Reviews

It's very, very hard to see the injustice suffered by some of the characters. Even if the aim of the series is to show situations of harassment and abuse in the workplace and then seek redress, it's still hard to watch (although the solidarity between the workers in the warehouse was great to see, despite the grim fate that awaited them). To say that it's a comedy series... I'm having my emotions played with here. The humour helps to get the message across, of course. A series that's both useful and entertaining.

The three of them are great. And the lawyer is flawed, a bit lost, but he's also gifted with a relentless and unconditional empathy that's all Christian. And when we learn more about his life, it's hard not to shed a tear...

It's high time we abolished work, comrades. And it looks like Buddha is on our side. Long live the strike and down with the cops and the bosses!

(We're hoping for a season 2)

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Light but tugs at your heart… I love a bit of cliches reawaken kdrama era

The headline sums it all up but here are the key points…
- The story is refreshing from all the countryside kdramas, dark themes, action and other genres that are released in subscription platforms (eg. netflix). It’s been a while since I’ve watched this type of story and I’m eating it all up and currently impatiently waiting for all the episodes to be released. In my take, kdrama moved away from all the cliche tropes and it lost its spark midway. I cannot pinpoint exactly where they went wrong but this drama saved it. In fact, I’ve been watching cdramas nowadays but this one broke my streak…. What a refreshing one!!!
- actors? Need I say much? Both are phenomenal in their own ways. And deym that long legs of Bws.. nothing can top that for me 🤣
- Music is fine.. we’ll see if there will be an ost that will pique my interest.
- Rewatch value… hmmm I’m not into rewatching dramas even tho I really loved it except for the really old ones the og ones so for me it’s just in the middle.
- Overall, this is a MUST watch drama. Saved the kdrama industry. Disney+ is onto something on their line up this time ✅💯

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First of all: imitating Silvestri's music for Back to the Future wasn't essential. That little arpeggio annoyed me.

That said, it takes its time at the beginning, a little too much. Probably to show that the time travel thing isn't that central. But neither is the music, since everyone plays superbly without making the slightest effort. It's borderline genetic...

However, I demand a moratorium on characters travelling into the past who are surprised that people don't know their future and get lost in pointless misunderstandings. People have been sentenced to death for less.
Another thing: the fact that one man's affection for another is ridiculed for being gay, I think that's pretty lame and spoils the relationship between the two characters. (a son and his young father, no less).

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade"
Personally, I'd rather wonder why I'm stuck in a remake of It's a Wonderful Life. In short, the cast is excellent but the story doesn't move forward enough for me to be carried away with it and that disappoints me, unfortunately.

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Firstly : Why doesn't he wear gloves ?

Otherwise, at first I thought it was a good story, with everything mixed up together and very few details. But it quickly became tedious. You want to shake up certain characters who are deliberately withholding information for no reason other than to prevent the plot from moving forward. It's so absurd ! You can't understand why they keep quiet and make other people miserable.
Of course, they end up revealing the solution by crying over their fate, but they should cut their ties instead, you can't lie for years like that and get away with saying "it's for your own good", especially when it results in the death of a person (one of the best characters) that could have been avoided without all that mumbo jumbo. Ok, actually, that pissed me off. Don't ever do that again.

Besides, this 'psychometric' gift comes in very handy when you need it. What luck... On the other hand, their insistence on presenting people incapable of expressing emotions as dangerous people, I don't like that at all, being autistic and unable to do any masking.

Episode 7 : "being bisexual is unacceptable" ah really ? Well, that's embarrassing. Let's call the whole thing off, Park Jin-young !

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Duang Without Me

My review of this series will certainly not fit into the vast and I do mean vast majority of viewers of this series. For me, I simply did not get its appeal, outside of the obvious. However, how far can gorgeous, and I do mean stunningly handsome, young men take this story? I hate to make the contrast but if this series was composed of not so stunningly Adonizes, would there be such a mad flow to rate this series so high? Or perhaps even if one of them had even been marginally defective in some capacity. I think not, for if you honestly assessed it, the story itself is rather mundane and primarily relied on the God-given obvious assets inherent in the actors’ physical appearances. So, I want to take a step back from the apparent and appraise this series on how it emended me. And to be quite honest, I found this series to be woefully limited. While I know I am probably not in the typical demographics of those watching this particular type of BL, as my perspective of this series is going to be vastly skewed. Plus, I also know the vast majority of viewers are quite positive about this series. I simply cannot agree with that assessment. What I am disturbed about and find most disconcerting is the image that somehow this is representative of gay relationships, which all BLs are. In their world, nearly everyone is gay and everyone seemingly accepts gay unions as ‘normal’. That is NOT the case and Qin and Duang should have been made to, at the very least, have some obstacles to their relationship so that others who think ‘it is a walk in the park’ for us, realize it is not. I would also like to see some sense of maturity also develop in these BL relationships especially Thai ones, so that there is not this emphasis on Pollyanna endings and development of sugar-coated connections so that all one has to do is flitter one’s eyelids, act like a dog, and prostrate yourself before someone and pledge your devotion entirely to your loved one and you will then live in nirvana for the rest of your life. That is just not the case.
Unquestionably, this is an entertaining BL; just not for me, however. I could not overcome the story’s flaws but found the portrayal of Marvis and Jamie so much more real and erotic than the connection between Duang and Qin. There are a few surprises but for me not enough to carry me over the finish line into thinking this was a great or even good series.

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At first, the hero is very insistent with his colleague and she thinks it's cute. They both agree to play this little game, so I guess it's all right. Still, it's a weird relationship. Anyway. And he's got an inhuman metabolism, he gets hit, beaten up, drugged but everything's fine, he gets back up.
"Not dead yet"... obviously, the scenarium armour works well.

The pace of this series is prodigious, there's not a second to get bored (apart from episode 10 when nothing happens. Why?) Everything follows on super fast with humour, action, suspense and you really want the [redacted] of [redacted] rotten to get caught, him and his henchmen. It has its over-the-top moments with improbable situations but we accept it, that's what we're here for. I mean, the synopsis alone... haha

All the villains are foreign Koreans, from places where the Japanese deported them. I don't know what to make of that. There must be a reason.
And lastly, Drug Monster, she starts off super badass and then the series goes on to belittle and destroy her. I didn't like the way she was treated at all.

PS: rarely have product placements been so unsubtle !

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Park Bo-Young takes up the usual challenge faced by actresses: playing two roles at the same time. She changes her posture, her intonation, her facial expression, her habitus. It's confounding. She goes even further and plays two characters playing each other's roles.
Park Jin-young, you're perfect, go on.

"I feel like I've removed an invisible mask".

Injuring yourself rather than going to work - it's a sad thought for many of us. Yu Mi-rae's job is really awful. It's perfectly normal for bosses to be scum, that's why they're there, they're parasitic filth on the backs of the workers, but what about her stupid colleagues ? Don't unions exist in this universe ? You have to have the mentality of servants and cowards to be so relentless. And HR, they tell us to talk to them if there's the slightest problem... it will always piss me off how much they take us for morons. Don't believe them.

Bore out is terrible, torture for a lot of people; I have to admit that I've never been as fulfilled (in a manner of speaking) as when I was put in jobs where I could read all day without seeing anyone (disabled people are often isolated and shown the exit door).

"The door closed again"

This is a beautiful series, fuelled by kindness. Deep down, everyone is kind. Sometimes we are so bad that we hurt those around us, we become a ball of anger, unable to receive help, but there is a part of light in all of us. The only enemy in this story is this society that breaks us down thanks to those who profit from it. We cry a lot for and with the characters. Always with good reason. In fact, we cry even when these people are happy, genuinely upset at the idea that they are allowing themselves a moment of happiness.

"No matter how pathetic or messy it seems, anything you do to survive is brave" How can you not burst into tears after that ?

The poem invented for the series "The Sea of Sang-Wol" by Kim Ro-Sa brings tears to the eyes, so right and beautiful is its simplicity. The most extreme of sophistication: simple and beautiful. And her story goes straight to the heart. "I was the flaw. Without me in the picture, everything would be perfect" This declaration of love, left hanging in the air for decades and decades... you can't help but break down. So beautiful, so sad. We'd love happy stories for female couples, but the times in which this is happening didn't allow it. Not that it's any easier these days, that said...

"The void left by doubt ended up being filled with courage"

Everything is structured by a strict opposition : town/country, obnoxious/laxist boss, friends who listen/selfish, empathetic/vindictive mother ; and then we discover that these two mothers are broken, that they manage as best they can and their tumultuous friendship helps them grow. Each element takes its own course and feeds the deeply positive and consoling message that the series is so keen to deliver.
In the case of the twins, my initial fear that everything would be based on a teenage misunderstanding was quickly dispelled, and fortunately we're shown that the ground was fertile for depression, and that's by no means the only reason for their situations.
The parallels between teenage and adult life are often devastating. The characters recognise themselves in the misfortune of others and the inevitable decisions that life imposes on us, from which nothing positive can come. Love is never about winning or losing, it's about staying in the same team. You see yourself as a burden, but you help the others not to capsize.

"Why do I end up attacking myself when I should be defending myself?"

The roles of the main characters evolve, we're not taken for fools and everything ends up leading to something, taking care to spare its effects. The script and dialogue are simply perfect. Every monologue at the beginning and end of the episode breaks our hearts. We're not offered a magic solution, we're shown how to move forward one step at a time, a new blank page to fill.

"There is no perfect moment. Nothing is perfect in this world."

Ps: in a role as a wheelchair-bound disabled person, it would have made sense to cast someone who actually is, because it's much harder to find a role in that situation, for all the wrong reasons. Many roles wouldn't even require comedians to be able-bodied and yet disabled people are denied these roles.
Ps 2: Yu Mi-Ji is wearing a t-shirt that says "vos vêtements préférés/your favourite clothes" in French with a nice spelling mistake.

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Shin Ye-eun, the more series I see with her, the more captivating I find her acting style. She exudes real authority and a particular determination in all her roles ; there's something both naturalistic and elegant about it.

In this series, there are situations of profound injustice, manipulative characters very happy to be untouchable, beatings at 10 against 1 and bullying that the perpetrators openly brag about without suffering the consequences, so some moments really hurt. In the first half, it's impossible to get a second's breathing space.

The plots all move forward at the same speed, and in the final episodes the pace suddenly picks up, so even though we had absolutely no way of finding the culprit, we don't feel cheated. We see the same scenes several times from different angles, going back to the end of some of them to go back before and give a new context. Not a bad idea. These young gentlemen are evil geniuses. I don't want to boast, it's not a contest, but here goes : I guessed about the brother and his love affair. Yep.

However, these people don't know how to respect other's privacy and personal space, they go through their friends' things a bit too easily. That said, these young people know how to talk to the cops. They lie to them, telling them only what they need to hear. Nobody respects them.

However... I wonder about the need for a minor female character who turns out to be pregnant and says she wants to keep the child because she has "no other choice". What are they trying to tell us with this ? I have my own idea. Does anyone have a problem with the fact that she's in a relationship with an older guy who's apparently a star (it's thrown out there in a second and we move on) ? yuck... Or was it to denounce a real star ? It's disturbing this narrative arc that adds nothing to the plot and leads to no conclusion.

Ps: Well done to this schoolgirl who, by changing her wig, gets +100 in camouflage, so no one can spot her. A prodigy.

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First episode, the only female characters : a nurse is insulted, a woman hangs herself, a technician narrowly avoids being sexually assaulted (saved by a man), a girlfriend in the middle of lovemaking is shot with a machine gun.
And it doesn't get any better after that. It's just guys, real tough guys, because we're real virile males, yeah.

Yet another series glorifying the police (and their video surveillance service, apparently ?). In fact, we are told that bureaucracy prevents brave cops from saving lives. And journalists ? they do nothing but annoy the police who protect us at the risk of their lives. If that's true, it's very serious !

There are lots of little visual effects that fuel a dynamic montage, even if the plot doesn't advance much. (The villain's motivations... a bit light, shall we say) For example : the strategy of showing the same scene from a different angle from one episode to the next, classic and effective. It's not necessarily the most subtle approach, but the extreme situations that follow one another without any downtime, the villain who is having a good time, and people's cowardice in the face of harassment make this series compelling. Simple but engaging.

To be honest, I watched it to unwind after When Life Gives You Tangerine.

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“I've finally caught the shadow that haunted you. From now on your world will only have light.” And now we understand the dream at the beginning. The subtext, children. The subtext ! Subtlety and finesse are... two words from the dictionary.

God, it's beautiful. It's constantly changing, as if someone couldn't accept that we might get bored for even five seconds. All the night scenes are colorful and bright. The light in this series ! The episodes fly by without you even noticing. The same goes for the music ; you don't even notice it. It's mean to say this, yes, but it never stops, so it loses its effect. The moments when the music stops suddenly become unsettling. However, the song whispered in silky vocals stands out.

It's so unfair to see Yifan facing so many trials alone, all those disgusting guys (ordinary ones, let's be clear). We hear about other cases of abusers around her, she has to work on this subject as a journalist, but she's never given the opportunity to talk about what she herself has been through.
We are shown how the family unit takes precedence over the suffering of the victims, which is realistic. A mother who does not come to her daughter's aid, who does not listen to her cries for help or her later requests to be left alone as an adult... Forced to cut off all means of contacting her to pretend she didn't survive the assault, since that's all her mother understands : the right victim is the one who dies. It's a very good choice not to offer redemption to the mother. But on the other hand it's a shame, though, that the series leads a little too easily to the conclusion that, fortunately, there are good guys out there to protect women. (Will we ever get over this ?)

Anyway.

Then I was shocked. What kind of teachers get involved in their students' romantic relationships ? And the family taking over ? Excuse me ? It's even more outrageous when you know the whole story.
And everyone drives a Porsche, apparently. The famous Chinese brand, so inexpensive. Quite normal for Sang Yan, who works at a video game company during the day and owns a posh bar at night. What a hard worker.
I was also surprised by the slapstick humor. Pleasantly so. I didn't expect to see that in this kind of story.

What a beautiful love story, though. I'm talking, of course, about Yifan and her adorable little cat. That brave little creature is so well-behaved, bravo to her, she's the best. The real star of this series.

Meanwhile, it's beautiful how Sang Yan sends messages indirectly and tries to understand Yifan, giving her the choice to respond or avoid the subject ; he is there for her. Without saying a word, he puts protective covers on the furniture to protect her while she sleepwalks. On the other hand, when they're young, this obsession is a bit awkward, but luckily he keeps his distance and is ready to support her.
This young adult couple tortures each other, and circles around each other, repeating over and over how impossible it is to live together, while living together. You're already a couple. Damn it !
Besides that, they are incredibly mature and give good advice about other people's relationships. It's a real running gag.
This attention and listening between the characters is one of the strengths of the show.

However, their friends and the little grandpa, even their coworkers, everyone is so kind and attentive, ready to help, and yet... Yifan suffers alone. She will want to disappear. Leaving her friends devastated, wondering if it's their fault. Far be it from me to accuse her ; this is normal behavior when you experience trauma. I'm certainly not one to judge her. There comes a time when survival becomes unbearable.

The last part of this series is designed to break us into little pieces. And then try to put it all back together again... by refusing to give us the glue for that.
In episode 21, the circular shot in the apartment with their lives playing out over several days in one go, the music rising in intensity... it's as if they want to make us cry. They've succeeded. But I'm not congratulating you, cruel writers.

“Yifan. You deserve the best. Stop saying sorry.”
“There is nothing shameful or humiliating about this. You did nothing wrong. You did the right thing. You protected yourself. You were brave. You should be standing tall, fearless, in the sunlight. That villain is the one who belongs in the gutter.”
“I usually cried all night. But as the pain got worse, I grew quieter, little by little. Until one day, I couldn't even cry anymore.”
I'm so sorry for what happened to you.

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I don‘t know what to think

Puhhhh
Actually, I watched it because so many people talked about it and loved it, so I was excited. For me it is really hard to say what I feel about this show. The quality was very good, actually, so the special effects at least worked good, especially if you compared them with other supernatural Thai shows.

For me the biggest problem was I couldn't connect with the main character. I think as a viewer you get not enough information about why khem is how he is, so most of the time I couldn't connect with him. That's why he felt flat and boring, and I sadly lost interest at his story. Besides him, it also felt hard to connect with the other main character, Pheem. So I sadly couldn't feel anything when I saw them both being together. I think the side couple worked so much better, and I think it is because you see them grow together.

The biggest problem was that the main story is very complex, and you need to focus so much that I think they forgot to develop the chemistry between the main characters.

I liked the villain of the story because over time you start to understand why she hates so much and where it comes from. But the ending of that so important main story was underwhelming and kind of boring. Actually, I watched the last episodes mostly at 1.5 speed because I just wanted to finish at some point.

I‘m sad that I feel how I feel because I saw the potential, but for me it just didn‘t work out.

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The Koreans still have an open wound when it comes to the adoption and so : theft of children. The Japanese and American evangelists ‘helped themselves’ and profited in an inhumane way. No reparations are planned in this regard. So it's understandable that a series like this would be released in this country.
Well, here we are swimming in eugenics, as a bonus. How horrible. Unfortunately, no one will be surprised to see this kind of thing happening soon. We are going to have eugenic laws on births, I am sure of it. We already have them on assisted suicide instead of care.

The four over-trained young people sometimes mess up and act impulsively. They avoid confrontation several times and covering for each other. I like their dynamic.
With relatively little character development, we can still distinguish different personalities, which is all we need, really. They work well together. Less is more.
Everything moves quickly, and the series flows smoothly as we move from one traumatic story to the next.

The only concern is the main villain. She changes her behavior too abruptly from one scene to another. It becomes tiring after a while. How can we trust someone so unreliable ?

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