant details indiscriminately, at any moment, with an incredibly flexible structure instead of setting those moments up, which is what a more seasoned writer would do.

No, I also agree with you that there are a lot of higher rated movies and dramas on this site than they deserve. The dramas you have listed are ones I would also rate a lot lower. I gave "A Shop for Killers" a 5.5 due to the inconsistencies as much as I love Lee Dong Wook. "Big Mouth" features Lee Jong Suk and many of his films are inflated on this site as well. I agree that the site does have a problem of overrating certain films, especially traditional Action or Romance genres, and ones featuring certain stars, but that does not mean it has a problem of underrating. If the dramas and films are rated lower, there is usually a valid reason behind it. I don't think it's a good idea to try to inflate all the other dramas to match the ones that were overrated because there would not be an ounce of reliability left. It's better to deflate the ones that were overrated, and if that's impossible, preserve the ones that were rated appropriately.

As of the recent comments (last 3 days) that I have seen, most comments are people complaining about others complaining about nudity than the actual complaints about the nudity itself. For every complaint about nudity there are 3+ comments complaining about the complaint (referred to as co-complainers). And after, people respond to those co-complainers, which gives the impression that people are discussing the nudity. If you don't want people to discuss nudity in the comments, the other side has to ignore it too. If the other side engages, and in this case, is actually initiating the discussion from what I can see, then the co-complainers are not only contributing to the problem but become the problem.

Yes Imdb is stingy, but what I was trying to get at is, relative to other movies, Clockwork is middle of the pack in terms of the higher rated movies just like the best psychological thrillers are in MDL. I also think for films released pre-2016, the rating standard applies to Korean films and dramas as well if you also enjoy romance and lighthearted content. With the more recent films, especially released after 2018, the scores are less reliable and you'll have to compare them from year to year, genre to genre (and still movies like Midnight might pop up😂😂). However, that does not mean the integrity of all ratings are lost. The general scores, excluding the outliers, seem to be alright representations.

Oh, I think I found the comment you're alluding to 😂😂, but it's also 1 thread among hundreds. I still think people are exaggerating about people downvoting.

I haven't seen any haters in the recent comments or in the reviews. Maybe I'll have to scroll further down or something to see what the fuss is about. I do agree with some of the commenters that the particular scene was confusing for the plot, but it also set a precedent for interesting visual shots during the hallucinatory moments. I guess it boils down to whether you prefer understanding the story or the visuals.

I didn't call you a noobie. I said you're a noobie if you believe that.

That's because Kfilms have had waves of newcomers. Starting from Train to Busan, to Parasite, to Squid Game, and others. Of course, given this environment the scores are going to fluctuate and there will be a score inflation over time. But that doesn't mean people are downvoting really good shows or movies like crazy because they see a pair of breasts or something. You need to filter the years and then the genres if you want some resemblance of a more accurate rating hierarchy, which is still far from perfect, but good enough to give you rough generalizations.

Psychological thrillers generally are rated slightly lower in nearly all Movie databases. Look at "Clockwork Orange" and "Perfect Blue" for example. They are what I would consider a masterpieces for the genre but they are 8.3 and 8.0 on IMDB, a close resemblance to MDL's rating of 8.2/8.3 for Old Boy. If you claim you agree with the rating with Western shows and anime, then you should know three facts:
1) Psychological thrillers that deal with taboo subjects will frequently have lower ratings
2) There have been a rating inflation over the decade for films.
3) Scores differ genre to genre (Just look at the latest Avengers or Spiderman IMDB scores and compare them to Western classics -__-)

If you accept these facts, then it's no surprise why Midnight is getting a 8.4 (personally I would give it a 4-4.5) and Among the Gods a 8.7 (personally I would give this a 5.5-6). Different audiences from different timeframes will give different scores and have different scoring criteria. Even I personally rate thrillers differently than other genres, and usually a lot more harshly, because part of the criteria for a good thriller, according to my preference, is the intellectual stimulation that isn't required in other genres like Action or Romance. And I don't have a vendetta against thrillers or anything, I just subconsciously set them to a higher standard. So, it's only within the genres, my scores tend to be accurate, for my liking, and this seems to apply for movie databases too. Even Kfilms are deflated like crazy on IMDB.

"Burning" is also a difficult movie. Most people don't get what happened on the first viewing and require second viewings or explanations. I personally enjoyed the movie a lot because I am a fan of the genre, but I can also understand there are those who aren't familiar who won't find the film engaging. There are layers of enjoyment for Burning and if you only examine the movie superficially, neglecting the mystery and subtext, it's not that great. So, I don't think Burning is a good example to indicate whether mainstream audiences are intentionally lowering scores due to taboo topics because the movie itself is pretty difficult and extremely preferential. Especially when masterpieces like "Mother," "Memories of Murder," and "A Tale of Two Sisters" are rated similarly.

No, I'm not the one speaking on behalf of others. You guys are making statements for others. You guys are the ones who are constantly claiming people are rating this drama lower because of the nudity or other factors. That's why I am speaking up, on behalf of myself: No, I didn't rate this drama low due to the nudity. I rated it low because the screenplay wasn't good. I also pointed out how various reviewers have noted the same problem. You guys, then, have the burden of proof to suggest there are hordes of people downvoting simply because they see breasts. There might be a few cases, obviously, but not enough to warrant such responses from so many users. The part about expectation of less mature content is for Korean rom-com, not thrillers. And it's about gratuitous sex, like "Game of Thrones," not a few seconds of breasts.