harukae
I don't understand how anyone can start it thinking it's going to be a heavy, drama-filled series, which requires an important emotional involvement from the viewer. It's not; if that isn't clear by the plot summary, then it should be by the end of the first episode.
This show is full of imperfections that make it perfect. In fact, I completely disregarded those multiple small flaws because they naturally flowed with the story. There were no "wait - what ?" moments. Unlike many viewers, I never thought of banging my head on my keyboard because of incomprehension. I think those people think too much. There are dramas that simply don't require you to think about anything while watching them. "Master Devil Do Not Kiss Me" is one of those dramas.
It IS cliché-filled, but you can get that from the summary. Basically yet another Itazura na Kiss x Boys over Flowers adaptation.
The mood here however is different. First, because it's Chinese: it's a whole other culture. Second, because the episodes are short. A lot of things are bound to happen in a short span of time; we might leave an episode with X event and resume with an event Y, while only just lightly bushing the precedent subject.
Some cuts are really unprofessional and too obvious. But it takes nothing from the enjoyment away. The female lead is super cute, and, believe it or not, refreshing. She's not easily swayed by her lovers or feelings, she's cute without being over the top or too girly, and stands up for her values.
As for the so-called "chauvinism" and "sexism" in this drama.. I don't know what the people who said that are doing on this site ?? Violent hand grabbing, "you're mine" lines and such are an entire aspect of most Korean dramas and many other asian dramas. There IS a traditional conservative view of women. It's China after all. Personally, I've been more shocked throughout my life here in the West with the treatment of women, who are constantly over-sexualized in the media and society, than in China (from my limited view in dramas) At least they don't resort to stripping down a woman to get high audience rates ;-))
To conclude, an excellent (and by excellent, again, I don't mean it's perfect or flawless, just really good for what it is -) light drama, that I will most likely rewatch because it's fun and not too complicated to help with my learning and understanding of Chinese, along with the likes of dramas like Shopping King Louis or Sassy Go Go.
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Well - not THAT much, but I still had some expectations.
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I read the manga years ago, but stopped halfway because of various reasons (it may or may not have become boring..) but I really loved what I read. It was cute and interesting and refreshing. Not your typical teen school-life romance.
This, however, is every kind of déjà vu.
First off, the movie is very long but for what it provided, they could've made it a 45mn movie.
The character development is non-existent. The chemistry is barely there.
What Kou has been going through was very poorly depicted. I couldn't bring myself to be even remotely sad for him. As for Futaba 'rescuing Kou from his own demons'.. No. Just no. Again, there was no character development. I didn't see how she rescued hm.
Everything after the first 35 minutes is slow and expected. Usual 'damn if they talked a bit more they could've easily sorted that out'.
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I do recommend watching this movie on a boring sunday night while browsing your [insert wanted social network here] feed if you're not looking for something deep or serious and just want to pass time.
A few more points:
- the filming and editing were great.
- the sceneries were cute.
- the actors were good. the main actor portrayed Kou's character wonderfully. He was exactly as depicted in the manga. Sadly it didn't make up for the weak plot.
Maybe it could've worked if they had made it a drama. Maybe it could've worked if they had made it a more concise movie.
Maybe it just didn't work for me.
I hope it helps someone ~ Also this was my first review in english so please bear with me. ^^
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Two ideals, clashing since the beginning of the world.
Two high-ranking officials in the Prosecutor's Office. Two right-hands for each of them. Conflicts of interest. Twists and turns. Conflicts of interests bis.
I basically summed up the storyline. Add some intense drama here, a tragic element there; sprinkle with a background story of a couple ruined by their ideals, and top with the every vilain's motive ever: The Journey to A Better World, and you get Punch in a nutshell.
This drama couldn't have been any better than this, because there's a problem with the storyline: it's too repetitive. It is one idea: plot twists, extended on a period of 16 episodes, considering the first three are an intro. 16 episodes of twists, twists, twists.
You know what's also repetitive ? Lines. Many lines were said more than a handful of times during the series, only sometimes they changed a word, but mostly they remained intact. I probably never read the phrase 'See you in jail' as much in my entire life than while watching Punch (and it was always another character saying it after yet another plot twist)
And those flashbacks.. Sometimes you just gotta play it subtle. No need to bomb the viewer with 5 flashbacks to refer to a certain line or a certain scene. The whole series could've easily been 16 episodes if they only just got rid of filler flashbacks and repetitive lines. It would've been much more digestible.
As for the acting, it depends. Some characters were portrayed in a really plain and annoying, sometimes unrealistic way (hello Yoon Ji Sook, hello Choi Yeon Jin), and although I loved Shin Ha Gyeong's character, she was more on the plain side too, but Jo Jae Hyeon and Kim Rae Won were a pleasure to watch. Kim Rae Won especially. He was excellent on his illness scenes.
...Which leads to yet another plot issue: the main character is supposed to be sick, that's the tragic element, but it doesn't feel like he's sick at all. It is known to the viewer that he's going to die, but the symptoms started showing only near the close end ? Not realistic.
To me, the last episodes really saved it all. Plot twists (again!) but they were intelligent. Lots of crying, so prepare a box of tissue. This was a 7.5, yes, but a nice 7.5.
And although Punch is not a romantic show, it has the most beautiful portrayal of true love, which some people could confuse with affection, but that's really it, a strong affection, genuine care. No passion here. No lovey-dovey scenes and butterflies everywhere.
But one child, the physical link between two people; and one idealistic goal:
that the child grows up in a world of justice.
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I watched the movie without subs. There you have it, and nope, I don't speak korean (yet)
Before you think my review is invalid because I couldn't grasp everything perfectly, let me stop you because this is the exact reason I'm writing this review: even with my extremely limited understanding of the language, the story, the actions, the whole thing seemed crystal-clear to me. I never felt like I was watching a foreign-language movie. Everything made sense and seemed logic, because the acting is top-notch. Top. Notch.
When the brothers were having a quarrel, I understood it.
When they were laughing with each other, my heart melted.
When they were teasing each other, I chuckled.
When they were talking over sad stuff, I teared up a bit.
And I cried like a baby at the end.
Their facial expressions are mostly flawless and very accurate. I mean if one tells X in X country their puppy died they'd have the same reaction as Y in Y country, we all constitute humankind.
Their tones also help to get the feel of the situation, even if they're basically talking gibberish to you, their tone makes sense.
Now if you know even like 30 really basic words like mom, eat etc. it's gonna help a LOT. And you probably do know these words and way more than 30 if you've been swept by the Hallyu long ago so you have no excuse not to watch this movie :-)
I thought I'd have to watch this a second time to understand it fully but I really don't, and actually had to write down in my notes that I watched this movie in Korean because there's zero gray area really.
I understood about 10% of the lines (literally, as in I know what they're saying right now bc I know exactly all the words), but my actual understand of the plot and what was happening was around 90%, maybe even 95% because as I said before, the few words you know, the scenes and mostly the perfect faces and the tone, of the actors makes you totally forget you're watching it without subs.
I gave this an 8. It wasn't actually that incredible of a movie, it was rather two well-spent hours and a good laugh, but 7.5 just didn't seem good enough, that's why I settled with the upper mark.
In a nutshell: a good watch !
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This review may contain spoilers
Hmm.. Good, but not drama-of-the-year-omg-i-wont-be-able-to-sleep-for-a-week-good.Basically, there was a point after the 12th episode where I thought: "wait -- just where did those 12 hours go?" because the plot progresses so little despite many loooong scenes of veryveryvery fast action. In the first few eps, there was an accent on Je Ha's fighting abilities; he fought using systema, tae kwan do and all kinds of other martial arts, and it was quite interesting and impressive. But most of the action scenes after that were filmed in the dark and involved guns, and although you could see there was fighting involved, you couldn't really distinguish what was going on.
The beginning was promising - well, not the very beginning. The first episode [[this review contains no spoilers, i'll just explain how part of the summary is carried out in the first ep so that you get an idea of the pace]], the first episode is Anna running around town and wandering alone for an hour. She encounters Je Ha at the end and we're left with a cliffhanger. Yeah, that was one hour of her running in a dress and looking slightly out of it and full of despair. Too. long.
But I wanted to see what this mysterious 'K2' was all about. In the first few screen hours he was soo cool and mature.. But boom! suddenly he meets Anna and it's LOVE (get it?) Yes. Love. Love makes people blind, or in his case, pabo. Stupid. It was impressive -you had K2, the dude no one can beat for the serious stuff, and then there was the lighthearted (TOO lighthearted) moments of the drama, Je Ha was an incredible fool for Anna. Everyone knows an annoying couple who likes to display overly public display of attention. That's them basically.
About Anna: It's futile talking about her. She has 0 character development. Ah yeah, she goes from (stupid) girl who's been trapped for years and doesn't know anything about the world yet is seeking revenge --> cutesy little girl who still gives her trust easily and is nice to everyone (she's still stupid and still seeks revenge as a hobby) Also 0 involvement. Honestly, take Anna's physical presence out of the drama and it won't change a thing.
Choi Yoo Jin.. In the end, she deceived everyone. Although she tried to portray a strong and independent woman, she was really weak, weak at heart, weak for love. Somehow naïve, too. She's the only one who supported the drama when Je Ha got a little boring. Song Yoon Ah sure can act, her character was very interesting, although not immensely profound, and some typical facial expressions of hers were overdone, but she was still interesting.
Evil characters: Lee Jung Jin (Yoo Jin's brother) and Kim Kap Su (Park Kwan Soo) have a decent acting, but their mimics were even more overdone than Yoo Jin's. At some point it becomes annoying and not credible.
I don't know if I should really go on with this review, all has been said really. I felt like Je Ha's character was perfect at the very beginning and during action and serious scenes where he had to fight and take decisions and save everyone. His relationship with Anna was unrealistic and made his whole aura fall apart. Yoo Jin sorta balanced it out. The last two episodes however took an unexpected turn. It was filled with action and last minute decisions, unlike many dramas where you suddenly have a mysterious hasard make everything easy and possible for the hero, then happy ending and it's a wrap. Nope, not here. That was nice. But (there's always a but) THE VERY LAST (and expected, so I'm not spoiling anything here) happy ending scenes literally RUINED that previous action. Again, way.too.much PDA. It was both inappropriate and irrelevant.
This, like many other dramas, could've been so much better blah blah blah unfortunately it was carried the wrong way.
In a nutshell:
Don't watch this if you're looking for a a great action drama.
Do watch it if you're bored (that's actually what I started doing after I realized my expectations were too high, only watched when I was bored and didn't really look forward to it anymore.)
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