I feel like the producers are still suffering from their success with TRAIN TO BUSAN. Everything they popped out…
I'm at ep 3 and I don't know if I can finish it. My free time is not something I kill , but something I invest. There must be a payoff. There's just nothing that grabs me or holds my attention here. I haven't developed any emotional reactions --good or bad--to any of the individual characters and halfway through the series I should have some sort of emotional investment in them and in the story by now. I wonder if the Japanese version is more compelling? Right now, this is just a slogfest for me and I have struggled to get through each episode. I had such high hopes for this. Netflix strikes again. It has a way of sucking the soul out of everything. K-dramas made for Korean tv are usually far superior. It just goes to show that money and instant international exposure isn't everything .
I'm at ep 3 and I don't know if I can finish it. There's just nothing that grabs me or holds my attention. I haven't developed any emotional reactions --good or bad--to any of the individual characters and halfway through the series I should have some sort of emotional investment by now. I wonder if the Japanese version is more compelling? Right now, this is just a slogfest for me and I had such high hopes for this. Netflix strikes again. It has a way of sucking the soul out of everything. K-dramas made for Korean tv are usually far superior. It just goes to show that money isn't everything .
This Kdrama is like a bad relationship. Even though you see it going downhill you stay with it because it initially looked good on paper, you've already invested time in it and Valentine's Day is coming up and you're hoping it will surprise you with enough of a payout to redeem itself.
It won't.
It's hard to believe this has the same director as Strangers from Hell. Maybe the source material wasn't as good. Maybe the screenwriter flubbed the source material when adapting it into a screenplay, but is all over the place and draggy and there is virtually no suspense. Just about everything is predictable. And the big twist reveal in ep 8? Meh.
I also wish Kdramas would learn a few things: 1) If you pull a gun and point it, you need to pull the trigger. Otherwise, don't pull it and point it.
2) Long drawn out dialogues and monologues (particularly in urgent situation where action should be taking place) drags a drama straight into the ground. They will literally stop in mid-action to have a deep conversation. If screenwriters can find no other way to introduce expository information, at least have your characters tell it walking.
3) If someone is driving a car staring at the person in the passenger seat more than 3 seconds (let alone for 10+ seconds), it will almost always lead to a car accident or momentary loss of control of the vehicle. If the person riding shotgun isn't turning into a werewolf, don't look at them, look at the road. It's your mouth and your ears that does the work in a conversation, not your eyes.
4) If you have an exciting beginning to a Kdrama, viewers expect you to carry that through. Know how to end something as well as begin it and don't forget creating a tight, cohesive story in between.
the most annoying this is when characters don't go for headshots conveniently shoot other parts of the body which…
Yes, episode 7 was mostly filler, maybe a little bit of exposition to help flesh out how Jinman's mother and Jian's parents died and Honda's relationship to Jinman and to explain Brother (who was basically treated like a persona non grata by Jinman. Basically a shut-in and programmer for the shop to carry Jinman's plan through and to protect Jian. Jian even sent him up to face the Babylon guys when it wasn't even necessary as she spoke to them via the microphone anyway. Pretty crappy way to do Honda's brother after Honda sacrificed his life protecting Jian at Jinman's request).
Then that brings us to Honda. He had a gun with a silencer but he took out the first bad guy with brass knuckles? Instead of setting up a surprise attack for whoever else was coming he basically just left himself wide open in the apartment. You have to love Honda but a smart fighter he was not. You have to question the point of him even being there when little Jian was making better decisions getting away from the bad guys on her own than he was making.
Jinman sent MinHye and Pasin to protect Jian without telling her anything about what was going on when he knew she would be facing a whole troop of trained mercenaries? He didn't warn her not to trust Jeongmin? Instead he left Brother to read a manual to her about the shop instead of letting her know what to expect with the killers that were coming? He really expected MinHye and Pasin and Jinman and Brother to be able to stand up to drones and high-powered rifles and robotic weapon dogs and explosives and not even tell Jian where the weapons were hidden in the house? Never even introduce her to MinHye or Brother so she would know she could trust them?
Brother knew that Jeongmin killed or had something to do with killing Jinman and didn't lead with that? "He killed Jinman" was as fast and easy to say as "Don't trust him." Why didn't he tell her Jeongmin had something to do with Jinman's death first off?
Seongpo and the twins see carnage of a whole team of mercenaries everywhere and the twins decide to drop their guns and take on Pasin with knives? Were they that sure that he was the only threat that remained in the house? Why not just take him out and keep it moving? The remaining twin is chasing Pasin who ducks into a car and next scene the twin is at a closed door that he kicks in and gets immolated? Catching and killing Pasin wasn't important anymore?
Jeongmin gets out of the basement of the shop and starts screaming and firing shots into the ceiling wasting ammo and giving away his position when he sees all the dead bodies around him and knows he is facing a formidable foe in MinHye? And having no idea who else might be around that would kill him?
Jian runs back into the shop bypassing multiple high powered rifles on the floor next to dead mercenaries, can't be arsed to bend over and pick one up but then gets back to the basement and tries to get at rifles locked in a cage by banging on the lock and giving away her position?
Seongpo (a battle-hardened mercenary, no less) misses shot after shot continuously when targeting Jian? He talks to himself (holding whole conversations with himself) while wandering in the basement, continuously giving away his position?
Mercenaries after a $4M bounty decide to just walk away and face the wrath of Babylon because Jian promises to mail them a check? Was Brother there about to wet himself holding a detonation switch that would take out the whole building killing them all? And if so, wasn't that point kind of moot when Brother momentarily let go of the switch to empty Seongpo's decapitated head out of the backpack? Why didn't one of the mercenaries take the killshot then?
After the mercenaries file out congratulating themselves on a promised future check and occasional future discounts, Jian runs outside, falls on her knees and screams not knowing who else or what else might be out there? She then runs out in front of a bus and aims a gun at it? And this is the girl Jinman thought could handle mercenaries with no instructions about anything? This was his long thought-out plan? Use Jian, MinHye, Pasin and Brother as bait while he presumably went after Bale? I hope season 2 (if there is one) will make more sense out of all of this, because a lot of things don't make sense.
the most annoying this is when characters don't go for headshots conveniently shoot other parts of the body which…
I know, right? You set them up with two to the head, grant them peace and make them cease from troubling. I can see Jian doing dumb stuff, she had yet to be blooded, but seasoned mercenaries--veterans of countless missions--fighting people they know are also seasoned mercenaries? They know that doing stupid things will ensure that today is their day to obtain a fiery enlightenment. Up until episode 8 they mostly all fought like they understood that. Then everything got real stupid. It's like screenwriters write their main characters into more trouble than they can write them out of without 10 feet of plot armor and the bad guys doing uncharacteristic, foolhardy and anticlimatic things. For7 episodes this series was to die for, if they had only been able to get the season finale right this could have been exceptional.
I hope there will be a season 2 because there are unanswered questions, but what I can't understand is why they took us on 7 episodes of a wild ride for everyone to start doing really stupid stuff in the last episode. Nothing anyone did in the last episode made an iota of sense. Seasoned killers hesitated or spent time talking when they should have acted (sometimes even talking to themselves), recklessly wasted ammunition and ignored weapons that were literally lying on the floor in front of them just to try to get to weapons that were locked up. Seasoned killers would be after one target one minute and then wind up in a different area, others put their lives in mortal danger when it wasn't even necessary. It was the biggest anti-climax I've seen in a long while. lf there is a season 2 and more of the story is told, great. But that still won't make up for the mess they made of episode 8 of season 1.
I really trust your comment. (funny one by the way)Because I saw on your watchlist you rate 10 on Goblin.What…
I am not known for being soothing. My avatar is a young Hazel from Watership Down and not the Easter Bunny. Having said that, I agree with you about gritting your teeth through monologues that replaced logical behavior in deadly situations. It rips viewers out of the story and makes it very difficult for viewers to continue to suspend disbelief. If the characters don't feel the urgency (and behave appropriately) how are the viewers supposed to feel it?
I really trust your comment. (funny one by the way)Because I saw on your watchlist you rate 10 on Goblin.What…
Thank you for being so interested in me as to visit my watchlist. I wish I could say--for your sake--that I found you even minisculely as interesting. Better luck next time.
They sure have a lot of talking when they should be moving in this drama. Everything is hurry, hurry, danger, threat of imminent death, oh, wait, gotta do the monolgue. Ok, enemy stop shooting, time for a monolgue. Just wait there when victory is so near for you, because you know, monologue. Monster move in slow motion and don't use your piercing tentacles that you've used on so many before because monologue coming up. We won't worry about the truck that's going to leave on time because this would be a perfect time for an especially lengthy monologue. Let's also throw in some unnecessary hugs and deep eye-gazing, because hey, we got time. It's not like there is this monster and this army trying to kill us, I've got some dialogue I need to get of my chest. It will make me seem wise and explain why my character does a complete 180.Besides there's all this plot armor to protect the two leads anyway, so we're all good.
Every episode of Sweet Home Season 2 has been worse than the one before it. I miss monsters who had humanity but weren't caricatures. I miss characters I care about. I miss monsters that haunt me. I miss cohesiveness. I miss a writer who knows how to make every scene and every character count. What happened to all the monsters? Can I get a wolfman or something? Sweet Home Season 1 was pure horror and the horror was the humanity of the murderous monsters. We witnessed their suffering even as we rooted for the residents to destroy them. There was nothing generic about them. We understood the desires, bitterness and disappointments that drove them and transformed them into monstrosities.
There's no 'wow' factor here, nothing new and exciting, nothing that is memorable. I don't know why they take the best parts of every amazing K-drama and throw them right in the trash when making the sequel. It's time to let perfection stand on its own.
Why is there enough water at the stadium for one girl to dye her hair and wash the dye out but apparently not enough for the rest of them to wash the oil and dirt off their faces?
It won't.
It's hard to believe this has the same director as Strangers from Hell. Maybe the source material wasn't as good. Maybe the screenwriter flubbed the source material when adapting it into a screenplay, but is all over the place and draggy and there is virtually no suspense. Just about everything is predictable. And the big twist reveal in ep 8? Meh.
I also wish Kdramas would learn a few things:
1) If you pull a gun and point it, you need to pull the trigger. Otherwise, don't pull it and point it.
2) Long drawn out dialogues and monologues (particularly in urgent situation where action should be taking place) drags a drama straight into the ground. They will literally stop in mid-action to have a deep conversation. If screenwriters can find no other way to introduce expository information, at least have your characters tell it walking.
3) If someone is driving a car staring at the person in the passenger seat more than 3 seconds (let alone for 10+ seconds), it will almost always lead to a car accident or momentary loss of control of the vehicle. If the person riding shotgun isn't turning into a werewolf, don't look at them, look at the road. It's your mouth and your ears that does the work in a conversation, not your eyes.
4) If you have an exciting beginning to a Kdrama, viewers expect you to carry that through. Know how to end something as well as begin it and don't forget creating a tight, cohesive story in between.
Then that brings us to Honda. He had a gun with a silencer but he took out the first bad guy with brass knuckles? Instead of setting up a surprise attack for whoever else was coming he basically just left himself wide open in the apartment. You have to love Honda but a smart fighter he was not. You have to question the point of him even being there when little Jian was making better decisions getting away from the bad guys on her own than he was making.
Jinman sent MinHye and Pasin to protect Jian without telling her anything about what was going on when he knew she would be facing a whole troop of trained mercenaries? He didn't warn her not to trust Jeongmin? Instead he left Brother to read a manual to her about the shop instead of letting her know what to expect with the killers that were coming? He really expected MinHye and Pasin and Jinman and Brother to be able to stand up to drones and high-powered rifles and robotic weapon dogs and explosives and not even tell Jian where the weapons were hidden in the house? Never even introduce her to MinHye or Brother so she would know she could trust them?
Brother knew that Jeongmin killed or had something to do with killing Jinman and didn't lead with that? "He killed Jinman" was as fast and easy to say as "Don't trust him." Why didn't he tell her Jeongmin had something to do with Jinman's death first off?
Seongpo and the twins see carnage of a whole team of mercenaries everywhere and the twins decide to drop their guns and take on Pasin with knives? Were they that sure that he was the only threat that remained in the house? Why not just take him out and keep it moving? The remaining twin is chasing Pasin who ducks into a car and next scene the twin is at a closed door that he kicks in and gets immolated? Catching and killing Pasin wasn't important anymore?
Jeongmin gets out of the basement of the shop and starts screaming and firing shots into the ceiling wasting ammo and giving away his position when he sees all the dead bodies around him and knows he is facing a formidable foe in MinHye? And having no idea who else might be around that would kill him?
Jian runs back into the shop bypassing multiple high powered rifles on the floor next to dead mercenaries, can't be arsed to bend over and pick one up but then gets back to the basement and tries to get at rifles locked in a cage by banging on the lock and giving away her position?
Seongpo (a battle-hardened mercenary, no less) misses shot after shot continuously when targeting Jian? He talks to himself (holding whole conversations with himself) while wandering in the basement, continuously giving away his position?
Mercenaries after a $4M bounty decide to just walk away and face the wrath of Babylon because Jian promises to mail them a check? Was Brother there about to wet himself holding a detonation switch that would take out the whole building killing them all? And if so, wasn't that point kind of moot when Brother momentarily let go of the switch to empty Seongpo's decapitated head out of the backpack? Why didn't one of the mercenaries take the killshot then?
After the mercenaries file out congratulating themselves on a promised future check and occasional future discounts, Jian runs outside, falls on her knees and screams not knowing who else or what else might be out there? She then runs out in front of a bus and aims a gun at it? And this is the girl Jinman thought could handle mercenaries with no instructions about anything? This was his long thought-out plan? Use Jian, MinHye, Pasin and Brother as bait while he presumably went after Bale? I hope season 2 (if there is one) will make more sense out of all of this, because a lot of things don't make sense.
And I can't forgive how Brother was treated.
There's no 'wow' factor here, nothing new and exciting, nothing that is memorable. I don't know why they take the best parts of every amazing K-drama and throw them right in the trash when making the sequel. It's time to let perfection stand on its own.