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  • Join Date: October 24, 2021
Feb 16, 2024
8 of 8 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 4.5
Story 2.0
Acting/Cast 5.5
Music 1.0
Rewatch Value 5.0
This review may contain spoilers

Kinda weird and bad

I hate to say it, but this show isn't great. I know I shouldn't be expecting much for a production that is relatively low budget but the GL tv series scene is seriously lacking and I hate that viewers have to get used to sub-par GL dramas. Anyway, rant aside, if you're not into GL, there isn't any point in watching this.

First of all, the plot is so strange like what even. Right off the bat in the first episode Itsuki gets SLAPPED in public and alcohol poured on her head by Fuyu and yet she doesn't react at all. The other characters and extras gawk at them but no one does anything. This incident isn't even addressed after that WTF? It's a fictional show I get it, but this reaction (or lack thereof) is so far beyond reality I was literally laughing at the ludicrousness at it all. Some of the lines said by the characters were also so out of left field and bizarre it made me think I was watching a black comedy. Not to mention the random and vaguely stereotypical comments about China that were peppered in the show ... ummmm ....

Acting was kinda bad, but I feel it's more of a Japanese drama thing than an issue just limited to this show. I'm not a fan of the over the top acting and expressions in Japanese live action dramas so I honestly could not stand how some of the characters acted (especially Chief Ro, horny illustrator guy and to a lesser extent the 2 main characters).

Music was so bad and cringey. BGMs veer suddenly from one song to another. Non-existent cinematography, unless you count the violent shaking of the camera in some scenes (wtf? why!). The only redeeming quality is that it doesn't take itself seriously and has some entertainment value from the cringey lines and plot points. Oh, and it's 23 mins per ep so it's not a total drag.

Conclusion - watch only if you are fan of GL. There is really a lack of decent quality GL shows compared to BL which is sad. I've never watched a Japanese GL before so had high hopes for it but yikessss I think I'll stick to Taiwan and Korean dramas for now.

Edit: I have since finished the whole series and WOW, it actually ended way worse than I expected. I was trying to look past Fuyu's blatant cheating as it seemed that she was forced to marry her husband due to family pressure and cultural reasons BUT NO. In the last episode, it was revealed that she married her husband out of love! what even. Isn't this supposed to be made by a company that specifically makes lgbt shows??? WHY ON EARTH would they want to force some sort of hetero-normative relationship right at the end???? and portraying both Fuyu and Itsuki as cheaters/affair partners isn't the way to go for GL dramas... like gay people are perfectly able to have relationships that don't involve cheating y'know?! I'm not even sure what is on with this show.

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The Worst of Evil
7 people found this review helpful
Nov 3, 2023
12 of 12 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 9.0
Story 10
Acting/Cast 10
Music 10
Rewatch Value 9.0
This review may contain spoilers

Without a doubt the best thriller of 2023

Absolutely blown away by the quality of this drama. Top notch acting, plot, set design and cinematography. Never a dull moment in this drama. I really like how they managed to turn the run of the mill undercover cop story into such a captivating drama.

The "villians" Jung Gicheul and co were portrayed realistically and did not act like the typical gangsters. Rounds of background checks right till the end just to prove Junmo/Seungho's identity. The police too were not infallible; their mistakes and lack of communication within departments caused Junmo's identity to be exposed. This is a scenario that happens too often in the real world and while watching made me feel irrationally angry, it really sets this show apart from the usual shows that portray the police undercovers as perfect. The ending too was a cherry on the top. Many kdramas fall prey to a rushed cliched ending and this doesn't. Characters stay true to their motivations right till the end and there isn't a shoehorned happily ever after ending. I always felt that Junmo and Euijeong's relationship was doomed from the start, even before the whole undercover mission started and I liked that the show deliberately kept it ambiguous as to what would happen to them. At the same time there was just enough details in the last scene for the audience to come to their own conclusions.

The only gripe I have would be the all too coincidental meetup of Euijeong and Gicheul, but I guess Seoul/Gangnam isn't THAT big of a place so run-ins would have bound to happen. Though of course, they never ran into each other before the undercover mission started lol. I would have also appreciated if the 2 female characters (Euijeong and Haeryun) were given more screentime. Euijeong basically exists to show Gicheul her sad puppy dog eyes while Haeryun just strutted around in her best tough girl impression. I get that the main characters are Junmo and Gicheul but it wouldn't have hurt to show more of the female characters. I mean Euijeong is supposedly an accomplished police officer in her own right but she barely did any investigative work in this mission! But of course these are just minor complaints.

TLDR: just watch this, you won't regret. It is THE best kdrama thriller that came out this year and will probably be the best overall kdrama in 2023 (to me at least). Oh, and the 2 leads are straight up the most good looking korean actors right now. If this doesn't convince you I don't know what will.

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Completed
Creation of the Gods Ⅰ: Kingdom of Storms
1 people found this review helpful
Oct 16, 2023
Completed 0
Overall 8.0
Story 7.0
Acting/Cast 10
Music 10
Rewatch Value 10
This review may contain spoilers

Chinese equivalent of Game of Thrones

I must say that this is quite a good effort for such an epic show. Plot is based on a very famous ancient Chinese novel and this film tried their best to condense/summarize the story within the limited time they have. I did not read the novel and am only familiar with some of the characters (Nezha, Yang Jian) so some of the parts regarding the immortals and supernatural beings were a little confusing. The storyline involving the mortals was easier to follow and I'm guessing that the 2nd and 3rd movies would be focusing more on the immortals plotline. Acting and cast were excellent and they really embodied the role well. I'm glad that the director chose to feature newcomers and they really are a breath of fresh air compared to the usual Chinese idols that seem to be a permanent feature in wuxia/xianxia chinese dramas.

Only gripe is the CGI is still miles behind the standards of Marvel movies. But I must say that there has been vast improvement from previous movies. This movie is really worth watching if you're chinese and are familiar with The Investiture of the Gods. Western audiences may have a harder time following but that isn't to say that it isn't worth a watch. Possibly waiting till the rest of the movies are out may make for easier watching.

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Completed
Ballerina
4 people found this review helpful
Oct 7, 2023
Completed 0
Overall 6.5
Story 2.0
Acting/Cast 6.0
Music 10
Rewatch Value 1.0
This review may contain spoilers

Hooray for girl power....?

You come home after a long day of work and see this on your Netflix homepage. You watch it because you had a long day of work and you wanna turn your brain off. Story is the same old rehashed ex-bodyguard/assassin/fighter coming out of retirement/unemployment/being a bum to take avenge his/her parents'/friends'/pets' death. Main character takes on waves and waves of baddies and never loses. After you finish this movie, you go to bed and sleep and then the next day begins. The only thing that remembers this movie is your Netflix history.

This movie is entertaining, I'll give you that. The fight scenes were exciting and left me wanting more, despite being on the verge of a seizure with all the rapid jump cuts. Main actress not willing to do the stunt work herself? Strange directorial choice. Bad CGI at some points as well. In addition, the acting wasn't anything to be raved about; and I'm shocked to see that the lead actress actually won a Baeksang previously. She had 0 chemistry with the friend whose death she was avenging. Like girl, why? Logically I get it, but emotionally I'm not feeling it yknow? And this was probably the greatest flaw of the film. Don't get me started on the random high school girl that sort of became her sidekick lol.

Cinematography and music wise it seemed like the director wanted to emulate the western style of thrillers, which I can't say is necessarily a bad thing (I personally quite liked it, particularly the music) but others may disagree. The ballet parts were quite well shot and kind of reminded me of Black Swan. I was hoping to see more ballet scenes, since this movie is called ballerina after all but unfortunately not. In fact, when I first saw this movie I expected it to be about an ex-ballerina turned assassin but in actuality the only association to ballet is the main character avenging her friend who just happens to be a ballerina. Strange name choice...

In conclusion, only watch if you just want a mind-numbing thriller to pass time. This movie is utterly forgettable and you won't remember (or want to remember) any of it. Just one of the many B-list thriller movies that Netflix pumps out. A better female centric thriller would be My Name, which has way better fighting scenes, better acting and a slightly more fleshed out plot. I'm only giving this a 6.5 because it's only 1.5 hrs long and I was fairly entertained by it lmao

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Completed
Durian's Affair
13 people found this review helpful
Aug 14, 2023
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 5.0
Story 5.0
Acting/Cast 10
Music 5.0
Rewatch Value 5.0
This review may contain spoilers

Was the scriptwriter on drugs?

the good(??): Crazy ass plot where all semblance of logic has flown out the window. I really marvel at the scriptwriter's ability to cook up all these plots. Time travelling, mother in law/daughter in law love plot, past lives ... the list goes on. In particular, the mother in law/daughter in law love plot is so mind-blowingly outlandish that it became the sole reason why I even bothered to continue watching this drama. The scriptwriter has written other similarly crazy stories but this really takes the cake. I'm even more surprised that the actors were able to pull this off with a straight face.

The bad: The ending was a shitstorm that made no sense at all and was horribly rushed. Pacing in the earlier few episodes were so dragged out and slow. In particular I noticed that there were many long drawn out conversations among the characters that did not seem to serve any purpose. The time-travelling was also badly explained and till now I still don't quite get it (prob because I skipped around quite a bit) The actress playing Du RI An had only 1 facial expression and 0 charisma and I'm not sure how she even managed to land the lead role.

Conclusion: Watch only if you like to see a hot mess and are ready to turn off your brain for 16 eps.

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Completed
Lost in the Stars
0 people found this review helpful
Aug 2, 2023
Completed 0
Overall 7.0
Story 7.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 1.0
This review may contain spoilers

Dumbed down version of Gone Girl

Premise is interesting enough and it starts off fairly strongly. Then the story becomes more and more outlandish... and then everything is revealed and explained down to the very last detail. Why??? Do the filmmakers think the audience are 5 year old kiddos? I would have appreciated for more details to be omitted and the audience be free to come up with their own conclusions for some plot points... and this is coming from someone who hates unexplained endings.

Acting wise it is decent, Zhu Yi Long is great and so are Ni Ni and Janice Man. Would have loved to see more of Huang Zi Qi but her role was quite small in the show. Unfortunately the side characters aren't great and broke the immersion a little. Cinematography wasn't good, plenty of zoom ins and closeup shots that are reminiscent of Indian drama serials lol.

Overall was a really meh movie that was somehow vaguely entertaining but at the same time quite forgettable.

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Revenant
0 people found this review helpful
Jul 30, 2023
12 of 12 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 8.0
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 10
Music 10
Rewatch Value 8.0
This review may contain spoilers
Before getting into the review, I would first like to commend Kim Taeri's acting. She is simply phenomenal in portraying essentially 2 different characters. This is my first time watching her (have been meaning to get around to watching The handmaiden...) and I'm simply blown away.

Now on to the plot, I would say it's pretty innovative of the writer to craft a horror story based on traditional Korean folklore. I'm not Korean, and I found it quite educational to learn about the different traditions and how they compare with the traditions from my culture. With that being said, I'm not quite a fan of how plot-driven this show is - it resulted in a lack of character development for everyone except the FL and ML. This series is only 12 episodes; 4 less than the usual length of a standard Kdrama but the showrunners still decided to be ambitious and squeezed in other minor sub plots in the first few episodes. Some of them ended up being rushed through and inadequately explained (the case involving parents abusing and keeping the existence of their daughter for no reason). it also resulted in the minor characters being severely under-developed. For instance, it was never explained why haesang's grandma was so obsessed with becoming rich. She was never shown using her money and spent her days reading books. And godd, don't get me started on Hongsae. He had a RBF throughout the show and an attitude worse than a teenager going through puberty. I would have rather he died instead of Munchun. Oh, and Sanyeong's mother as well. I guessed she was supposed to be portrayed as a weakling so the audience would feel more for Sanyeong's suffering but lord it was overdone. I ended up hoping she would just kick the bucket because she was not helping at all. It was never really explained why she ended up the way she is - only briefly implied that she might have been traumatised from having a miscarriage and then finding out her mother died right after. But I wished she would have been written in a more sympathetic way.

Honestly, I would have given this series a 9 if not for the ending. The acting is great all around (even for the poorly developed side characters, their actors did all they could) and the cinematography, directing and sound design were great. But the ending... to me it came on too strongly as some anti-suicide PSA peppered with cliches of how important it is to love yourself. With the context of Korea's high suicide rate, I guess this makes sense but I can't help but feel like korean audiences would see through the hypocrisy. The only reason why Sanyeong was able to "love herself" and "want to live" was because she was finally free of her capitalistic burdens. With her huge inheritance from her dead grandma and father, she was free to finally do whatever she wanted to do in life. And all of this would not have been possible without the help of the ghost, who gave her the riches through exploiting her weakness and killing those she hated. Without the ghost, she would have still been stuck doing manual labour part time jobs! In fact, she would be blind, poor, and stuck with her lousy-ass mother. Hell, without the ghost, she would not even have known of the existence of her father and grandmother, and criminals such as Haesang's grandma and the voice phishing guys would still be alive. So that whole spiel about preventing the ghost from exploiting her weakness seems through loving herself more while trying to kill the very thing that enabled you to remove the weakness from your life seems very ungrateful and hypocritical.

The other reviews for this show are quite positive and I think I'm the only who gets the "ick" from the cheery ass ending. Oh well, but its on par of the course for kdramas which usually start off strong but end poorly. I do still think this is worth a watch though, especially if you're a Kim Taeri fan.

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Completed
Lies Hidden in My Garden
4 people found this review helpful
Jul 12, 2023
8 of 8 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 6.0
Story 6.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 10
Rewatch Value 5.0
This review may contain spoilers

This should have been a movie instead

Let me first start off by saying this drama is absolutely stunning in terms of its cinematography. The framing and shots are akin to those from arthouse movies and was really giving off Parasite vibes. Which brings me to my next point: this really should have been a movie instead.

God damn, the pacing is simply too damn slow. Long closeups of the characters staring at each other, at the camera, at something out outside the shot etc ... i know its to build suspense and tension but it was really testing my patience. Tons of scenes that served no purpose at all, and plotlines (neighbour character and murdered sister plot) that were simply left hanging with no resolution. Pacing did Kim Tae Hee no favours as many closeups featured her one and only deer in the headlights expression that I simply couldn't stand after the 4th episode. Her character is supposed to be some sort of depressed housewife but 8 eps of her acting like she has 0 agency in her own life and using her dead sister as an excuse to mope around just got too much. I almost felt bad for her husband for having to deal with that for years. And what on earth were her actions in the last ep? like what??

By all means, Sang Eun wasn't likeable either but at least she's trying to get herself out of a shitty situation. Even though I'm not totally convinced by Lim Ji Yeon acting as a battered housewife, the way she's portrayed at least makes more sense than whatever the heck Kim Tae Hee's character is supposed to be.

And going back to the murdered sister plot - the show provided so many flashbacks of the Joo Ran seeing her sister's dead body, reacting to her son's teacher etc and the least they could do was tell us who the murderer is and give us some closure right? But no! viewers are left hanging till the very end. Neighbour woman too. So what was up with her being overly friendly and all those rumors about her possibly killing her husband?? And why does Seung Jae gravitate towards her?? It was not as if she was particularly MILF-y LOL.

The gist of this whole review is that as a drama, its artistic but unfortunately it's boring. Like pretty fucking boring for what is considered a thriller. It would have worked way better as a movie instead, and who knows, it might have become a hit like Parasite! If you're looking to de-stress after work with a good ol' fashioned thriller that's actually thrilling, this is definitely not for you. However, if you have time on your hands to analyze every frame of this drama to discern the inner motivations of the various characters, you're in luck!

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Completed
Wave Makers
3 people found this review helpful
Jun 9, 2023
8 of 8 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 9.0
Story 10
Acting/Cast 10
Music 10
Rewatch Value 9.0
This review may contain spoilers

A Hidden Gem

I came in with no expectations, fully expecting the usual run of the mill political dramas with their usual tropes. Instead, what greeted me was a high quality, entertaining and meaningful drama about the silent heroes behind a political campaign. I literally have nothing but praise for this show; from the writing, the acting and even the production - everything was well executed. Delicate topics like workplace sexual harassment, grooming and homophobia were handled well, too well in fact that it was (sadly) unbelievable as it would probably not go over that smoothly in reality.

I also appreciated that the show raised some interesting philosophical questions - does the end justifies the means? Can change only be enacted if one has (political) power? Presidential candidate Lin Yue Chen has strong views against the death penalty, but fears voicing it out publicly will cost her the election, and will in turn prevent her from enacting the requisite change. Similarly, Wen Fang has her doubts about helping Ya Ching over fears it may ruin the election results but soon realizes that even without power, change is possible too - and the election is not everything.

In summary, I highly highly highly recommend this show - and this is coming from someone who doesn't watch political dramas because they're usually too boring LOL. The pacing is juuussst right and while there are some slow moments, there isn't a "dull" moment where nothing happens. There are also strong feminist/female empowerment themes which is a breath of fresh air in asian dramas. Sooooo if you're looking for a political drama, give this a shot!

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Completed
Hunger
2 people found this review helpful
Apr 15, 2023
Completed 0
Overall 7.0
Story 7.0
Acting/Cast 10
Music 10
Rewatch Value 6.0
This review may contain spoilers

Strong start with weak ending

I almost never watch Thai movies; this is literally the second Thai movie I have watched in my life. And I must say that I am really impressed. Cinematography, acting and scoring are really good. The first half was set up really well - the tension in the scenes where the FL was trying to impress Chef Paul was really so palpable I was holding my breath while watching. The second half however seems to have fallen off a cliff. The film was going for the social commentary angle with mentions on inequality and social stratification but it was hastily abandoned and only picked up towards the end with some random shots of homeless people on the streets. I was expecting something like a Parasite-esque satire but it seems that the writers got confused on what was the main message of the show. The FL claims she wants to be special and she has the "hunger" to succeed - yet throws in the towel because hunting and cooking rare animals illegal crossed her boundaries. I was a little confused at this; it seemed like such a trivial reason to quit. Maybe I have watched too many fucked up movies but I wished they had provided a more disturbing reason for her to leave Chef Paul like for example, those rich people requesting for human meat.

There is also a littleeee too much exposition on the whole social commentary angle. Characters talking openly about how it sucks being poor, Chef Paul bragging in front of the cops that he would never face any consequences, literal scenes of homeless people at the end etc are all too "in your face" and I would much rather go for the "show don't tell" approach. And of course, the rather cliched ending of the importance of family blah blah. With this movie being over 2 hours long, I was quite disappointed at the somewhat flat ending. I don't' regret it though, it was still entertaining. Just wished they had managed to maintain the tension and the thriller angle from the first half

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Completed
Kill Bok Soon
8 people found this review helpful
Apr 2, 2023
Completed 0
Overall 6.5
Story 1.0
Acting/Cast 9.0
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 1.0
This review may contain spoilers

Cliched budget John Wick remake

This movie is essentially a Korean John wick Remake replaced with a female protagonist. Many salient plot points were literally copy and pasted from John Wick: assassins having their own secret gatherings with their own rules, assassins' meeting place is similar to the continental hotel in John Wick, other assassins' turning on Bok Soon/John Wick due to a bounty on their head etc. Makes you wonder if they were trying to time it together with John Wick 4's release date. Aside from the similarities with the John Wick series, the rest of the film's plot was just the same old washed up cliches. Assassin/contract killer suddenly having a guilty conscience for some reason throwing everything in jeopardy blah blah blah. I literally rolled my eyes at that point. Bok Soon has been in this trade for at least 2 decades and yet she gets a crisis of faith trying to kill some politician's son? Why? Oh, it's because she is a MOTHER! But wait a minute, she has been a mother for 15 years and NEVER felt this way until now? This makes no sense AT ALL. You want me to believe that out of all the people she has killed in her career she has never killed someone as "innocent" as this random politician's son? Did she not consider that the other people she has killed before were also someone's child/parent as well?

Other fun tropes in this film also include pairing up the experienced veteran (Bok Soon) with the scrappy intern, Bok Soon's mentor/boss letting her kill him and all the single mother with rebellious teenage children scenarios that you can think of. Speaking of this whole "single mother who is also an assassin" plot point, I really want to say that Bok Soon's daughter is the most poorly written character in the whole show. She is a typical teenage girl going through puberty and coming to grips about being a lesbian but some of her actions are so illogical it just made me annoyed. She oscillated so often between being cold and aloof towards her mother to conveniently blowing up her mother's phone during her "shows" it made me think she was bipolar instead. Also, the whole coming out scene was so strangely written I'm not sure if the LGBT representation should even be appreciated by the community. At least the saving grace was that the acting was decent... though the cinematography and editing were soo choppy it was obvious stunt doubles were used. Oh, and the ending was extremely abrupt and pointless. There was a random mid credit scene about Bok Soon's daughter "confronting" her ex girlfriend and threatening to kill her, to which the ex simply smiled creepily in response while teeny bopper music played in the back. Then the film cut to the rest of the credits. WTF was that about??

With all my various complaints out of the way, I'd say that this is still a fairly entertaining film that you should watch if you're a fan of the thriller/assassin genre. The acting is decent as well, so if you're willing to look past the weak ass storyline, it should still make for an enjoyable watch. I would however, strongly recommend the John Wick series if you have not watched that before instead.

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Completed
Next Sohee
8 people found this review helpful
Mar 26, 2023
Completed 0
Overall 7.0
Story 10
Acting/Cast 10
Music 10
Rewatch Value 1.0
This review may contain spoilers

How much is a life worth?

How much is a life worth? Not much, I'm afraid. This film is about a streetwise, headstrong high schooler who gets her passions and aspirations beaten out of her by the cruel machinations of this capitalist society. Everyone in this film is graded by how much they are "worth" - from the call centre staff being measured by their commissions/sales amounts, to the schools being graded on how many students have successfully found employment. There is no leeway for error; falling down the ranks means being fired or having a school shut down. Every worker - be it an intern, police officer or teacher is essentially reduced to a number on an excel sheet, dispensable and replaceable. "If you can't take it, just quit! No one is forcing you to stay" is a phrase thrown flippantly around by the management of the company that had the greatest hand in causing So Hee's demise. If only life were that simple, to be able to escape this rat race at any point you desire. Does anybody actually desire to be a cog in a machine, slaving away for profits that you would never even receive? Alas, when quitting means disappointing a "respected" teacher, being threatened with expulsion and worsening an already bad family financial situation, it seems that death is the only answer.

Personal opinions of our current society aside, this film has done a great job in highlighting the injustices of a capitalistic society that reduces the worth of a human being down to a single number. The acting is amazing, though the cinematography is straight to the point, in an almost documentary like style which is quite befitting to the theme of this film. It is a bleak slow burn with no resolution, and Bae Donna's character's mission to find the truth is akin to the fight between David and Goliath. But in the end, that's what life is right? When the rich get richer and the poor continue to suffer and have their voices silenced, injustices are covered up and victims have nowhere to go. Since this film is based on a real life incident, I can only hope the "real" So Hee has found peace at last.

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Dropped 9/10
On Marriage
2 people found this review helpful
Jan 16, 2023
9 of 10 episodes seen
Dropped 1
Overall 7.5
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 7.0
Music 7.0
Rewatch Value 6.5
This review may contain spoilers

Hit or miss

This is essentially the marriage version of On Children. And if you've watched that, you would be familiar with the premise of Black Mirror dystopian-esque technology impacting marriages/children in mostly negative ways. Unfortunately, budget/quality wise it does not live up to Black Mirror standards which makes the immersion hard. As its an anthology with different episodes having different storylines/actors/directors, the quality of each story differs as well.

The first story was a pleasant surprise, and I felt it started off the series on a high note. The futuristic technology parts were well integrated and fairly believable which made it more relatable than the rest. Tonally it was also more light-heartened and "fun". Acting and directing were great too.

The second story however was a major step down from the first in all ways. The element of futuristic technology was not clearly brought out and it veered into normal family drama territory with the whole technology part an afterthought. Acting was strange and I couldn't stand the ML at all. Pacing was all over the place and a serious mess.

Third story I only watched halfway but I felt that it had too much going on for such a short runtime. There were the technology bits and some random cult parts as well. The story wasn't as compelling so I didn't bother continuing.

I skipped to the last story which was about a lesbian couple having an affair. Plotwise, it is the most interesting out of all as it is a subject matter rarely portrayed in asian media (and western media too actually). The other stories in the series all featured hetero couples and this was the only one featuring a gay couple. so naturally it stood out. However the executing was lacking. I felt the directing was messy and the writing was bad. The FL that cheated tried to justify her cheating in such a scummy way and her wife just took her back despite her shittiness. It was like they were trying to shoehorn a happy ending for no reason. The LGBT representation is nice and all, but if it were a hetero couple there would be angry calls on why the woman would be forgiving such a shitty man so why the double standards? Like the FL was only sorry she got caught and only broke up with her affair partner when she wrongly believed her affair partner was cheating on her! Like WTF? That is just messed up. Not to mention they have a kid together... ANYWAY. The acting was great but everything else was meh.

Edit: I went back to watch the fourth story which I previously skipped and I actually found it pretty good, albeit depressing. The technology parts were weak and felt shoehorned in at some points though. Overall I would rate the first story as the best, followed by the fourth story and then the lesbian story.

So there's that. I personally preferred On Children and emotionally felt that it hit harder. I'll probably only recommend the first episode and the last episode (if you're looking for LGBT representation). The other stories are basically meh and forgettable.

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Completed
Somebody
3 people found this review helpful
Jan 10, 2023
8 of 8 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 7.0
Story 5.0
Acting/Cast 10
Music 10
Rewatch Value 10
This review may contain spoilers

Love it or hate it

I'll start off by saying I really like this drama, especially with how they used the soundtracks. I'm also a fan of the psychopath/serial killer genre and I like how the "cat and mouse" portions were executed. I just felt letdown by the pacing issues that resulted in some early episodes being a bit of a drag and the last episode a rush to tie up loose ends. Some of the writing wasn't great too, with characters (looking at you, Gi-Eun) making the world's dumbest decisions and putting themselves in harm's way repeatedly. Mok-Won's character also felt really random and underutilized, with the show taking pains to carefully carve out her backstory as a shaman, show her meeting girls in the club etc etc and all that just for her to basically not have an impact on the conclusion at all. Instead, I wished they would have tried to flesh out Fingers and Samantha more, as they had close to 0 screentime yet had a serious part to play in affecting the ending.

The acting was amazing, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the female leads are actually rookies. Kim Young Kwang was also excellent and he really embodied the character perfectly. The cinematography was next level and I really liked the arthouse vibe of it. Too often Kdramas devolve into the cliche "slow-mo" while staring at each other type scenes with the cheesy OSTs blaring in the background and I would say this drama stands out among the rest with its cinematography. The creative use of the soundtrack was also fantastic and I'm so glad to be introduced to Schumann's Vogel Als Prophet lol.

This is an extremely polarizing show and you will either love it or hate it. I can see why many have dropped it - plot that meanders aimlessly in the beginning, characters making horribly stupid decisions, excessive sex/nudity scenes, but I would still encourage thriller fans to give this a chance.

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Completed
The Truth
1 people found this review helpful
Dec 25, 2022
Completed 0
Overall 1.0
Story 1.0
Acting/Cast 1.0
Music 1.0
Rewatch Value 1.0
This review may contain spoilers

Hot steaming pile of TRASH!

if I could give this show 0 stars I would. Total nonsense plot that makes ZERO sense. Horrible writing, horrible pacing and lackluster acting. I'm not sure if this show was trying to copy the whole "news anchor with traumatic past" storyline from a similar Korean movie called The Anchor but whatever this is supposed to be did not make sense at all. I'm honestly surprised I made it to the end because holy shit, while watching I was literally thinking that this could be possibly the worst movie I have ever watched in my life. But to be fair I was stuck on a plane with nothing else to do, except sit through shitty movies lol.

DO NOT bother wasting your time on this trash seriously. Watch The Anchor instead, makes more sense and at least has some element of suspense.

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