I'm so far enjoying this and look forward to it weekly.
I also have been around 85% to 90% correct on how this story was going to play out from who is Ki Ho, to how Mak Ha and Ran Joo band together against Seo Joon and why, to who was going to be the culprit in Woo Haks memory loss, to there being something the family was hiding as to why they wouldn't tell Mak Ha who Ki Ho truly was....I put it all in comments here the first premier weekend from the first 2 episodes.
However, we are now just halfway through and all of this is revealed...except the detail of what the family is hiding....so Im excited that there could be stuff comming I didn't forsee....
Yes, but it seems that Netflix is doing the split thing...the first 10 episodes (as a season 1) and the last 6…
Or ya know how all last YA novel series were split into 2 final films to get more relase dates out of the material.
As long as its good and done well...I dont care....except for the waiting between the drops. I wasn't dissing anything. I was just letting the original poster who asked a question a relastic response to that question and setting expectations....
Yes, but it seems that Netflix is doing the split thing...the first 10 episodes (as a season 1) and the last 6…
Yes, it was greenlit for the same episode count of a normal kdrama cut down the middle into 2 seasons of 10 and filmed all at once.
Netflix has now even split it up further by releasing only the first 7 episodes of season 1 and then the last 3 episodes about a month later.
This way finacaially they can get more views, break-up the binge of viewers...and require subscriotions for mutliple months instead of just 1 to see the whole story.
Season 2 premier has not been announced but is also conpletly filmed..
This way the actors only had to show up for one time frame to film, film the same amount equal to only 1 normal series, and likely not get differnet pay negotiations for multiple seasons...but 1 rate per episode of all 20 episodes.
But netflix gets to have multiple seasons out of it and multiple minths of release ..
It is the same tactics they are doing with a lot of shows, not just Korean to stretch content.
Definitely overrated in my opinion! Had the potential to be great but the wow factor was missing and in the end…
Oh and you can FULLY skip episodes 8-15, because when anything in those 7 episodes was important to what happens in the last 5 episodes....guess what....they flash back to that important moment so you can see it AGAIN...meaning you will understand whats happening without those 7 episodes anyway.
Definitely overrated in my opinion! Had the potential to be great but the wow factor was missing and in the end…
Now done, with the series...and it took me days to decide on a score.
Soo much was done well and right.
But so much was done poorly and pointlessly.
The first 7 episodes are the strongest, when it came to building tension, world building, and creating an emotional core...and it sets up thispossible world wide story with high stakes.
Then episodes 8-15 are a prequal series comepletely detached from the first 7 episodes. And they are also tonally different the 8-9 an old school espiange spy mini-story with full 1950-60s type look and feel but set in the 90s.
Episodes 10-11 a noir gritty violent ganster mini story where everyone is technically a bad guy and being brutal to each other.
12-15 brings these two together to finally take the story to where we picked everything up at episode 1 of the begining of the series...
Yet, once we get back to the present day the storyline is a completely new story with just the same characters...it deals more with the 90's flashback fallout, than the evil brewing in the first 7 episodes. Thus, it just uses the time and people from the begining of the series to create an utlimate ending to the prequal series. Which was dissapointing.
Also the end does fizzle a lot...beacsue of this set-up. Also, because most of the sudden badguys for the end are all new...the last episodes are filled with EVEN MORE flash backs, some thrown in directly into the middle of action sequences that put it all an hold for 20 to 30 minutes, completely diluting the tension in play.
These last 5 episodes 16-20 are of only a few hours over 1 single night stretched as thin as it possibly can be stretched with characters taking whole episodes to even 2 episodes just to make it from point A to point B inside of a single building that is just a set piece. And you literally have a fight scene of two people just standing across from each other punching one-at-time back and forth each other for like 5 to 10 minutes straight. Neither of the players blocking, moving, side stepping, or trying anything but just simple punches...it is boring.
While the first 7 episdoes give you flashbacks and some back story of the original bad guy, he earend it...he was with us for eoisodes, having amazing fight scenes, shrouded in mystery, and I liked knowing his story. But the bad guys of the end are just there suddenly and beacuse they have played no part in the story, they havent earned the right for me to waste time knowing their back stories...but the show thinks otherwise, and everysingle one gets a flashback to tell us who they are and why they are here, in the middle of the chaos....which just slows it all to crawl, becoems repetative and boring, and is wasted considering some of them are defeated the moment the flash back ends and we are done with them as characters...defining wasted screentime.
Then in the last 5 minutes of the last episode you have all these Marvel-like quick cut post credit scenes to actually wrap-up the characters and stories that actually mattered in extremely anticlimatictic dissapointing fashion...and tese the big story that was introduced back in the original 7 episodes...which will only happen if we get sequal series....
I would have much rather spent time watching all the stuff in the last 5 minutes of the last episode unfold for the final 5 episodes than a slow, boring, 1-set overly extended action sequence with all new bad villians.....just ugh.
But when it was great it was great...and i cant forget that...
So I decided...
7.5 = B, 3 3/4-Stars. Shows its flaws but remains strong, likely to be enjoyed.
it's good.. Didn't go into the drama because of the elite actors thoughbut it's worth the ratings for meDepends…
I just finished episode 10...so I'm only halfway through...
It is good. The acting, the production, the special effects, and it has an emotional core. When it has action, the action is brutal. When it has heart, it swells and is um...efulgent.
With that said, I dont think as of right now, Ill give it a 9.5 or 10. The writer seems to not have a clear picture of where they wanted to start the story. Im 3 episodes deep into backstory in different timelines withought even a glimpse into the main ongoing story. And so far, these backstories seem basically a prequal series inside the main story to let you know how everyone came to be where they were back at the start of episode 1...
Like watching the first 3 seasons of GOT to then tune into season 4 being House of Dragons....
Its all done well, but myself and the 2 others Im watching it with are all just waiting to get back to the story that had us interested from the start...we just counted the hulu pic icons to see when it seemed this backstory will be over...and it looks like we got 3 more episodes to go.
Id say its worth your time, and it is high quality...just not perfect...so like an 8 to if it finishes amazing maybe a 9.
It isn't bad per se...it's just very basic, tropey, slow, kinda depressing, and perfucntory.
If you like procedurals, you will be more inclined to like this, as it carries a mostly per episode story telling...like this week we tackle self harm...next week depression. With a very Grey's Anatomy type female lead who has an ongoing story of truama and the search for love.
It also sets its episodes up like, this week qe have a confrence on the signs of a Panic Disorder, and so then a temp nurse there for just the episode also has...guess what...a panic disorder ..
It does this over and over again. One nurse is a working mother who is at wits end...told at the same time a working mother who is losing it is admitted...again for the 1 episode...
We learn about sudden onset depression and how PTSD can even cause memory loss of incidents and blackouts...only for a nurse to walk up immediately to those that just had this conversation and not remember a dead patient cause its too traumatic...and then fall into sudden onset depression...
Which makes it play like an afterschool special, public awareness campaign...more than like an actual story with people dealing with these issues and trying to overcome them that we can connect with move through it with and become attatched.
Extremely surface level treatment here, and since next weeks episode will deal with a new psych issue, the characters or charcater's problems are MOSTLY, but not always, forgotten about by the next episode...that is until the end finally tells a mini story with its last episodes that are all connected and could have just been a 4-5 episode mini series..
Also, the title suggests, as well as commercials, that this is a story about shining a light and bringing uplifting tales into the darkness and stigma of mental illness...but it is the opposite, in which something bright is swallowed by the darkness and must find its way back to being shining...in the most dramatic way possible.
Slow burn, slow moving, and slightly depressing it tells its story like its desinged for children or maybe teenagers, with the audience likely caring more about the will they wont they love triangle romance, than the story of fighting one's inner demons.
I gave it a 6.5 just north of average and at its worst entertaining.
Wow so much hype since 2022 for this drama and then I was like they’ll release it at the start of 2023 for sure…
I think they decided to try and capitalize on The Marvels...Netflix is hoping worldwide audiences and especially American Audiences will tune in since Seo Joon is in it and will be more world-wide known after ant it comes out in November...
Marketing Strategy....to get more eyeballs, so they held it for release after.
It may work, but since The Marvels is tracking on the low end before release and, as of right now, not expected to be a big hit or come close to the 1 Billion + the first Captian Marvel made...it may have been a blunder.
But who knows, Kdrama audiences and Asian countries , especially SKorea, already know the cast and Seo Joon and will tune in accordingly...but they definitely are wanting a larger net of viewers. Always looking for the next Squid Game.
Possibly The Marvels will end up a hit. Possibly it will have legs. Possibly Seo Joon will become more well known from it outside of core Kdrama heads...and holding it till after will pay off in the end with viewing numbers...
But, they need to release a trailer at least to get some buzz...we are nearing it only being 1 month out.
Yes, but it seems that Netflix is doing the split thing...the first 10 episodes (as a season 1) and the last 6 to 10 (depending on if its a 16 or 20 episode series) as a season 2 which will drop early next year....
Like they did with The Glory and Stranger Things...But it is a Netflix Original so it won't be weekly episode releases, but all at once. However, don't expect the story to be finished with the 1st 10 epsidodes of season 1...
Horrid directing, questionable acting, lighting like every corner of every frame should be as bright as possible without a shadow anywhere, sound mixed like it's in a chamber (probably fine on headphones or tiny tv speakers but any reasonable sound system its horrible), blocking like it's a highschool play, cardboard or overly dramatic extras and small role characters, oh and music, let's not talk about it....
Feels cheap, soap opra-ish, amateurish, and aged even though it's airing currently.
The plot is interesting, which makes it hurt more. You can see in almost every frame what it could have been....instead of what it is.
Oh and the husband not loving her is 1 thing, but caring not a moment when she is being burried by her family in falsehoods with a set-up and feeling nothing as she is lying on her death bed....is a very very different thing.....and the cops, how laughable are they...seriously what IQ do the creators think I have?
Same boat. Came here to see if there was any clarification.I get that they want the past to be a mystery that…
So no one else feels the way we do apparently...
And by the conversations had on this page now, and the continued conversations even of this thread I commented on...
It honestly is the second one...
Sexism..
At least those that read the webtoon.
You simply learn to like or love the ML and see how he loves the FL, so when she takes her revenge on him, you feel bad for him. His spirit haunts her forever to get its revenge and find peace...and as a reader/viewer you just accept it and side with him over her
...because he loved her....
And his love and anguish are more important than hers, apparently....and she can never be at rest because she was loved by him and fell in live with him herself...only to betray that love....thus throwing away such a man's love for revenge, has left even her reincarnations to suffer eternally.
So yeah, sexism...
Ummmmm....if that is honestly how this story goes...this is getting at most a 6 from me....at MOST which means everything else has to be perfect...which I know it will not be. So likely a lower score.
I don't understand, ML aka Do Ha (past) killed FL family and then married her and her to revenge her family, killed…
Same boat. Came here to see if there was any clarification.
I get that they want the past to be a mystery that unravels as the present day story progresses...So, I am guessing it is supposed to be confusing on purpose...so you keep tuning in to make it make sense.
But yeah, how he has beef, is beyond me...unless it has to do with her family ending up being really bad or somthn so what he did in the past was justified and hers was not.....I guess....thats all I can come up with to make it seem logical in any way...also her revenge plan was absolutely savage. So, maybe sexism...she was just too damn good with her revenge and so the guy is allowed to be mad about it...
God if its the second one then this show will be the absolute pits...
1 
2 
"It is known"
The particular mystery you speak of is over.
I also have been around 85% to 90% correct on how this story was going to play out from who is Ki Ho, to how Mak Ha and Ran Joo band together against Seo Joon and why, to who was going to be the culprit in Woo Haks memory loss, to there being something the family was hiding as to why they wouldn't tell Mak Ha who Ki Ho truly was....I put it all in comments here the first premier weekend from the first 2 episodes.
However, we are now just halfway through and all of this is revealed...except the detail of what the family is hiding....so Im excited that there could be stuff comming I didn't forsee....
As long as its good and done well...I dont care....except for the waiting between the drops. I wasn't dissing anything. I was just letting the original poster who asked a question a relastic response to that question and setting expectations....
Which is what they asked for...
Dont understand the angry responses.
Netflix has now even split it up further by releasing only the first 7 episodes of season 1 and then the last 3 episodes about a month later.
This way finacaially they can get more views, break-up the binge of viewers...and require subscriotions for mutliple months instead of just 1 to see the whole story.
Season 2 premier has not been announced but is also conpletly filmed..
This way the actors only had to show up for one time frame to film, film the same amount equal to only 1 normal series, and likely not get differnet pay negotiations for multiple seasons...but 1 rate per episode of all 20 episodes.
But netflix gets to have multiple seasons out of it and multiple minths of release ..
It is the same tactics they are doing with a lot of shows, not just Korean to stretch content.
Coincedence.....nope.
Soo much was done well and right.
But so much was done poorly and pointlessly.
The first 7 episodes are the strongest, when it came to building tension, world building, and creating an emotional core...and it sets up thispossible world wide story with high stakes.
Then episodes 8-15 are a prequal series comepletely detached from the first 7 episodes. And they are also tonally different the 8-9 an old school espiange spy mini-story with full 1950-60s type look and feel but set in the 90s.
Episodes 10-11 a noir gritty violent ganster mini story where everyone is technically a bad guy and being brutal to each other.
12-15 brings these two together to finally take the story to where we picked everything up at episode 1 of the begining of the series...
Yet, once we get back to the present day the storyline is a completely new story with just the same characters...it deals more with the 90's flashback fallout, than the evil brewing in the first 7 episodes. Thus, it just uses the time and people from the begining of the series to create an utlimate ending to the prequal series. Which was dissapointing.
Also the end does fizzle a lot...beacsue of this set-up. Also, because most of the sudden badguys for the end are all new...the last episodes are filled with EVEN MORE flash backs, some thrown in directly into the middle of action sequences that put it all an hold for 20 to 30 minutes, completely diluting the tension in play.
These last 5 episodes 16-20 are of only a few hours over 1 single night stretched as thin as it possibly can be stretched with characters taking whole episodes to even 2 episodes just to make it from point A to point B inside of a single building that is just a set piece. And you literally have a fight scene of two people just standing across from each other punching one-at-time back and forth each other for like 5 to 10 minutes straight. Neither of the players blocking, moving, side stepping, or trying anything but just simple punches...it is boring.
While the first 7 episdoes give you flashbacks and some back story of the original bad guy, he earend it...he was with us for eoisodes, having amazing fight scenes, shrouded in mystery, and I liked knowing his story. But the bad guys of the end are just there suddenly and beacuse they have played no part in the story, they havent earned the right for me to waste time knowing their back stories...but the show thinks otherwise, and everysingle one gets a flashback to tell us who they are and why they are here, in the middle of the chaos....which just slows it all to crawl, becoems repetative and boring, and is wasted considering some of them are defeated the moment the flash back ends and we are done with them as characters...defining wasted screentime.
Then in the last 5 minutes of the last episode you have all these Marvel-like quick cut post credit scenes to actually wrap-up the characters and stories that actually mattered in extremely anticlimatictic dissapointing fashion...and tese the big story that was introduced back in the original 7 episodes...which will only happen if we get sequal series....
I would have much rather spent time watching all the stuff in the last 5 minutes of the last episode unfold for the final 5 episodes than a slow, boring, 1-set overly extended action sequence with all new bad villians.....just ugh.
But when it was great it was great...and i cant forget that...
So I decided...
7.5 = B, 3 3/4-Stars. Shows its flaws but remains strong, likely to be enjoyed.
It is good. The acting, the production, the special effects, and it has an emotional core. When it has action, the action is brutal. When it has heart, it swells and is um...efulgent.
With that said, I dont think as of right now, Ill give it a 9.5 or 10. The writer seems to not have a clear picture of where they wanted to start the story. Im 3 episodes deep into backstory in different timelines withought even a glimpse into the main ongoing story. And so far, these backstories seem basically a prequal series inside the main story to let you know how everyone came to be where they were back at the start of episode 1...
Like watching the first 3 seasons of GOT to then tune into season 4 being House of Dragons....
Its all done well, but myself and the 2 others Im watching it with are all just waiting to get back to the story that had us interested from the start...we just counted the hulu pic icons to see when it seemed this backstory will be over...and it looks like we got 3 more episodes to go.
Id say its worth your time, and it is high quality...just not perfect...so like an 8 to if it finishes amazing maybe a 9.
Since they dropped 2 episodes the 1st week that means that the show only needs 13 of the 15 weeks its scheduled to air for its total 14 episode count.
Since this is the second wednesday being skipped...that would mean it has to air on ALL wednesdays moving forward to be competed on Jan 17th.
That is unless they drop double episodes again on another date...or revise the airing period.
Castaway as in stranded on an island as our FL
And Castaway as in how our 2nd FL was a diva who has been cast aside or away from her fame and influence and turned into an island that is sinking...
Both are Divas and both are castaway...just differently.
It isn't bad per se...it's just very basic, tropey, slow, kinda depressing, and perfucntory.
If you like procedurals, you will be more inclined to like this, as it carries a mostly per episode story telling...like this week we tackle self harm...next week depression. With a very Grey's Anatomy type female lead who has an ongoing story of truama and the search for love.
It also sets its episodes up like, this week qe have a confrence on the signs of a Panic Disorder, and so then a temp nurse there for just the episode also has...guess what...a panic disorder ..
It does this over and over again. One nurse is a working mother who is at wits end...told at the same time a working mother who is losing it is admitted...again for the 1 episode...
We learn about sudden onset depression and how PTSD can even cause memory loss of incidents and blackouts...only for a nurse to walk up immediately to those that just had this conversation and not remember a dead patient cause its too traumatic...and then fall into sudden onset depression...
Which makes it play like an afterschool special, public awareness campaign...more than like an actual story with people dealing with these issues and trying to overcome them that we can connect with move through it with and become attatched.
Extremely surface level treatment here, and since next weeks episode will deal with a new psych issue, the characters or charcater's problems are MOSTLY, but not always, forgotten about by the next episode...that is until the end finally tells a mini story with its last episodes that are all connected and could have just been a 4-5 episode mini series..
Also, the title suggests, as well as commercials, that this is a story about shining a light and bringing uplifting tales into the darkness and stigma of mental illness...but it is the opposite, in which something bright is swallowed by the darkness and must find its way back to being shining...in the most dramatic way possible.
Slow burn, slow moving, and slightly depressing it tells its story like its desinged for children or maybe teenagers, with the audience likely caring more about the will they wont they love triangle romance, than the story of fighting one's inner demons.
I gave it a 6.5 just north of average and at its worst entertaining.
Marketing Strategy....to get more eyeballs, so they held it for release after.
It may work, but since The Marvels is tracking on the low end before release and, as of right now, not expected to be a big hit or come close to the 1 Billion + the first Captian Marvel made...it may have been a blunder.
But who knows, Kdrama audiences and Asian countries , especially SKorea, already know the cast and Seo Joon and will tune in accordingly...but they definitely are wanting a larger net of viewers. Always looking for the next Squid Game.
Possibly The Marvels will end up a hit. Possibly it will have legs. Possibly Seo Joon will become more well known from it outside of core Kdrama heads...and holding it till after will pay off in the end with viewing numbers...
But, they need to release a trailer at least to get some buzz...we are nearing it only being 1 month out.
Like they did with The Glory and Stranger Things...But it is a Netflix Original so it won't be weekly episode releases, but all at once. However, don't expect the story to be finished with the 1st 10 epsidodes of season 1...
Feels cheap, soap opra-ish, amateurish, and aged even though it's airing currently.
The plot is interesting, which makes it hurt more. You can see in almost every frame what it could have been....instead of what it is.
Oh and the husband not loving her is 1 thing, but caring not a moment when she is being burried by her family in falsehoods with a set-up and feeling nothing as she is lying on her death bed....is a very very different thing.....and the cops, how laughable are they...seriously what IQ do the creators think I have?
And by the conversations had on this page now, and the continued conversations even of this thread I commented on...
It honestly is the second one...
Sexism..
At least those that read the webtoon.
You simply learn to like or love the ML and see how he loves the FL, so when she takes her revenge on him, you feel bad for him. His spirit haunts her forever to get its revenge and find peace...and as a reader/viewer you just accept it and side with him over her
...because he loved her....
And his love and anguish are more important than hers, apparently....and she can never be at rest because she was loved by him and fell in live with him herself...only to betray that love....thus throwing away such a man's love for revenge, has left even her reincarnations to suffer eternally.
So yeah, sexism...
Ummmmm....if that is honestly how this story goes...this is getting at most a 6 from me....at MOST which means everything else has to be perfect...which I know it will not be. So likely a lower score.
I get that they want the past to be a mystery that unravels as the present day story progresses...So, I am guessing it is supposed to be confusing on purpose...so you keep tuning in to make it make sense.
But yeah, how he has beef, is beyond me...unless it has to do with her family ending up being really bad or somthn so what he did in the past was justified and hers was not.....I guess....thats all I can come up with to make it seem logical in any way...also her revenge plan was absolutely savage. So, maybe sexism...she was just too damn good with her revenge and so the guy is allowed to be mad about it...
God if its the second one then this show will be the absolute pits...