fio_el

LOL. The 2 guys get together would be a nice twist, but I reckon her manga friend deserves someone better than her tbh.

That's what would make sense and how someone who value themselves would act (especially I assumed both guys entered the relationship with the expectation of the relationship being exclusive). Who knows though, I've seen some questionable things in dramas, so I won't be surprised if they make the 2 guys (possibly 3?) still fight for her or something like that, which would be sad (if that's the case), as they'd be "settling" for less and not actually valuing themselves. Will see how it goes, but I'm pretty close to dropping this, I find the pacing to be a bit frustrating (too much "breathing room" which makes some scenes really awkward), and the product placements (I feel like I'm watching ads in a drama form) are making this hard to watch for me.

Agreed! Though clearly she does, but then again, if she was honest and open from the start, then we'd get a whole completely different drama. Lol.

Yep, and many other countries, really...

Would have been so much simpler if she just says she wants an open relationship. LOL.

I personally don't really re-watch anything just for the fun of it, or because I just want to re-live the moments. I would, however, rewatch if it's for things like watch parties with friends (before the pandemic my friends and I used to do scifi movie nights regularly, and a lot of the times I've seen the films that got picked for the night), or for research purposes (like someone has pointed out, things like screenwriting, editing, stunts choreography, etc), or when hubby wants to watch something he hasn't seen before but I have.

Nothing against the dramas/films, it's just that I don't rewatch things outside of these purposes, like I don't re-read books outside of research purposes.

Thanks for sharing :) and thanks for the recommendations. For me, I usually put things in my PTW list if it sparks my interest. I'll give ep 1 (or 2) a go before deciding if I want to continue, because a lot of the synopsis doesn't really tell much, and the trailers are the same. As an editor, I get frustrated that a lot (not all, obviously, there are a lot of good ones too) of drama trailers are basically just a string of cool looking shots featuring the stars and that's about it, or sometimes it's just a string of sequences with some dialogue but there is no cohesion, no story. I get that trailer editing is a whole different ball game, but to me it's still very important to have a story in the trailer. So, ep 1 and 2 would give me a lot of info. Do I like the vibe, do I like the setup, do I like the pacing, do I like the editing style and the aesthetics, etc. Then if I like it, I'll continue, if I don't, then I'll drop it, and it'll move to my Dropped list. Sometimes I was doing so good with a drama, but 2 episodes away from the end, it fell flat and I started to feel very bored and didn't feel like watching it anymore, I didn't hesitate to drop it. There's no point on slugging through that remaining 2 episodes if I'm not going to enjoy it. I'm not one to watch things at 1.5x speed or skip scenes either (there has to be extreme circumstances for me to skip scenes - like a very badly done clip show episode), because it destroys the pacing, the feel and the balance and I'd like to appreciate each episode as a whole, even if in the end I end up not liking it.

I'm not stressed by how big my PTW is getting, and I don't have a goal on when I need to finish watching by. My work environment is fast paced and time critical, at times it's quite high stress (and a lot of times, long hours), I don't need that in my life outside of work. I watch for enjoyment, so I keep it simple, I'll watch when I can, when I want, and I don't set deadline to when I need to finish watching my PTW. I simply go through my PTW when I feel like something different and see if there's any I feel like watching and make a start.

They probably weren't even paying attention to the story. Seriously though, he's playing a character, he shouldn't look the same as his other characters. Plus, I'm really liking his portrayal of Jung Yi Hyun.

This was unexpected, mainly because the I'm on ep 2 and we're still not in the sealed off apartment as the synopsis suggests (I guess that part is coming soon, but I was expecting it to come up much sooner considering it seems to be the prominent thing in the synopsis both here on MDL and Viki). However, I love it so far. It's fast paced, I'm liking all the action and I love the badass FL. I also appreciate their treatment to the zombie genre. Can't wait for the next episode!

I think "Kingdom", "The Guest", "Strangers from Hell" and "Sweet Home" are in the horror genre.

As for "Reunion: The Sound of the Providence", the horror for me was seeing them not properly kitted out for their cave dives or the dives in general. No lines, no safety stop, I doubt they even calculated their surface interval time, the gear looks ancient, and not to mention that they went tomb raiding in what looks like business attire? Okay that last one wasn't horrifying, but the whole lack of safety for the dives were up there. LOL.

Oh wow. I thought I don't watch too many horrors since I'm the type to hide behind my blanket during scary bits. LOL. However, looking at this list, I've seen 7 titles out of the 10, and I wonder if I need to re-think what I classify as horror. In saying that, I don't actually consider "Tientsin Mystic" and "Reunion: The Sound of the Providence" as horror tbh (I love both of these dramas btw). They have some scary elements, but in my opinion they're not really horror as a whole, but more towards mystery / adventure. I LOVE "Kingdom" series, looking forward to the next season. "Strangers from Hell", "The Guest", "Sweet Home" are all amazing dramas too and they're easily titles I'd recommend to people. While "Search" is in my top list of things to watch.

I love this drama! :) I do love the ending too.

I love adventure series and I absolutely love this series of dramas and films. I haven't watched all the series, and I didn't watch them in order either, but love them nonetheless (I got hooked after watching "The Lost Tomb" awhile back). I've been thinking to pick up reading the novels for some time now, so I think it's likely that I'll pick it up for my summer holiday reading this year.

I'm all for adventure and action so I'm super excited for "Candle in the Tomb: The Worm Valley" and "Being a Hero" :)

That is really unfortunate :/ I understand what you mean about creating a sound from scratch, but it’s common to create/add soundscapes/sound effects/foley even when it’s not dubbed, though of course cdramas would have a lot more on their plate since they have to do the dubbing as well. I just think that they are missing something that make scenes feel like the characters are actually in the space they’re in on screen - which personally for me, contributes to what you said in your post, why when certain scenes came up I also couldn’t suspend my disbelief. The sound is as important as the visuals. Though I mostly noticed it during big scenes because it sounded empty, there are little things like footsteps not sounding quite right. Then again, having my attention drawn into these kind of details are pretty much a habit for me that I picked up from work, which is why I usually gloss over these details when I’m watching things for my enjoyment. In the end, The Untamed is still one of those dramas that I really enjoyed and would happily recommend to others :)

I think you’re right though, they probably want a presentable product as fast as possible, and also budget plays a huge part in it.

Yup :) to my understanding cdramas are dubbed not just because of their way of shooting but also for consistency of the accent. I think they’ve done really well, I’ve seen the bts and I have to admit, it was so weird hearing the loud background sound while shooting (I’m used to the “quiet on set!” and everyone stay put while they’re doing a take, and of course, waiting for cars or planes to go past before doing a take).

Sound designers/engineers/editors are basically magicians in my opinion. Most of the times when you shoot they’re adding layers in post anyway to make it sound like how it should sound in the space the characters are in (e.g. night club scenes & space ship scenes), and I just love the level of details that goes into it (also, though these days there are plenty of online resources out there available for use, I still love seeing how foley are created). I wish that The Untamed has a lot more “body” or layers in their bigger scenes, because those really sounded “empty”, but as I’ve mentioned, there are a lot of things that I glossed over in dramas, and I still really enjoyed the drama, The Untamed was the drama that brought me back into watching Xianxia again after so long.

Same here, audio isn’t my area of expertise, but I have some understanding of it from editing films & videos and having plenty of discussions with the sound engineers/designers/editors, plus audio is one of the most important things in a film or any production. I know that cdramas including The Untamed are dubbed, but it’s still possible to make audio sound more “complete”, and I think the audio in The Untamed during these crowd / big space shots sounded too clean or missing something, so it took me out of the scene, like I could feel the space that they were in was a stage. But yeah, I find this in many cdramas, maybe because they’re dubbed. This, along with jumping the 180 line often for no reason or no transition, are my biggest gripes in dramas. Lol.

Love your post btw :)

There are a lot of things that I just glossed over in The Untamed, this is one of them (though I admit, layering in a shot when you only have a limited amount of extras to make a shot look busy is quite an art). Don't get me wrong, I also love the drama :) the other thing that I think made some of these scenes feel "empty" was the audio. Often I saw that they had many people in a scene (or have implied that there are an x number of people in a scene) but the audio sounded like only a handful of them are there, I feel this not just in the grand battle scenes, but also in scenes with a crowd.