I hope someone enlisted a "stranger danger" expert to give a lecture at that orphanage. I mean, kid, if a random man materializes from the shadows, calculatingly strokes your cheek, and promises he can alleviate all your woes, the correct response is to run screaming in the opposite direction toward a recognized Responsible Adult. I don't care if that random man looks like Woo Do Hwan, that nonsense is how you become a mass text alert.
At any rate, the movie didn't deliver. Punching demons back to Hell is a fun premise but this was a lot less that and a lot more pensive gazing and sudden pyrokinesis skill-levelling. Probably this would've worked better as a series, with multiple episodes to explore the characters, the conflict, the stakes, and the lore. The best aspect is the acting; everyone delivered. I wish we'd had at least one more scene with the Shaman Niece.
A slow, frustrating slog to an astonishingly unsatisfying ending. Seriously, it felt personal, like I had directly done something to piss off the series and that ending was my punishment.
Well, on the plus side, it's quite well-acted and there is no romance. Worth one watch, though you'll likely find yourself skipping liberally through the second half.
Rewatched this for a sixth time, raised my rating a bit. It's a truly satisfying genre work, a series you could fit seamlessly into a binging marathon that might include "The Raid", "I Saw the Devil", "The Night Comes for Us", "Mirzapur", "My Name", "Ichi the Killer", "Warrior", maybe even "Lady Snowblood", depending on your aesthetics. Basically, if you're looking to have a good time watching characters skilled in martial arts absolutely, unapologetically bloodily body other characters skilled in martial arts, this is the series for you.
Again, the only real letdown is in the second half, where the series shifts focus from hyperfocused, brutally fatal vengeance to the dramatic power machinations of a supporting character. It's a bit like watching half a movie then watching half a series; in some ways, they are two separate narratives that perhaps should've been served up thusly. The supporting character's motivations, methods, and moral conflicts were intriguing; I just didn't care all that much because I'm here to watch a different dude crush tracheas and shiv bastards. Once that wasn't happening as often or as viscerally, my interest waned.
Still, definitely well worth at least one full watch, and revisits later, particularly once you know what/when/where to skip.
Does the lipstick have an opening credit, a closing sponsor tag, something along those lines? I can't read Thai, but I feel like an application that heavy has to be a brand presence thing. Surely, they don't have a qualified make-up artist on set who thought, "Yep, let's just apply this with a trowel"?
I'm already getting "Playboyy" comment section vibes, and I gave that one 10/10, would read again. Hope I'm not disappointed.
Reading all the self-righteous, "I never drink either" comments from Puritanical MDL Church Ladies below…
Hear, hear!
I swear, the only subset of a group worse than "those types" of vegans are those of the nondrinkers. And the comments here reinforce that by seemingly missing that Kang Tae Oh barely commented on it, whereas Lily (M)Alice's typically crappy article writing made it seem like "nondrinker" was his whole personality.
Even in an environment like South Korea, where social drinking is integral to a sense of collectivism, there are nondrinkers who get along just fine, one way or another, and that seems to be the crux of Kang Tae Oh's commentary: he's got other methods of social engagement & community that are more comfortable for him as an individual.
In addition to that, I completely agree with you: it's difficult to assess any celebrity commentary on any subject in South Korea given the ridiculousness of their society's expectations/treatment of celebrities. Personally, I'd be terrified to be seen having a single cocktail in a bar, full stop.
I still think season one was the best of the three but I appreciated two elements of this season: the jettisoning of the pretense that what the Rainbow Taxi crew do is about "justice" rather than blatant vengeance (especially since they stopped imprisoning villains a long time ago), and that there was no romance. I actually originally dropped season two because of a case where Kim Do Gi and An Go Eun pretended to be a couple; it irritated me that much.
The fight scenes were especially well choreographed and brutal this season, and the general levels of violence were fun. Lee Je Hoon was particularly charming this season. He's always a delight to watch but he appeared to be having an exceptionally great time this outing.
The visual depiction of machine learning was often engaging. I particularly liked the way in which "memory" was utilized to demonstrate layering of input/output datasets, & how the near simultaneous experiences of different iterations of An Na served as shorthand for the rapidity of simulation processing by AI.
I'm not certain what the movie wanted me to feel, though. It tells you precisely what's going to happen, in plain language, before it launches into the AI training portion. There is no mystery, no hidden clues, no surprises. Humanity is extinct, synthetics modelled (presumably) on all types of Humans are being trained via simulations to develop their Emotion Engines, at which point they will all be launched toward Earth to repopulate it with Humanity 2.0. We are told the synthetics will remain on the lab station until they are ready to deploy, & there is nothing to suggest a time limit for that needing to happen. Assuming that lab had adequate support resources & wasn't destroyed by space shenanigans, the data centers could've run for a hundred years until the synthetics got it right. & what happens when they get to Earth? Do they merely replicate Humanity 1.0? Is that what I'm supposed to be rooting for, an imitation of a dead world & the beings that once inhabited it?
Frankly, I didn't care. Humanity had its chance & died. The synthetics are facsimiles, & their survival did not equate to the survival of Humanity. & since AI, by design, is meant to evolve beyond its input, these synthetics cannot possibly be bound by Humanity's ego & therefore Humanity's vision of itself. They are not us; we are gone. I was simply not invested in our echo. I didn't wish the synthetics harm but I also wasn't concerned with whether or not they made it. It's an almost Deistic watching experience, except in this case, "God" is very dead.
The one element I found interesting but that wasn't explored was: why this? Son Hui Jo had the right idea: if you have the power to create a new species, why not make something better? Why saddle a powerful AI with Human limitations? Why is Human narcissism the solution? I don't begrudge us for being so in love with ourselves that we feel we have the right to replicate ourselves (& only ourselves) even when our own planet kills us but, honestly, is our imagination so narrow it can't extend beyond a mirror?
But that's unfair of me. The creators didn't know about the world-killing asteroid, after all. Perhaps if An Na & her boss had known the world was going to end, it would've altered the parameters of their experiment. I imagine awareness of an extinction-level event would've shifted their focus at least a little, & given more time, they might've engineered synthetics that were...well, more than us.
As most Creation mythologies go, the creations ultimately violate the boundaries of their Creator(s), so I choose to imagine that these AI-powered synthetics eventually outgrew the perceptions of their erstwhile makers, & did become a different, perhaps better version of "Humanity". I might've enjoyed that movie.
Overall, I just found this movie trite & a bit of a dull sit. There are enormous, terrific, world-altering questions around AI, but this movie just slapped a well-trod, boring, basic Mother's Love story onto an otherwise interesting framework. I find the "Does having Human emotions make it Human?" theme to be pedestrian as well. No. The synthetics are not Human just because they have an Emotion Engine. They also have an AI brain. They are different, they are something else, a creation of Humans, a reflection of Humans, but NOT Human, & that's what is so terrifyingly awesome about the reality of AI & our role in its creation.
Frankly, though it has its own myriad issues, "Extinction" was a far more engaging & plainly entertaining story about synthetics, AI, & the power of love. As a bonus, it actually is kind of a disaster movie. Maybe go watch that instead.
It's as if they forgot they were making a BL and only remembered in the last episode. Weird pacing, middling chemistry (size differences mask only so many sins, I tell you), and the deadest of dead fish kisses. Seriously, it gets real retro at the end there, to the point where it might've been better if they hadn't kissed at all. Might give you a good chuckle during the NC scene though. Prepare him to be ploughed like a fallow field, Ogami, but don't actually kiss him, that'd be a bit much!
A lavishly dressed, gorgeously filmed glimpse into the professionalism, passion, and politics of competitive dance that is worth at least one watch for those elements. The love story was just meh.
I wish the ladies were more than exposition props. Even though they were little more than a set of talking heads to deliver insight on the men, I found them both more interesting in various ways than the leads. I am haunted by Yagami's perpetual melancholia, and I was so excited for Tajima when she finally zeroed in on her own ambition. For all the praise about subtext and body language from the leads, Yagami managed to communicate more aching despair and white-knuckle fear of failure in one single frame than most of the other actors managed in multiple scenes. If there is a sequel, please, someone give that woman a hug before she comes undone.
The painfully reductive, narrow "message" & that obnoxious hypocrite that is Death aside, my takeaway from this series was almost diametrically opposed to its intent. While living the lives of others, Choi I Jae destroyed two serial killers, psychologically crippled a homicidal sociopath to the extent he'll likely never harm anyone again, solved/stopped several crimes, took money from a malefactor & bestowed it on the victimized, gave a man redemption, brought justice to the corrupt, & actually saved lives. While there was, of course, sorrow & suffering, & he did a lot of it for purely personal reasons, if the argument is that the value of your life is in its meaning to others, then in the grand balance, the value of Choi I Jae's life truly was greater in death.
It also didn't help that most of the lives Choi I Jae took over were of people who didn't want to die: they were invested in their own existence, whatever their material conditions, & I felt compassion when their lives—lives they wanted, lives in which they found utility—were snatched away. I never pitied Choi I Jae for the choice he made, so his "happy" ending felt like less of a triumph & more of an anticlimax.
There is a scene where Choi I Jae shouts at Death: "I have to do something since God won't". That single line is so compelling because it's a reminder that Choi I Jae is a fighter. He fought hard all his life before numerous lost battles finally just took their toll, & he fought like hell in his afterlives too. He was a frustratedly powerless Human, not an inherently weak one, & the second he grasped how to wield the power of Death's game to his own benefit, he seized it. Such a shame that, despite that, the whole series ends on such a tiresome, predictable, saccharine note.
Still, worth at least one watch. The violence & bloodshed & vengeance does entertain.
That's got to be 2k$ PER night for multiple nights, right? Because there is no damn way 2k$ alone is covering surgical bills plus tuition. Who taught this kid how to art school? I was once a broke art student, I would've had that dude paying top dollar for the privilege of just looking at me. Choking me would've paid for grad school. Somebody play that song "Fancy" for him & get him on the right track.
Also, if you're going to tackle a subject like this, you really need to be bringing "Dangerous Drugs of Sex" energy. Fully-clothed kisses & some light wrestling is just a teasing bore. At least deliver on that front if you've got no budget for production.
"Tucker & Dale vs Evil" meets "Cabin in the Woods". If you've seen "Tucker & Dale", this remake holds few surprises; the jokes & sight gags are practically beat-for-beat, the cultural tweaks aren't enough to make it feel fresh, & it doesn't quite nail the earnest sincerity that made the original so hilarious. However, the cast is fun, there is a lot of energy, & the supernatural shenanigans sort of pay off in the end.
You know, Cheon & Cheol, I feel like if you just confessed your love to one another, you might not be having all these problems.
This sequel takes all the same beats from the first but the repetition is not only less humorous, it makes the first two-thirds a real chore to sit through. The first movie was clichés galore but it was mostly fun & it was part of the charm; the sequel is just painfully predictable. I fast-forwarded through a number of scenes. I think I enjoyed the third act here more than in the first movie, & I liked the cast just as much, but I wouldn't watch this one again.
That being said, I would absolutely watch a third installment, & I think that's just really down to the cast. They're a fun group to watch, even if the material isn't quite up to snuff.
By the end, I just wanted Jae Yi to murder everyone. I don't think the movie necessarily wants you to side with her but watching this hardworking, ambitious woman routinely being told she doesn't rate while having her agency constantly undermined by a narcissist who insists he loves her got grating quickly. I had zero sympathy for Mantis; she told him in a dozen different ways that his "simping" was unwarranted, unwelcome, & unasked for—as well as harmful & hurtful to her (& everyone else, including Mantis himself)—& he kept not hearing her while seemingly remaining baffled as to why she didn't just fall into his arms. I was never convinced he ever actually saw her, as either a person or a professional, & it's even more pronounced when compared to Cha Min Kyu's feelings for & treatment of Bok Soon.
I didn't particularly care for any of the characters in this movie but Jae Yi was far & above the most layered & interesting. All the others were tiresome or obnoxious or forgettable.
Overall, the movie was a downgrade from its parent story.
The series is the typical mindless trash that makes up the bulk of the Thai BL industry but the NC scenes are unapologetic & plentiful, & it's blatantly obvious the producers are aware that's the main reason anyone's watching & are just leaning into it. So, if you stuck it out through the likes of "Venus in the Sky" & "Be Mine Superstar" for the sex, set your expectations accordingly & work that FFW button.
I will say, it's kind of nice to see sex presented as a raw fact, & serving as the foundation of the main relationship, rather than gilded in romantic fluff like a Harlequin novel & treated like a precious gift, or else like a shameful aspect that must be overcome to facilitate "real" love.
At any rate, the movie didn't deliver. Punching demons back to Hell is a fun premise but this was a lot less that and a lot more pensive gazing and sudden pyrokinesis skill-levelling. Probably this would've worked better as a series, with multiple episodes to explore the characters, the conflict, the stakes, and the lore. The best aspect is the acting; everyone delivered. I wish we'd had at least one more scene with the Shaman Niece.
Well, on the plus side, it's quite well-acted and there is no romance. Worth one watch, though you'll likely find yourself skipping liberally through the second half.
Again, the only real letdown is in the second half, where the series shifts focus from hyperfocused, brutally fatal vengeance to the dramatic power machinations of a supporting character. It's a bit like watching half a movie then watching half a series; in some ways, they are two separate narratives that perhaps should've been served up thusly. The supporting character's motivations, methods, and moral conflicts were intriguing; I just didn't care all that much because I'm here to watch a different dude crush tracheas and shiv bastards. Once that wasn't happening as often or as viscerally, my interest waned.
Still, definitely well worth at least one full watch, and revisits later, particularly once you know what/when/where to skip.
I'm already getting "Playboyy" comment section vibes, and I gave that one 10/10, would read again. Hope I'm not disappointed.
I swear, the only subset of a group worse than "those types" of vegans are those of the nondrinkers. And the comments here reinforce that by seemingly missing that Kang Tae Oh barely commented on it, whereas Lily (M)Alice's typically crappy article writing made it seem like "nondrinker" was his whole personality.
Even in an environment like South Korea, where social drinking is integral to a sense of collectivism, there are nondrinkers who get along just fine, one way or another, and that seems to be the crux of Kang Tae Oh's commentary: he's got other methods of social engagement & community that are more comfortable for him as an individual.
In addition to that, I completely agree with you: it's difficult to assess any celebrity commentary on any subject in South Korea given the ridiculousness of their society's expectations/treatment of celebrities. Personally, I'd be terrified to be seen having a single cocktail in a bar, full stop.
The fight scenes were especially well choreographed and brutal this season, and the general levels of violence were fun. Lee Je Hoon was particularly charming this season. He's always a delight to watch but he appeared to be having an exceptionally great time this outing.
I'm not certain what the movie wanted me to feel, though. It tells you precisely what's going to happen, in plain language, before it launches into the AI training portion. There is no mystery, no hidden clues, no surprises. Humanity is extinct, synthetics modelled (presumably) on all types of Humans are being trained via simulations to develop their Emotion Engines, at which point they will all be launched toward Earth to repopulate it with Humanity 2.0. We are told the synthetics will remain on the lab station until they are ready to deploy, & there is nothing to suggest a time limit for that needing to happen. Assuming that lab had adequate support resources & wasn't destroyed by space shenanigans, the data centers could've run for a hundred years until the synthetics got it right. & what happens when they get to Earth? Do they merely replicate Humanity 1.0? Is that what I'm supposed to be rooting for, an imitation of a dead world & the beings that once inhabited it?
Frankly, I didn't care. Humanity had its chance & died. The synthetics are facsimiles, & their survival did not equate to the survival of Humanity. & since AI, by design, is meant to evolve beyond its input, these synthetics cannot possibly be bound by Humanity's ego & therefore Humanity's vision of itself. They are not us; we are gone. I was simply not invested in our echo. I didn't wish the synthetics harm but I also wasn't concerned with whether or not they made it. It's an almost Deistic watching experience, except in this case, "God" is very dead.
The one element I found interesting but that wasn't explored was: why this? Son Hui Jo had the right idea: if you have the power to create a new species, why not make something better? Why saddle a powerful AI with Human limitations? Why is Human narcissism the solution? I don't begrudge us for being so in love with ourselves that we feel we have the right to replicate ourselves (& only ourselves) even when our own planet kills us but, honestly, is our imagination so narrow it can't extend beyond a mirror?
But that's unfair of me. The creators didn't know about the world-killing asteroid, after all. Perhaps if An Na & her boss had known the world was going to end, it would've altered the parameters of their experiment. I imagine awareness of an extinction-level event would've shifted their focus at least a little, & given more time, they might've engineered synthetics that were...well, more than us.
As most Creation mythologies go, the creations ultimately violate the boundaries of their Creator(s), so I choose to imagine that these AI-powered synthetics eventually outgrew the perceptions of their erstwhile makers, & did become a different, perhaps better version of "Humanity". I might've enjoyed that movie.
Overall, I just found this movie trite & a bit of a dull sit. There are enormous, terrific, world-altering questions around AI, but this movie just slapped a well-trod, boring, basic Mother's Love story onto an otherwise interesting framework. I find the "Does having Human emotions make it Human?" theme to be pedestrian as well. No. The synthetics are not Human just because they have an Emotion Engine. They also have an AI brain. They are different, they are something else, a creation of Humans, a reflection of Humans, but NOT Human, & that's what is so terrifyingly awesome about the reality of AI & our role in its creation.
Frankly, though it has its own myriad issues, "Extinction" was a far more engaging & plainly entertaining story about synthetics, AI, & the power of love. As a bonus, it actually is kind of a disaster movie. Maybe go watch that instead.
I wish the ladies were more than exposition props. Even though they were little more than a set of talking heads to deliver insight on the men, I found them both more interesting in various ways than the leads. I am haunted by Yagami's perpetual melancholia, and I was so excited for Tajima when she finally zeroed in on her own ambition. For all the praise about subtext and body language from the leads, Yagami managed to communicate more aching despair and white-knuckle fear of failure in one single frame than most of the other actors managed in multiple scenes. If there is a sequel, please, someone give that woman a hug before she comes undone.
It also didn't help that most of the lives Choi I Jae took over were of people who didn't want to die: they were invested in their own existence, whatever their material conditions, & I felt compassion when their lives—lives they wanted, lives in which they found utility—were snatched away. I never pitied Choi I Jae for the choice he made, so his "happy" ending felt like less of a triumph & more of an anticlimax.
There is a scene where Choi I Jae shouts at Death: "I have to do something since God won't". That single line is so compelling because it's a reminder that Choi I Jae is a fighter. He fought hard all his life before numerous lost battles finally just took their toll, & he fought like hell in his afterlives too. He was a frustratedly powerless Human, not an inherently weak one, & the second he grasped how to wield the power of Death's game to his own benefit, he seized it. Such a shame that, despite that, the whole series ends on such a tiresome, predictable, saccharine note.
Still, worth at least one watch. The violence & bloodshed & vengeance does entertain.
Also, if you're going to tackle a subject like this, you really need to be bringing "Dangerous Drugs of Sex" energy. Fully-clothed kisses & some light wrestling is just a teasing bore. At least deliver on that front if you've got no budget for production.
This sequel takes all the same beats from the first but the repetition is not only less humorous, it makes the first two-thirds a real chore to sit through. The first movie was clichés galore but it was mostly fun & it was part of the charm; the sequel is just painfully predictable. I fast-forwarded through a number of scenes. I think I enjoyed the third act here more than in the first movie, & I liked the cast just as much, but I wouldn't watch this one again.
That being said, I would absolutely watch a third installment, & I think that's just really down to the cast. They're a fun group to watch, even if the material isn't quite up to snuff.
I didn't particularly care for any of the characters in this movie but Jae Yi was far & above the most layered & interesting. All the others were tiresome or obnoxious or forgettable.
Overall, the movie was a downgrade from its parent story.
I will say, it's kind of nice to see sex presented as a raw fact, & serving as the foundation of the main relationship, rather than gilded in romantic fluff like a Harlequin novel & treated like a precious gift, or else like a shameful aspect that must be overcome to facilitate "real" love.