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The leads got shortchanged
Shin Min Ah absolutely shines as Son Hae Yeong who in the hands of another actor would probably be a very misunderstood character. I love her range from being organically cute without any over acting like in the scene she's munching away on the kimbap with her chair pushed back out view in the car and does her little moo to breaking my heart when she confronts the pain that her parents caused her. Genuine foster parents are very important, but I agree with the advice for people considering fostering that if their biological children can't handle it well then fostering is not a good fit for their household. Hae Yeong was just a child who still needed to be cared for and they put their own needs to be saints above their daughter. It also hurt her every time someone who became family would leave her. All she wanted was a stable homelife and to be loved in return, she doesn't even hate the foster kids. She fiercely loves the sisters that came back and stayed. Sadly the show also put the happiness of all the side characters above Hae Yeong.I loath all the side pairings which also has the worst characters Gyu Hyun and U Jae, both of whom are scumbags who abused Hae Yeong in a professional setting with Gyu Hyun the creep who both spammed Ja Yeon with hate comments as well as making his secretary do it then demoting Hae Yeong out of spite because she's married to his father's extramarital child and U Jae who dumped her to marry up, creepily stalked her after he's married, and stole her work and keeps failing upward. It's so much worse that the show chickens out and makes it that Gyu Hyun did not write the worst hate comment, they don't even let his character growth count for anything. He also never rectified what he did to Hae Yeong. He should have given her all the money she wanted for her start-up as compensation. The lip service to the polyamory storyline ends in the most heteronormative way with Hee Sung marrying the one guy and having the child instead of getting an abortion and being the independent person she wanted to be.
I did enjoy Hae Yeong and Ji Uk's romance. He knew who she was, but truly got to know here as they gradually built up their rapport through their interactions at the mini-mart and supporting her schemes. I also like how their first meeting made sense because it's her house that he was staying at and was trying to walk by to avoid her while she was contemplating smoking for the first time and he just so happened to have a lighter which foreshadowed their future as co-schemers turned lovers. He actually looked better with his longer hair, it frames his face very nicely. Ji Uk's story was also swallowed up by the annoying side characters. I would rather see his friendship and brotherly/fatherly relationship develop with that guy that was formerly the Bok family secretary and settle his angst with his birthmother. Hae Yeong and Ji Uk deserved their fantasy ending being happy in love, snuggling with their cat Baby and her with a successful business venture instead of ending on a kiss after reuniting post a long separation.
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No sugarcoating, just pure grey
It's great to see a drama that understands the focus of what makes a fascinating drama is the characters and it's a real shame that there is no proper subtitles yet as of this writing for this twisty thriller that's a meditation on the desperation to do whatever it takes to survive and to claw a sense of relief from poverty/abuse/neglect/illness/etc that is being faced. It's kudos to the writing and performances that the main characters can illicit both sympathy and disgust for their selfish yet understandable actions through the lens of their individual needs.I felt so bad for Ho Su who felt cared for by the person who wanted to kill him and betrayed him when she saved him, that little bit of kindness, even knowing it was self serving to save her sister, was such an ocean to him that he entrusted his most precious information, his mother's location to him and she tragically caused her death. He himself has caused so many deaths with his drug cookies, but his folly of humanity, of wanting love, connection, and trust was pitiable.
It was also so sad that Soo Young's wish is is what she's living by proxy with the facade she as Eun So, the senior year she never had, school, friends, dating, looking forward to university without the baggage of her broken family and needing to raise her sister while being barely older herself. Her photobooth scene with Jin Woo and neither of them knowing what to do was so funny. As Eun So, she showed that she is resourceful in using the connections of various cookie customers to get information and creatively get out of situations. It shows what potential she could have had.
There are no saints in this story, but everyone is a protagonist of their own. There is a high death count and the show is not afraid to make the characters to explore what lines they will cross to get their objectives and the fallout of the decisions. It's kind of funny Ho Su and Sung Pil kept coming back from assumed death. The end seems to set up for a possible continuation. I hope that this drama will get proper subtitles either from a kind translator or from a streaming service that will pick up the distribution for it.
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Queen of endless villain meetings
The drama boasts an exorbitant runtime that's around 90 minutes per each of it's 16 episodes but it's filled with constant meetings of the villains planning, enacting, or going over what they did for their schemes instead of strengthening the relationships of the characters, the most important one being the main pair Hae In and Hyun Woo. Their chemistry really fluctuated as to when the writing really understood them as characters with history, which the scenes when they are at odds at each other capitalized the most well on, giving them pathos informed by their shared traumas, whereas it's the weakest in the romantic sections where the writing and direction portrays them like teenagers dating for the first time rather than estranged spouses whose years of resentment (that lead to Hyun Woo to the point of celebrating the news of Hae In's terminal illness) stemmed from shared overwhelming grief over a miscarriage and miscommunication. There are moments where their current romance reflects on moments in their dating past that gives their current relationship a bit more depth, but otherwise there is this astronomical void that is never reconciled so Hae In and Hyun Woo falling in love again, all the sweet scenes, and emotional declarations feels hollow. It doesn't matter if they kept meeting each other throughout their childhood into their adulthood and elderly Hyun Woo is the one visiting her grave in Germany after she has passed from old age in the future if the biggest obstacles that utterly destroyed their love for each other is never addressed properly.The most affecting relationship of the show is Soo Cheol and Da Hye. Soo Cheol is a comically petulant man child who can't do anything right, but he understands that he's been sheltered and stunted by his parents and wants to step up to be a good husband and father and he absolutely is. His pure unconditional love and acceptance for his wife and child even after he's discovered that Da Hye had scammed him and he's not the biological father of his child and every moment that he will do whatever it takes to protect them are the most powerful emotional parts of the show. The key moments are Soo Cheol waiting endlessly until Da Hye logs in to the game not to confront her, but to send her their son's shot records, not allowing his parents to speak down to his wife, learning to ride a bicycle so he can teach his son, learning to take hits and to box to protect his wife, calling her over the lost and found speaker, him choosing to recontextualize her confessions of picking on him when they were little in the sweetest way, and waiting for her release from prison. It's so sweet the both of them share a genuine enjoyment of gaming together. We get to see Da Hye have very good knife skills, chopping up copious amounts of vegetables swiftly. It would have been nice if we could have seen Da Hye and Soo Cheol work together for a business for themselves or something instead of the endless villain meeting scenes.
Kim Soo Hyun did a good job portraying Hyun Woo from his sweet vulnerable side to his cold combative side. Kim Ji Won's Hae In was most effective as the past version where she manages to be balance being cocky and romantic in a charming way. None of Hae In's supposedly comedic moments hit as funny in the current day portions. Hyun Woo's friendship with Yang Gi and the lawyer crew as well as Secretary Na being the closest thing to a best friend that Hae In has were also enjoyable. It would have been nice seeing Hae In explore her friendship with Secretary Na some more. It was trippy to see Sebastian Roche show up as one of the German doctors and seeing the German nurse station where they gossip about the situation, filmed in that specific kdrama style. Hae In's rare brain tumor being magically healed with no resulting issues other activating an amnesia plotline is also another wasted opportunity in the writing. There's a lot of potential in this drama, it's a shame that they couldn't edit the show down and focus in the writing stage to the more important parts to keep a good momentum and give more substance to the story of the main leads recovering from their broken relationship.
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Weirdly transphobic
The first episode is the strongest being very atmospheric with nice cinematography and color grading that isn't a lazy gray tone that the other episodes do. The isolation and growing fear is very palpable and the vibes is a mix of psychological and supernatural. It reminds me of a Junji Ito story that also had to do with peeping eyes and being spied on.The final episode is straight up Backrooms: Korea with the newbie security guard getting lost in ASync and everything. That other security guy working there didn't try very hard to warn her, though she most definitely wouldn't have believed him anyways. Poor newbie. Kdramas don't do backdoor pilots, but this certainly looks like a backdoor pilot of a kdrama if such a thing existed lol.
The home shopping story and the convenience store stories were about not taking weird jobs no matter how much money is offered. Besides that as a common theme, multiple times the episode monster is a guy wearing women's clothes and make up. That transphobia is really outdated and really telling of the prejudice from the production.
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Sweet first love fantasy romance
I really appreciate the creature design for the ghosts, looking appropriately creepy. That's not an easy thing to pin down for either eastern nor western shows. I also like that Seong A's feelings for Gyeon U is validated as a genuine connection forms between them. His looks got her attention, but his personality and kindness towards others is what made her fall for him. They are both skilled in their respective specialties and save each other. Their romance is formed organically and they're cute together. Speaking of cute, Seong A has a very nice collection of sleepwear that makes her look like a pretty doll. A lot of the edgier outfits Bong Su prefers that seemed to be implied to be tacky looked great on her too. There is a whole implied plotline of Bong Su really connecting with his own fem side there as her look was complete with hair and make up done as well, which is all Bong Su. I like that Seong A learns to find more compassionate ways to deal with exorcisms. Their respective friendships with Ji Ho is mostly nice too. He's the one that helps them connect with the regular world of high school and I'm really glad he learns to let go of his one sided crush for his own sake. I really liked the reveal of Seong A's awful childhood and her wanting to live as a normal student was helped by Ji Ho and Gyeong U deepens his understanding of her through knowing this as well. Seong A's familial relationship with her adopted mother is really lovely as well.Bong Su turning out to be a younger teen/pre-teen who also has a big ol crush on Seong A was a good twist in turning into a dynamic that's different than usual. He was a child spirit that died a traumatic death and used by Yeom Hwa for her own ends and once he's able to communicate in Gyeon U's body, it's immediately clear he does not have the same objectives as Yeom Hwa. His being unable to recall his name until Gyeon U was able to find it deep in Bong Su's psyche was also trauma based. I'm glad that he's able to move on at the end. That lady is the worst. I understand her grief for her child, but her utterly selfish actions throughout the years was unforgivable. She's straight up a prolific serial killer, but that's entirely ignored at the conclusion of the series. I really hate how she refused to let Gyeon U heal in his own way from her many years of psychologically and physically abusing him by getting to know her in a tiny way as a human being, just to know her real name. She is the worst and needed some bigger karmic punishment or had to do something bigger to make up for her years of evil actions instead of having the consequences of her actions canceled out by the people who cares about her. At least go to jail or something. The shaman Do Ryeong was a chaos agent helping everyone on all sides, but he wasn't doing it out of malice though his actions also enabled a lot of deaths.
Despite the really glaring omission of properly dealing with Yeom Hwa, the overall series was a good watch.
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Dance Challengers
The concept suggested by film trailer is two rival professional dancers falling for each other through teaching each other their respective dance genre specialties, but that's not what it delivers. The film is the most fascinating when exploring the psychology and athleticism of competitive dancers like when Suguki poses Suzuki in the female dancer positions to illustrate the grueling pain of dancing for hours and hours in heels in order to make him understand he needs to be supportive while leading his dance partner and the chilling scene where Suguki who everyone admires as the dancing gentleman cruelly puppets his near catatonic from ptsd shock dance partner by shouting instructions to get her through the competition. The movie fails to deliver on romantic tension or any feelings of yearning and longing outside of Suguki's yearning to finally be champion. Although Suguki is the one that initiates them working together and later to make out on the train, he never shows any kind of attraction or feeling for Suzuki aside from the flashback where it's revealed that he cried from the overwhelming feeling of inspiration when he first saw Suzuki dance. Suguki only loves dancing, he doesn't really care about any human being for themselves. Even his ex girlfriend that left him for another dancer, he just really liked how she danced with him. In the end he embraces his love of dancing for the sake of dancing rather than to be champion where he's not favored by the judges for whatever arbitrary reason by the slimmest margins though he's obviously at the top of the game, with Suzuki that he enjoys dancing with. Like how in Challengers everything is about tennis and tennis is about sex, here everything is about dance and dance is the sex. If this was how it was advertised, then perhaps it would be less disappointing in the romance department.Was this review helpful to you?
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Cultural identity, Scars of colonial trauma, and Globalization
It's always refreshing to see horror films that aren't based around the Christian frame work because everyone is influenced by the same Hollywood movies and western colonization. It's an even more impressive feat considering the director himself is Christian also. I really enjoy that the film is rooted in cultural knowledge that specifically the Korean audiences would be familiar with and doesn't do any exposition to handhold international audiences, because it doesn't have to. I see so many reviews that are so entitled to being catered to. There's a lot of cross cultural motifs in the film perhaps alluding to the past unease of forced mixing of cultures during the wartime versus the modern world where there are cultural exchanges through globalization with various soft powers. The cursed rich family hiring the shaman are Korean American, their ancestor unfortunately worked with the colonial Japanese military, and the geomancer's daughter marrying a German husband, even the Christian character Young Geun who assists in the geomancy and the shamanic rituals and does Christian prayers for his cohort who had been attacked by a Japanese curse demon.The film opens with the shaman Hwa Rim being spoke to in Japanese by an Asian flight attendant on a flight of different ethnicities sitting around them. While Hwa Rim responds to the attendant's question in perfect Japanese, she also clarifies that she's Korean. Her cultural identity is important to her. She and her shaman assistant Bong Gil travel to St. Joseph's hospital to assess baby Joseph who is the latest first born son or remaining son afflicted of the family curse. St. Joseph is the earth father of Jesus, so Joseph carries the theme of the patrilineage. Hwa Rim clocks that the troubles stem from the grandfather who the characters later discovered the big family secret is that he was a high ranking officer who worked for the Colonial Japanese during that era, which is how recent it still is in the historical timeframe. Aside from weapons and atrocities, there was Japanization to force Koreans to remove their culture. The iron stakes refers to an urban legend that the Colonial Japanese installed them in specific places to break the spirit of the Korean people. No matter how loyal the grandfather was to the occupiers, they used him even in death for their scheme to protect the giant demon version of the iron stake made from a big sword and different pieces of bodies. His nameless, abandoned grave, turning him into an aggressive spirt that murders his own bloodline. The sparing visions of the ghost was more effective than dancing his tango loving daughter in law to death which was pretty silly. The ghost learned human technology really fast, using the phone to fool his grandson into ignoring the actual Sang Deok at the door. That's kind of silly, but points for flipping the script on the door banging being from the actual Sang Deok. They make sure to show that they had no choice, but to cremate the body on a rainy day to save baby Joseph, and so the guy who worked for the Japanese Colonial power will not have a good afterlife.
The cgi foxes could have been done better, but the human headed snake that screams was an effective creepy design, as was the reveal there is a vertical grave underneath the grandfather, and the giant demon shogun that feasts on humans that emerges from it. It was clever to have Geomancer Sang Deok's explanation about how his field revolves around the elements of wood, metal, fire, air, and water come back around by using wood and his own blood in place of water to defeat the monster comprised of metal and fire. Hwa Rim's fluent Japanese implied to be possibly related to her shamanism field requiring at least some knowledge of the shamanism from there with Japanese ghosts behaving differently on the danger scale, comes in clutch to understand what the shogun says and wants. Bong Gil manages to survive his encounter with the shogun by being covered mostly in tattoos of the Buddhist script, leaving the demon only being able to stab the liver area which was an unfortunate blank spot. Hwa Rim realizing this leads to a funny scene where she, Sang Deok, and Young Geun are covered in temporary tattoos of the Buddhist script while having to speak to the traffic controller at a stop to go back into the mountain area. The rag tag team defeat the evil, but they are still are still affected by their experiences, similar to how South Korean is still affected by what had happened to the country during the colonial rule. The team is bonded though surviving the trauma and Sang Deok incorporates them into his new blended family along with his German son in law in the the big family photo.
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A fun, at times silly and at times a bit spicy harem drama
The fantasy drama consists of bite sized episodes of well worn tropes that doesn't break the mold, but is done in an entertaining way. The main character who has lived over 1000 loops of life has maxed out his skill tree and becomes the ultimate business strategist, suave fighter guy that women of all ages become attracted to despite his physical body still being a teenager. There is a fine line between confident and cool vs arrogant and annoying, and the actor manages to keep the show in the former which makes it a fun watch as he competence porns his way through most of the situations . The show actually manages some actual spicy chemistry moments between him and certain female leads. The story ends very abruptly though like there would be a next episode even though all the listed episodes has been aired. I hope there is another season to continue and finish out the story.Was this review helpful to you?
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Encapsulates the best kind of kdrama feelilngs
I really enjoy the lead characters and their journeys individually and together as friends and as a couple. The conceit of the gaming mechanics guides them to grow their relationship organically. I really like how though there are general goals and issues to resolve, it's still up to Myung Ha how he proceeds and how he treats Yeo Woon and everyone else. It's so refreshing to see the two actually spend time as a couple and that they have the tasteful amount of kisses and physical intimacy. The handholding is always so warm and cute.The opening episodes while Myung Ha is learning the ropes of his situation are so hilarious and I love how the stakes are tangible and that's what drives the angst rather than ridiculous misunderstandings that a lot of other stories drag out the story with, no matter the run time. I really like how the internal lore explains the situation that Myung Ha is in as well. I love how the ending lets both Yeo Woon and Myung Ha make their own choices, such a lovely ending of second chances to live life with love, romantic, platonic, and familial.
The show has very nice editing, sound, lighting, and cinematography, being cinematic without being distractingly ostentatious. The show definitely makes the best use of it's probably small budget. At 8 episodes and half hour runtime, the show makes use of every second and is streamlined to all the most important parts of the storytelling. This does mean only lightly delving into the side characters and the stalker subplot, but it doesn't detract from the story at all. I'm here for the main characters and there is enough character interactions with the others to build the world.
The pacing is fantastic and the developments makes it very easy to binge like all the best of kdramas are. Definitely worth a watch for anyone in search of a good drama.
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Bait and switch premise
The show has a brilliant visual and romantic chemistry match up with Victoria and Song Wei Long as He Fan Xing and Yuan Song, but their relationship is basically relegated to being an afterthought side story that also has to share time with a litany of various side stories and you wouldn't even know Song Wei Long is the male lead as his screen time is more like that of a supporting role while a whole other character is treated like the male lead and is the one that spends most of the time with the female lead. I hope Victoria and Song Wei Long will star in different drama thatdoes legitimately feature both of them as the actual leading screen partners throughout the whole show.
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Vibe killed by overlong episodes and inflated runtime
Bae Seok Ryu and Choi Seung Hyo are played by very pretty people, but attractiveness alone is not enough to keep the sizzle going for these characters. Their lack of romance had been drawn out for decades already up to the point the show starts and continued to drag on for weeks and weeks of the 80 something minute episodes. They don't have the type of relationship with any kind of spice or sweetness to sustain interest for them as potential couple for that long. In the meanwhile, it's the family and family friendship lives that are explored in depth and the emotions of those storylines overshadows and engulfs all the screen time. It's relatable, but still ill balanced to the detriment of what should be the core relationship of the show. I do give the show props for the very believable reason to hide their relationship being their loving, but suffocatingly nosy collective family that will keep them on such a close watch and infantilized that they can't actually function as a couple of consenting adults. The second couple didn't take that long to get together, but they suffer from the very odd decision the show made to introduce them in a weird scene where the hot, amazing, adventurous, confident paramedic Jung Mo Eum grabs a drink from the shop freezer like a normal person only to have it yanked in her hand by the reporter guy who felt entirely entitled to take a drink out of a woman's hand when she already took it first fair and square. It's nonsensical and the show builds him up as a amazing guy that would help divert traffic for the ambulance and raises his niece who is the sole survivor of his entire family dying in an accident, but that kind of rude behavior is just too off putting to over look and I want Mo Eum to just keep going on her adventures rather than to obsess about that weirdo no matter how otherwise virtuous he seems. Let her be free.Was this review helpful to you?
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Another exploitative teen drama
This drama has explicit, gratuitous, graphic sex scenes of characters that are supposed to be minors, so it exploits the image of school girls in the guise of illuminating issues that the oppressed students face. Similar to Euphoria, it's pretty unnecessary to show so much, especially what the teacher does to that student. Also, that relationship only ends when the student finds out he has a fiancé rather than because he's a 30 year old teacher and she's a high schooler. The show doesn't draw the line between sexualizing minors and championing the youths be allowed to explore their sexuality. I do find it interesting that the main character challenges the rules of a private school that are not beholden to the government oversight that public schools are. It's basically instituting abstinence only, specifically for cis hetero students under the language of "no dating." The issue is that students will do it any way without any knowledge of contraception or protection against STDs. The ban only makes sex seem even more important in the kid's minds as the ultimate thing they can do to show how they feel about each other, like what happens to the main characters. As well as turning it into a police state making students report each other, even when they are outside of school grounds. Expulsions won't protect the girls. It was unpleasant to see some of the narcs just get away with ruining another classmate's life. The lesbian character should have apologized to both of the gay students she outed just because they weren't expelled due to homophobia excluding them from the abstinence no dating ban. Stalker incel Kanda doesn't even apologize to Ichika. It's not clear if she knows he narced on her as LK. Ryogo knows he narced and that he likes Ichika. Dude just ignores all the red flags of that guy obsessed with his girlfriend. Ms. Shinoda is really, borderline indulging the affections of the high schooler infatuated with her. It's unclear if she quit or got fired for testifying, but it's probably good she left that kid's orbit though she was the best faculty member on that campus. The school is such a messed up situation that Ichika's extortion scheme in a twisted way undermines the narcs that turned people in, and is helpful to the students reported a chance to buy their way out of being reported since Ichicka actually deletes the photos from the report site. Her mom is indeed trying her best and she is also a victim of her ex-husband, but still her daughter is totally also being harassed daily by loansharks, she can't really say she's not raising her daughter in this kind of desperate situation and at least she realizes that she's also a bit part of the problem having her daughter go to a private school when it's difficult to pull together the funds for it to begin with. The loanshark issue kind of just randomly disappeared with the ex popping up to take care of it. Ichika carried so much of it. It's also weird that all the high schoolers would turn over their phone to the faculty to look through. These kids need to learn to put passwords on their phone and passwords that are not fingerprint or face recognition and turn off the phone to be safe too. Also don't admit to anything. The rich kids should have lawyered up.Was this review helpful to you?
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Dating Game
The concept of an extremely advanced holodeck-esque dating simulation subscription game in the modern capitalistic society is the hook of the series as well as the most interesting part though this being a light rom-com rather than Black Mirror means the surrounding ethical implications are on the periphery, maybe even paid lip service to, but sadly not explored. The female lead Mi Rae knows that the pricing tiers are exploitative, but rationalizes herself into subscribing anyways.Like anything, you can do so with your free will and it won't be unhealthy if you can set boundaries for yourself, but with all the very real psychosis triggered in real life by relying on an disembodied chatbot, an utterly realistic one that's virtually undistinguishable from real life is the slipperiest of slopes. The virtual boyfriend Eun Ho was the most realistic of the bunch, rebuffing the player enough as a simulacrum of sentience and they way he's emotionally upset when the player wants to leave or end subscription is so insidious. The realistic food which includes taste and texture sounds amazing, but I could see how it may be misused as a replacement for actually eating. There's a lot of pit falls and perhaps if this game really did exist in the real world, the solution it would use would be similar to the ones printed on cigarettes with warnings about potential triggers for mental health issues. It was fun how Mi Rae's friend Ji Yeon speed runs the game, a spin off showing exactly how she solves all 901 boyfriends would be amazing.
Gyeong Nam is neurodivergent coded and Seo In Guk plays the subtle personality differences between Gyeong Nam and his virtual counterpart Yeong Il very well, easily differentiating them beyond hair color, glasses, and fashion. He and Jisoo as Gyeong Nam and Mi Rae doesn't have fiery chemistry, but the writing is understandable enough as to why the characters would be drawn to each other. Jisoo's acting is serviceable, she just hasn't found that break through to the next level yet. It's not as noticeable a lot of the times because Gyeong Nam has a low key personality, but in the scenes when those emotions come through, their acting levels are pointedly night and day. The author Yun Song fully prefers to keep her month to month subscription game boyfriend which the show presents as a happy ending for her without comment or caveats. Mi Rae lets go of her customized virtual boyfriend to be with her real life dream man. It's kind of weird the show wants it both ways instead of having a strong stance even as a romcom. They seem afraid to be alienating the future virtual AI boyfriend having audience.
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Needed to be blessed from romance
The supernatural mystery mass murder case itself was a fascinating hook with it being interesting to see how inspector Singha investigates and reconciles the evidence and facts of the case in a way that would be acceptable in the eyes of the law as his investigation team is haunted by an aggressive ghost.Pavel is the strongest actor of the bunch by leaps and bounds as Singha, but the actors who play Thup, Sey, and Darin are all incredibly miscast and out of place in this particular story. The romance plots are the worst pacing hog as none of the pairings have even an ounce of chemistry and made all the worst being played by actors with the weakest acting, completely lacking the range to handle to serious tone of the series. Thup is played is like a child in a grown man's body and sadly that's on the actor Pooh. He's unable to be versatile in portraying a character different than his previous role and can only portray a character that always acts cutesy and petulant. It is a shame, because the character has a lot of interesting potential in the hands of someone with more capable acting abilities. Sey and Darin being miserable ex's are also annoyingly childish and worst utterly uninteresting with neither of the actors being able to bring any charisma to the scenes. They are nowhere near nuanced enough to be a foil to Singha and King's actually interesting complicated fallout from being both professional partners and private situation ship, which organically would be the relationship that most makes sense to be explored by the story. 99 percent of the Sey and Darin screen time does nothing to further the story.
The investigation staff being targeted by the ghost would be a lot more engaging if the story spent more time building their importance as a team outside of just the soulless romances. It's also more interesting that that King also has a dueling motivations between wanting to please his corrupt father and wanting to be a legitimate investigator on his own merits alongside Singha. I hope to see Pavel in lead acting roles outside of the ones contractually mandated to play all his bl love interests.
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Real life Noona Romance
I normally an not a reality show watcher, but from the first episode the immediate spark between Bonhee and Mujin was captivating and undeniable. I just had to keep watching to see what's going on with them. They were the most interesting the entire time.It's so fascinating that despite them being the couple with the biggest age difference being 12 years. they were very much of the same mindset of coming into this seriously looking for someone to date with marriage in mind. When they went on that date and kept saying they wanting to hiking at these specific high level difficulty places with their husband or wife respectively and then made matching rings, they were were so on the same page. I haven't gotten to see the special episode, I hope everything works out for them.
It's nice for Yeong Gyeong and Hyeon Jun to end up together too. Him missing taking care of her is so sweet. I think what's important in any relationship regardless of the age difference between the two adult people is maturity and both sides have it.
So Hyun is so lively and pretty, she deserves so much better than Sang Hyeon who is so wishy washy and I don't know if it's an editing thing, but he was clearly extremely late to the meeting spot to the point that she was leaving, but he didn't even apologize.
I'm neutral to the hosts, they didn't do too much or too little.
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