etoks21

Nice. Best thing I've watched out of China since "Better Days" and "City of Life and Death," though this is nothing like either of those.

Very well done. A gripping, slightly creepy, mystery-melodrama that kept me riveted all the way and left a partially open ending I found intriguing.

9.5/10

Now, go sit in front of a mirror and, looking into your OWN eyes, recite these words to yourself. How pathetic to use the great and wonderful Rumi to project your self-hatred onto me.

"Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,’ when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye. "
-Jesus

Come back and quote Rumi to me after you've attended to your own wounds, most of which have been inflicted by a lifetime of Islam, on your mind and soul.

No, Iran is one of the last places on Earth I would ever go.

Is it your position that you cannot know anything about any place other than your own, other than by actually, physically being there, "feet on the ground?" That books, films, and all other media can teach us nothing? If so, you're ridiculous.

You are a Muslim. I have no respect for your religion, so there is no point in us continuing a discussion. Your prophet was a warlord and mass murderer, responsible for the deaths of thousands of people, Christians, Jews, and Gentiles alike. He taught that those who would not convert to his new, made-up religion should die.

A brain-washed Muslim telling someone else how to "determine your truth" is absurd. YOUR truth comes from a book full of hateful attitudes toward women, gay people, and other minorities, and it has nothing to offer me, other than as a source from which to know what scary people like you believe.

Why are you pushing such bullshit? Chinese government is EXTREMELY anti-gay.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65806846

You sound like a Chinese propaganda writer.
https://variety.com/2020/film/asia/lgbt-movies-china-gay-rights-1234625634/

Your government explicitly banned gay content, beginning with when it pulled the popular Web drama "Heroin: Addicted" off the Internet with three episodes to the finale:
https://time.com/4236864/china-gay-drama-homosexuality/

Also, you're brainwashed. Define "flaunting." Your government recognizes and promotes straight marriage, while forbidding gay marriage. Seems like elevating one group above another to me.

The old "it may be a concept that is hard to understand for Westerners" line doesn't work anymore. Bigotry and discrimination aren't hard to understand at all.

The Internet has made it more obvious than ever that China is anti-gay. It's official stance is that there are no gay people in China. Quit taking drugs.

I generally avoid any Chinese content, mainly because of their ban on gay content. And I generally find their films a bit flat. I know that's a huge generalization but again, I don't want to support anything out of a country that bans content about people like me, as if we either don't exist or don't deserve representation in Chinese media.

One exception: The horrifying but stunning "City of Life and Death," about the Rape of Nanking. It's in my top ten best ever feature films list.

Moron. You have to look at where those western sources are getting the information they're publishing. What? Do you want to look to Iranian media for accurate reporting on how many people their government is murdering?

You don't make me laugh. People like you make me sigh that there are so many willfully stupid people in the world.

Unsurprisingly, you left out the most important question here: WHY did Xiumin decide to decline the role?

Hey wheezy, you should learn the meaning of big words you're not used to using before you type them, like "polygamy," which has nothing whatsoever to do with this issue, and which neither I nor anyone else mentioned.

Polygamy is plural marriage, usually one man and multiple wives. Is that's what going on here? I hadn't heard about that.

I'll assume your tiny mind and fingers actually intended to type the word "adultery" here. Did you know there's a difference between "supporting" something and knowing it's none of your business one way or the other? It's true! There really is a difference, wheezy!

Oh, and can you quote me where I suggested you were not "allowed to voice" your opinion on the Internet? Cause I'm pretty sure I never said that.

One more panty-sniffing, self-righteous, ignorant Church Lady.

Why do you care? How does this effect your life?

"Cheating" is such a juvenile word, perfect for people who don't like to think. Some married couples have open relationships in which they agree to sleep around with whomever they wish. None of it's your business. Mind what you do with your own genitals, if anything, and leave other people alone.

Idiot. Pull your head out of the sand/your ass:

Woman stoned to death:
https://apnews.com/article/iran-death-penalty-adultery-39ac846801400d8d1399ca05f1053ac8

20-year-old gay man killed by his own family:
https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-monfared-gay-man-killed-beheaded-lgbt-plight/31249991.html

Iran's executions of gay men:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9557897/iran-executions-cia-spies-death/

"Those things" happen thousands of times a year in Iran and many other psycho countries ruled by Muslim dictatorships. What other well-known facts do you pretend don't exist?

It's that Korean/Asian thing of judging other peoples' private behavior, especially sexual, because they get off on it as a sexual thrill and they get to pretend they are better people by comparison than the celeb they're trashing.

Hi Suh. I am going through those same "issues" about supporting Korean entertainment. I am much more a movie person than a drama person, and the biggest percentage of my favorite Asian films are out of Korea, as are my top fave actors. Thus, I can't really speak to an emerging focus on more violence in dramas than before.

However, I must admit that Korea turned me on to crime/thriller/yakuza/romance flicks in a way I've never liked what comes out of Hollywood in that genre. Korea's writers/directors/actors have a refined skill for bringing me fully-developed, individual characters with both flaws and good points that leave me feeling conflicted about who and what I am rooting for. I like feeling conflicted that way. I don't care for films that dish out easy, fairy tale, black and white scenarios and characters, because there are few of those things in the real world.

I ditch movies that feel to me as if they're glorifying sadistic, graphic violence, but here again, the Koreans excel at treading that line very well for me. I find myself being OK with confronting graphic depictions of awful things that happen in the real world, as long as it is all done in a way that moves the story along more powerfully than it would otherwise move without that content.

I feel the same about sexual content. I can tell the difference between semi-graphic sex scenes that are there for legitimate reasons, and those that aren't. Though, I must confess I don't get worked up about whether or not graphic sex is too much or too little. Naked, beautiful people doing beautiful, sexy things are a lovely part of life, and I don't mind seeing it.

No, my one, hugely predominant concern is the insane, sick/sick/sick fan/celeb/media/netizen culture of character assassination and humiliation that leads to so many celeb suicides. And Koreans as a whole still don't seem to get it. My concern about supporting Korean entertainment is entirely about not wanting to feed into and support that side of the industry.

To be honest though, I watch almost all the content through pirate and free sites, so me not watching is not going to effect the industry one way or the other, except that I wouldn't be in comments raving about their shows and actors. Plus, I am so thrilled to be able to watch these great films that I would be loathe to give them up when I'm not paying for them in the first place.

The exception to this is the Korean content I watch on Netflix, which I pay for. There again, however, it is almost entirely movies, though not only those. I enjoyed "Moving to Heaven," for example, starring Lee Je Hoon. I don't care for his "Taxi Driver" series, though. Just the same old, Korean style revenge stuff with nothing particularly distinctive or original about it. I don't blame LJH for following the $$$, but I'm sad to see him doing these lame, crime/violence series like the other one that was just released, when he is so fantastically talented in dramatic roles that don't lean on yakuza plots for their existence.

Netflix, however, has been forced by Korean content creators to scrap shows and actors as a result of the insane, netizen, judge-and-punish first, find out facts later, culture regarding actors. They had to scrap two shows, I believe, featuring the amazing Yoo Ah In, because of his current legal troubles and the Korean production companies' ways of handling his involvement. The Korean way of looking at addiction as a moral/character issue rather than a disease/treatment issue, as we do in the West, has now cost Netflix millions of dollars and they are not happy about it.

Hopefully, once Korean content creators and agencies see that their backward, moralistic, condemnatory attitudes are costing them big bucks, and are not going to be tolerated in the Western markets, they will begin to change their ways. There is NO reason Yoo Ah In's shows could not have been in production throughout this insanely stretched-out legal investigation and media crucifixion. He hasn't been convicted of anything. Yes, he's admitted to certain things, but not others. So what? He can still work while he's in treatment. Instead, Korea's moralistic attitudes about drug addiction have cost its entertainment industry millions of Western dollars now, and they can't be happy about that.

OK, not sure where I'm headed with this, but that's where I am right now.

I just realized...a couple of the LGs you've been referring to; you told me to check their comments above mine, must have blocked me. I see no comments from them above.

I'm dense, Lucy. I don't understand your first paragraph above.

As for the second paragraph, that's funny.

What dm showed who the two accounts were? I'm confused.

As for Maggi and me, she reached out after I trashed some LGs in thread and she liked my work. :) We've been fast MDL buddies for about a year and a half since. She lives in NJ, USA, I'm in KS, USA, but great minds live all over, right? :D

Don't waste brain cells on it. SanSebastian is the kind of "Christian" Jesus would have nothing to do with were he here on Earth. She beats others over the head while claiming that label in a failed effort to shore up her weak self-image and insecurities.

"What do you think of actors returning to broadcast after a huge controversy?"

Well, I think actors who experience "a HUGE controversy" should never, ever, forever, and never be allowed to leave their homes never, forever again until they do so in a coffin. After all, HUGE is larger than MAJOR which is larger than BIG which is larger than AVERAGE which is larger than MINOR which is larger than SMALL, so yeah, definitely only when dead. And should they decide to take matters into their own hands and light up some charcoal, I'm OK with that too because, well, they owe their fame to us, the public and that's just the way it goes.

At the very least, they should never be allowed to work again until they are dead, unless maybe as a garbage person or sewer worker. They have betrayed the trust of us, their flawless, sinless, perfect fans and thus, having betrayed us, deserve life-long oblivion in return. I mean, it's not as though these actors worked hard or studied or have great natural talent. Their success is due to US, their public. How dare they think otherwise.

It would be best if, when an actor who has been previously cancelled due to a "huge" controversy, considers returning to "broadcast," a nation-wide vote were held to determine if they should be allowed to do so. This is Korea, and we don't f**k around with people who are, you know, human or have had the unmitigated gall to DENY something we've accused them of.

Lord, if we just leave actors' alone in their private lives, what the hell would we do with all the empty time in our own?

hahaha...that's funny. I will have to copy Maggi on this. :)

It make sense the "Little Girls," as I call them, would come up with a conspiracy theory like that; anything to help them maintain the fantasy that surely there can't be TWO, or counting you, Lucy, THREE people who see through their BS.

Actually, there are quite a lot of people here who see through their BS, and that of a sad number of MDL staffers. Those folks don't like being attacked by the vultures en masse though, so largely keep mum. But I get friend requests from them all the time.

And yes, the LGs think adding "literally" to any statement makes it infinitely more credible. :)

lol Hi there. I saw your comment and had to reply. It felt like a compliment, since I'm older than dirt, to be exact. :) So...thanks!

I'm a big fan of new technology and the Internet is an amazement to me every day I use it. However, it definitely has led to shortened attention spans, and the idea that writing out your thoughts in detail is something only losers do. Better to make short, snappy, brainless slang comments and be done.