In this one at least the demons aren't censored into being aliens. Otherwise slightly worse across the board.
There seem to be weird audio mixing issues: you regularly hear people breathe way too loudly in quiet scenes, while at other times fight scenes are too silent.
Most of the actors are very well chosen for their roles (f.ex. Lee Hong Ki as piggy). The nods to the source material…
[ full spoilers ahead ]
The characters unfortunately are super inconsistent. Sometimes Ma Wang is everybody's friend, sometimes extremely selfish and calculating. Sometimes the ML has some playful monkey trickster elements added, but it's rather rare.
Most or all deaths are completely avoidable and just added to be edgy and dramatic.
The FL "gaining power" not due to her work or her training but just as a side effect of the potential end of the world being near seems like poor writing, unless there's some source material resemblance.
How does the dragon possessing the evil historian/politician lead to fighter jets bombing a city and atomic bombs going off anyway? That looked like entirely random destruction, not like conquering the world.
The whole dragon battle and FL's "sacrifice" are nonsensical stuff stacked upon other nonsensical stuff. She does not make a choice to sacrifice anything, but rather sabotages the ML in order for her to pointlessly die. Then a few droplets of her blood fall into the river where the dragon's chilling. In the end, the ML, enhanced by the suddenly present combat abilities of his now-unnecessary bracelet, defeats the dragon. In-between, Mr Frosty does a little dance to waste time.
Most of the actors are very well chosen for their roles (f.ex. Lee Hong Ki as piggy). The nods to the source material and mythology were generally well done. Most of the comedy (primarily provided by Cha Seung Won) wasn't my thing, but your mileage may vary.
The FL never struck me as likeable (somewhere between neutral and very annoying), and all story arcs she got were about her being full of self pity or deciding "the grass is greener somewher else" for an episode or two.
2/3 of the time, the CGI was so terribly bad it was like they used leftovers from the 1980s or 1990s. This starts right off the bat with the fight sequences in the first episodes that just consist of identical ghostly things that are fake-punched in the air. I had to watch The Thousand Faces of Dunjia (2017) afterwards as eye bleach. Every YouTube channel with any sort of budget will have better effects than A Korean Odyssey.
There were a lot of filler plots, silly adverts, and dumb writing for the sake of it. That many characters have instant teleportation abilities creates plenty of nonsensical plot holes, and as common in K-dramas, various parts of the story only work because people don't want to be honest with each other or have some compulsions to scheme behind someone's back.
(Watched it on Netflix, so I'm unsure if I missed out on anything.)
Can't tell if it's originally Cantonese or Mandarin. At some point a bit dissonant with a sudden slapstick scene that did not fit the tone before and after.
Compared to other K shows mangled for Netflix, the blurring/replacement/censorship seems less jarring here. Initially I thought there is no content missing, but for example the music for a Lee Se-Young dance scene is replaced entirely. Amusingly in the TV version it is a song with English lyrics, while on Netflix it is a song with Korean lyrics (which is several steps up from how poorly Netflix music replacements are usually chosen).
Global Netflix removal on 2023-03-31 / 2023-04-01.
Does anyone know if the Netflix version has the usual issues like replaced music, removed singing scenes, extra cuts, blurred out commercial products, etc?
tried the first couple of episodes and it looks and feels like it was made in 2009, not 2019 T-T
I'm not sure if I just forced face blindness, I mean production blindness on myself after a few hours, but a while into the show I got that thought out of my mind. Initially it was all I could see as well, especially with how god-awful the intro is shot (from aspect ratio to 'special effects').
I watched it and liked it , as the boss/sec chemistry. Quirkiness is good also. One of those dramas where I don't…
I would argue she did a terrible(!) job staying in character every time she was disguised, meaning she was being herself and not really being Veronica Park at all.
The charade just gave ML a chance to see FL "as a woman".
Netflix is ATROCIOUSLY cut as so often. At the start of episode 1 children sing – but not on Netflix. Random things are blurred. 45-46 minutes into the first episode (or second if you count that way), so very much music is missing and replaced by utter trash on Netflix there are no words to describe it.
Amazon/Kocowa is hopefully almost identical to the proper SBS version.
In episode 8 aka 16 (and a very short scene in episode 9 aka 17) there is a movie theater scene. SBS has movie video and audio, and a song during the credits. Amazon/Kocowa has video, but no English movie audio, and no credits song. Netflix has blurred video, audio removed with some generic garbage, and of course no song either.
You are totally spot on in that this is not the kind of storytelling that moves you to have any sort of empathy…
You're also unfortunately very much correct in that the whole headache angle disappears entirely (without a trace). She never gets her headaches sorted out or treated or anything, the plot device just isn't needed at some point and then never appears again.
Major Spoiler™: she doesn't commit fraud by impersonatin'.
Wondering if I should continue this or not half way through ep 6...(Shin A is getting on my nerves and so far…
You are totally spot on in that this is not the kind of storytelling that moves you to have any sort of empathy for the FL, nor are they particularly well-created characters. It's a super casual rom com, so you should not expect convincing writing or story cohesion. This show if anything consists of scenes completely randomly glued onto each other with very very little connecting them. The whole 'crazy' angle is essentially exclusive to the Ep 1 cliffhanger as well, so it's in the realm of false advertising.
--
She did not "try to potentially kill him", did she? Threaten, but certainly not try. Nor is she responsible or should feel guilty for him being run over while angrily shouting on the phone.
EDIT/ some people are massively upset that I don't "understand" this show because i "only" watched and been dissapointed…
The 'crazy' FL of the end of the first episode / start of the second indeed never appears again. Or at least not properly. In that sense, the marketing materials advertise this show as something it very much isn't.
I last called the Her Private Life product placement more "stupidly obvious" than the average, but here it's really towards full-on adverts.
Yoo In Young's impossibly rich character holds a fancy face lawnmower. Insert smile after mowing her face with it. Insert praise for the product. Show brand-name close up. End scene. Later on, Park Han Sol's (by comparison) impossibly poor character peruses an identical fancy face lawnmower. Insert smile. Insert praise for the product. Show brand-name close-up. End scene.
Speaking of Yoo In Young, I lost count how many scenes are shot with the motivation of making her look imposingly tall. If the camera's on the floor, you know she's the reason. Maybe she too is a product to be advertised? I can't tell anymore.
There seem to be weird audio mixing issues: you regularly hear people breathe way too loudly in quiet scenes, while at other times fight scenes are too silent.
The characters unfortunately are super inconsistent. Sometimes Ma Wang is everybody's friend, sometimes extremely selfish and calculating. Sometimes the ML has some playful monkey trickster elements added, but it's rather rare.
Most or all deaths are completely avoidable and just added to be edgy and dramatic.
The FL "gaining power" not due to her work or her training but just as a side effect of the potential end of the world being near seems like poor writing, unless there's some source material resemblance.
How does the dragon possessing the evil historian/politician lead to fighter jets bombing a city and atomic bombs going off anyway? That looked like entirely random destruction, not like conquering the world.
The whole dragon battle and FL's "sacrifice" are nonsensical stuff stacked upon other nonsensical stuff. She does not make a choice to sacrifice anything, but rather sabotages the ML in order for her to pointlessly die. Then a few droplets of her blood fall into the river where the dragon's chilling. In the end, the ML, enhanced by the suddenly present combat abilities of his now-unnecessary bracelet, defeats the dragon. In-between, Mr Frosty does a little dance to waste time.
The FL never struck me as likeable (somewhere between neutral and very annoying), and all story arcs she got were about her being full of self pity or deciding "the grass is greener somewher else" for an episode or two.
2/3 of the time, the CGI was so terribly bad it was like they used leftovers from the 1980s or 1990s. This starts right off the bat with the fight sequences in the first episodes that just consist of identical ghostly things that are fake-punched in the air. I had to watch The Thousand Faces of Dunjia (2017) afterwards as eye bleach. Every YouTube channel with any sort of budget will have better effects than A Korean Odyssey.
There were a lot of filler plots, silly adverts, and dumb writing for the sake of it. That many characters have instant teleportation abilities creates plenty of nonsensical plot holes, and as common in K-dramas, various parts of the story only work because people don't want to be honest with each other or have some compulsions to scheme behind someone's back.
(Watched it on Netflix, so I'm unsure if I missed out on anything.)
At some point a bit dissonant with a sudden slapstick scene that did not fit the tone before and after.
Does anyone know if the Netflix version has the usual issues like replaced music, removed singing scenes, extra cuts, blurred out commercial products, etc?
I think this and Reply are similar, which is why I'm definitely not going to start watching Friends.
The charade just gave ML a chance to see FL "as a woman".
Amazon/Kocowa is hopefully almost identical to the proper SBS version.
In episode 8 aka 16 (and a very short scene in episode 9 aka 17) there is a movie theater scene.
SBS has movie video and audio, and a song during the credits.
Amazon/Kocowa has video, but no English movie audio, and no credits song.
Netflix has blurred video, audio removed with some generic garbage, and of course no song either.
Major Spoiler™:
she doesn't commit fraud by impersonatin'.
It's a super casual rom com, so you should not expect convincing writing or story cohesion. This show if anything consists of scenes completely randomly glued onto each other with very very little connecting them. The whole 'crazy' angle is essentially exclusive to the Ep 1 cliffhanger as well, so it's in the realm of false advertising.
--
She did not "try to potentially kill him", did she? Threaten, but certainly not try.
Nor is she responsible or should feel guilty for him being run over while angrily shouting on the phone.
In that sense, the marketing materials advertise this show as something it very much isn't.
Yoo In Young's impossibly rich character holds a fancy face lawnmower. Insert smile after mowing her face with it. Insert praise for the product. Show brand-name close up. End scene.
Later on, Park Han Sol's (by comparison) impossibly poor character peruses an identical fancy face lawnmower. Insert smile. Insert praise for the product. Show brand-name close-up. End scene.
Speaking of Yoo In Young, I lost count how many scenes are shot with the motivation of making her look imposingly tall. If the camera's on the floor, you know she's the reason. Maybe she too is a product to be advertised? I can't tell anymore.