Editorials
Really basic in all aspects.
It’s hard to have any opinion about this movie because it was just really… mediocre. They used the typical jump scares, the plot and the ending were rather predictable, the characters were stereotypical.It had a nice atmosphere to it, but I feel like it was not used to the fullest. They could have focused more on the different motivations between characters - Jia Wei trying to get money and Shu Yi trying to get peace. This could lead to a good conflict between the couple, drive them apart and be better incorporated into the hunting aspect.
That said, the acting itself was good. I have no complaints in this area. Especially a good performance from Kimi Hsia, who had to show a lot of the character’s internal conflict through facial expressions.
Overall, it is skippable.
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The vague explanation of the plots, relationships between the characters and the characters’ motivations is exactly the charm of the stories. Everyone can see what they want to see, everyone can view it the way they seem fit, and everyone will be correct in their perception.
For me Love Set represents the determination, desperation and domination; Collector serves as a literal representation of toxic relationships, when two people expect different things and cannot fulfill each other’s needs; Kiss Burn shows the recklessness of youth and the overexaggerated perception of events they hold; Walking at Night portrays the grief and guilt one might feel after losing the loved ones, and how we can try to subconsciously deal with it.
IU’s performance was truly amazing. While she has her style in the lines delivery, that can be seen in most of her projects, the nuances she adds on top of it made all the characters distinguishable.
Each movie was beautifully shot, with Kiss Burn fitting my taste the most. Loved the dark environment and the use of light to bring the set to life.
Overall, after finishing the first episode I asked myself “what the heck have I just seen?”, but the more I watched, the more interested I became and I started to build my own interpretation of the stories I’ve been watching.
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The biggest problem I had was poor world building and a villain that made no sense. The pacing was also quite all over the place. With a rather simple plot like this (especially since they did not expand on more complex themes that could have been included), it was just too long - the movie dragged.
The ending was lazy. In this type of movie I am not expecting a plot twist of a century, but they should wrap everything up.
The best part of Space Sweepers was for sure Kang Kot Nim. Truly loved the actress and the character she was playing. She had the best chemistry with every cast member.
Overall, don’t bother to watch it, unless you are a massive fan of any of the main cast. It was just a really safe movie, tried to keep everything low key (except for visuals) and because of that it was at times boring and skippable.
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Sure, there were few performances I liked a lot, few that made me laugh, but overall, there wasn't even one episode when I did not feel like skipping. From time to time I rewatch more memorable performances from previous seasons, but I am sure this will not happen here.
Not only participants were less engaging, the celebrity guests also presented, at times, questionable entertainment value.
I don't really have much to say about this season, since it was simply "meh". The format was dead 2 seasons ago, and even with the production team trying to tweak it here and there, it still is not interesting enough anymore.
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Ignoring the unnecessary supernatural aspect of the movie, it's quite an interesting portray of the struggles and hardships of gay people in Korea in 1990', especially among teens.
The way the story is presented is simply confusing, though not impossible to follow. The timeline keeps changing, the flashbacks and current events are, at times, hard to distinguish from each other. Min Ah's deep involvement with the couple is also quite weakly explained.
The worst part of the movie is the last act. That's when the heavy supernatural elements are introduced and take over the story. And it makes the story feel so cheap. This movie would have worked so much better as a teen melodrama or coming of age.
I liked the acting in Whispering Corridors 2 way more than the first movie. It's more modern in style, and because of that, feels more natural.
Overall, I did enjoy it more than the first movie, simply because the topics discussed in here were more serious. I wouldn't call it an amazing movie, but I don't regret picking it up.
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Interesting concept with great performance...
...and too short of the run time.The movie presents an interesting take on the time travel stories. The only connection between the two timelines happens in dreams. This sadly created a pacing problem.
The characters could not easily and actively confirm if what they are seeing is just a dream or an actual different timeline. The introduction to the story just took too long, and as a result, the investigation and cooperation between Geon Woo and Ji Hwan felt rushed and underdeveloped. The potential behind their connection was barely used.
The movie did a great job with fleshing out the characters. The performance of the whole cast was amazing. Jo Jung Suk killed all his emotional scenes, and the subtle effect they had on Geon Woo as a character was perfectly executed by Lee Jin Wook.
Additionally, Time Renegades is simply beautiful. For a crime and detective story, it has quite a number of calm, relaxing, and pretty sceneries, especially in the first half and the closing scenes.
Sadly, the ending was disappointing. The effect the changes in the past had on the present storyline had close to zero sense. Some characters, who had no connection to the past events, had their fate changed without proper explanation. It just didn't click well, felt forced and over the top. They tried to introduce unnecessary plot twists and connections that just didn't work well.
Overall, it was still an enjoyable watch. Some decisions made by characters were questionable and gimmicky (the way they dealt with the main villain was laughable), but I guess that was also the charm of the movie. Adding some run time or making the introduction to the plot and characters shorter could solve some of the problems I had with it. Even with that though, I don't regret watching this movie.
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Quite a nice ghost flick that didn't quite know what it wanted to be.
The movie has two leading aspects to it, that just don't quite match. On one hand, it's a psychological drama about child abuse and the deteriorating relationship between father and daughter. On the other hand, it's a ghost investigation with comedy bits. Sadly none of these two themes are used to their full potential.It would be better if they commited to either of these: focus mostly on the relationship and how it affects the family and then surround it with the stories of abandonment presented in the supernatural aspects or cut short the relationship between dad and his daughter and jump to the ghost investigation with Kyung Hoon faster to truly give that Scooby Doo fun and entertaining story.
The highlight of the movie was the acting and visuals. Heo Yool as Yi Na was a masterpiece of child acting. Especially liked the scene when she was watching a video of her mother.
The design for the supernatural elements was spot on and pleasing to the eye (is that weird to say about some evil beings?). The set design was quite well constructed. Visually speaking the movie was amazing, but that was also the reason I did not find it scary at all. The scene that should terrify or at least give me chills just made me think "wow, that's so pretty/cool".
Overall, I would recommend it as a fun, short movie for a Friday evening after work/school, when you ran out of all brain power and just want to be mildly entertained.
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Sadly, this season had exactly what made me almost drop season one - too much script. The thing I loved about season one was the fact the cast was rarely ever seriously in the characters, and they themselves kept making jokes about the games and the "seriousness" of the cases. Here we got the opposite of that. Everything has been scripted, and with the ending like that I felt like no games nor cases were truly organic.
There was also less variety in the cases and "supporting" characters, since all the cases were strongly connected. The best episodes were the ones that felt the most different from the overall theme.
Sadly IZ*ONE's episode felt like a filler and did not have the same level of excitement like the others. Same goes for episode 9, which was nothing more than a heavy exposition and explanation. More than half of it was us watching the cast watch something else, and definitely not enough interactive elements.
The star of the season was for sure Min Jae. His character was fun to watch, and even more entertaining was when he broke out of it when the jokes were too much to handle.
I still had a lot of fun watching, but I do feel a small dose of disappointment compared to season one.
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I have to admit, mixing variety show and drama format was not a stupid idea. If produced correctly, it combines all the best aspects of the two entertainment media. Did it work out here? Yes and No.
Yes
The cast members trying to fit into the roles of detectives led to many funny scenes that quite literally made me cry from laughing a few times. Having the main plot link all the episodes made me more engaged. Usually, with variety shows, I only watch the episodes that have guests I am interested in. Here, because they tried to tell a cohesive story, it "forces" me to watch all the episodes to be able to understand what is going on.
Dramas and variety shows are as good as the chemistry between the characters/cast. Damn, they did a good job with the casting here. They played off of each other so well. No matter who was working with whom, and how they split up, it was always fun and entertaining to watch.
No
The first three episodes were too scripted, to the point it did not feel genuine. Instead of watching the cast solve the mystery and play the games, it felt like I'm watching them act it out, as if they already knew all the answers. Luckily, even though they left the scripted parts for the plot line to progress, the solving cases did feel more organic in later episodes. They started to have fun with how cringe the show is and joke about it too.
Honestly, I was about to drop it in episode 3 and give it the last shot with 4th only because I saw who the guests were. I was lucky, because that episode changed my mind completely. Now I cannot wait to start watching season 2.
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Truth to be told, this movie failed from the beginning. They committed the worst sin any con artist movie can do - they barely introduced and established the team before they moved to the main plot. With that, I was questioning why they were working together in the first place, since they just did not fit together at all. I was barely able to grasp who was who from the main cast, and then we got yet another team from China, then the mysterious man, then police involved.... and I did not care about anyone. Con movies are as good as the team... and this team was shit.
I'm still not sure what this movie was in terms of genre. It started as a ridiculous, silly comedy, but then it took a dark turn when half way through we said goodbye to so many characters (may I add, the best ones). They tried to bring the comedy back, but it did not work at all. Why try being silly/funny and dark action serious at the same time?
IT. CANNOT. WORK. IN. THAT. FORMAT.
Can we also talk about the action sequences? Was I watching the circus? I was legit waiting for Pennywise to show up and kill everyone (would make for a better movie than this for sure). Why was everyone flying all the time? Why was there proper equipment just lying around?
And that amazingly anticlimactic ending for the "bad guy" that made me question my existence and my reasoning behind me even bothering to watch the movie.
The acting was for sure the best part. The cast did an amazing job portraying these messed up, ridiculous characters, so I was able to enjoy a few scenes here and there.
Overall, do yourself a favor and don't bother watching.
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So where is the comedy genre or tag?
What was it? How to even describe this experience? From Joe Biden to the double meaning of the word pussy jokes - it’s filled with ridiculous moments.Everything, and I mean everything was exaggerated. Not one character acted in a natural manner. Vivian Vera gave me “Brenda”from Scary Movie - her reactions to the crazy shit happening around her were exactly the same.
As for the plot - simple and boring. The issue is the fact that the synopsis spills all the tea. There is nothing more to explore. So you just watch people die in an unimaginative way as Vivian slowly loses her mind overwhelmed by everything that is going on.
I don’t really have that much to say. I was not scared once, but I did laugh quite a few times.
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Unfriended - Japanese edition.
Here’s the problem - the rules they introduce make no sense. Their explanation of the curse goes against the whole opening scene in the movie. It was painfully messy, the information was dropped here and there and it was honestly not that easy to put it all together. The basis of it all is easy to understand, but all the details make no sense.We know close to nothing about the main characters, there is no real diversity in personalities either. They are more or less copies of themselves, so when the bad things started happening, I couldn’t care less, because they did not really seem like real people to me.
At the end of the day, it was just boring. It’s a really simple story that could have been saved by the atmosphere, but they showed too much, everything was happening too quick, and there was no real time to truly dive into what was happening on screen.
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Starting this movie, I did not expect much, but right from the beginning I was in awe at how aesthetically pleasing the movie was. The opening scene was a great introduction to one of the main characters. While I am not the biggest fan of overusing slow motion in fighting scenes, here it fits perfectly, making it even more enjoyable.
Out of all plot lines that were introduced, I do believe the romance was quite underdeveloped, and while I understand it was never the main point of the movie, it should have been explored a bit more. That said, the solo stories for main characters were well written and believable. I could understand the motivation of all the characters, even if I did not agree with them.
Truth to be told, this movie is pure entertainment, without any deeper value. We got to see some nice fighting scenes, situation based comedy and interesting characters. I got excited when I was supposed to, sad when it was appropriate, angry at how evil the bad guys were. It's a perfect movie for an evening break from overwhelming and grim reality, since it's as unrealistic as it can be.
The only true problem I had was quite obvious copies of certain scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean. I usually don't mind taking inspiration and paying homage to well respected and loved titles, but here it felt more like a lack of creativity on the writer's and director's side.
Overall, it was a rather enjoyable adventure movie. We got to see some strong female characters, with Son Ye Jin acing her role as a captain of the pirates. I never thought a CGI whale could make me cry, and yet I did cry watching this movie, laughing at myself at how easily I can shed some tears.
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Better love story than Twilight?
I’m not sure what I was expecting when I started watching, but whatever it was, I ended up with the complete opposite - not complaining though.Honestly speaking, the romance genre needs at least an additional 3 years of a break from vampires. We truly saw it all. That said, I have to appreciate the supernatural/fantasy elements in k-bls, which are usually focused on the more realistic, often high school scenarios. As much as the vampires are cliche in romance, they are something fresh and fun in BLs.
Don’t let the synopsis fool you, it’s more angsty than sweet, and hardly enough blood was spilled to call it “bloody”. Still, the stakes were rather high and they made me curious about the ending of the show.
Not gonna lie, I did not like either of the main characters. Choi Min Hyun was too much of a lost puppy and Kim Jun Ho did not stand out at all. Lucky they both grew on me with each episode I have seen. Min Hyun still had that innocent feel to him, but he grew a backbone, while Jun Ho grew a whole personality sprinkled with angst.
The chemistry between the male leads was decent. I did not really feel many sparks, but the tone down feeling actually fits the story more.
Strangely, acting wise, I was far more convinced during the emotional scenes, compared with the daily, less demanding ones. The whole cast seemed a bit stiff at the beginning, but the acting got better with every episode. I especially liked Moon Ji Hoo. We don’t get villains in k-bls often, and for sure not the ones who deliver good performance.
Can’t talk about the production without talking about the glowing eyes - please stop. Giving him blue lenses and slightly enhancing the color post-production would be enough. His eyes were glowing so bright he could use them as a flashlight.
That said, except for that small detail I did not have any complaints. It wasn't a groundbreaking production, but nothing stood out in a negative way either.
While the songs are nice, they do fit the “generic k-bl” category. I feel like most soundtracks could be easily mixed between them and no one would notice or mind. The best title was for sure Sway’s Dream - amazing vocals, great melody, nice lyrics.
Overall, good for a binge watch. Kept me interested enough to finish, but did not exactly evoke any intense emotions.
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There is close to no plot here. The female lead motivation to do anything revolves around getting the male lead. The male lead is just a confused puppy with a little backbone. This can either bore or frustrate a lot of people. For me, it was a nice, chill and relaxing watch when I could just giggle about how cute, awkward and ridiculously childish some of the characters are. If you are like me, and you enjoy the drama simply because you like the characters a lot, maybe give it a go.
Closer to the end, we start to get more information about the characters as individuals, what their goals and dreams are and how they chase them. Bit too late if you ask me, but it was still fun to watch them deal with whatever came their way.
Xiong Yi Fan is a fun, honest and relatable girl. Yan Ke is so amazingly clueless it’s actually funny. Bai Yu Ze is a painful playboy that you just cannot hate and Ding Ming is a friend most of us would like to have. I even started adoring Tang Tang by the end.
That said, two aspects of the show disappointed me. First, I wished we could see more of Yu Ze and Ming. They had awesome energy together and their bickering was gold. Another thing, I was not a fan of the “trans” rumor sub-plot. I think they handled the topic in a poor manner.
Overall, everyone was beautiful, fun, entertaining and cute. I had a good time watching. Small things like the “interviews” at the end of some episodes were like cherries on top, that made this sweet cake even more delicious.
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