So to sum it up: well produced series, charming and talented actors, interesting couple dynamics. One thing I'm not a fan of (and I mentioned this in another review): everyone seems to be bisexual (or gay) and it's no big deal. How likely is it that in a group of friends everyone is somehow gay or at least interested (romantically/sexually) in their friends? But well, maybe I'm the only one who is bothered by this. The series was still very great.
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Don't expect too much
Well, I watched Ep 9, and I'm now dropping this. I will tell you why: The writing is abysmal. You can FEEL this is based on a trashy fanfic that's only popular because of the hotness, the toxicity, the tension etc. I didn't read the novel, but it seems to me they are doing a better job in the series and are trying hard not to make it too stupid and too cliche. Unfortunately, they failed. Let me go into detail: the characters.Kinn: His real persona seems to be a nice guy, who doesn't really want to be in the mafia. When he was out in the woods, he felt great, and didn't want to return. We got to see a very child-like, fun and adventurous side of him. So what now? What does he do? Is he planning for the future? Is he trying to escape his family? Is he trying to lead the family business in another direction? Is he doing anything? Yes, he is "acting" as the cold/bad mafia boss he is supposed to be. He rules by fear without being very convincing. What else is he up to? His love life is apparantly very important, but also pretty messy. That's what he is doing. Thinking about love, and who he can trust.
Porsche: Apparantly he is a nice guy too. He was working as a bartender. We got a sappy story with his uncle gambling away the money. You would think the family is poor, but their house says differently. Now he works for the mafia. He has to kill people. Gruesome! Does it bother him? Yes, a little bit and for a short time. What is he up to now? His love life. I would expect him to think about the future, to have nightmares, to wonder in what kind of mess he finds himself and what bad things will happen next, but nope. He is busy dancing in his underwear and flirting with the mafia boss. Guys, come on!
Then Vegas/Pete: Everyone on the internet is gasping if Vegas appears on the screen. Yeah, great. I'm getting wet too. Not really. What makes this character special? What? He seems to have sadistic tendencies. Is he smart? A mastermind who pulls the strings in the background? Nope. If his manipulative games are working, then only because everyone around him is dumb. And Pete? Well, he is the comic relief of the show. Great pair!
Then our 3rd beloved couple: Kim (the next as*hole) and Porchay. Well ... Kim plays guitar. You know, because it's not a BL without a guitar player or a soccer player. Enough said.
I don't want to go deeper into all this mess: Like making EVERYONE gay and most of them behaving like a f*ggot. You would expect gay guys in the mafia being more hardcore. Tankhun is too silly, and gets too much screen time. The character is not believable. Kinn's friends neither.
If you go for such a story: make it dark, make it intense, make it believable, play ugly mindgames, make me scream and clench my teeth from excitement! But no. Lets drink and dance and have some sex, while showing occasionally some torture and blood, before skipping to some sappy dialogue where Kinn's or Porsche's friends gives some deep love advice as if there is nothing more important than having a sincere love life, while being in the mafia. And if there is some time left, make everything more gay and more stupid.
Come on! That's all you have got? Sad enough.
I will still give it a 7, because of the good performance and charms of the actors. They somehow manage to breath some life into those boring and brain dead characters. The filming (especially the love scenes) is pretty good, and overall you can see the effort and how hard the team worked. Just fire those stupid writers or hire some good ones. With such actors, such a production team, you could aim for the sky. Instead they give us a silly rom-com with mafia background without exploring it much further. Just do it for god's sake! Be brave! Be edgy! Be revolutionary. Nope. Play it safe. Show us some sex, so people will keep watching and talking about it. No offense to the sex scenes. They are without a doubt the highlight of this brainless series.
EDIT: I watched until Ep 13, though I skipped many parts. I'm shocked, really, and I will lower my rating. The VegasPete story was soooo strange. Is this BDSM? No. What is it then? It was cruel, and then it was cheesy, and everything happened too fast. I'm baffled how bad this relationship was presented. Meanwhile KinnPorsche became also such a cheesy couple with lots of scenes nobody needed. This went downhill BADLY. Stupid people, shallow emotions, unnecessary violence and sex scenes that don't do anything for the story. But you know, 50 Shades Of Grey was apparantly also popular. I'm out here. Bad. Really bad.
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Jesus Christ...! I binge watched this series until 4am and now I have a terrible headache and dry eyes. Honestly, I don't even want to know what other people think about this. I can imagine some find it disturbing seeing a love story between a robot and a human. I know about the sexbots and AI development of recent years, the uncanny valley, so it wasn't surprising to me even though a had a strong reaction when I first heard about it. I think those kind of develompments tell us a lot of society and what a person is looking for in a partner. He has to be good looking, capable of doing everything, always kind and nice, never talking back etc. It seems we want the perfect partner and a human cannot be perfect. That said, I didn't mind the romance. It was cute and fluffy, the sexual issue was never adressed (thank god) which wasn't surprising. I mean, we are talking about a Korean drama where everything is innocent and lovey dovey. To make it short: the robot was cute, the romance enjoyable, but it wasn't the reason why I binge watched this until early morning. What I enjoyed was the conflict between the human Nam Shin, the robot and the whole envirnoment. This was extremely captivating. It's a while since I felt so much for a character. The human Nam Shin was very complex, but also a poor soul. He was the "bad guy", but it was obvious many cared for him, because they knew how kind he really was. The anger, pain and sadness made him behave like a jerk and cross the line. The relationship with his mother and his assistent made me tear up several times. I cried a lot watching this drama and I must give credit to the actor. This sure was a very difficult role. He had to change so often between playing the "robot" and the "human". It was always very clear which role he played at the moment (expect for the scenes where he intentionally tried to imitate the other one).
I must admit I wasn't a fan of the comic relief scenes in the gym with the father of the girl and the robot. Also, there was just too much fluffy romance going on (which is typical for Korean drama), but that doesn't make me love this series any less. I wished for more scenes with the human Nam Shin, I would have loved to see how he redeems himself. He did that at the end, but I really wished for a happier end for him. The robot was always the "good guy", the hero. That may arise many questions. The robot had a much better life than the human to begin with. The mother giving all of her love to a robot instead to the human ... I mean, come on! In my opionion the human was the bigger hero who had to survive many hardships (his father died when he was child, he was threatened by his grandfather, he lost his mother, he had to live in a hostile houshold). I honestly wondered throughout the drama why they insisted to make the robot the perfect guy, perfect lover, perfect son, while the human was always on second place.
Well, whatever. It was a good story and whoever wrote it did a good job. I would have changed some things, but that wouldn't have made it better or worse.
To sum it up: A great drama. One of the best I have ever seen. If I think about it, no other drama ever could draw me in so much as this one.
10/10. I'm thankful I found this one. It's proof that there are intriguing stories out there. Korean Drama can be really great.
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Arthdal Chronicles: The Sword of Aramun
3 people found this review helpful
Brilliant
What makes this series so great are 4 things:+ intriguing plot that takes its time to build up, but never disappoints
+ moral questions and dilemma that make you think about society, civilization, politics and life in general
+ very well written characters that stay true to themselves until the very end
+ incredible acting and commitment from everyone involved
Season 2 was faster paced than season 1. I was constantly on the edge of my seat. They didn't waste their time to tell this epic tale. Hopefully we will get a season 3.
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That said, the actors seem to be very kind and funny people in real life. They took their role very serious and had no problem with touching and kissing each other. That's a plus. I just wished the story would have been different. I would like to see the same leads acting in another series. I would watch it for sure!
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Story: 4/10 (not much depth), but the execution was 10/10, so I wil give it a solid 7
Acting: 9 (because I think Lee Dong Wook could have done a better job, I liked him a lot more in "Scent of a Woman")
Music: 10 (it cannot get any better)
Rewatch value: Well, if I want to relax and enjoy something that's beautiful for the sake of being beautiful ... 8.
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So let's talk about the elephant in the room: the plot involves cheating. That's a red flag for most people, because it destroys the idea of pure and everlasting love. I only care about a good story. A believable story. A story that feels real where you can connect with the characters. I don't care about cheesy fairy-tales. I don't even care about a sad end.
The thing is, that this series was rather mature compared to other BL series out there. Some parts of the plot were rather silly, but the way they portrayed the emotions were really great. There was sadness, desperation, regret, love. Everyone (Yihwa and Cho included) did a great job. I wasn't really a fan of the "villain", but the whole series was extremely intense. I can recommend it to people who are tired of the cheesy school-boys BL.
Max and Tul are the kings of the BL genre. The most "badass" couple how Tul once said in an interview. The chemistry is mind-blowing. That alone makes this series worth watching. Even though they weren't lovey-dovey (they had trouble in their relationship after all), a simple kiss on the shoulder could melt my heart.
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About the acting I must say Jun Ho (I didn't know him before) was spectacular. The female lead, Won Jin Ah, was great too, but Jun Ho's role seemed more difficult. He somehow managed to play a character who was strong and vulnerable at the same time. I must say I'm not a fan of those overly dramatic series where PTSD plays a big role. It becomes cheesy and unrealistic pretty fast. But Jun Ho did a really good job.
Enough praise. I would rate this series with a solid 10 if I only had to rate the first 9-10 episodes. But later on it became so cheesy suddenly. I know, other people may like this, but I felt it became so slow. Even Jun Ho's acting couldn't save this anymore. Don't get me wrong, it was still a good series, but they just dragged it out and made the character too emotional for me. Still the end was great and the series overall was just very well told. It was one of those series where I didn't feel like skipping parts (at least until episode 9-10).
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Not that great, but pretty good
The biggest weakness of the drama: We knew he would recover.I wasn't a fan of the revenge plot, you find it in almost every crime/thriller drama.
I loved him being disabled for a while, even though I question how they portrayed his regression to a 7 years old. Is this even possible? Normally you forget things, but you don't change your personality until you have some unreversible brain damage. He basically behaved like a child just for the plot "mother has to raise her son a 2nd time". But this kind of plot was rather new to me and refreshing.
That said, series like Good Bad Mother or When Life Gives You Tangerines seem to be some kind of propaganda that romanticize suffering, especially the suffering of mothers/daughters. While as a woman, I appreciate that such series show us the harsh reality, it makes me giggle knowing that the birth rate in South Korea is the lowest worldwide. And no, this is not only because of economic reasons, in that case people would have one child and not two, since one is easier to afford. Instead, the number of childfree people raised. I will tell you why, even though countless scientists are scratching their heads and can't find the simpliest truth. It's because motherhood is suffering. Endless suffering. I mean it. You suffer until you die. Women don't want to suffer anymore.
Enough of the negativity. I love the male lead, but I'm not a fan of his childish and cute acting. He impressed me more in Sweet Home or Death's Game.
The mother is a great actress, and the female lead fitted the role. Korea didn't invent filmmaking yesterday: they know what they are doing, and they know how to create a beautifully filmed and well acted emotional scene. So yes, this was a tearjerker. *Sarcasm on*I found it very thoughtful of them to give us time to dry our tears, because after every emotional scene we got a silly stupid village people scene, that was just silly and stupid *Sarcasm off* I'm a bit fed up with those cliché village people and this very unfunny humor.
So yeah, it was worth my time for sure, but the revenge plot didn't interest me (I have seen something like this too often), the village people were annoying and not funny, the twins were cute, yes, but also rather bratty. In real life, those children would give me nightmares.
Well, this was the story about a strong woman. I'm glad such stories are told. I loved the son-mother dynamic, and I really liked the love story. Those two had a good chemistry, and their relationships seemed deep and genuine.
When the big secret about the twins was revealed, I was rather disappointed. I looked forward to the male lead discovering it, I looked even more forward to the mother discovering it - but there was not much of a reaction, especially from the mother. When the male and female lead got together, after he "came back" - that was also not very impactful.
I expected more. I thought my heart would beat faster, I would cry more. But yeah, it is what it is.
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