Ophanin

With friends like that, who needs enemies ?

Friends who betray each other for money, what a basic plot… and yet devilishly well executed, with every episode managing to surprise. With friends like that, who needs enemies ?

A dark comedy whose nastiness makes it particularly gripping. The main couple find themselves at the center of it all, despite themselves, and get through it only by making serious compromises. In the end, they are merely pawns of the rich, and they know it, so they act accordingly. You might think you’ll find a little empathy in the heiress, but that’s quickly taken away from you. What happens to her is horrific, but her reaction is just as unacceptable, and she never takes her friends’ financial problems seriously ; to her, three million is nothing, but to them it makes all the difference. The epilogue offers a bitter conclusion, a somewhat unsatisfying resolution, but at least all the pretences have been laid bare.

In the midst of it all, poor Da Rae, the unfortunate girl, suffers greatly. She is the one who has truly been betrayed in this story. And she is used as an excuse to justify the worst possible acts, even though she asks for nothing.

Shim Eun Kyung/Yo Na comes across as rather creepy and cold-hearted at first. You never quite know where you stand with her. A really, really good character, played brilliantly to make her believable.

And finally, well done to Ha Jung Woo/Ki Su Jong for that free latte. At last ! However, those four scenes where he imagines or dreams up things that aren’t actually happening : I declare them illegal and refuse to put up with them.

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Firstly : Why doesn't he wear gloves ?

Otherwise, at first I thought it was a good story, with everything mixed up together and very few details. But it quickly became tedious. You want to shake up certain characters who are deliberately withholding information for no reason other than to prevent the plot from moving forward. It's so absurd ! You can't understand why they keep quiet and make other people miserable.
Of course, they end up revealing the solution by crying over their fate, but they should cut their ties instead, you can't lie for years like that and get away with saying "it's for your own good", especially when it results in the death of a person (one of the best characters) that could have been avoided without all that mumbo jumbo. Ok, actually, that pissed me off. Don't ever do that again.

Besides, this 'psychometric' gift comes in very handy when you need it. What luck... On the other hand, their insistence on presenting people incapable of expressing emotions as dangerous people, I don't like that at all, being autistic and unable to do any masking.

Episode 7 : "being bisexual is unacceptable" ah really ? Well, that's embarrassing. Let's call the whole thing off, Park Jin-young !

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Highly improbable situations, but it's always good to steal from the rich, steal from these thieves. In reality, their little game doesn't work for a second because these rich people already talk to each other, and because their tiny world works by co-optation, it's impossible to integrate into it. Comrades, you will never be rich.

Park Min Young plays her character in such a chaotic way, because she is so devilishly manipulative, that you never know what to expect, and that's what keeps you watching the series despite its grotesque plot twists. She stresses me out a little with her frozen smile that says "checkmate".

Why isn't actress Kim Bo-ra playing the character named Kim Bo-ra ? If it was a reference, I didn't get it.

A "IQ of 167" is still not proof of intelligence. IQ has no scientific basis. Screenwriters : stop. Or else do your little IQ tests among yourselves. The fault lies with the Japanese author, obviously, because 'Confidence Queen' is a remake of 'The Confidence Man JP'. I didn't know that. It's the opposite of Park Min-young's previous K-drama, 'Marry My Husband'. (not seen)

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To tell the truth, I don't think I'm particularly fond of the police. This series reminds me of that with a certain acuity. Cops are detestable. We don't talk to them, we have nothing to say to them, we don't let them in, we haven't done anything wrong. They will always find something to make our lives miserable, so let's not make it easy for them. I was absolutely, totally, entirely on the side of this mother and her falsely mysterious sidekick. What poverty drives people to do, though... The theme is less about drugs than about the injustice of this world where being poor condemns you to death, where being honest makes you lose your job, where family only exists when everything is going well. The cycle of economic and social violence ensures that those at the bottom stay at the bottom.
The war on drugs is above all a war on the poor and minorities. And doctors who snitch to the police are no better. And come on, Eun-soo's boss goes in the bin with the rest. We give you a little power, you abuse it, you filthy bosses.

A solid series, albeit a little slow. Some scenes beat around the bush too much, and there's an overuse of the trick of cutting a scene dishonestly to make us believe something else. (I know what I mean)
The ending leaves a bitter taste. Punishing a character once was clearly not enough, they had to insist because, you see, drugs are bad, oh so bad, not good ! Bring on season 2, quickly. I'm in.

However, it's nice to see a male-female duo without any romantic tension. If you see one, you're part of the problem. (What nonsense I can spout)

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A series that seems feel-good at first, focusing on neighbours helping each other out. These mums are cool. It's a shame, though, that they try to make us believe that teachers don't see the bullying going on between their pupils and that they justify police murder too. (We're used to it) And then they portray criminals as crazy lunatics. Well, it doesn't even shock me anymore, I'm just fed up with it.

The investigations get tangled up and the humour makes a lot of very borderline things acceptable. The further we go, the darker it gets. So, there you have it, a good investigative K-drama despite all these nasty tirades that I address with virulence, waving my finger at the sky.

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The first few episodes are really repetitive, especially the part about not arriving at school on time... And the parallel between flying away unintentionally and Lee Jeong-Ha/Bong-seok's attraction to Go Youn-jung/Hui-soo is tiresome. It quickly becomes tedious. We get it, they have powers. Ok. And the heterosexual propaganda is exhausting. We're subjected to it all the time. A boy and a girl can just be friends, it's possible, it happens every day !

Some episodes are clearly just filler. 20, apparently too long for our screenwriter friends. So all these twists and turns in the form of flashbacks rather bored me, I have to say. I imagined it would be a "human" series, focusing on these two endearing students, but it veers off into a story involving North Korea, the CIA and who knows what else. It drags on. To be perfectly honest, I couldn't finish it. I'm more upset with myself for not liking this series, which seemed like such a good idea.

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In a restaurant, we see photos of Vivian Maier. That made me happy.

It's interesting to show how hellish it can be to be a public figure. You can't disappoint, you always have to react correctly, you can't have a bad day in front of your fans. The series focuses on the life of the singer, his lawyer and, to a lesser extent, the prosecutor. Ultimately, the murder investigation is just an excuse to discover these characters and how they deal with their situation. The revelation of the culprit comes in the penultimate episode, clumsily, very clumsily. In any case, we don't really care.

The strong point is that it doesn't try to absolve people of their responsibilities. On the other hand, seeing a fan and her idol end up together is not very healthy ! I didn't know that being a solicitor involved housing, driving and feeding your client.

Ep5 : the kdrama disease of having a serious accident at the end of an episode and waking up in hospital in perfect health at the beginning of the next. How many times are we going to be subjected to this before the great Revolution ? Anger is brewing among the crowds.

(I may have skipped parts of episodes, no one will ever know.)

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A Chinese drama where women call the shots. They run the most renowned tea production company and compete with each other for power while all the men seek to win their favour. The roles have truly been reversed.

The sets, costumes and editing are beautiful. It's standard for these kinds of productions. So I'm quite willing to believe that at one time in China, everyone was capable of the greatest physical feats in epic aerial combat. It was commonplace to fight to the death to win the heart of a noble woman, of course. I've just summarised a good third of the series. The plot doesn't make much sense, but that's okay... for a while, because you get tired of it. But above all, don't watch the episodes too quickly, as I did. Big mistake. Nothing and everything happens at the same time. I skipped episodes after a while, the compulsion to know the ending even when you've lost faith is serious, very serious. My behaviour is utterly scandalous.

But, although the show quickly loses steam, FL is brilliant. We want to follow her adventures. She never lets anyone fool her. She has a truly photogenic presence, always elegant and noble. The actress, Gulnezer Bextiyar or "Naza", is one of the very few Uyghur actresses. She plays a character who had potential but was not exploited sufficiently. That's why I gave up halfway through, I think. (And then 36 episodes of 50 minutes ? Let's calm down. Write less, write better. That's advice I should take myself, the chatterbox.)

Oh, and the final plot twists are so silly.

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The injustice perpetuated by Confucian society

A series about the injustice perpetuated by Confucian society, particularly in Korea. A scene in the early episodes makes this point quite clear. Furthermore, the authority figures are all, without exception, negative characters who stem from this hierarchy.

At times, the psychological and physical violence is unbearable. It’s terribly cathartic to watch. When you’re on the receiving end, all you can do is wait. Rebelling only leads to more violence. Speaking out is pointless. Nobody wants to listen to us. You learn that very quickly.
In this regard, the two disabled characters die, either by suicide or murder. It’s no scandal to anyone in the series. It could have been me. That’s what I take away from it.

The cult in this story is directly inspired by the JMS Church. I can say this with certainty because of the leader’s white tuxedos, a reference to the vile bastard who ran that utterly disgusting cult. People tried to escape and were beaten up in groups (as the series brutally depicts in episode 10) or, worse still, went missing. People reported it to the police for years, to no avail.

What sends a shiver down your spine is seeing just how pervasive the indoctrination is. Those vultures circling around people’s misfortune, and then that falsely humble and approachable leader. It doesn’t matter whether or not you believe the stories this bloke tells; it becomes the sole reason for his followers’ existence. You find yourself isolated. Those who watch over us are, above all, watching us. You convince yourself that it’s ridiculous to give up after having made so much progress, after having given so much, and you become the first spectator of your own show.

"Why don't you leave ?"

It’s an absolute nightmare. Sang-mi finds herself trapped in this cult. Leaving would mean abandoning her parents and losing them, along with the memories of her brother. And abandoning all these vulnerable, desperate people. Her father controls every aspect of her life ; both her real father and the cult leader.
Where the writing really shines is in the way it puts us on Sang-mi’s side. We’re trapped alongside her. She understands exactly what’s going on; she knows that this cult hastened her brother’s death and how everyone around her is manipulating her ; they’re using her mother against her. (Just like with her friend, the politician’s son. The parallel is brilliant) Sang-mi has no leverage; she owes her survival solely to the leader’s evil intentions towards her. It makes you want to scream when you see it. You want to shake the servile father. He is pathetic and hateful. I understand his background, but I don’t excuse him. Well, that’s what I thought at first, but after a while, I just wanted someone to finally put him out of action, because he’ll never come to his senses. We all need friends who tell us when we’ve gone too far, even if it hurts at the time. But there’s no point confronting fanatics; they lie, say we refuse to understand them, and so on and so forth. (As for the mother, we excuse her; she’s been put in a straitjacket. Like so many people who die in psychiatric hospitals amid general indifference)

It’s one of the hardest scenes to watch, when the protagonists try to reason with the cult members, the police or the politicians, and it backfires on them. There’s absolutely no point in talking to these people; they have no interest in changing. They’re there because it suits them, and they want it to continue. It destroys everyone, but these people either put up with it or profit from it. (Time for a name drop: 'Discours de la Servitude Volontaire' (A Treatise on Voluntary Servitude). The only way to abolish this is to abolish hierarchy, exploitation and dependency.)

"In this world what's real and what's false are not different. So don't try so hard to distinguish the real from the false."

A series that makes you weep with rage and sadness.
Nothing is straightforward. It’s heart-wrenching. Because it’s extremely well written and performed. The parallel between the prison-like conditions within the cult and the outside world is explored with great insight. The thirst for power and obedience. Confucian principles being used to serve scum.
The three-year time jump allows us to explore these characters in greater depth and become even more invested in them. A modern series would have skipped this first part.
It’s touching to see how hard it is for this group of boys to express their feelings.
A focus on class-based violence. The subtleties of power dynamics between people. And in friendships, depending on whether you’re poor or from the capital. Depending on the hierarchy within the cult. Honestly, the writing in this series is brilliant.

Naturally, those bloody [redacted] cops are no help at all to the victims. They’re only too happy to hand them back to their tormentors. Just like it was with the JMS Church, for that matter. They’re completely in the pocket of politicians and the cult. Very realistic. Right, they pull the ‘cops suddenly spring into action’ trick in episode 12... but the bloke interrogates the victim with her tormentors in the room. Nice work. And the young female cop makes the same daft mistake of going to confront the leader at his home on the basis of: nothing against him. Great. Very helpful.

Jeon Yeo-Bin, in one of her first roles. Already displaying great subtlety in a challenging part where she must appear to believe in her faith whilst simultaneously casting doubt on it, in order to keep her true motives hidden.

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Same director as Flower of Evil, and it suffers from the same flaws. The show repeats the identical information far too often (and overuses flashbacks) without adding anything meaningful to the plot. And so we end up with a hollow, boring Episode 8, while Episode 6 (packed with unexpected twists) is, on the other hand, particularly cool. Visually, it's a well-made TV production, with some good shots here and there, but they don't necessarily serve the narrative, they seem a bit pointless.

However, for quite a while, you find yourself wondering who's in charge of these people. Who decides on these contracts ? Why does executing strangers pose no moral dilemma for them ? These are aspects of the story we should know right away, but we aren't given them ; so they must come up later to shake up the main plot, right ? No. Of course not, we’ll never know. It's just like that, period. Who cares about understanding the logic of this world ? And in the end, they just go back to their assassination business as if nothing happened. The whole thing suffers from a lack of lore and world-building. I can't understand why everybody seem to accept this poor writing. Anyway.

Just like in Flower of Evil, the show plays on the closeness between two characters who are searching for each other and think they know one another. And things don't really move forward, or move very slowly. We're just not given the information. It was done well enough that I binge-watched the series. (Skipping tons of pointless scenes, of course. Especially the ones with the cops ! Please get those stupid characters out of your shows.) The intense stress I'm navigating due to personal problems has greatly contributed to this quick viewing.

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Contrary to what the poster suggests, it's not about domestic violence, and none of that is actually depicted. I don't understand why they chose this illustration. (which makes me uncomfortable, I admit)

A series about the insidious power dynamics in South Korea. This surgeon should be at the top of the social ladder, yet finds himself crushed by his stepfather, the police (yet another bunch of useless idiots, as is so often the case in K-dramas), and a kidnapper. He is brought back down to his social origins : his fatherless childhood and his education on a scholarship.
In the end, who were the real villains of the story ? Those doctors who were so full of themselves. I'd say: realistic.

The plot unfolds smoothly throughout the first two-thirds of the series. There’s a twist in every episode. We can overlook the somewhat inconsistent acting. However, the ending drags on unnecessarily; we already know all the details, yet they keep rehashing them.

In this kind of story, you need a great antagonist. And at first, he certainly is one, odious and incredibly annoying. It works really well because we know nothing about him, and his motivations seem absurd. His wife, who's involved in the scheme (and whom we'd figured out long in advance), is just as despicable. And the series should have stuck with that instead of turning everything upside down the way it does. What a huge waste ! and it creates a major plot hole. In the end, they just abandon their entire backstory ; it doesn't make sense for even a second. Which brings me to my final point : "Some scenes were generated by AI."

No way. Isn't this nonsense going to end soon ? I don't want to see this. This year, it's a party at AIgen. Don't you know how to film anymore ? Don't you have a production crew anymore ? No actors left ? Where's your damn dignity ? This has to stop. Don't spit in our faces like that. Stop ruining everything with your death machines.

I suspect that at least part of the script was generated by these chatbots. Between the inconsistencies that ruin the series towards the end, and episode 8 throwing in flashbacks of scenes we've just seen… Strange. Very strange. Or is it just that awful opening sequence ? We're not sure anymore, but we're fed up with it, that's for sure !

Lee Seol delivers a particularly intense performance. And this AIgen nonsense insults her involvement as a performer.

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First of all: imitating Silvestri's music for Back to the Future wasn't essential. That little arpeggio annoyed me.

That said, it takes its time at the beginning, a little too much. Probably to show that the time travel thing isn't that central. But neither is the music, since everyone plays superbly without making the slightest effort. It's borderline genetic...

However, I demand a moratorium on characters travelling into the past who are surprised that people don't know their future and get lost in pointless misunderstandings. People have been sentenced to death for less.
Another thing: the fact that one man's affection for another is ridiculed for being gay, I think that's pretty lame and spoils the relationship between the two characters. (a son and his young father, no less).

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade"
Personally, I'd rather wonder why I'm stuck in a remake of It's a Wonderful Life. In short, the cast is excellent but the story doesn't move forward enough for me to be carried away with it and that disappoints me, unfortunately.

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