6
Decent
It's a decent drama but a few things held it back. Inconsistent pacing was too obvious to ignore. The inconsistency carries on with the writing, sometimes they are strategic and smart while other times they throw themselves as a human shield, this is coming from the same army and the same leadership. I liked the leading cast they did a good job but I wish they put more effort into writing the character Yi Hyun. While the romance is a side thing, they could have given it more attention to let it mature and develop more appropriately or remove the romance altogether. Their encounters were scarce which made the high moments less impactful due to the lack of investment in their relationship. Anyway, the drama is one of the better historical ones.Was this review helpful to you?
Steve Jobs on Crack
Where would you even begin with this crazy hot mess? The first 3-4 episodes were acceptable despite moving too fast and creating many gaps. However, as the drama unfolded, it became clear that it was biting off more than it could chew. Right off from episode 5, the drama became an irrecoverable mess. The pacing was erratic, jumping between weak fabricated plot twists, jarring narrative and bloated segments with no sense of cohesion. The drama was throwing everything at the viewers to see what sticks. Action, thriller, fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, melodrama, the drama couldn't decide what it wanted to be nor it managed to mix any of them well. The characters felt like caricatures rather than fully developed individuals, and their motivations often seemed arbitrary, inconsistent and generally weak. If the drama wanted to go for stupid ridiculousness then why not raise the stakes to match? Not even the ending could measure up to its intent despite its "supposed" twist.Was this review helpful to you?
Messy
It started with a lousy introduction that was too ambitious on paper and then began to jump between one plot after another until the end. There was a desperate need for a better coherent structure and pacing. The characters were more or less fine but, despite being one of the most important characters, the ghost lacked a better characterization to make her role more impactful. The last 1-2 episodes were fundamentally bad, their main purpose was to lay down a handful of new elements for an imaginary sequel. This is a bad common practice streaming services have been pulling since forever to keep hold of the viewers attention regardless if they were planning for a sequel or not. The only acceptable scenario for such a practice is to have a direct sequel to follow it. Anyway, the drama was very mediocre Sci-Fi with a handful of failures.Was this review helpful to you?
The Incompetent Naive Detective 2
Regarding season 1, I liked the earlier episodes and I was looking forward to the upcoming ones but things didn't go as expected. They had a really poor mix of investigators and journalists/reporters working on the case. Not even the involved characters from that side were appealing to watch. You often hear in any police/investigation drama how they keep information away from journalists/reporters to not hinder the investigation, it turned out they were right. I liked how Oh Ji Hyuk didn't stand out as a main lead too much to allow those around him to have a space, he blended in nicely. Him and Do Chang had a nice dynamic but they started to drift apart a little bit later on.Compared to season 1, the main case was definitely less interesting. The involved parties were boring. The investigation was slower and much simpler. There was barely any tension, not much action and thriller anymore. Most of the time they were slacking around. Less budget maybe? Throughout both season there was a very small side plot in the background regarding Oh Ji Hyuk and finding a meaning in living but the writer didn't allow for such development and, eventually, after 2 full seasons, everything boiled down that he found a meaning in life through being a workaholic detective. The way they handled that after 32 episodes was the most disappointing thing about the whole thing.
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Poong, the Joseon Virgin
The earlier episodes of the first season were decent and promising but there was a clear and undeniable pattern slowly starting to emerge after a few episodes. The drama was heading in a downward spiral throughout its both seasons. There was no clear direction to its story, I wanted it to remain as a slice of life but even that was not attractive on its own. Each passing episode felt like a downgrade of the previous episode. By the end of 2nd season, my interest had plummeted and it lost any remaining appeal. The only plausible reason for this drama to get a season 3 is if the studio wanted to commit some kind of money laundering/tax fraud scheme. It's never a good sign to adapt something and have its serialization based on public perception. This will most likely result in incomplete stories and padded semi-soft endings unless its creators were to pull through and be the exception. In more than one way, the Anime sphere shifted mostly towards this scheme in the past 6-7 years and it turned into a survival of the fittest type of race. The Kdrama is slowly heading in the exact same direction.Was this review helpful to you?
The Tale of No-can-do
Initially, it stood out by highlighting a predominantly female perspective of resilient women thriving independently, offering a glimpse into a world of contentment among a backdrop of mostly antagonistic male characters. However, the typical romantic entanglement, took a central role in a heartbeat as it featured two inexplicably infatuated men competing for the affection of a seemingly unremarkable woman, creating an appalling surreal cycle of rejection and groveling. This toxic dynamic became overwhelming and off putting, tainting the entire drama. The drama stumbled when merging this with a weary political subplot that ended up being unnecessarily cluttered. On another note, the cross-dressing gimmick at the beginning was nothing but a waste of time and a blatant cash grab. At the very least, it should have served as an element to help the characters bond but it didn't. That only started to happen after the identity reveal, not before.Was this review helpful to you?
Spoonfed bias sociopolitics
This is one of the best examples I've came across to what I like to call a "cosplay show", it had little to no serious consideration for its proposed era. The trend continued when the drama started to get preachy from a modern society point of view while being in no position to allow it to attempt such a thing. These could have been avoided if the drama was a parody, of which, it was not. There were obvious other problems and inconsistencies too, but what stood out the most was the mundane sequences filling the biggest portion of the drama, these were a real brain rot.What did the drama want to be? A social commentary, a political play, a profession spotlight, a slice of life, or a light romcom? It never embraced any aspect of fully committed to a theme. Whenever it tried to delve deeper, it pulled itself back up to the surface. Unsuccessful mix, regardless. There were other points to be made about the cast, chemistry, and romance but I don't feel like repeating myself.
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The Red Death
Some soundtracks were brilliant and went hard while other ones were pure rehashed garbage picked up from your local free-licensed store. However, the drama itself suffered from being painfully long-winded, with excessive and unnecessary long shots that reflected negatively on the cinematography. Especially when the chemistry was average at best. Plot-wise, it fell into the trap of being extremely formulaic, treading familiar ground seen in many dramas with the girl/prince trope. It didn't dare to try anything new or to spin its own twist. The male lead made the whole experience significantly uncomfortable and challenging, his personality didn't exude any attractive qualities in the slightest; in fact, I found his behavior to be quite repulsive, appalling and off-putting, catered exclusively to the fan-fic obsessed mindset, which may explains its ratings.Was this review helpful to you?
Vampire Diaries
The poorly written prologue wasn't a good sign going into this drama. The leads didn't develop their relationship naturally, most of what we got to signify their romance was long dreamy stares. That's pure lazy writing. This what their romance was based off which made it hard to care about their romance, let alone their unmatched chemistry. If we were to ignore the romance, then we are left with the vampires which were equally lacking. The pacing of the storyline seemed uneven, resulting in moments of sluggishness followed by rushed progress. The bad guy barely showed up in the first half. Although I didn't expect much but the ending was just too boring.Was this review helpful to you?
Not so sharp of a shooter
The drama fell flat in so many ways. The whole idea of a sharpshooter tackling the Joseon era should've been thrilling but the way they pulled it off was dull. The characters were generally dislikable. Their emotions and connections felt about as deep as a puddle after a sprinkle. And that forced romance was cringe central. No spark, no real chemistry between these characters, making it hard to care about their lovey-dovey moments. They tossed action, romance, and politics into a blender without a recipe, which resulted in a messy unattractive artificial mix.Was this review helpful to you?
Not good
A well sizeable chunk of the beginning was wasted and failed to hook the viewers in for quite some time. The ending as well was equally bad if not worse than the beginning. The writer completely gone mental in the worst possible way. Maximizing the cringe and the illusion of creating something artistic, not knowing he was a clown in a circus. The drama itself was embarrassingly dry and lacked appealing elements. A story not worth telling. I'm not sure about the historical accuracy but they did a poor job with storytelling regardless. They also turned Empress Ki into a joke of a character. The drama had a dislikable selection of leading cast. I hated watching Son Chang Min as a lead, Jeong Bo Seok was too much in your face and Seo Ji Hye was just okay-ish.Was this review helpful to you?
Try again!
Practically, this drama is just a shirtless men expedition. It featured one of the most deplorable writing efforts and attempts to be edgy and hip with the times (2010). The drama had absolutely nothing to offer other than Jang Hyuk presence. They made Jang Hyuk as an edgy cringey whiny kid full of stupid one-liners and little to no real characterization put into him. This is a prime example for how to NOT write a broken and traumatized character. The drama had no real fights, just a handful of flashy dances in slow-mo with little to no weight to their strikes coupled with unfitting soundtrack for the fight or the moment. To reach the 24 episodes mark they had to stretch it thin, literally, with a lot of repeated scenes, extremely elongated stares and gazes, irrelevant dialogue and random slow-mo shots which all resulted in a poor utilization of the cinematography.Was this review helpful to you?
Kinda watchable
The drama had a nice concept but the story was too thin for a full run drama even with the added side stories. It's also why they sneaked in a useless love pentagon that didn't get anywhere. Although you may find the FL's behavior passable as a teen but that wasn't the case as an adult, it was increasingly challenging to endure watching her. It simply didn't serve the narrative. After seeing her character in action I had a strong hunch to why they broke up. Such a reason may be valid when written adequately but, in this case, it came off as a shallow excuse to progress the plot. Even if we were to over glance that, they ended up giving a half-assed resolution to their underlying problems and opted to supplement the rest with an overdose of mindless lovey-dovey scenes while eliminating any opportunity for the drama to delve deeper into the emotional package they threw at us earlier on. Another prime example of the bait and switch technique the Kdrama industry have been going through recently and it doesn't look like this will change. One last thing, there were some obvious amateur editing mistakes sprinkled in the drama. One singular scene may have multiple camera angles but 2 different color grading, even for the same consecutive face shot.Was this review helpful to you?
Big bait
This drama was a big bait. You may think this is about an uncle and his nephew, although that's partially true, but the biggest focus was on the mothers’ committee and everything surrounding it. The drama quickly turned into another boring high-class circle jerk lacking any creativity or nuances. The uncle nephew relationship was always a side story progressing in the background. The last 2 episodes were utterly useless, the drama ended by episode 14 and the remainder were all random made-up last-minute events. The writer blatantly gave up. The drama is still watchable just for the sake of a handful good scenes otherwise it's underwhelming for its genre.Was this review helpful to you?
Weak attempt for a sports-themed drama
It's an oversaturated manufactured cheap emotional bait that lacked the genuine human connection and necessary depth but rather opted out for easily digestible cliches. Most of the cast, especially the younger ones, were desperately overacting in an attempt to translate the youth energy to screen but it came off as fake most of the time. The actual sports scenes were average at best, it's themed around the sport but not the sport itself. Most scenes with a sweaty face, the sweat looked as fake as it can be. It's so damn laughable that some scenes the neck was sweaty but the face was perfectly dry! The cast didn't do a good job in showing the physical exhaustion of performing the sport whether it was while training or competing. Again, making the sports scenes even more fake. What's up with the drama trying so hard to pair every boy with a girl? Really unnecessary. This drama would have fared infinitely better as a standalone one-off movie. The drama really highlighted the "bad" in badminton. Going into this I had the slightest tiniest bits of hope to get something that can be remotely and ever so slightly similar to "Ping Pong the Animation" but I quickly realized within a few minutes it wouldn't be the case.Was this review helpful to you?
