Viajero

This movie is currently available on some One World Alliance airlines. I watched it on a United Airlines flight. I found it to be a fairly good if imperfect film, worth watching to pass the time on a long flight. See my review for the details.

If this isn't horror, what is? It had all the classic elements of a horror story. Or is the problem that it also ads a little more character and plot development than your average western horror story?

A 7 would below average on MDL. Even with the weak ending, I would rate it higher than that.

I tend to agree. I was really enjoying this series right up until the end, which was way too abrupt, leaving out too many unanswered questions. I liked the way what started out as just another monster of the week series grew more and more complex as they gradually dropped one little revelation after another. Now we have to hope for a S2 so they can finish tying everything together. I hope they do because I really liked the characters, and the brother-sister dynamic in particular.

That can also often be a factor. But in this case, I watched both versions on long trans-Pacific flights and my mood probably was fairly similar. I think it was more the little details like that red armchair they picked up off a trash pile and struggled to get back into that first apartment, but then later ended up abandoning outside in the rain when they moved. That was like a replay from my own memories from my university years. Even the armchair looked similar.

Couldn't agree more. The movie meanders a bit too much as if they weren't sure what story that wanted to tell. But she was so good that I was still riveted until the end.

I watched it on a United Airlines flight. Other Star Alliance airlines may also carry it.

This is why my favorite Korean dating shows don't include any of these. EXchange, My Sibling's Romance, and Heart Pairing all do a much better job of balancing all these factors. They mostly avoid the models, gym rats, and influencers you get on Single's Inferno, but instead cast generally attractive "real" people with dating experience who just haven't found "the one" and mostly genuinely want to.

In case its of interest, rather than go into more details here, I've pulled all my reviews of dating shows together in one place where I think you can see better what I'm talking about:
https://kisskh.at/list/Lp6x27J4

Did we watch a different movie? She had no way of knowing he was married and had a kid until the phone call. They hadn't really updated each other on their lives yet. When she realised he had a family, she quickly left the hotel room rather than the obvious alternative of simply hiding in the bathroom. I don't see how you can accuse her of cheating. I also have trouble assuming he wanted to cheat, given that he made no mention or move to try to renew their relationship. Yes, he went looking for her when she ran out into a strange foreign city in the middle of the night, which was the only responsible thing to do. To me, their happenstance meeting simply allowed both of them closure on a relationship that both recognised had ended years earlier.

It's also now on all United Airlines flights.

Yet this version hit me emotionally much harder than the original. This was the first movie in months that had me holding back tears at the end, while Us and Them simply didn't reach me the same way. I think it comes down to the fact that though the overall storylines were similar, many of the details were changed and this allowed me to identify much more with the Korean characters because they went through things that I experienced myself while young. Furthermore, the Korean FL reminded me a lot of that ex-girlfriend .

I really wish they would just go all the way. Not because I'm into BL, but because these shows feature bromances that seem ridiculous to most straight men. No men I know (and I'm talking about in several different countries and cultures) behave that way even with their best friends. This is the kind of thing that took me right out of shows like Four Hands. And it isn't even as bad as shows like High School Return of a Gangster, which makes absolutely no sense unless the male leads are madly in love, except were supposed to believe that they are just buddies?

Maybe stories based on GL webtoons are a bit different. I'm speculating here, but this may be perhaps because (1) women can have very close loving even affectionate relationships that are platonic (as in Soulmates or 2521) making these stories more credible, or (2) they seem to get away with implying more directly when 2 women have a romantic relationship, as long as they are not explicit about it (as was the case in Jeongnyeon: The Star Is Born, where they don't even try to disguise that several women are in serious relationships, but simply don't say it out loud).

Part of the issue here may be that I'm simply not that into romcoms. I can enjoy a good one and have watched plenty, but they are not my favorite genre. Besides historical shows, I can also get into more realistic character based dramas, as well as the usual assortment of crime dramas, mysteries, action stories, and even some horror. This may be why my all-time favorite kdramas, besides historical, include series like My Mister, Flower of Evil, Moving, My Name, All of Us Are Dead, 2521, The Price of Confession, You and Everything Else, Vagabond, and Mother, alongside a few shows with stronger romance plots like It's Okay Not to Be Okay, Youth of May, Twinkling Watermelon, and Lovely Runner.

All these shows were released spread out between 2018 and 2025. What characterizes them is that they all have superior writing, directing and acting, with plots that considerably more complex and deeper than most earlier shows. Also, even when they are in genres popular in the west, they are told in ways that tend to be completely different and seem very Korean, at least to a non-Korean.

You might notice that I don't mention looks. I've long realized that I don't agree with South Korea's ridiculous standards of beauty. I actually often find that older generation at least as physically attractive as the latest generation with all its plastic surgery, etc. But I do find that not only are the men a lot less toxic, but the writing of female characters has improved greatly over the years. Many of the female characters in those earlier romcoms are downright embarrassing. This is true even when played by the same actress. For instance, I find Kong Hyo Jin's character in A Bona Fide Killer a million times more interesting and less annoying than her ridiculously whinny and childish character in The Master's Sun.

Where this is particularly noticeable is the writing of young women and teen girls. Take the sister in "Revenge of Others", the class president in ¨All of Us Are Dead¨, the teen daughter in ¨Moving¨, the transfer student in ¨Pyramid Game¨, and the female martial artist in "Study Group". These are all exceptionally well written complex, smart gutsy independent high school girls in recent k-dramas, who represent a complete paradigm shift from just a few years earlier when teen girls and young women were almost always portrayed as a stereotype - meek, innocent, and in need of the protection of a man.

The better kdramas from prior to the mid-2010's do offer a certain innocence and novelty, but I would argue that they were for the most part extremely formulaic, as well as being an inferior product overall in terms of production, writing, and acting. I agree Coffee Prince was one of the best shows of its era and was one of my early favorites, but when I rewatched it last year I couldn't help but realise that there are quite a large number of kdramas from more recent years that are flat out better.

With perhaps only a handful of exceptions, at this point the only shows from that older era that still hold up for me are some of the best long historical epics like Empress Ki, Queen Seondeok or Six Flying Dragons, simply because the Koreans stopped making series like those. It's the Chinese these days who make long historical epics, but only the very best of them match up to those old Korean classics. In fact, probably my favorite of all those long historical epics from either country is the one more recent Korean production, My Dearest.

I only realized this when I recently made a list of my favorite historical series and noticed that its full of older Korean shows and newer Chinese shows. You can see for yourself:

https://kisskh.at/list/3oKPJOn3

But that is the only genre for which this holds true for me

About half of my favorite Korean films have come out over the past decade, only a few of which were ever picked up by Netflix.

Anybody who think Netflix has ties to the current American government is nuts. Trump has done everything he can to screw them over. MAGA never stops criticising Netflix for being too woke. But think what you will. I'm not going to argue with a pod person whose mind has been taken over by baseless ridiculous conspiracy theories.

Netflix's goal is to make money. Period. That's it. The fact that they put money into TV and movie production all over the world, and that as a result production values have greatly improved in many countries to match Hollywood is just a bi-product of the business model they adopted once they started facing major competition in the U.S. steaming market and could no longer count on getting the most popular American shows.

There have been a lot of fantastic Korean movies released over the past 30 years. I've watched at least 50 of these movies and Korean New Wave Cinema is among my favorites. And guess what ... they include many of the same things that people say are westernising k-dramas. Go figure. I personally find most Netflix original k-dramas to be quite different than western dramas in the same genres. I always figured those differences reflected Korean culture, particularly since I can find almost the same distinct elements in Korean movies. But then again, if your preference is for Chinese fantasy, I doubt you would like most Korean dramas or movies, whether they are westernised or not.

Yet according to this article, Netflix only announced an official decision to renew the show on Oct. 19. The way this normally works, they would carry out extensive planning for possible future seasons before making the final decision to green light those seasons.

I'm not at all surprised.