Weak Rehash
The good:- The main character gives a great performance.
- The music is well suited to the rich emotional themes of this series.
The bad:
- Most of the charm of S1 is left behind. No mc fight strategies. Characters are not very unique. Conflicts are not interesting.
- Netflixification: 8x 30 minute eps is just not enough time to flesh anything out at all. To make it even worse, most scenes feel like they are intentionally milking the clock. You wont see anyone even reach for their phone until it rings 3 full times. Everyone talks incredibly slow, which at first seems to be for dramatic effect but at some point its just not done well, and gives the impression they are just filling time.
- Nothing new or original at all. Especially if you watched S1 and Study Group and any other basic bully dramas then there is absolutely nothing new in this, and nothing done especially well in comparison to other dramas.
- A new friend group is just inserted without much premise, and immediately just have the same camaraderie as S1 friends, which feels forced. Nobody in this season feels real/interesting.
- Highschool students played by fully adult actors is jarring.
- Bullies and thugs are all flat cardboard cutouts.
- Not a single female character in sight, other than his mom.
- Relationship with his mom is touched on but not explored at all. Barely any backstory or context for any of the characters.
- Most new characters are terribly overacted, somehow both cartoonish and also bland.
- The new friend played by a major actor is very forced to try to fill in as Suho vibes, which just feels derivative. We are also supposed to believe he is some kind of powerhouse, but he just looks like an idol.
- The fights are all just brawls, where everyone keeps their hands at their sides and just trade hits to the face while refusing to even try to block. I guess they don't need to block since punches to the face barely faze anyone
- This whole season feels like its mocking the mc whenever he fights. He will grab so many pens and just get them taken from him and endlessly whiff. He actually seems to have gotten much worse at fighting, so the entire season we just watch him get beat down. I don't think there was a single satisfying "hero" moment in this entire season.
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Great FL performance, mediocre mystery
The good:- The FL performance is excellent. A unique and interesting characterization, just tons of aura
- The FL wardrobe is also excellent. At times it felt like he sheer number of wardrobe changes she goes through in the early eps was unnecessary, except each outfit was so good we just say thank you and ignore the plausibility
- The FL and ML relationship in the middle arc was pretty good
The bad:
- Everything about the mystery in this is both very obvious and handled super heavy handedly. Just every beat it feels like the writers are yelling at you "ISNT THIS SUSPICIOUS!" Just a total lack of subtlety
- Something about the broader cast felt weird, I am not sure if it's a result of being a disney production, but it felt like a lot of the bigger named actors in support roles were trying too hard to like "be an amazing actor". I am not sure how to convey this quality, and it may have been more a result of the directing trying to emphasize those side actors and imply maybe we should suspect them or something, but whatever it was kept taking me out of the scenes.
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Cozy and visually stunning
THE GOOD:- Everything is gorgeous. The sets and cinematography are going all out to create beautiful, magical, cozy, warm experiences
- The plot is cozy. There are conflicts, but they don't drag on and they always feel warranted and realistic. Some angst but nothing terrible.
- The character motivations make sense. This shouldn't even be praise; but after a lot of shows lately, it stood out that this show actually provides plausible character motivations for each character action. Each thing leads to the next.
- Good chemistry, nothing feels awkward or forced. (Except when its supposed to)
- Hilarious side characters. I always love side characters, and the coworkers in this really delivered
THE MEDIUM:
- The theme song is not very good, and is also overused, but also the sound engineers did a good job of how it was used? And also adding diversity by using some variations of it. Some effort was put in, but the song itself has a gratingly circular melody.
THE BAD:
- For me, I would have liked to spend more time in the period before things are "out in the open". That is a very fun period of light misunderstandings and flirting, that was finished too soon. A few things about the pace move on a bit quickly, but we are trying to tell a full story in 8 eps so I guess we gotta keep moving.
- Too much focus on intimate scenes. It's fine if that's what you are looking for, but that isn't why I'm here. One would be sufficient.
- Tons of PPA. I have grown to accept a lot, but it was pretty jarring at times they are like a jump scare as we cut suddenly to a product.
- Some plotlines felt a bit undeveloped. But I mostly forgave that, because they didn't sacrifice their actual purpose to fit the space they were given, they just could have been fleshed out a bit more.
- The parents were pretty awkward while also being focused on too much. They also had a somewhat vague or handwaved setup -- everyone is living in what looks like a very wealthy neighborhood, but both single parents don't seem to be working. Meanwhile financial matters are also a central plot conflict as though we are a low income family. There was some dissonance in this part of the premise.
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Mixed review
Flash review--So apparently if you are a fan of the source material you have to hate this. But if you aren't then you may have fun.
THE GOOD
Pretty fun action
Some interesting setting/story stuff. Some very creative things, and calling it "scifi" or "superhero" doesn't seem to encompass that aspect well enough. Perhaps pushing into creating a new subgenre or at least some new ideas for scifi
Some of the emotional moments landed well. This actually is the big difference for me between it being bad and having been worth a watch.
THE BAD
Way too much CGI, and the CGI looks cheap. Regularly stuff doesn't even look like it belongs in the scene, it is more like its just animated on its own and laid on top of a background.
A lot of the action doesn't even make sense. Just punching stuff because its cool to watch bricks flying, without considering if the character has a reason to punch that. Maybe this aspect is "fun and cartoony" if you are just eating popcorn
Way too rushed. This is clearly an episodic plotline, with separate plot arcs that happen in each location, that should have been an 8 episode series, but just forced into a 2 hour runtime. We could have actually cared about these side characters a lot, but there isn't space to flesh them out enough
That forced pace was also costly when this includes a lot of unique setting things, and its all just kinda forced at you or mentioned in a gestural way without actually establishing anything. Without clarity about the "rules" of the setting, it is hard to feel like overcoming any conflict is "earned"
Yet another kdrama that thinks a bullying plotline is the greatest way to build a hero. But of course it doesn't even handle it well.
Oh and the final fight is corny as hell, empty calories of CGI fighting
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Great characters and disappointing writing
The characters in this are really enjoyable; vibrant and expressively portrayed, I really found myself caring about so many of them. We get something like 4+ romances so we get an assortment of types of couples. Unfortunately the writing and pacing are just really rough and the vast majority of time is spent avoiding real plot and just circling misunderstandings and lying and hiding from each other.Was this review helpful to you?
Solid run for this subgenre
You pretty much get what is on the tin.The production value is better than most shorts, feels more like a proper cdrama.
The eps are shorts though, so it stays focused on the main plotline and sees it through to the end. Not too much unique, but sticks to what it is and does it well. Pretty much just a well executed run of the usual tropes. Nothing special but not too bad either.
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Very mixed bag
THE GOODAbout half of this show is well written and treated with respect for the viewer. It actually feels like if a writer or director just made a strong effort and changed like 15% this would have soared from a 5/10 to a 9/10. Sadly big problems do more damage than the strong foundation on this one could stand.
The main romance is mostly well handled. Not like very deep or nuanced, but pretty good. It is nice to see fully adults leading romance dramas.
Refreshing to not have many of the usual overdone GL tropes. Since there's thriller plot we dont bother with the usual tropes.
...the friendgroup vibes are pretty good
THE BAD
Honestly there is a lot of bad
Most side characters are utterly flat, written with no nuance or depth and acted as though it is highschool theater. This is constant and it is a majority of the characters. It is so painful, that this aspect alone begs you to drop the show every single episode.
Massive plot holes at every turn. Pretty much everytime the thriller plotlines would reach a head, the reasoning for what happens just falls apart as though the writers are just slapping together the idea of what a cop show plot would do there. Glaring issues.
Nearly no character who does evil stuff gets any consequences. And there are so many characters being utterly corrupt and doing atrocious stuff. Zero justice here.
Fundamental misogyny in the crimes, just never addressed? In a GL? Why do these shows use so much of this stuff and just never deliver a moral?
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Cute FL and nothing else
Take the short episode length and number of episodes as a warning.The good:
- The FL is great
- The visual and music production is actually pretty strong
The bad:
- The plot makes no sense. It is really really bad in how much you have to turn your brain off
- The ML is an actual bad person. He does multiple actually bad things and treats people badly for no reason. He has no redemption arc at all, not that you can really redeem some of the things he does. And the writers just force a sudden romantic arc out of nowhere, but of course even when he's being portrayed as romantic, he's still treating the FL like an object as if you can just kiss away her objections to actually evil things he's doing
- The plot jumps around as if there are tons of missing scenes and editors just didn't care. This makes the pacing absolutely terrible, and the continuity regularly falls apart.
- The premise is never fleshed out at all, dont come here looking for anything interesting about a girl trapped in a tv show, it is used a little and then has almost no bearing on the plot at all
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Lovely quick binge
The episodes are very short, which makes the show an easy binge. The short eps definitely let to a more brisk pace and maybe less depth to be explored along the way, but it still managed to be of a quality level only slightly below a full length drama, and still a large step above other "short ep web dramas".The lead, Gia Ge, is absolutely fantastic in this. The camera loves her and her gaze can just hold its attention in a very powerful way. The plot has beats of romance, revenge, melancholy, beauty; and the show handles each with vividness and care and emphatic emotional impact.
The only criticisms I have are there were a few plotlines that get kind of dropped, or at least not as resolved as I would have liked. But everything still made sense in the end, so it was mostly just the short length not having a lot of room for more, and the writing decisions to be only... somewhat bloodthirsty ;)
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Strong leads in a writing mess
Overall I would call this a mediocre drama -- nothing terrible, nothing great.THE GOOD
- The leads
- The setting is magical
...
- The soundtrck is pretty strong
- Some plot / side characters are cute and fun
THE BAD
- Way too much angst
- Many plotlines will repeat over and over
- Villains are flat, uninteresting, and cartoonish
- Heavy handed filial piety propaganda
- Side characters (all characters other than the leads tbh) are often overacted and have their characterization so over emphasized that they become insufferable. Especially the 2nd and 3rd male leads
- Brain off writing. Don't expect plots or character motivations to be believable or even consistent.
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Uncanny valley ruins the potential
The biggest issue for me, is the uncanny valley being so jarring and prevalent that I couldn't get invested in the actual good parts. Maybe some people are less sensitive to that, and if you are, you may be able to enjoy this drama more than me.BAD CGI & DUBBING
I guess one of the second leads is using an CGI filter on her face? It does not look good, especially when speaking or emoting. Her partner also frequently has an eerie effect on her, it seems like her face is real but her eye movements have some weird smoothing or something, idk.
It actually feels like the "filter" use may even be broader than that, but sometimes it isn't clear whether the uncanny feeling is from a filter making faces look weird, or just the dubbing being bad / the actors lipsyncing poorly because they know it will be dubbed? (I don't know if that is a thing, but it would explain a lot, because it often doesn't even look like they are actually speaking)
GOOD EMOTIONAL BEATS
The primary story for the main couple is actually pretty strong. If you can ignore the other problems, this actually could have made it a pretty good watch.
Even the secondary couple has good ...writing. But saying that their arc is good would be difficult when they look like 1.5 animatronics.
BAD CONFLICT WRITING
Okay, I normally don't like to criticize actors. What do I know, I am sure I would be worse than the worst actor. But in this case, the combination of acting/directing/writing for the 2 main antagonists was actually painful enough to make me dislike the whole show (a second time, even if the uncanny valley hadn't been ruining it enough).
The villains just act incredibly cartoonish. Like way beyond even shows where the genre expects a villain to be cartoonish. These 2 characters act like they are in a vshort and honestly many vshort villains are more believable than this.
Many of these conflicts also have writing that is barely coherent. If you have your brain on even the slightest bit, many of the scenes will not even have internally consistent logic. They really do just throw some tropes at the wall to fill out the plot. :(
DISAPPOINTING TONE
Okay this one may just be my preconceived notions, but I felt like this show was trying to be a combination of Thai GL and Chinese vShort and did both poorly. If you actually combined them well I would probably have enjoyed it. But what I had REALLY hoped this would be, was for it to be a new style distinct to better quality Chinese dramas.
China already has some stuff like this with its own tone that are really great! Very disappointing that this one failed to focus.
Examples of Chinese GL tone already being distinct (and good to me!):
Indie films (Actual GLs)
- https://kisskh.at/749131-fireworks-of-yesteryear
- https://kisskh.at/700737-fragrance-of-the-first-flower
Historicals (Sismance)
- https://kisskh.at/62355-couple-of-mirrors
- https://kisskh.at/788444-be-her-resilience
- https://kisskh.at/777852-shuang-shu-mei-tan
Fantasy vShorts (Sismance+, these have vibes but are often chopped up)
- https://kisskh.at/764425-shuang-tu
- https://kisskh.at/716845-the-fox-spirit-and-the-little-priest
- https://kisskh.at/764425-shuang-tu
- https://kisskh.at/726937-the-vampires
- Pretty much anything with https://kisskh.at/people/35259-yang-fu-yu
- Pretty much anything with https://kisskh.at/people/79893-sheng-wei
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Cozy but serious period drama
For me this drama exceeded all of my expectations. I personally am not big on crime genres, but this show balances the stories it is telling against that framework well, so that I never felt like it was just "procedural".I found the characters all very interesting and likable. This gave me a "the crew" vibe, where the team is also kind of like a family, each bringing a different flavor to the ensemble.
The cases themselves were pretty interesting and tackle some pretty complex issues. Also it has been a while since a show has actually surprised me with a reveal, and a couple times I was pleasantly surprised that I had been taking certain things for granted in a given plotline. I guess this quality feels to me like someone really thought through each individual plotline and plot point so that they *really* make sense. And to do so for complex intrigue plots is extra nice, tbh these days many dramas just take for granted that tropes are all they need for a plotline, but if the audience gives it more than half a thought then the whole premise of a given plot point doesn't hold up to scrutiny. This show did not have that problem.
The leads are interesting and we get to spend a bit of time with them "living their lives" which was really nice to kind of flesh them out more beyond just showing them solving cases. I definitely would have liked to see more of this, but I thought what there was, was pretty good in this regard. The last "sismance" crime show I watched, did not do this as well as Duet of Shadows did.
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- Good chemistry
- Doesn't rush the couple to be together
- Interesting characters with flaws and unique character traits
- Very satisfying romance arc
THE ???
- tbh I expected this to be way more toxic based on the title. There are definitely still some IFFY things in this, but for the most part I think it handles them well? Or treats them as toxic, so it doesn't just pretend like being toxic is okay...mostly?
THE BAD
- Pace sometimes drags.
- Way too much lingering on love scenes to fill time and just gazey fan service.
- Way too much lingering on homophobia and each antagonist plot in general.
- Doesn't resolve antagonist plots well -- rushes the wrap up after dragging them on too long. Weirdly some are granted forgiveness (way too easily) and others are vilified even in the end (when maybe they deserved some sympathy?)
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Chinese fantasy GL
It is rare enough to find chinese GL but to find historical/fantasy is even rarer. This not only is both of those things but also has a very interesting plot and characters. Someone put a lot of love into writing this and putting together a production for it.The 2 real problems are:
1. The production quality is very low, bad editing and a very limited amount of footage makes this feel more like a broadstrokes gesture drawing of what would have been an amazing show
2. It is really hard to find a clean copy of this online. Most copies are either chopped up, or have had their audio tracks changed
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Not great but actually some good comedy
First off, this is barely a GL, though it has women loving women, it just isn't structured like a romance drama, if that makes sense? It seems to be structured more like a sitcom.Also it is overly focused on giving the large number of actors time to use the screen. It feels like MGI used this as a vehicle to test a bunch of potential actors?
As long as you go into it understanding those aspects, and managing your expectations, you may have a lot of fun with this.
Where it shines is the comedy and honestly even the acting is surprisingly good. Engfa and Charlotte show way more range in this than we got to see in Petrichor, this actually gave me renewed interest in their work.
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