07Ghost

Perhaps the most annoying aspect was the lack of proper, identifiable motivation. Simply put, why did most things happen? Why did Chen Li not get back in time with the medicine and did he not know that Xiao Zhi was about to leave? Maybe not, since that was also a mystery to the viewers and hardly even explained after he left. I read somewhere about the director explaining how Chen Li had to tend to his ailing father, so he couldn't return in time; that might have been enough of a reason had it been shown in the actual film, but it wasn't -- you can't reasonably expect viewers to make that up.

Crucially, there was no clear reason for the entire conflict: why did Chen Li hesitate? He was the one to approach Xiao Zhi and kept pushing closer and closer (the bath scene comes to mind), even going against the brother's explicit remarks about trying to "seduce" him, but as soon as they got separated from the island, we have to believe that Chen Li somehow got scared of his feelings. For no apparent reason. Even though he was clearly mature enough when he did all of that, since they were at an age to be helping teachers.

Just the same, the conflict concluded without anything truly happening. Not only did he get in contact with Xiao Zhi on his own, after the second time skip (which could indeed happen just because you want to reconnect with somebody), but he completely and simply accepted his feelings for Xiao Zhi without any explanation of what changed meanwhile. We didn't see him go through any kind of significant evolution, except for the (briefly shown) death of his father, which isn't enough to justify ending the main conflict in a film.

Viewed from this perspective, the story lacked so much substance. It was grand and emotional, spanning multiple years and different aspects of their lives, but turned to be, ultimately, pointless.

Quite disappointing. The cinematography, the cast and the overall idea are amazing. Even the soundtrack and acting excel in most ways. But everything else just feels average or below. I watched the film version, so I don't know how that compares to the series, yet there were substantial issues with pacing and character motivation.

Firstly, too much time is spent in repetitive, disjointed scenes just aimlessly fooling around, without any kind of anchor to glue them together and provide a coherent build-up of emotions. No sense of where everything was going. There should have been more exposition in the beginning, thus allowing the viewers to better understand the characters and truly care for what they were doing; meaningful dialogue was scarce and often way too cryptic for the everyday occasions it was used in. For what was essentially half the time, the characters simply jumped from place to place, in way too narrow settings (there were almost no shots portraying the general area they were in, such as the orchard or the house -- it always showed half a corner, just the pool, only the bed or the door etc. --, so it was difficult to get a sense of the place and therefore relate to the characters). This got marginally better towards the end, but still left unreasonably much for the viewers to fill in.

As to the plot and how it handled character motivation, this felt even more lackluster, but I will develop on that in a spoiler comment.

All in all, this could have been a cornerstone title for the genre, especially for its Chinese-speaking world. I even started watching with a hope to find something comparable to I Told Sunset About You. Unfortunately, while its heart was in the right place, the overall vibe matched and most technical aspects were of high quality, this couldn't make up for a story that felt rushed and full of holes.

The story is told non-linearly, which means that scenes are not in their chronological order; you must pick up on details from the setting to understand where they fit in the story. In short, there is only one male character, whose life as a North Korean defector starts by working in a gas station, where he meets a girl whom he likes, goes through the trouble of fleeing from the abusive owner, leaves her after not finding a suitable place for both of them and later, due to a lack of money, goes into prostitution; this is when he develops a second persona, called Hyun, and starts his online chat business, beginning with the labour office lady, experiencing shady video-making in public toilets, turning to his sugar daddy, getting an apartment to live in, angering said sugar daddy by going out with other clients after entertaining him for a reasonable time and, in the end, deciding to take his life. Joon and Hyun being the same person is reinforced by the fact that Hyun's journal (which upsets his sugar daddy) contains references to Joon and the girl, appearing on-screen as text in first-person, plus the sun-moon/light-darkness duality, as well as the twins who act as one person. The ending pretty much spells it out when Hyun first kisses Joon, clinging to his own life, then he "successfully" strangles Joon, falling unconscious. Hyun then reminisces of holding the girl's hands in her home (which was shown as happening to Joon) and imagines himself eating her kimchi soup. Finally, he is woken up by the coughing, realizes there is something worth living for (presumably the girl), manages to leave the prison-like apartment building, escapes from his nightly persona as Hyun and reclaims his true self, Joon, as the sun rises.

I consider this an intricate, well-thought-out movie, laid with subtle connections and a surprisingly coherent plot (if you last till the end). But too many scenes are unnecessarily long.

If you didn't understand what was happening, I wrote my interpretation in the comment below (HEAVY SPOILERS; basically the whole story).

I'm sorry, but this is just bad. Utterly disappointed given the praise it gets. There's neither a captivating plot (rather repetitive, but could've been overlooked had this been character-driven), nor any kind of psychological analysis of emotions/feelings (at the point where people show unrealistically little fear when in dangerous situations), nor emphasis over the survival aspect of having the world end (like worrying about resources, social organisation etc.). It's just a bit of everything that amounts to nothing interesting. No need for season 2 as there's no need for season 1.

Someday, I really hope to visit Tokyo and have enough time to grasp at least a fraction of Japanese culture!