Reviews

This is a really good movie. The story is a little grusome at times, but it also has light hearted warm moments. The play on light and dark in the cinematography goes well with the story. There is one part where Cheol Min replaces the windows and Jeong Hwa reaches out to the light that is just beautiful. The acting is really good too. Of course, So Ji Sub is always good at playing the slightly disturbed characters. He is one of my favorite actors!!! I love Han Hyo Joo in Shining Inheritance and she didn't let me down in this movie. The music isn't anything to mention but it went well with the movie. I would probably watch this movie again.

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Pure exposition of wasteful "SUPPOSITION OF REALISTIC" relationships

The story is niche and extremely reliant on the supposed "plot twist" - hence the low rewatch value.
This is not even a romance film God! No Character Development and the relationships made in the end are all toxic even the FL's. I was rooting for the 1st guy only to end up disappointed by the end because of his sad fate.
Both the leads are shit people. However I find the FL more obnoxious. Lots of people in the comment section paints the ML to be the more trashy but they are both similar TBH.

The ML was trashy sure! But he made an effort of going back and forth thru traffic and borderline illegal working conditions to meet the FL. This does not justify the cheating (debatable), the indifference, abortion and whatnot but there's an effort being made. He at least also tried to resist the temptation and only curb to it after the break up.

The FL on the other hand (sighs). I pity the other guy - I was hooked by the film initially because of their cute romance (only to find out that he's just a "rebound guy"). I mean she's outright cheating by the end. She did not even tried to visit the ML at least once in Seoul during the fall out. She did not even exert any effort whatsoever. Of course both of them eventually gave up but still.

In summary I don't even know the genre of this film. It did not have any sort of message. It's confuse of what it wants to do. In fact it's kind of pointless. What are we suppose to get out from it? Both leads never got any character development. They just are the way they are from start to finish. Sighs.

To be fair its entertaining.
"It's Fun but it's Pointless" and not in a good way

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The 4 words I can use to describe this movie is cute, romantic, funny and informative. Wow, I was not expecting that throughout the movie facts about dinosaurs, archaeology, or fossils pop up. Not only that but little thought comments or just funny commentary pop up to add humor to the plot. This movie has a super manga feel which adds to the cuteness. It does have slightly naughty/ecchi parts in it but it's mostly conveyed through crude humor. The two leads had wonderful chemistry and really brought life to their characters. If you are looking for a light, cute, and funny movie then look no further.

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Life and Death

I read the manga before but wasn't that enamored by the manga but the movie storytelling style actually gave this story way, way more depth than the manga. The themes of the manga are shallow compared to the recurring life and death theme in the movie.

The mood of the story is very dark and suspenseful compared to the manga which sort of gave everything away by chapter 3. The small details the director(s) added elevated the story: for example, the music hummed by Yoda, the rooftop, the bottle of poison...etc all linked back to Yoda's trauma with missing the sign of his boyfriend's suicide.

The movie was done very artistically... I didn't feel like it was simply a porno or erotic movie. The sexual pleasure is something both characters used as a mechanism to feel alive.

Acting was good (especially Yoda). He was nothing like the manga character ... very domineering and scary yet also so sad at the same time. The somber piano music is appropriate.

Overall, I think this was a very good, dark BL if you are into darker themes. It explores some dark themes such as deaths, suicide, and depression.

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A fun ride, but...

Special Delivery is an action movie that is certainly not ground-breaking in any way. When I am watching action movies, my goal is to be entertained and throw my logic out of the car window. However, in this case, the movie did not offer the kind of entertainment that would make me turn away from all the ridiculous things that were happening at times.

The plot was structured like many films of the same genre, and the action sequences were definitely fun to watch and very well-made. In other words, if you are looking for some nicely shot and fun to watch action scenes, you will surely be entertained.

What ruined it for me the most was the acting. The female lead is a badass protagonist, and Park So Dam definitely didn't have a hard job, when it comes to the acting department. Her character was mostly expressionless, but in my opinion, she didn't deliver even in the scenes that she was supposed to show the slightest bit of emotion. She was very wooden. The main antagonists mostly overacted and to be frank, I couldn't take them seriously. Generally, the majority of the cast was mediocre.

It was obvious that the scriptwriter tried to make this an action film with some kind of emotional impact, taking into consideration the way the plot progressed. However, the characters were poorly developed and the acting was lacking. As a result I didn’t feel anything for any of them.

All in all, even though there are some aspects that are there in almost all action films, like people not dying, unless the script says so or individuals suddenly turning into super humans with great abilities, the acting and the way the plot was structured didn't make it entertaining enough to make me feel for the characters or ignore some of the absurd things that were happening on screen. Don't get me wrong though. This is an entertaining ride and an ideal movie to watch, when you are looking for some fun after a long and difficult day.

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This movie was "Meh" for me.

It looked like the creators THOUGHT they had a brilliant idea but couldn't expand further than what was shown.

Story: Supposed to be tragic but I just laughed inappropriately and that's not a good thing.

Cast: Good enough that they were men. That's it.

Music: As unmemorable as the movie:

Re-watch value: Was that a blip?

Can't justify a long review for a very short film that did nothing but take up 7 minutes of my time but apparently my review was too short to even be submitted so I had to add these last few words.

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Damn. That was something.

I found out about this movie on a BL fansite and as i kept reading the reviews of people who watched it, it seemed like a hard movie to watch. Alot of people couldn't handle it, and stopped just after a little time as they couldn't bear it.

Honestly, when i started watching it, it wasn't easy to watch. I am not a fan of forcing people to / within things, and the whole plot seemed a bit fuzzy, i couldn't quite get the whole picture as what exactly was going on. The further i watched the more clear the story because, and if you look behind all the forcing / abuse / masochism, it is actually a movie with a really strong plot, and a really beautiful message inside of it. I was quite amazed after i watched the whole movie and it made me think about alot in life... about how we see and deal with things and how precious yet vulnerable life is.
I wanna say, the actors did an AMAZING job, i don't think there are alot of actors that could pull off any of the lead roles, and they did an excellent job, i am really amazed how they did this, i cannot imagine how hard that must've been, then again it shows how amazing they are as actors.
I would deffinetly watch it again, as the message in it is really good.

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This movie is hard to describe. The characters are rather unlikable. Mini is borderline crazy, if not completely so, and Fatso, for two/thirds of the movie, was rather blandly leaning towards being just mean. The story centers around weight loss, and while it does a good job explaining the hopelessness that being obese entails, it does little to actual connect emotionally to the viewer until the last third of the film in my opinion.
The last third of the film is rather touching, but doesn't really make up for the fact that I wasted 45 minutes watching the first part. I will say it does a good job showing how much hard work it is to lose weight, but it's timeline for that weight loss is completely ridiculous.
The end was satisfying, but completely cliché. I won't be watching this one again.

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Just finished this movie! I'm a little surprised that this movie doesn't have that many viewers, especially since Toda Erika is the female lead...But maybe there aren't many viewers for a good reason.

Story: I think I'll clarify the plot a little, since the synopsis available here and on DramaWiki don't say much. A long time ago, the Male Black Gold Tea Clan was provoked by a Japanese man and the MBGTC went and picked a fight with the Female Black Gold Tea Clan (a "tea battle", so to speak). Things happened, the Yagi family is henceforth cursed forevers for causing chaos, and the curse can only be broken if a Yagi descendent uses the Female Black Gold Tea to defeat the Male Black Gold Tea Clan in a tea battle. Toda Erika is this descendent, as she decides to go to Taiwan from Japan to find a way to break the curse.

Now my thoughts on the story--It was rather creative, though as a person who studied tea in college, the inaccuracies were pretty off-putting. For viewers who have little/no background in tea, this won't be a big problem, just enjoy the show. :) Unfortunately the execution of this movie was extremely poor. The plot was choppy and therefore cryptic, and it really took effort to keep track of what was happening. There wasn't a clear flow of ideas, and this, I believe, is this film's greatest fail point.

The humor that broke in between the serious moments were rather precious though. :)

Acting/Cast: The cast was chosen pretty well, I believe. This movie was a collaboration between Japan and Taiwan, so there are actors and actresses from Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong (apparently). RuHua's actress and the actor who played Toda Erika's father were two of the weakest on the cast (the latter being worse than the former). Perhaps it was the way their character was written, or the way they executed it, but I didn't buy it.

Music: I wish they had used more traditional Eastern-style music, as it is a movie about tea, after all. The music had pretty large disconnect with the film as a whole, and wasn't particularly good from a standalone angle either.

Rewatch Value: Low...low...low. Maybe, a long time from now, I'll skim through the funny parts.

Overall: The film's saving grace is it's humor, and nearly everything else isn't worth a second glance. Also, half the movie is in Mandarin and the other half is in Japanese, so it definitely helps if you have some knowledge of either one of them. The subtitles aren't grammatically correct, and don't have the most accurate of translations (so you might lose out on some humor, I suppose), but there should be no problem understanding the general premise.

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When this movie ended my thoughts: "What? But it only started like 5 minutes ago!!" It was a solid 2hr. 14 minutes and I can hardly find anything to complain about. Acting was spot on, the directing was great, the music fit, and there was a perfect balance between comedy and drama. All the awards this movie won and all the nominations it got; all were well deserved. Gangsters in suits, what else do you need?

The movie was inspired by Hong Kong legend Infernal Affairs and Hollywood epic Godfather. If you have seen those both movies and remember them well, you will find similar symbolism in New World. The plot is unpredictable. I didn't really try guessing nor did I pay attention to the hints so the ending surprised, but if you pick up Godfather references (that closing door cough cough), you will know the end. New World doesn't reach up to Godfather's brilliance, not even close, but for a Korean gangster movie it's really good, one of the best.

I absolutely loved the cold atmosphere in the movie, the music was ominous and most of the scenes were filmed in "cold" and "emotionless" places like construction sites, meeting rooms, warehouses, empty restaurants. The scenery was absolutely soulless lacking all possible humanity! Another thing that I loved was that the movie went more for a psychological impact than tasteless bloody splatter or gang fights (leaving the latter to minimum). The torture scenes were gripping, a bit too much blood to my taste, but just the right impact. Great job! No unnecessary and forced love scenarios and no blatant sex, only scheming and action!

Acting was great. My only complaint is Lee Jung Jae as Ja Sung, he lacked the charisma. His character was muted and gave more space to other much brighter characters, which was a good thing in my opinion. But still, it was hard to see Ja Sung's plight. The conflict he went through was shattering. He was the only character that actually changed and evolved during the movie. The others seemed to be stuck in their own realities and that's not a bad thing. But that change Ja Sung went through, I wish someone else but stonefaced Lee Jung Jae played him so it would have been more visible. He tried really hard but just like the cold background, he remained sort of soulless and dull.

Hwang Jeong Min as Jung Chung was brilliant, the moment he appeared I loved him! His punchlines were spot on and he brought the comedy in the misery of it all. "Hey brotha", I couldn't get enough of him talking, because every time he opened his mouth it was just... everything he said always fit the situation. "Jung Goo that gaesekki, he is a walking puberty!"

When in the end Jung Chung said "That stupid idiot let the police fool himself." That's when I realized his full potential. Heck, he was smart and he had a big heart, unlike other gangsters in the movie. Notice that he often appeared in warm settings with a lot of people around him. He seemed stupid and everyone was looking down on him but heck, he was awesome. Chinks all the way! He gave Ja Sung what no one else did, what his boss and the police failed to give him, what he had been searching for all this time: trust. Their friendship was what gave Ja Sung the biggest impact and helped him to reach a conclusion between crime and law. We could say that Jung Chung saved his life, literally and figuratively. The symbolism was strong in this one.

Park Sung Woong shines as Jung Goo, the role couldn't be more fitting for this actor. Sung Woong, the self-absorbed twisted devil. Choi Min Shik? The dirty cop who is ready to go for sacrifices but also has the heart to mourn and regret. I don't know if I liked his character or hated him, but I know that it was a great character. It beats me how even the smallest side roles like the Yangbians, everyone had an impact in this movie, no one felt useless, everyone had their own place, no one was a filler character. I learned to like all characters, and acting was pretty good from everyone's part. I just wished Hwang Jeong Min was better.

New World starts with a bang and the plot moves on with a good pace, mostly fueled by dialogs, which is a refreshing breather in typical Korean gangster films. There is not even one boring moment and you find yourself glued to the screen, wondering what's going to happen next. The message of the film is pretty twisted, but I like how it points out that you need to change to get somewhere. If you get stuck in your own comfort zone, you will forever be just a dog used by others. When Ja Sung did what he did, I realized that all his 8 years of undercover work lead him there. He didn't want to go there but was pushed forward and sort of cleaned his path little by little. Finally, he snapped or maybe it was more about him finding himself. His face often showed how sick he was of it all, how much agony it caused him. The flashbacks at the end were a great plus and despite being short they explained so much, once again symbolism was strong.

The ending was perfect, it fit the story. More than everyone getting what they deserved it was about Je Sung's character turning a new leaf. He finally understood what mattered to him the most and he stood behind his own beliefs, he was loyal. Him in the end and him in the beginning, those were two different people. One was insecure, still looking for his place in the world and the other had finally found that place. He lost a lot, but he also gained something priceless.

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