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Save yourself from the closet
I don't usually write reviews, but this movie is so bad it deserves a warning. Its earned the extra .5 star from the 1 it deserves only because it left a lasting impression-- months later I'm still wondering how it could be so bad.The description is more of a backstory that was barely shown. His time as a "magician" (actually escape artist) is over within the first 4 minutes, and his haunting past is reduced to one recurring memory of a closet in the middle of nowhere in a courtyard.
The "retreat" takes them to an eccentric mansion where they proceed to spend half of the rest of the movie in the cheapest set ever - a room filled with tarps. Tarps tied in weird shapes, but tarps none the less. They say it's creepy, but continue to hang out in this weird, uncomfortable room for no reason even though there are definitely other rooms in the house. Maybe they can't redecorate because they're renting the house, but after the FL throws away the yard ornaments it's clear that they're stuck in the tarp room because they're hoping it will make the movie creepy when it really isn't. It's a weird situation with the usual stupid misunderstandings from lack of communication, but it's not creepy. If anything, it's confusing. The reactions, the neighbors, the "ghost", the house's layout, the clueless FL... It's full of plot holes and every part that's supposed to be scary is dulled by the horrible acting, although even with the best acting the plot still would have been awful. They should've stuck to the plot about the ML being haunted by his past rather than involving weirdo neighbors and a "ghost" but instead both plots end up meaningless with a lame ending. It leaves you wondering why you wasted the time to watch it, if not for a test of endurance. (And I love lame horror movies!)
The movie was horrible, yes... But even worse, why did the subs call the ML Fred?! Everyone had a horrible English name, and it really took this movie from 90 to 100 on the awfulness scale.
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A sheep in a box by another name is a sheep in a cage, the box just hides it better
I actually saw this in theaters with my fiance, and we both agreed that although it was probably better than the American alternatives we could've watched, it wasn't amazing.The story, set somewhere in the fairly near future, is focused on the Komoto family's daily lives and interactions after they adopt an AI-powered humanoid robot modeled after their son who died 2 years previously, Kakeru. They are people living normal, peaceful lives, and the story was paced very slowly to match. And that's fine, we weren't expecting action, but it practically felt that any conflicts were resolved or glossed over very quickly just to keep the peaceful vibe. But the peace and tranquility are shallow, with something very dark beneath the surface that we're not even supposed to acknowledge.
The movie was desperately missing a single scene of a time where Kakeru was alive to be able to compare how similar the robot is to the real boy. This is the kind of avoidance of uncomfortable things that plagues the entire movie, and just the fact that such a scene is missing says a lot about how the robot situation is presented. With nothing to compare it to, we end up accepting it as normal too.
We start out as the couple, who never truly moved past the death or their son, decide to adopt the AI robot. He is free, while they are usually very expensive. Suspicious. Suspicious that it seemed only people in a similar specific situation got the same deal, but it was barely mentioned at all. The father isn't as open to the idea as the mother, but he seems to have no real say in the matter and gives it a try. His reactions to the presence of the robot are entertaining and much more normal, but very quickly he too mostly adapts to his new home life. Overall, everyone in the movie is unnaturally accepting of the robot situation. There's only a tiny bit of rejection, which also fades unnaturally fast. Normally, wouldn't this situation be outrageous?
The very concept of having an AI robot copying your dead child and living with you is pretty creepy if you think about it, but in the world of the movie it's normal. (It's also, strangely, it's just about the only futuristic thing shown in the movie aside from the initial scene of drone and robot delivery systems.)
The child robot, set to 7 years old, is obviously more intelligent and efficient than the parents. The robots can identify each other, implying they can communicate somewhat remotely, and they understand they're better than humans. We can only thank their programming and the movie's commitment to peacefulness and harmony that things don't go in a much worse direction, but this rose-colored depiction of such a future seems unrealistic. Even living harmoniously, it's pretty obvious that humanity will become pointless compared to the robots. They even say themselves that they don't see much a human can do better. Sadly the situation seems almost familiar as AI is already replacing human connections and thought, while humans ignore that because it's convenient to rely on for our own ease of mind.
As far as watching a movie without thinking too far into it goes, it was entertaining to watch once, but the characters and story lacked any appeal to watch it again. Most characters except the father had very little personality, and many parts of the story were illogical. If there was any music, I didn't even notice it. (But that's not saying much since I often don't notice music) If I wanted to watch something with this sort of situation/theme I'd much sooner watch the K-drama Yonder again, or that one episode of Black Mirror.
You can tell I hate AI, so my view is probably very skewed.. But someone had to be the first review.
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Honestly it was a struggle
By the end of this I was seriously reconsidering my commitment to finish every show I start, and after the end... Well, I consider all the time I spent watching this wasted.The story was very similar to Lost; people get in an accident and it's revealed that they're all connected in some way and have been "chosen" to be there for some purpose. Very little time was spent on actual survival scenes after the first episode, and most of the survival situations seem largely avoidable if the characters had thought for even a second. There wasn't much time for more survival situations though, because the show was largely devoted to flashbacks... And flashbacks of flashbacks we'd just seen minutes or seconds ago. I do admit to fast forwarding by the end, because there are only so many times I can watch the same scene.
The flashbacks of the characters respective stories could have each been their own series and done better than this show. (Although Li Qiao's backstory got very boring for me, especially because they kept repeating the same scenes of it. I can sing Red River Valley by now even though I don't know much Chinese.) Unfortunately, all the back stories are rushed (while somehow being slow paced) and I couldn't really form a connection to any character because once I started to care about someone, it switched to someone else's story and the story I was previously almost getting interested in became just another thing to have flashbacks of with no progression.
By the end we were given the final pieces of the puzzle... But if this was a puzzle, half of the new pieces given were clearly to another puzzle. Suddenly it seemed only one survivor had any meaning for being there, and everyone else was just tangentially related. Everything fell apart in the last minutes when it was made clear that -nothing- would be solved and that we'd have to wait for a season 2 to even hope to understand anything. A season 2 that is most likely not coming, since this is 4 years old now. I won't be wasting my time on a S2 even if it does eventually show up, and next time I'm really struggling to finish watching something I'll check reviews to at least make sure I'm not heading into a meaningless cliffhanger.
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That was disappointing
I just finished this today and after a very short, rushed finale... I'm pretty disappointed. I loved S1, we all loved S1. S2 was kinda a mess, especially after the time skip. And now this.. A lot of people say it's at least better than S2, but it was just so unsatisfying.In S2 they essentially eliminated most of the main crew for no reason right from the beginning. (Still mourning Ji Su's unfair/anticlimactic death after her life was saved with surgery in S1 and she inherited the sword... And never got to use it.) I can only imagine they wanted to use the popularity from S1 while essentially turning this into a totally different series and had to scramble to regain some of what they lost in this last season.
This season was just still so lacking. Part of the greatness of S1 was the unique monsters that were well thought out and obviously born from people's desires, but this season had none of that. (They even still had a couple creative monsters in S2 like the wedding dress woman, the shopping monster, and the guy covered in medical supplies at the lab.) Instead we suddenly had neohumans, which we'd seen none of previously and really didn't fit into the story. It was never explained how someone turns into a neohuman instead of a monster, or even why monsters were innately afraid of them. Just because they were 'superior'? It seemed like it came out of nowhere just so Eun Hyeok could come back looking normal.
So this season was all about working up to a big clash between monsters and humans that never really happened. Yi Su supposedly can turn people into monsters but that ability seems mostly ineffective. The only made two "real" monsters, and an army of mindless zombies. The zombies got all cut up in the battle but Hyun Su was still somehow able to rescue them afterwards, even though it seemed to totally exhaust him to turn even one person back before. And Nam Sang Won! He really put up the most pathetic fight. (Also what was he doing loitering around the lab for an entire year?) Why didn't his body's owner try to take over sooner, like when he was crippled from the car accident in S2? How did he even get back into that body after he burnt it? Why didn't he pick literally any other body there that wasn't already injured? It's like they tried for this epic final battle with huge numbers of people, but the actual battle was very lame and anticlimactic. Everything after the battle too was very rushed... And for no reason, they could've had plenty more time over this season instead of making every episode but one 40 minutes long.
Really everything was just so inferior to S1 aside from the acting. S1 had some amazing cinematography, interesting characters, good music, and was exciting for the entire season. S2 and 3 are better if you think of them as a spinoff from the original or even a fanfiction set in the same universe, but so underwhelming if you want them to continue the same story.
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Good, but that ending..
I wanted to completely love this, but it just didn't quite make it there for me. I did really enjoy the rangers and learning about their job and the mountain, and the natural disasters were all very exciting to watch. It's the supernatural part that just didn't hit me the right way.I couldn't really get attached to Hyun Jo after they threw him into a coma at the end of episode 1. The flashbacks to his time as a ranger were all interesting to watch but knowing that he was currently stuck in a coma as some kind of forest spirit made me unable to care about his character development like I would have if it hadn't all been a flashback.
The killer using yogurt was strange to me when he could've performed all his murders using his knowledge of the mountain without leaving the yogurt bottle evidence. The forest spirit stuff itself just seemed unnecessary, especially because Hyun Jo had no real connection to the mountain aside from having been there for the time of the first murder. I feel it would've made more sense if it had been Yi Gang, who actually lived on the mountain all her life... Or even if their backstories had been reversed. (Cause nobody was going to carry HJ up the mountain if he'd been the one in the wheelchair)
The relationship between the rangers, especially the couple, was great and continued well between the flashback and present, and the acting was of course superb. Oh Jung Se was, of course, excellent. The soundtrack kinda dragged for some music-video-style bouts where it would just be mountain scenes and music for 3+ minutes straight.
My biggest problem was with the ending though. It was definitely put in just to make the viewers happy, but it was just so illogical that the two mains would make such an amazingly fast recovery in a matter of months! I could have even accepted it if it was a time skip to many years in the future, but no.
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