Kim Woo-Bin sealed the deal for me from the pilot tbh. i'm not that knowledgable about kpop so i didnt even know who suzy was till halfway truh, so! all him. his extremely captivating self. who just kept growing on me as it went. tears down my eyes un-
yeah i'll go for it, why not
uncontrollably, by the last few eps.
fantastic performance.
i'm glad to be able to call this my first drama. i feel like it set me up well for what's to come, serving as a good introduction to those sensibilities i clashed with through all my other attempts. it all just flows really well once you get on the same wavelength with it. the music, the surprisingly creative camerawork, dramatic editing. everything works in tandem to provide maximum entertainment, in a way that feels surprisingly sophisticated. like they been around the block so many times they got the formula perfected.
the constant twists and turns made the show impossible to put aside, so i ran through it pretty quickly. all the relationships worked well and were cute, minus the odd annoyance here and there, though those things seems kinda unavoidable given the nature of this subject matter. or genre as a whole, rather, since im guessing a romance drama of this kind can only really work if you continuously throw obstacles in the mix to prolong the end goal, lol.
so yeah. i really liked this. i really like kim woo-bin and suzy, although she has decidedly less character development and kinda freezes in place for the end spurt once focus goes even more to kim. (her closeups were effective n whatever, but compared to his.. she was basically making the same face at every major twist)
while the revelations in the end did feel a bit underwhelming at first given all the anticipation, and the sheer amount of stuff they had to cover, i commend them for the decision to slow things down for the landing. it left me feeling very sober, so any criticisms i woulda had are just faded now.
i'm not sure how to rank 'rewatch value' so i just put a neutral 5. it's not like that should really factor into the quality of your first experience, i dont think. tho i do think ill maybe eventually hop back in just cuz its my first, and i can see myself growing even fo-
fuck it
fonder memories for it over time
onto the next one!
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digital tears
(i dont rate rewatch value)another day, another A.I x human romance kdrama. as tropy as these are getting now, i think we're at a unique point in time now (near-ish future scifi) where it's pretty much already cancelling itself out.
i'll stop myself before i go full simulation theory, going into questions like how much more 'real' human love would be opposed to this, if we.. ourselves.. maybe, possibly aren't 100% guaranteed authentic, that it's just chemical reactions anyway, and the whole process/condition of love is quite illogical (really just a flavor of self inflicted pain after a while) regardless of who or what you're loving on. --- butttt, i do think it's clear now that it very much is exactly these kind of existential real life questions that will continue to fuel, and validate the trend as it becomes normalized.
the best part is that the drama itself doesn't even have to go this deep into the details. we barely have to get technical here. the extremes a.. what word to use, relateable? understandable? sympathizable? human + machine romance brings are more than enough to fill in the blanks. the rollercoaster push and pull this is early on when she pretty much desperately tries resisting this.. is completely freakin understandable. to the point where we're the bad guys for wanting her to like.. give in, and dedicate herself to a robot, who keeps reiterating that he doesn't have emotions. cannot reciprocate. honestly it's gonna be interesting to see how and when more complex ones will begin diving deeper into the technical and philosophical side, considering just how much you already get out of a relatively simple story like this.
relationship story that is. and simple in the relative, cuz i did shed my tears a buncha times ofc. did feel all the things all the times, ofc. the twists and turns of the bigger story are their own convo, and they're what save this from fizzling out approaching the end. part of the blame is on me for putting these final 4 eps i just binged aside for a week, but sure enough, things reach outrageous levels for the final spurt, only to be tied together in a neat bow for a classic ending.
i will dock it that one star from 9, which marks transcendent level for me, just because of how the romance inevitably lost a bit of steam at times, being stretched over 18 eps from relatively early on. but this says nothing about how much i felt for them throughout this.* Gong Seung-yeon is awe inspiring in like every way (shoulda let her flex more of her martial arts tho) and you'll probably be hard pressed finding a more fitting representation of perfection fit for a humanoid robot than Seo Kang-joon. he literally may as well be superhuman at some points here. there is no flaw to be detected. big kudos for pulling the twin role off so seamlessly, i can't spoil what differentiates the human and robo version but.. they freakin different alright.
(*not to mention the top to bottom polish, production design, visual effects, OST, i ticked all them boxes. shazam failed me on the same piece of score twice. and did i mention how gong seung-yeon is literally the most beautiful?)
rest of the cast is great too. her family all in my heart, his mom, his hyun, even Yu Oh-seong who goes absolutely O.D as the villain, but then in like one 2 second facial expression.. yeah cant tell you more. if there's one thing i'm really starting to admire it's how kdramas will insist on rounding out characters that don't even deserve it come finale.
you're sent off without bitterness, and i love that.
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gorgeous hell
i dont rate rewatch value - neutral 5first jp drama!
first non korean one actually!
that i completed, word to the gf for picking.
if you've at all been alive and into media for the past like decade or two you should be able to pick out all kinds of influences here clear as day. from genre movies, to other shows, video games, what have you. it's pretty much what id do if i got to make a tight blockbuster show with a decent budget. its straight candy when it registers.
now.. while connecting all those influences is where the show stumbles on occasion, dragging down the entire writing with it to unnecessarily dumb down what would otherwise remain up to par to previous eps, it rebounds strong enough for the close to make up for it. disbelief has to be suspended a lil bit, it turns anime at times or whatever. (wouldnt know)
ill have to wait to season 2 to flesh out my deeper reading of the social commentary, but by the end it basically goes full anti japanese imperialism. not even lowkey. what was that in-passing line about an unnecessary massacre?
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