5
11
cityhunter
the fucking shire
i watched this show because i wanted to see a show about a robot, not a show about what goes on in the office at a weird bakery. they could have completely forgone the robot and opted instead for a slightly stupid but sweet overzealous love interest and ended up with practically the same story since very little of it was actually about him being a robot. there's a love triangle that is completely devoid of chemistry and a story that draaaaags until the last 3 episodea, and even those i found my self skipping large sections.
they didnt even bother to avoid the over obvious and cliche for most of the show.
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watchable
this was my first republican era (?) drama. i was a little surprised by the level of mostly realistic violence. i dont object to it and it's pretty mild, i'm just not used to seeing it in C-dramas.the cast are all serviceable. the ML is both charismatic and problematic. the story is engaging, but not particularly well done or creative. it gives serious paperback romance novel energy.
this is a short review b/c there's not much to say. it's not spectacular, but it knows the assignment and got the job done with what was there.
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it's an 8 in family drama land.
if you're here for the romance...i don't know what to tell you. other than, prepare for disappointment. Heo Yi Jae (FL) is not a good actress. like she's crying and there is no emotion on her face bad. Hyun Soo is extremely poorly written. Ma Doo Jin (ML..maybe? it's debatable) isn't much better as a character but actor Cha Do Jin brings a better performance (but not by much)the reason to watch is the revenge plot. that's where all the great characters and great performances are and it's really the driving force of the show. honestly with a little tweaking they could have nixed the romance altogether and had a show i probably would have given a 10. i felt it was wrapped up well, though i was worried for the last 10 eps that they were going to pull something stupid.
Shim Ji Ho is stellar in this. i wish he got more serious roles. he would slay.
if you like a daily dramas and makjang and you're willing to look past some flaws then this is worth the watch.
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sadly, Summer Fever never quite found it's rhythm.
it starts slow and pretty much stays that way.the tension never quite feels urgent to the viewer. at 30 episodes there is alot going on that you are supposed to care about that you just don't. the plot also takes several abrupt turns that are more annoying than exciting or intriguing. it has it's moments but over all it never got me going.
the cast are all fine and funny, George Hu being a delight to watch. he isnt just pretty on screen he is one of the most natural, comfortable actors i've seen in asian drama. it's not at all unusual for an actor to be good at the big emotions like sorrow and joy. But for some reason often when an actor is just supposed to be sitting there, portraying those little conversations we all have every day or even just laughing with friends, it seems very forced. not so with George Hu.
which is what made the end soooooo awful. the end of the show is just horrible and the motivations behind people's actions are murky nonsense. A Kuan's reaction is spot on but some of the dialouge and imagery is so ridiculous as to render his response to events comical. it's sad because he delivers such a believable performance over all.
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what saved it for me was the acting. most of the cast played thier parts really well. i found LSG (who failed to impress me in MGIAG) to be delightful. from top to bottom, excluding Suzy, i really enjoyed the acting (and a near insane need to know what happened b/w WR AND SH.) at the beginning i defended Suzy's performance, but once it got to a point where i was wathcing more for the actors and less for the story her less than stellar acting skills really began to drag the thing down.
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i had really high hopes for this movie. KJH and SYR?? best couple EVER!
but the movie... just sort of...was. there are some funny moments, REALLY funny moments, mostly KJH being KJH the comedic genius that he is. but aside from that there really isnt a whole lot going on. SYR is just sort of there, it felt like she was only in the movie for may thirty minutes. when she was on screen she wasnt really a character more of a charactiture that turned into someone completely different somewhere along the line for no apparent reason. the plot is a mess, half the time it only makes sense in a "i heard what you are saying but, huh?" kind of way.
there are a couple of nice moments with the two main models but they are short and leave you wondering why these two are even in the movie to begin with other that to be young and pretty next to KJH's not that young and pretty.
to sum up, it just wasnt that great and the sparse awesome bits werent enough to compltely redeem it.
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This review may contain spoilers
i really enjoyed Office girls. i had never seen any of the acotrs in anything and loved all of them, esp. Patrick Li who stole the show in every sceene he was in. now i know some people won't like this, but there did come a point in the show(abt ep.11 or 12) where Roy Chui seemed to put on an expression of ...i dont know confident contrition maybe?? any way he put on this expression and that was how he looked at Alice ke for the rest of the show. i loved Alice's Ke's character but Roy Chui was absolute perfection.
at first i was really excited at the length of the show b/c i just loved it so much but really the last 5 episodes are just there, not bad, just...there. the last ep. was the worst. other than a really great chunk in the middle i didnt care for the final episode.
it's hard to talk aobut all the really awesome things in this show w/out posting spoilers, just suffice it to say that it is now on my top 5 list. even if you dont like tdrama, watch this it's hilarious and awesome.
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it's most often billed as a "romantic comedey" which does the show a great diservice. they should just call it a comedey and leave it at that since the "romance" is practically non existant, a total of maybe 5 minutes out of ten hours are overtly "romantic" with both parties participating. i personally found nodame's "silly girl with a silly crush" far more amusing than it was romantic.
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unremarkable
The narrative is unimaginative. That's fine for a rom com. i wouldnt call this as a rom com, though. there are a handful of moments that i think were supposed to be funny, but even they didnt land.Little effort is made to establish emotional connections between characters, and like with the attempts at comedy, they don't work. The performances also fail to convey any sense of emotional connection between any of the characters, much less the leads. As such, when plot complications arose i don't feel like there are any stakes and i felt no satisfaction at events that were supposed to be emotional pay off moments.
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doing nothing with a whole lot
there are a lot of writers in drama land who don't understand sci-fi/ fantasy as a genre and ugh does it show. my greatest disappointment is the failure to even touch the potential uses of color.this story is ALL about color but they decided not to use color to tell their story. yes there are a handful of scenes where Yeon Woo is discovering color but the editor/director/ cinematographer never use color by itself to convey ANYTHING about the story. the color tones are pretty much always true to life or greyscale. they even fail to really dig into the greyscale and teach us anything deeper about Yeon Woo.
the most interesting, but least convincing , element of color rush was the Mono/probe dynamic. The explanation is bare and the implementation is inconsistent. it's little more than a plot device and an excuse to use some surprisingly competent CGI. it feels like a waste to have such a potent bit of story in your hands and then not do anything with it, just like the failure to utilize color.
The plot mostly meanders in circles. this makes the stakes feel less urgent and less real until you roll up on one of the many "whoa, that escalated quickly" moments
if you like BL and you enjoy or don't mind the fantasy elements the problems are pretty much self limiting so i'd call that worth a watch.
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the story of the OTP was very poorly developed. the 2nd lead got way more attention. it really seemed that with writers got to the home stretch and realized "oh crap! we've got 2 episodes left. we have to wrap this up!!!" and so it ended in a big steaming pile of WTF which would have ruined the whole thing. watch the 1st 14 episodes, they are very entertaining.
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Bong Sun is really the second female lead, her character fading into the background next the the boisterous and interesting Shin Soon Ae. The actress that played Bo Young did an excellent job capturing the energy of Soon Ae, who was so fantastically portrayed by Kim Suel Gi that i hope we'll get to see more of her in the future. Jo Jung Suk was perfectly serviceable. His character was a little blah which made it easy for him to be showed up by characters like Joon and Kyung Mo, both of whom i spent most of the show wishing were the leads.
i cant remember any of the music now, so that means it was neither annoying or fantastic. even though i'm a rewatcher i dont see my self coming back to this any time soon there were a few plot choices made that i felt brought down the over all quality of the drama, it was so nearly perfect these stung even more, and i'm not interested in reliving that.
overall great drama certainly worth your time if you enjoy rom com.
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the actors were great but i just got so sick of watching them dance around the same issues for five or more episodes. the drama i finished bore almost no resemblance to the drama i started.
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the comedy was spot on. Sung Hoon was a lot funnier than i remember him being. he's usually a middling actor for me but i thought he did really well in this show. his timing and facial expressions were much improved over his earlier work, most of which was heavy draw out makjang. in fact, this show is great for Sung Hoon fans who cant deal with makjang. you get to fan girl without sacrificing 100 hours of your life.
this was my first time seeing kim jae kyung. she did a great job. i liked her, she played her character well and she's gorgeous and hilarious.
BUT the reason this show gets an 8 instead of a 10 is that it really felt like our leads were in different relationships, if not on different shows. Jae Kyung never seemed to be able to match Sung Hoon's level of emotion or interest when the script so clearly called for it. it was like listening to a duet with one singer belting it out as if as the feels would split his soul if they didn't get out and then the other is drunk at a norrebang.
unfortunately alot of the other actors performances felt that way as well. maybe it was the limited screen time, maybe it was the writing, maybe the actors just didn't feel like belting it out for what was certainly a minor role. but i've seen actors do more with less, so i'm counting it against them.
the music felt like an after thought and i wouldn't remember any of it if i heard it again, except for one song. i think it's american and every so often the 1st few bars would play and annoy me because i cant for the life of me remember the name of the song or even how it goes.
rewatch value is a little iffy, i guess it depends on if you like to rewatch and why you do. i could certainyl see myself rewatching this at some point.
overall it's definitely worth the watch, especially if rom com is your thing.
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she isnt selfish and mean in the traditional drama sense, but in a much more insideous way. her selfisness is cloaked in self manufactured naievity and "confusion" which she drops in a second when it suits her.
i did find the drama entertaining even though i wanted to stuff In Young in a locker somewhere. the supporting cast are brilliant which more than made up for the banality and cliche that surrounded all discussions about realtionships sex and life.
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