Overly long and convoluted

I dropped this series a little bit into the 9th episode, when I found myself simply not caring about any part of it any more - not even the "big reveal"/ending!

This series was recommended to me by another viewer here on MDL and, having never heard of it, I was surprised to find it in my region on Rakuten Viki's freeview list.
I'll skip explaining what it's all about because there are so many other reviews here already, so let's get down to it:

* * *

The first episode was very so-so and, up until the final scene, didn't spark any interest in me. Suddenly though, I was pretty eager to see more.

The 2nd and 3rd episodes had plenty of action and kept my attention throughout, however, the tell-tale signs of bad writing were in there:
- the ultra vague character interactions
- the needless flashbacks as if the writers think we're too stupid to keep up with their high intellect
- the amount of pointless characters who just took up screentime

After a certain villain who seemed like a main threat mysteriously disappeared though, this went to sh*t!
The action really fizzled out, the endless talking droned on and on each episode, characters kept coming and going yet not offering anything to the plot and even the cute female lead just became REALLY grating and annoying (she's also a terrible actress, but whatever)!
The MC kept his charm - or lack thereof - throughout, but, once this one stalled, it never managed to get a jump back to life, tossing in car chases for chuckles and endless amounts of vacuous banter like we're supposed to be enthralled by not giving a crap!

So, yeah, rightfully dropped. Really, really not recommended.


P.S. I'm sure there will be plenty of comments on how I didn't understand this or how the female lead is amazing (probably in something else - she was undeniably hammy and over-acting in this), but there was nothing deep to misunderstand. THIS SERIES WAS PLAIN DULL.

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Holy cow, Batman! This was TERRIBLE!

I came across this and, intrigued by the ridiculous title, I clicked on it. Whoa!

The first thing anyone notices is just how cheap this looks - if there were any professional lights used, I'd have been surprised. This really looks amateur level; I'm sure people could shoot better material with just a mobile phone (no additional lenses).

The series starts with a groovy intro - it's kind of like Power Rangers for 6 year old girls who also like to build models - but then the "drama" kicked in... totally listless and full of exposition.
The lead character then goes home from school, pops into a model shop and is given a blue haired chick to build, along with a Nerf-style toy gun, by the shop's sketchy owner, who, frankly, I was expecting to ask for payment in her used underwear!

The girl then goes home, builds the model and... DAMN! We get some really crazy split screen, where she builds in one and dances around singing in the other, in a bizarre outfit.
It's just crazy.

The next day in school, the female lead (it seems to be an all-girls school) sees two other girls and then finds herself along with them in some kind of paintball scenario. Honestly, I turned it off about 30 seconds after this.

Awful.

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Give this a chance!

Honestly, when this started, it looked like a TV film, had hammy acting, a B-movie script and the shots were so cliché, I wondered if I was watching a spoof.
5 minutes in and I already wanted to turn it off. After 10, I was wondering how the Hell this "crap" got made!

Since I had been recommended this by a mate whose opinion I trust, I pressed pause, made a cup of hot chocolate and tried to continue... As it turned out, this film is incredibly tongue-in-cheek, it knows what it is and neither apologises nor pretends to be anything else, instead, gleefully cheeses its way forward, since all the "play it straight" versions of this kind of story have been told over and over already!

Having recognised this, to my surprise, after 30 minutes, I was really into this film!
Where other tales like this rely on the action or pretty photography to make them excel, The Assassin shies away from all that as it purposely underplays itself, sticking to its corny ethos, making itself a thoroughly enjoyable feature without much fuss.

As I type this review, the film over less than 30 minutes ago, I can 100% say that, not only did I really like it, but I'd definitely watch a sequel!
Seriously: give this one a chance and you might just be as surprised as I was.

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Steers away from the comics enough to keep its readers entertained, but pales in comparison

I'm going to again start out by mentioning how ridiculously high scores are on MDL - it's like, if something was good, it has to be a 9 or 10, and if something is 5, that means it's God-awful!
NO! 1 is terrible, 5 is middling a 10 is the best sh*t you've ever seen in your life!
That said, my rating reflects my honest opinion of this, based on a RELIABLE rating system, and I by no means hated it.

After the first episode of this, I was worried that it would be a direct live-action copy and paste, although the beating at the end of the episode was nowhere near as satisfying as it was in the comic.

Luckily, the creative team behind this chose to alter things, so that those who have read the comic wouldn't feel like this was a waste of time; paradoxically, that also ended up costing this quite a bit. You see, there's this really stupid sub-plot for a few episodes about how the gang takes down some loan-shark... yeah, kind of like Scooby Doo but with some violence tossed in! It was a really, really weak and unbelievable arc that, thankfully, was quickly brushed aside to focus on the main story.

I'll point out now that the acting in this was damn good!
I don't usually comment on the acting so much, but this would've failed utterly had the cast not pulled off their roles so well.

I won't go too much into things and risk ruining it all, but I ended this being, extremely disappointed that a certain recording wasn't spread online and the abusive scum-politician exposed because of it, which really left a sour taste in my mouth of how the absolute root cause of everything got away completely! It also meant that the main villain escaped too, and also the vigilante-style justice that only one of the antagonists actually properly received. So that was incredibly disappointing too, wanting to see certain people being unable to ever hold a pen again(!), or at least ending up in juvie, thanks to the aforementioned clip not being circulated.

In the end, it was a pretty good drama I'd recommend to younger adults, but a bit too immature and unrewarding for anyone older, or those who have already read the comics.

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It goes downhill very fast after the great start

Based on a short, it's obvious after 15 minutes that this lacked the staying power to ever be a feature - let alone a +3 hours mini-series!

The opening shot of this was great. The acting was good as a man turns up at a hotel room to buy the virginity of an 18 year old girl... only, it soon becomes clear that she's a liar and massively over-pricing her services. Renegotiating, my interest began to wane, the girl then leaves the room while the man showers to reveal some kind of massive con operation, and when she re-enters the hotel suite, the man is tied to a gurney, with people standing around bidding for his organs.
This is likely where the short ended - it's also where my interest in this went out the window, as bad acting and dull dialogue crept in. Another 10 minutes of waiting for something to happen, there's the earthquake and the first episode ends.

The second episode features two retards, a constant flickering light and a boat-load of tedium. If the retards weren't annoying enough, the blinking lights caused a headache and all the dumb waiting around to maintain the "one shot" began trying my patience.
20 minutes into the episode, I considered turning it off; when it ended, I had no intention of clicking on the third part.

DROPPED. High production values can't gloss over a crappy script! This really should've stayed a short.

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SUCCESS!

Let me start of by saying: this is a totally different film to the first.

The original, The Fable, was action packed throughout, had some really funny moments, cool characters and ended, not just making me want a sequel, but hinting that there would definitely be one.
To my surprise, this sequel had almost a totally different tone, didn't deliver on the hinted at tale to come, yet still delivered a very good story... with the bonus of one of the best action scenes I've seen in years!

I don't want to overly compare the two films after stating that they're very, very different, but I only watched this because of the first; that said, although - aside from the above mentioned scene - this didn't live up to my expectations, it was a damn good film and I'd recommend it.
Just don't go in hoping for more of the first of even expecting this to be closure.

I'm really looking forward to the third film!

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If, like me, you hate all those crappy singing/talent competitions on TV, just don't!

I'm a big Johnnie To fan.
Sadly, this is quite unlike anything he's ever made before: utter trash!

Some girl owes a loan shark a ton of money and an MMA fighter takes her under his wing, rather than pimping her out of selling her off to cover what she borrowed.
It sounds like an interesting drama only, the MMA fights are really bad, the male lead comes off as a chimp on a crack-energy drink high and, well, I just really hate all those singing shows!
Worse: there's utterly needless wire-fu - and I mean utterly useless: some girl spinning and floating in the air while playing a guitar in front of judges!

Honestly, pretty much everything about this rubbed me the wrong way and, having zero interest in a film about singing competitions when there's one literally on right now in another room(!), I couldn't motivate myself to even make it to the hour mark.

Definitely not recommended.

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Power Rangers for older teens

Wow, this was horrible!

I'd heard of the programme before and, being a fan of fighting films, TV shows and comics, I tracked down the first series that started it all... and it was awful!
The first two episodes are, frankly, an absolute mess. Overly ambitious in the worst possible way - the story is all over the place and makes little sense - the fight scenes, which should be the real star of the show, aren't very good, the budget is clearly low and the entire cast is chosen solely based on looks (you won't find any talent here!)... but, given how many spin-offs this has had, I figured I was missing something or that it simply improved exponentially, so I continued.

After the 4th episode, I really couldn't suffer any more of this trash.
It's supposed to be a hip programme about men fighting but it's more like the live-action version of an anime aimed at 8 year olds, with leads who look more like Korean femi-boy pop star wannabes than hard men!

Dropped.

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Not for everyone, but for its target audience, it's brilliant!

Slow? Yes.
Pretentious? Some will say so.
Worth watching? See the above.

A man is found dead at the bottom of a mountain; the lead detective is very thorough but also unhappily married, and the widower is a stunner he feels himself gradually falling for. As emotions begin to cloud his judgement and the case becomes much too personal, can the detective re-establish a professional distance... and does he want to?

This film reminded me of Hitchcock's stuff; I personally enjoyed it a great deal but I can understand why others wouldn't like it.
The acting is really good - I was totally enthralled by the characters - the script is definitely faultless for the most part and, where I really liked the way it was shot and cut together, there will be many who will say it's "arty" or "pretentious"... and I can see their point, but it's by no means one of those crappy style over substance type of films.

Recommended.

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Disposable entertainment about a non-disposable wife

Some HUGE dude has his wife kidnapped; the villain offers a sum of money that would turn the huge dude's life around, but he wants his wife back. Apparently, it's a first - everyone else took the money!
The huge dude then puts his size to use, one-punch-manning most minions who stand in his way of tracking his wife down and retrieving her. There's some failed comedy relief, the fights are realistic but not too great and the story isn't anything new, though it manages to hold the attention for the full running time.

To be honest, I'd much rather see tanks of men on screen than steroid freaks, so the lead in this is kind of refreshing and his stoicism made him always interesting, but this really is the typical middle-of-the-road kind of tale we've all seen before and there's not much to recommend it by.

That said, there's plentiful worse out there, so it's not a total waste of a film by any means.

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Not as good as MDL hyped it up to be! But almost as good as the original

After reading reviews here, I was expecting maybe too much. I enjoyed the first film a lot, so I was excited to see this anyway, but the reviews on this site made out that this was a massive improvement on the original in every department.
It wasn't.

Throwing in a half-Korean-American cop for more international appeal, this sequel opens with our North Korean hero and the said American losing the criminal they're both chasing... who then pops up in South Korea. Yes, a good way to get it all going...
but then it quickly goes downhill.
In the original, the South Korean cop was a bit of a loser and very funny; in this one, his introduction really lagged - so that high-octane start was right out the window!
Noodles aside, the gags were dumb and the calibre of writing clearly wasn't on a par with the first! Sadly, this would prove evident throughout the rest of the film.

The sister-in-law many of us saw as the perfect Korean "waifu" is back and, where the producers were smart to give her more screentime, she felt shamelessly additional to nearly all of her scenes outside of the home, making her nothing but fan-service,
And if you're going to do fan-service, why not go bikinis too?

Joking aside (I'm glad she kept her clothes on), the problem with ensemble cast films is that they tend to be overly long; this wasn't an exception! Many scenes felt devoid of humour and failed to drive the story forwards or develop characters, while the moment the hot sister-in-law meets the American is pure cringe!
I was hoping that she was trying to make the North Korean dude jealous, so that he'd be forced to act, but instead, she was just made to look bad.

The fights are okay in this; there's a lot of gunfire which isn't very interesting and the South Korean seems oddly bad-arse - which really cost comedic potential - but really, for me, the plot just wasn't anywhere near as good as the original. This one also left a few loose ends... which may be to set up a 3rd instalment, but I'm not sure the American cop would be needed, and just trying to get our handsome hero back to the South to finally settle down with you-know-who would take too much screentime already.

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Nothing you haven't seen before, done sooo much better

Sigh, where to start with this hot mess?

Some edgy chick is a wheelman - or, well, wheelwoman - who gets her package, whether person, animal or item, from A to B, guaranteed. She drinks beer, has an Indian or black side-kick (because Korea's going woke Hollywood, failing to realise that people stopped watching Hollywood because they hate the woke bollocks), and is naturally way smarter than her male boss, because that's GIRL POWER. RAW!

Filled with the kind of clichés we hate, along with the staple clichés of the genre, this film offers absolutely nothing new and failed to entertain me in any capacity - I mean: the female lead's more annoying than hot!

Tob e honest, I turned this off around the half way mark because there are just so many better things to do with my time, such as: watch better films, cook dinner, sit on the toilet with a magazine or watch the grass grow... and we were in the middle of winter when I was watching this, so the grass was under a foot of snow!

If you didn't get my point already, this is bad. Avoid.

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Hell to pay

I really enjoyed this one, but not in the same way I usually enjoy these kinds of films.

An ex-cop turns revenge killer and he's given an option: go undercover or... well, it was never clear if the handler would bump him off on the spot or just toss him into prison forever - and straight away, I knew that this film would keep me enthralled!

The lead then partners up with a bona fide psychopath, who seems like a skinny boy faking a hard -man image - he's just too sweet until he snaps! Both men are actually psycho's, but one is the emotionally confused child of a suicide cult and the other is an almost emotionless thinker, on a path to accomplish his real mission, which he's using the yakuza to accomplish.

Some viewers may say the action is too violent, others may say it's stylish, while others still may say it's realistically brutal but, to me, the action scenes served the plot - as well they should in any good film!

The dialogue in this was excellent - I really enjoyed the scenes that took a much slower pace, because this is when the characters all really came to life and, ultimately, showed us the depth the film was striving to attain. And with its multiple layers, characters all working towards their own agendas and us never really knowing who's the good guy in this very grey world, there's a lot to be lost in the minutia, hence my giving this such a high rewatch value, when I seldom watch anything twice!

Is this a film for everybody?
Absolutely not! But for those who like character-driven dramas disguised as action-thrillers, this is superb!

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Really disappointing

The Admiral is one of my favourite Korean flicks, so I was waiting for this since I saw it announced, a little over a year and a half ago!
Sadly, this failed to live up to both its predecessor and my own hype, as I often found myself checking how long was left, since the battle seemed to take forever to start!
Even worse: once the battle came about, it was a one-trick pony... which is all I'll say, as to not ruin it for others.

Yes, the cast is strong, the music is somewhat rousing and the effects are all decent, but the story failed to pull me into both the human elements and the strategic build-up (and massive anti-climax).

I rated this a 6 instead of the 5 I wanted to give it, because I probably judged it (slightly) too harshly, but I'm so disappointed now, I may even go back and watch, The Admiral again, just to brighten my mood.

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