MiyamotoMusashi

Man I feel disappointed and cheated, such a well crafted setup, high production value, extraordinary cinematography and then they ruin it by such a stupid ending that delegitimizes any sense of tragedy since it makes no sense whatsoever. In addition, the "love" story was not really empathetic and lacked credibility, it seemed more like a stockholm syndrome situation. Add to that that the real spy who inspired the story essentially never faltered, this leaves a very bad taste behind to be honest.
Anyway, Tang Wei is marvelous in this, it´s such a pity that she was blacklisted due to the sex scenes, which admittedly are explicit, but depending how you interpret them, are actually necessary, even in the explicit manner. Tony Leung delivers as usual, the supporting cast is ok.

Unfortunately, not more than 6/10 for me.

Not entirely true. Her resistance group was already known and investigated by the secret service without Yee´s knowledge, so they were ready to grab them any time, they were just not sure whether Yee was the target or was collaborating with them.
He only has influence over how she is treated but what happens to her is ordered by the Japanese and the collaborating Chinese government, and resistance fighters immediately got the death penalty.
Only thing Yee could do is give her a quick death and/or die with her.

I get what they were going for but the movie in the context presented does not make much sense. While the point the directors makes stays intact, things like that rather bother me.

6/10

Tree with deep roots is the most underrated one in that short list. That drama broke rating records in Korea, won the biggest drama award in its year and so forth, but is rated low 8s iirc here.

Sol Kyung-Gu is a huge star in Korea but the world, beyond at least cinephiles like I am, only recently got exposure to Korean films, primarily through the wave that Parasite started.

I think the train metaphor worked well on several layers. The most obvious meaning is a bit on the nose, I do not disagree, but further implications are really impactful, at least it were for me.

Regarding the end, it showed how sensitive and emotional the ML was, and probably even artistic. He wanted to be a photographer to take photos of flowers, smiled and flirted in a shy way, had fun singing, basically a kind and creative soul. But the historic events and just societal confines of South Korea basically took any humanity and sensitivity from him, and at the end even his economical prowess, so nothing was left.

Just from 2012 - 2014 that were critically acclaimed but have relatively low ratings here:
Tree with deep roots
Moon embracing the sun
Brain
Greatest Love
The Chaser
Can we get married
Equator Man
Secret Love Affair
A Wife´s Credentials
Good Doctor

Every year there are dramas that are immensely successful and/or critically acclaimed but are underrated here because they do not fit the preference of most users here.

There are almost as many 9+ movies as are dramas, but it is not the critically acclaimed ones, but the most emotionally manipulative ones. A lot of dramas that were critically acclaimed and got a lot of awards are tumbling around the lower 8s or high 7s.

Expecting realism from a drama, c´mon...

Alcoholism in general is highly glamorized in dramas. Maybe there are some but I don´t remember ever seeing a drama in which alcohol consumption was depicted as something dangerous or harmful.

Yeah be basically pinned it on his colleague and kept it a secret who Donglim is to team up with him to kill the president (which btw made not much sense to me)

Unless I have missed a deeper meaning that the ones I got, it´s a good movie, but for me the weakest of Bong Joon-Ho that I have seen.

They tried to identify Donglim by cross referencing who ever was in Tokyo in 82 and the other place in 83, and she found out that one of the aliases of Pyong-ho was the only name to have been at the two places, so she found out that he is Donglim,

This is a bad movie with high production value and good actors, especially as usual Jang Hyuk.
Nevertheless, the movie did not make much sense.

4/10

This was such a weird but fun movie, the rating does not do it justice compared to other movies.
The promo picture above does not fit the movie at all, it makes it seem like something completely different.
I recommend trying it if you want to see something unpredictable that tries something new more or less.

This was a pretty lackluster movie. I primarily watched it because I have seen that Jang Hyuk plays Lee Bang-Won in this film, and while he rocks the scenes he is in at least, he really just plays a side role. But it´s not because of that that the movie sucked, but the plot does not make much sense to be honest, and the supposed relationship between the leads is devoid of any chemistry and credibility.
But the production value and fight scenes were good + little bit of Jang Hyuk = 5/10

I watched this a long time ago and back then liked the message behind the movie very much. Recently I am going through Korean classics, so watched this again, I only remembered the broad strokes (that the guys were essentially friends) but forgot how heavy hitting the twists are, especially the one at the end.

10/10

Yeah, the real life implications and connection of the movie are really haunting.

This was a good movie, mostly carried by the script and Son Ye-Jin who is phenomenal.
The director made some interesting choices (clearly influenced by Park Chan-Wook who also wrote the script) but it did not work all the time, and sometimes made it needlessly more confusing without any reason to do so.

This movie was very good, great even until the last quarter of the movie which was spectacular from an action standpoint but did not make much sense if you think about it.
Anyway, considering this was Lee Jung-Jae´s debut as screenwriter and director, it makes you look forward to his future projects, definitely promising.
Btw, the amount of A-list actors who gave cameos and supported him are huge, I was definitely surprised.

8/10

I always love the discrepancy between K-Dramas and a big part of the K-movies. On one hand you have the extreme of 30 somethings who seemingly have never heard about sex to the other extreme of teenagers being trafficked as prostitutes...

Anyway, good movie. The storyline has been down thousands of times, but action-wise it is top notch. One notices that John Wick really has stimulated a lot of similar movies. Jang Hyuk as usual delivers.

7/10

As usual great movie by Park Chan-Wook, albeit not my favorite, probably not even top 5 of his movies for me. While it is woven into layers that is usual for his movies, I think the setting of the narrative has been done countless times already, albeit not exactly like this.
I just hope we do not have to wait another six years for his next movie but it´s not unlikely, especially considering he will direct an American tv show.

9/10