Can some spoil the ending for me when it regards the couples? It sounded like a love triangle, and since it was…
There is no love triangle. Sangwon likes Myungha and is vocal about it but Myungha is equally as vocal in telling him he has less than zero chance and that all Myungha's affection is for Yeonwoo. Yeonwoo and Sangwon have a cutely immature rivalry about it but everyone knows that Myungha and Yeonwoo are in love and together.
The series was fine, worth at least one watch. If you were a big fan of "The Eighth Sense", this is probably a good fit for you. For those concerned: yes, it does have a happy ending, you won't be disappointed in that regard.
You're full of it on this one. There are countless Japanese, mainstream films LOADED with hot sex among straight…
That person is off their fucking rocker, full stop. Just wow.
It is damn bizarre to me that they referenced "East Palace, West Palace" and "Spring Fever" as proof that the Chinese Government has not enshrined anti-LGBTQ legislation at the highest levels. The first had to be smuggled out of China to France for editing and festival submission, the director had his passport confiscated and was put on house arrest, and another Chinese director who had nothing to do with any of it was punished by having his film—China's official submission to Cannes that year—pulled from the competition by the Chinese Government in order to set an example to the entire Chinese film industry.
The latter film was submitted as a Hong Kong-France co-production. Both films were filmed, screened, and submitted without China's approval, and people were duly sanctioned and punished by the Chinese government.
"Seek McCartney" is so sanitized it can barely be called a gay film. China's official approval of that one was only because the theme is virtually invisible, it was predominately a French production and fit under the "arthouse" label, and China was trying to do damage control on the world stage for their increasingly public anti-LGBTQ policies and behaviours. The men in the story never kissed or hugged, held hands briefly maybe twice, and patted each other's backs slightly out of frame. Hell, the same year China allowed it public screenings was the same year they yanked "Addicted" off the air midbroadcast despite that series being China's most watched programme airing at the time.
And if I recall correctly, the only explicitly gay character in "The Dead End" was depicted as a Taiwanese national, not Chinese, which is how it got around China's ban.
I just cannot take seriously anyone who disregards the sociopolitical context of Chinese film and media production to insist that the mere existence of gay films created by Chinese citizens is proof that Chinese censorship doesn't exist. It's so wildly, grossly, insultingly disingenuous.
I don't know if it's the editing, the translations, or the story itself but these last few episodes have been clunky and disjointed.
The rather heavy-handed ominous atmosphere looped through episodes 5 and 6 is more jarring than intriguing, and it was already difficult to care much anyway because this is all a simulation and outside of Myung Ha none of these people actually exist. Since it's unclear if Myung Ha is subject to actual mortal danger via the game, there are no concrete stakes attached to the choices he makes, so it's tough to be invested in the dilemmas presented. Unless the consequences of his in-game choices have impact on Myung Ha in the real world, or the in-game characters somehow gain sentience, none of this matters.
I suppose the server errors could permanently trap Myung Ha's consciousness in the virtual world, thereby making it his new "real" world, in which case he'd be living life with the outcomes of his previous in-game choices. A compelling premise but if that doesn't happen until after he's been forced into irreversible decisions by the game, that seems a rather dark turn for this particular story to take.
Yes, Tee is absolutely a victim. He is also a villain willing to inflict harm on anyone and everyone, including…
Definitely one of the show's current weaknesses for me is that Non is more plot device than character. He's like a football on the pitch: he needs to be kicked around in order for the game to happen but his relevance is only in relation to the players and spectators. He just isn't as real of a person as everyone else, not even to the extent where I understand why he's nicknamed "Greasy". Yes, yes, it's a shorthand method for telling the audience that the whole school looks down on him, but the boy has perfectly fine hair, practically flawless skin, and is well-groomed and seems as properly hygienic as all the other boys in his class. Meanwhile, Top's hair has spent six episodes looking like a delicately oiled wok and no one has said a word.
I think I see what the production is attempting to do by slow-dripping Non's story, revealing facets of Non in direct parallel to the layers of the others in a superposition of bad deeds that ripple out toward horror, but so far, his facets simply aren't as compelling or interesting as everyone else's layers. I expect (hope) that will change in the next couple of episodes, where it seems we'll see more of Non exercising agency within his life rather than being pushed around by external forces, but right now I'm indifferent to what actually happens to Non; I'm just eager to get back to those bastards paying the bloody price for it.
Yes, Tee is absolutely a victim. He is also a villain willing to inflict harm on anyone and everyone, including…
I'm rooting for Tee's death because that's the retribution in-universe. If the punishment was everyone goes to prison, or everyone loses all their money, or some other form of payback, I'd be rooting for that as well.
Non is the type of victim I struggle to pity. If he fought back a even a little and simply failed, I'd find it easier to empathize; sometimes, you just lose the battle but at least you tried. My honest thought at the end of the episode was, if you're just going to roll over and take it, you might as well just die. An uncharitable thought, I know, but Perfect Victim archetypes raise my hackles. There is a middle ground in this victimhood dynamic between becoming outright scum (Tee) and being downright spineless (Non).
If you guys have ever heard of "The Perfect Victim", then Non would come to mind, wouldn't he? I know that I'm…
Yes, Tee is absolutely a victim. He is also a villain willing to inflict harm on anyone and everyone, including the people he calls his friends. His motives are understandable but his methods are still deserving of consequences, and in this show's universe, the consequence is a violent death. So, yes, I have a great deal of sympathy for the kid stuck between a rock and a hard place; I have nothing but antipathy for the monster that kid has become, and I look forward to that monster's grisly death.
As for Non—honestly, my sympathy for him has run out. Weak, pathetic victims aggravate me no end. I don't like Tee or his indiscriminate actions but I can at least respect the steel backbone required to be that maliciously manipulative and so very good at it. He's a prick but he's a competent one, my favourite type of bad guy. Non is just...well, if he's not dead, I hope he grew a spine and is exacting vengeance.
I want them all dead. I want Tee special extra crispy dead. I want to watch him trying to scream for help while drowning in his own blood. I want his entrails falling out of his body cavity. I want him dying alone and scared and helpless. I don't even care who kills him or even why at this point, I just want to see him suffer a slow, lingering, painful death as he crawls to his grave.
JJay is doing a phenomenal job making me hate seeing his beautiful face.
Honestly, I would prefer Sahara and Nekoto get together. Their story is a lot more interesting, their feelings more believable, and their chemistry is better.
Wish we got more Shinji and Takuya. What was that homecoming like? How is he adjusting? Is their relationship officially progressing into the romantic? I want to know all the things.
Ok, so we're in the 9th episode, we have a bunch of guys with tattoos all over their bodies and it's the first…
I have twelve tattoos taking up a good deal of body real estate but zero piercings, not even my ears. It still catches me off-guard when heavily inked BL boys have no visible piercings.
That friend group is a bunch of sociopathic little shitbags. And Jin gets no grace for being the least shitty of the lot. He is well-aware his friends are bullies, downright trash, but he remains friends with them. Either his principles are weak or he's also got psychological issues and we just haven't seen them yet.
Poor Non. I just want him to run far away from these people.
The ML and FL are both inexcusably stupid, and the script trying to pass off their idiocy as righteousness is insulting. Eight minutes into episode three and I wanted them both dead. The FL is a profound danger to herself and others (she is literally directly responsible for other people dying), and the ML's infatuation with her causes him to do and say atrociously dumb shite. He seemed rational and competent whenever he wasn't with her or worried about her or involved with her. It was grating to watch them in scenes together.
While the whole show is a trainwreck of nonsense, if Han Tae Seok were the focus, I think it would've worked better. Tae Seok was doing the best he could with what he had, taking decisive action, making well-considered calls, and holding on to as much Humanity as possible in an impossible situation with no perfect answers (while being assailed at every turn by the antics of the Dumb Duo and their Dumbass Colleagues). Nevermind the infection, poor guy really needed to contain those idiots.
Frankly, despite having one medical personnel and a budget of approximately ₩10.000, Tae Seok seemed to have a solid handle on things until he got involved with the ML and FL, then it was just a series of headaches. I felt bad for him. The man is trying to save the world on a shoestring budget and government-mandated plausible deniability and he's got to put up with the Wonder Twins' sanctimonious stupidity every other hour. It's astounding he didn't just hurl the ML halfway across town after that fridge truck incident and the ridiculous, ridiculous argument that followed.
And that one medical personnel (who was also head of security, disease research lead, press secretary, intake processor, and a dozen other jobs) should not have been putting up with FL's attitude. Had the FL pulled that bite stunt on me, I would've knocked her teeth down her throat; and after her shenanigans got other people infected, I would've sent her to a military black site so fast.
Basically, in no world, not even dramaland, is it plausible that ML and FL would be considered "essential" in an anti-zombie operation. These are the type of "heroes" who get other people killed.
The NC scenes are sex as described from faint memory to virgins by someone who saw it once but only from the back and through a slightly fogged window. It's just...off.
1. Do Hyuk puts a bullet in Mo Ne's head 2. Ra Hee is strangled to death with one of her statement necklaces 3. K has a ridiculously comedic end, like slipping on a banana peel and falling down the stairs, getting squished mid-monologue when one of his lighting rigs malfunctions, or inhaling his own saliva and choking to death in panic
So Da Mi was merely a plot device, rather than the core of the inciting incident. The latter, apparently, was actually Do Hyuk just existing, which was entirely too much for Shimy-boy to handle.
This was absolutely riveting when it was a tale of complex vengeance. Matthew was acutely terrifying as a father ready and willing to descend to any depth of Hell in pursuit of one goal: justice for his wronged child. "I am ready to become a monster" gave me chills. THAT was the adventure I signed-on for.
But then the big twist happened, and instead of a thrillingly blood-soaked tale of one man's coldly focused rage, it became a tedious ensemble play about a whiny little bitch and his fancy toy.
Seriously. When K was a masked psycho cackling in the shadows, he was grating but at least menacing. When his character became the whole show, he was just downright obnoxious. Yes, he was dangerous, but I couldn't take him seriously given his whole motive boiled down to "Daddy didn't love me enough". That's rough, dude, and I feel for you, I do, but for fuck's sake, take some of that money and go to therapy. Seriously, what was his schedule before he was "banished"? Suit-and-tie do-gooder chaebol son by day, then home to his rave club basement and nail polish to mwahahaha through the night? When did that fucker sleep?
All that said—I had a good time. I will watch the second season, especially as I'll be going in with my expectations properly aligned. Also, I want to see if Do Hyuk was really stupid enough to NOT move that money to a different location. I liked his character but, whew, he was a dim bulb.
[To clarify: the entire cast was awesome! I found the post-twist story tedious but the performances were perfect. The whole ensemble, from mains to supports to extras, nailed it. Makjang is a concoction of excess and nuance, a kaleidoscopic fever-dream straddling the real and surreal, and this cast was phenomenal. They absolutely understood the assignment and delivered from start to finish. I cannot praise them enough for their performances.]
you're so right about Min Seo. Her presence and appearance was so annoying for some reason
I think because it never changed. She stumbled through every single episode in a visible state of quivering shock, having the exact same wide-eyed response to daily occurrences. She's our protagonist, meanwhile all the other characters have pretty much pulled themselves together while she's on the verge of gasping collapse everytime she's on screen.
At least Jun Hee's perpetual horror made sense, since all his decisions ended with people getting killed. With Yoo Seo, it just felt like her memory was resetting every five minutes.
the character u mentioned in the first lines.. was it the basketball player , the head of the trio who fought…
I am. He had a good head on his shoulders, he was calm but decisive, he didn't put up with anyone's bullshite, was diplomatic but willing to use violence, and was a natural leader also capable of stepping aside if needed.
That's the person you want in a CO or an XO, especially when mysterious forces are trying to murder you and virtually all your classmates are a problem that's going to get you killed.
I have headcanon that he's always axed early becuase he's a direct threat to the game. I bet in iterations where he lived longer, they all fared better as a group.
It is damn bizarre to me that they referenced "East Palace, West Palace" and "Spring Fever" as proof that the Chinese Government has not enshrined anti-LGBTQ legislation at the highest levels. The first had to be smuggled out of China to France for editing and festival submission, the director had his passport confiscated and was put on house arrest, and another Chinese director who had nothing to do with any of it was punished by having his film—China's official submission to Cannes that year—pulled from the competition by the Chinese Government in order to set an example to the entire Chinese film industry.
The latter film was submitted as a Hong Kong-France co-production. Both films were filmed, screened, and submitted without China's approval, and people were duly sanctioned and punished by the Chinese government.
"Seek McCartney" is so sanitized it can barely be called a gay film. China's official approval of that one was only because the theme is virtually invisible, it was predominately a French production and fit under the "arthouse" label, and China was trying to do damage control on the world stage for their increasingly public anti-LGBTQ policies and behaviours. The men in the story never kissed or hugged, held hands briefly maybe twice, and patted each other's backs slightly out of frame. Hell, the same year China allowed it public screenings was the same year they yanked "Addicted" off the air midbroadcast despite that series being China's most watched programme airing at the time.
And if I recall correctly, the only explicitly gay character in "The Dead End" was depicted as a Taiwanese national, not Chinese, which is how it got around China's ban.
I just cannot take seriously anyone who disregards the sociopolitical context of Chinese film and media production to insist that the mere existence of gay films created by Chinese citizens is proof that Chinese censorship doesn't exist. It's so wildly, grossly, insultingly disingenuous.
The rather heavy-handed ominous atmosphere looped through episodes 5 and 6 is more jarring than intriguing, and it was already difficult to care much anyway because this is all a simulation and outside of Myung Ha none of these people actually exist. Since it's unclear if Myung Ha is subject to actual mortal danger via the game, there are no concrete stakes attached to the choices he makes, so it's tough to be invested in the dilemmas presented. Unless the consequences of his in-game choices have impact on Myung Ha in the real world, or the in-game characters somehow gain sentience, none of this matters.
I suppose the server errors could permanently trap Myung Ha's consciousness in the virtual world, thereby making it his new "real" world, in which case he'd be living life with the outcomes of his previous in-game choices. A compelling premise but if that doesn't happen until after he's been forced into irreversible decisions by the game, that seems a rather dark turn for this particular story to take.
I think I see what the production is attempting to do by slow-dripping Non's story, revealing facets of Non in direct parallel to the layers of the others in a superposition of bad deeds that ripple out toward horror, but so far, his facets simply aren't as compelling or interesting as everyone else's layers. I expect (hope) that will change in the next couple of episodes, where it seems we'll see more of Non exercising agency within his life rather than being pushed around by external forces, but right now I'm indifferent to what actually happens to Non; I'm just eager to get back to those bastards paying the bloody price for it.
Non is the type of victim I struggle to pity. If he fought back a even a little and simply failed, I'd find it easier to empathize; sometimes, you just lose the battle but at least you tried. My honest thought at the end of the episode was, if you're just going to roll over and take it, you might as well just die. An uncharitable thought, I know, but Perfect Victim archetypes raise my hackles. There is a middle ground in this victimhood dynamic between becoming outright scum (Tee) and being downright spineless (Non).
As for Non—honestly, my sympathy for him has run out. Weak, pathetic victims aggravate me no end. I don't like Tee or his indiscriminate actions but I can at least respect the steel backbone required to be that maliciously manipulative and so very good at it. He's a prick but he's a competent one, my favourite type of bad guy. Non is just...well, if he's not dead, I hope he grew a spine and is exacting vengeance.
JJay is doing a phenomenal job making me hate seeing his beautiful face.
Wish we got more Shinji and Takuya. What was that homecoming like? How is he adjusting? Is their relationship officially progressing into the romantic? I want to know all the things.
Poor Non. I just want him to run far away from these people.
While the whole show is a trainwreck of nonsense, if Han Tae Seok were the focus, I think it would've worked better. Tae Seok was doing the best he could with what he had, taking decisive action, making well-considered calls, and holding on to as much Humanity as possible in an impossible situation with no perfect answers (while being assailed at every turn by the antics of the Dumb Duo and their Dumbass Colleagues). Nevermind the infection, poor guy really needed to contain those idiots.
Frankly, despite having one medical personnel and a budget of approximately ₩10.000, Tae Seok seemed to have a solid handle on things until he got involved with the ML and FL, then it was just a series of headaches. I felt bad for him. The man is trying to save the world on a shoestring budget and government-mandated plausible deniability and he's got to put up with the Wonder Twins' sanctimonious stupidity every other hour. It's astounding he didn't just hurl the ML halfway across town after that fridge truck incident and the ridiculous, ridiculous argument that followed.
And that one medical personnel (who was also head of security, disease research lead, press secretary, intake processor, and a dozen other jobs) should not have been putting up with FL's attitude. Had the FL pulled that bite stunt on me, I would've knocked her teeth down her throat; and after her shenanigans got other people infected, I would've sent her to a military black site so fast.
Basically, in no world, not even dramaland, is it plausible that ML and FL would be considered "essential" in an anti-zombie operation. These are the type of "heroes" who get other people killed.
Just a silly, annoying show, all-around.
1. Do Hyuk puts a bullet in Mo Ne's head
2. Ra Hee is strangled to death with one of her statement necklaces
3. K has a ridiculously comedic end, like slipping on a banana peel and falling down the stairs, getting squished mid-monologue when one of his lighting rigs malfunctions, or inhaling his own saliva and choking to death in panic
This was absolutely riveting when it was a tale of complex vengeance. Matthew was acutely terrifying as a father ready and willing to descend to any depth of Hell in pursuit of one goal: justice for his wronged child. "I am ready to become a monster" gave me chills. THAT was the adventure I signed-on for.
But then the big twist happened, and instead of a thrillingly blood-soaked tale of one man's coldly focused rage, it became a tedious ensemble play about a whiny little bitch and his fancy toy.
Seriously. When K was a masked psycho cackling in the shadows, he was grating but at least menacing. When his character became the whole show, he was just downright obnoxious. Yes, he was dangerous, but I couldn't take him seriously given his whole motive boiled down to "Daddy didn't love me enough". That's rough, dude, and I feel for you, I do, but for fuck's sake, take some of that money and go to therapy. Seriously, what was his schedule before he was "banished"? Suit-and-tie do-gooder chaebol son by day, then home to his rave club basement and nail polish to mwahahaha through the night? When did that fucker sleep?
All that said—I had a good time. I will watch the second season, especially as I'll be going in with my expectations properly aligned. Also, I want to see if Do Hyuk was really stupid enough to NOT move that money to a different location. I liked his character but, whew, he was a dim bulb.
[To clarify: the entire cast was awesome! I found the post-twist story tedious but the performances were perfect. The whole ensemble, from mains to supports to extras, nailed it. Makjang is a concoction of excess and nuance, a kaleidoscopic fever-dream straddling the real and surreal, and this cast was phenomenal. They absolutely understood the assignment and delivered from start to finish. I cannot praise them enough for their performances.]
At least Jun Hee's perpetual horror made sense, since all his decisions ended with people getting killed. With Yoo Seo, it just felt like her memory was resetting every five minutes.
That's the person you want in a CO or an XO, especially when mysterious forces are trying to murder you and virtually all your classmates are a problem that's going to get you killed.
I have headcanon that he's always axed early becuase he's a direct threat to the game. I bet in iterations where he lived longer, they all fared better as a group.