Reviews

A feelgood, fun show, but that's all!

It was nothing special, to be honest. Sure, there was some really good storyline, the whole X story was good and most characters were great too, but that's all. It doesn't want to be more than it is, and that sometimes isn't a bad thing, but if you include bullying, fraud and other important storylines, you have to do something with them. Honestly, the only story that was well written is the X story. They didn't do much with the bullying girls, for example. I liked that some bullies, like Bo Ra's friend, wasn't that bad, but still, I don't like that basically no one got the well deserved punishment. Poor girl had to endure so many sh*t and every bully just moved on? Why, because nobody cared. The policewoman was just there for romance purpose, basically. Also, the accident with the bus was really bad. I mean, everyone looked like if they crashed with a truck. Not to mention, when the girls were fighting, they didn't do much, and still they looked like MMA fighters after a match.? Lastly, I was a bit surprised that there wasn't a single kiss scene. I mean, I get that 18-year-olds maybe don't want to kiss, but what about the adults! They acted like teens, too.

Other than that, this is a good show, Eun Ho and Tae Woon were really great together, not a typical couple for sure.
Sejeong's obviously stole the whole show, and her aegyo is legendary for a reason.?

Like I said, it's nothing special, but still worth watching it. Sometimes it feels good to watch a random show that turns off your brain for 16 hours.

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diciamo che questo 8 è una media fra i settanta che volevo dare

Ecco, vi presento i pensieri intrusivo che si sono palesati mentre vedevo la serie:
Primo, sono fermamente convinta che i personaggi di Alan, Wen e Jim sarebbero odiati dai più se non fossero recitati da Mix, First ed Earth.
Secondo, Wen che dice che lui lo fa per lasciarlo andare (stiamo ovviamente parlando del mio cucciolo Alan), non mi sta bene, finché non gli serviva mollarlo era comodo avere lo sugar daddy, capo della sezione prestiti della banca che paga le bollette. Ecco, perché se veramente lo avesse fatto per Alan sarebbe bastato al più un mese per capire che stai facendo del male all’altra persona, non lo usi, in parte per i soldi e gli dai basically una colossale falsa speranza: perché siamo onesti, è vero che Alan si fa i castelli di carta, ma è anche vero che in quei famosi mesi è stato Wen a dargli la carta per farli.
Amo Gemini e Forth, mi piace proprio come siano alcuni fra i pochi attori che riescono a creare un amore adolescenziale genuino (per non parlare poi della parte di Hearth e del suo essere sordo, ma questo ne parlo dopo), amore che in altre serie sempre ambientate nel mondo delle superiori non sono riuscita pienamente a cogliere.
Considerate che questi commenti li ho scritti quando ancora non avevo visto gli ultimi tre episodi.
Devo fare i miei più vivi complimenti a First (guess what, lo amo come attore) perché nella scena a natale, quando Alan confronta per la prima volta Jim e Wen, in quella scena è riuscito a rendere piccolo Earth, che in relazione al tipo di attore che è (quel tipo di attore che prende lo spazio in molte delle scene in cui recita) e al tipo di fisico che ha risulta molto complicato. Credo che nemmeno in ToL, dove recitava con un mostro sacro come OffGun (dove sono sicura ci siano delle scene dove i tizi si confrontano) sono riuscita a vederlo piccolo come nella scena in cui arriva Alan e lo rende proprio piccolo. (Spero di essermi fatta capite con questa spiegazione)
Per il resto, quando finisco.
Ecco, nuova cosa: al personaggio di Wen piace fare la vittima. Nel senso che non puoi venirmi a dire “grazie a te sono riuscito a mollarlo” quando per la prime due puntate ti interessava di Alan tanto quando ad un cavallo di un mosca che gli ronza intorno e non gli da fastidio e quanto tu stesso hai detto che avevi smesso di amarlo. A te, mio caro Wen serviva solo una ragione relativamente valida (per te stesso, perché siamo onesti dare continuamente false speranze ad una persona per una persona normale dovrebbe bastare) per mollare lo sugar daddy chiamato Alan, perché siamo onesti, Alan ti faceva comodo anche quando (e con tutte le ragioni del mondo, perchè anche se strano, uno può smettere di amare una persona da un giorno all’altro) avevi già smesso da mo di amarlo.
Ecco se io fossi stata in Alan avrei sbroccato prima e avrei fatto peggio.
Vi prego salvate Gaipa da questo mondo.
Poi dopo aver visto cinque episodi di fila ho pensato che a. Era meglio andare a dormire e b. Che non ce ne è uno di personaggio che non mi dia l’hyk… tranne ovviamente Hearth e Li Ming e quel cuore di panna di Gaipa.
Altra scena irritante al tempio: per che cosa stai male Wen? Per aver mollato Alan o perché ai vissuto praticamente a sue spese e te lo sei fatto per pietà. No spiegami.
Perché i personaggi che interpreta Earth hanno tutti la caratteristica in comune di dare consigli anche quando non sono richiesti? Cioè, ma chi sei tu per dirmi come vivere la mia vita?

allora, questi erano i commenti che scrivevo mentre lo guardavo e ora vorrei esprimermi un po’ di più sui punti toccati: prima cosa, mi pare palese la prima frase. tranne forse il personaggio di Earth (che fa delle scelte discutibili, ma comprensibili, tranne quella frase orribile che dice a Li Ming “sei povero e pure gay?” come se lui non lo fosse. e so che una persona potrebbe dirmi “proprio perché lo fa sa le difficoltà che deve passare”, ma proprio perché lo sa dovrebbe dargli una mano) che devo dire avevo sopravvalutato l’incavolatura che avrebbe dato (essendo questo un trend con i personaggi di Earth), gli altri due personaggi per varie ed eventuali ragioni sono delle persone non orribili (anche se Wen lo è), ma quasi. sopra lo ho scritto mentre vedevo la serie: è vero che ad Alan nella sua storia con Wen cerca di risolvere una situazione che non può essere risolta (anche se siamo onesti, una persona non smette di amarne un’altra così de botto, a meno che non compia atti strani, ma ci vuole del tempo e dubito che Wen abbia detto ad Alan che era da un po’ di tempo che non si sentiva più come una volta e forse Alan era troppo preso dal suo amore per Wen che non ha visto che l’altro non lo amava più), però alle persone normali, dopo quanto al massimo un mese si rendono conto che continuare a vivere con una persona che è ancora innamorata di te (continuare ad andarci a letto, perché sappiamo che lo ha fatto), fartgli pagare le bollette e il resto come uno sugar daddy, è quello che si chiama abuso emotivo e poi, siamo sinceri, come ho detto negli appunti di cui sopra, ad Wen faceva comodo avere praticamente uno sugar daddy che gli pagava tutto. quindi questo, e per tornare a tutto il tempo che Wen ha abusato delle emozioni di Alan, lui non è che lo ha mollato per il suo bene (di Alan) e il suo (di Wen), ma lo ha mollato solo quando doveva decidere se farsi pagare le bollette o farsi Jim (e visti gli addominali di Earth lo sceglierei anche io) e ha scelto la seconda opzione. poi non dico che Alan non abbia le sue colpe, però a. amo First come attore, quindi ho un bias verso i personaggi che interpreta e b. puoi veramente biasimare una persoana che si fa castelli di carta, quando sei tu stesso quello che gli fornisce la carta? altra cosa su Wen: lui è la personificazione del tuo pensiero intrusivo. vuoi liberarti di lui, ecco che ritorna: era necessario trovarselo mentre usciva dall’ospedale Alan? no, però come un pensiero intrusivo lui compare sempre (ora che poi io abbia la teoria che, addominali a parte, il personaggio di Earth essendo il prototipo dei suoi personaggi quindi che continua a giudicare e a dare consigli non richiesti sia altamente complicato da sopportare e quindi si possa essere pentito di aver mollato lo sugar daddy banchiere responsabile della sezione prestiti della banca, è una storia per un altro giorno). si è capito che non mi è piaciuto il personaggio di Wen? bene, fa ridere perché in ATOTS non mi piaceva il personaggio di Earth, ma ho adorato quello di Mix, qui tollero quello di Earth e non sopporto quello di Mix… quindi l’unica serie dove mi sono piaciuti entrambi (anche se il personaggio di earth sempre consiglio non richiesti da) è in CLS. bene, ora di chi parliamo? ah di quel cuore di panna di Gaipa. niente da dire, mi è piaciuto proprio. e poi… la coccola della serie: Hearth e Li Ming. come ho detto sopra Gemini e Forth mi piacciono perché sanno interpretare molto bene l’amore giovanile, quello dell’adolescenza. e poi mi è anche piaciuto il fatto che il personaggio di Hearth fosse sordo (dove si vede quindi una persona che cerca di lavorare con la sua disabilità)(e non ho trovato la mamma di Hearth così terribile come quando la serie è uscita perché alla fine non è che fosse imbarazzata dalla sordità del figlio (o forse solo in piccola parte), ma era più preoccupata e spaventata per quello che sarebbe potuto succedergli. (piccola parentesi, ma è perché sono uno studente di medicina, se Hearth e Li Ming hanno circa 18 anni e Heath è diventato sordo tre anni prima, in teoria dovrebbe essere in grado di parlare normalmente, però mi è piaciuto lo stesso quando ha detto quelle poche parole e l’importanza che hanno dato alle parole che ha detto).
ultimo commento… abbiamo i magnific ‘98 tutti nella stessa serie: infatti stupore e terrore, ma Mark, Mix, First e Khao sono coetanei.
bene la recensione è finita andate in pace, se volete vederlo sicuramente non lo sconsiglio, ma c’è di meglio (e anche di peggio)

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Cheng Yi lives!

If you've watched other Cheng Yi works (you should), this is a showcase to his talent for sublety of expressions, and a refreshing opporunity to see him play playful-- as most often he is at his best portraying angst--which this show is just about ridiculously too much of for character--but he finally gets a happy ending--without the addition of an extra episode to give you an alternate ending (tho'-chuckle, he still has to wait a long time to get there!). What was also different as a story was that there was no inherently evil villian but otherwise it is trope heavy in regards to weal and woe., so if you can't stand that, you might not like this work.

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A dangerously badly written romance (review up until ep 7 - spoilers ahead)

This series initially had a lot of things going for it: good main and supporting actors, sleek cinematography and camera language, gritty vibe.

Unfortunately, I found its writing terrible (at least up until ep 7, when I dropped it). It's like 3 or 4 people were hired to write this story and never consulted with each other about its tone, the message they wanted to give, or just most basically, the plot and the characters.

The first 2 episodes were rather dark, with a cinematic camera language and realistic acting. The opening offered social commentary on (in)equality and the show tackled the serious issue of bullying, looking for all intent and purposes like it wanted, over its course, to make a statement, or at least was aware of what it was saying.

And then ep 3 happened and, out of nowhere, the show turned into a fluffy rom-com about a struggling student and his school tutor, instead of the bully and his victims it started as. I seriously have no idea where Sailom and Kanghan's romantic feelings for each other came from. It simply happened and I did not feel privy to the reason nor process.

The same went for Kanghan's behavior: from one day to the next, Kanghan stopped bullying anyone, stopped abusing his privileges as the rich school sponsor's son, and started spending most of his time with Sailom, joking and smiling like he was not making his life miserable just the day prior. Everyone acted like this was completely normal, even the bully friends he started spending less time with in favor of their nemesis, and it was almost like the bullying did not even happen. Everything was swept aside, everyone moved on and no one held Kanghan accountable for his actions. It sucked in terms of character development, and it sucked even more as a way to tackle bullying.

Romance-wise, it’s like the writer couldn’t decide on what they wanted and went for a new scenario every two episodes. Kanghan had feelings for Pimfah (and Pimfah for Sailom) out of nowhere in ep 5, despite Sailom and Kanghan making heart eyes at each other for most of ep 3 and 4. He rejected Sailom’s confession in ep 6, after taking his time to consider it, only to kiss him not 10 min later out of jealousy. There was zero explanation as to what changed his mind, or what prevented from saying yes to Sailom right away if seeing him play with his friend was all that was needed. Sailom accepted Kanghan’s confession and never questioned it, like he had not even been rejected in the first place. Most of the romantic developments from ep 3 to ep 7 sent me on a fit of perplexity and hair-tearing, which made it hard for me to believe in any of the characters’ feelings.

The acting was neither Perth nor Chimon’s best work in my opinion, which is not surprising given the script they had to work with, and I found their chemistry either really good or almost non existent, depending on the scene.

Overall, I felt like I was watching something very disjointed, in tone, in actions, in behavior.

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Recommended drama

This drama was cute and simple story nothing much complications involved I like the brother of male lead who loves and cares for male lead , may be they should have spiced up a little but they couldn’t reach to the expectations I like the lead actors they are cute and great at acting and other couple also was good and script was neat and clean and no tragedy or traingle love story and I was happy to the other actor who got chance to work again and no toxic villains here all are good and got better life but one thing I was disappointed was the lead actor is good at nothing? Drawing , photo shoot, acting hell at last atleast they should have shown his strength at songs writing and achieve in his life but all they was just showing the love which was bit off but drama was good all the best to the team hope you give the same dramas which are fantastic

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The most heartwarming kidnapping story one can encounter.

I cried, I laughed, I almost smashed my laptop - it was all worth it. The connection between Ro Hee and Myungjoon is not something I will be able to easily forget.

Not the brightest, but a strong man and a genius child - this setup for the main characters sounds like the beginning of an over the top, unrealistic and not easily relatable story. To make it good, the writing of the characters needs nuance, and that’s what The Kidnapping Day presents.

Myung Joon is not this dumb guy who gets manipulated by everyone while being completely unaware of what’s truly going on around him. He is not just a passive tool for others to use, and his loyalty and compassion are the exact reasons he was one of the most dynamic and driven characters.

Ro Hee is not this emotionless adult-like genius. Yes, intelligence was a big part of her, but the detailed writing did not ignore one of the most important aspects of who she truly was - a child. Many stories focus so much on characters’ cognitive abilities, they completely forget to showcase their emotional development - this way we get these robot-like smart kids who just act like adults. Not here. That innocent and child-like nature made the story far more impactful. It also made it possible to present a variety of the types of interactions she had - some treated her like a child, some treated her as a genius, some treated her just as just… I guess that’s something you will find out if you watch the drama ;)

It’s a story about making choices and facing the consequences. How some wrongdoings cannot be wiped clean, no matter how much we try. How trauma can hunt you for a lifetime. How greed can push you to do despicable actions. How everyone's idea of happiness is different. It’s a story about fear, desperation, obsession, but also compassion, family and support. It’s a whole package.

The Kidnapping Day for sure leans more into character (and relationships) driven drama, but I would never say it neglects the plot aspect of it. It was just slightly less masterfully crafted. Some aspects were not quite detailed, but all was enough to tell a cohesive and engaging story. We hit some dead ends and a few bits had not quite satisfying conclusions, but since I never viewed them as the focus of the drama, it did not bother me that much.

The acting… I have no words. Big props to Yuna who had the hardest and most demanding role to carry. I truly fell in love with Ro Hee and cared for this child with all my heart. Yoon Gye Sang presented so much warmth in his performance, I wished to have someone with a similar presence to Myung Joon in my life. I’m also impressed with Kim Shin Rok as Seo Hye Eun. I kept going back and forth with hating her and feeling sympathy - presenting the complexity of her story and the duality of it was not an easy task, but Shin Rok handled the role amazingly.

The production, directing, editing - all perfect. I even loved the small details like the chapter titles at the beginning of each episode with well selected shots as background and these tiny doodles as symbolic representation. Even the soundtrack was amazing. Especially the instrumental score.

Was the drama perfect? No. I still believe that the second episode was a poorly constructed introduction to the investigation and Sang Yoon. Some characters got me confused about their presentation - from feeling not that threatening, to then abruptly switching to the biggest threat. As I previously mentioned, there were some plotlines that could have been explored more and had better closure.

But even taking all that into consideration, this drama was truly a magnificent experience that kept me tense, happy, sad, angry, hopeful, scared each Wednesday and Thursday from September 13th till October 25th - and I will probably come back to it from time to time.

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Why must you watch?

The series is short with mind blowing story, cast and acting. The series can make you binge watch itself. It's worth your time.The set is shown of 1990's revolving an undercover narcotic trade for which narcotic department takes upon a massive risky investigation which involves couples protecting each other throughout it. The whole story gives us a intriguing plot and captivating acting.What sets this drama apart is how it brilliantly showcases the interconnectedness of its characters, all engaged in their mind games and strategies. The acting of every cast member is truly outstanding, and they're all nailing their respective roles.
I hope you add it to your watching list.

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Bats and zombies in a ghost town

This drama was already promising at 24 episodes, but it should have been 16 episodes. Repetitive flashbacks were extraneous. I don't think we needed to be reminded of these scenes, The ghost town where it was staged was either a deserted war-torn or flooded town, or some ugly CGI. The bats vanished fast in the early episodes, and the zombies must have gone to sleep. I am surprised that the stranded travelers did not explore the town for supplies or better accommodations. They just stayed in the hotel, run down in some places. The store where Er found the sneakers had clothing hanging in the shop, although they should have rot in twenty years. Was the train track sealed off on both ends, or where they just lazy, to try to escape from the bats and zombies who took a snoozefest? The blue ocean, which I am sure was CGI, was the prettiest view. The production quality was bad in many episodes. Extreme closeups with a bland expression do not constitute acting skills.

After bingewatching the first 16 episodes in the last three days (in October 2023), I skipped to the final episode. The timid teacher was the the mastermind. LOL I don't think I missed anything important. This was my Halloween entertainment.

Final rating: 55

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Brutal, merciless milieu of gangs & drug cartels. Stirring, gloomy but with soulful strings, too

What a positive surprise. For all those who are not afraid of the brutal, merciless milieu of gang wars and drug cartels: "Worst of Evil" offers intense characters with dynamic profiles, especially of the two protagonists - the rural police officer who joins a new Gangnam gang as an undercover agent, to help uncover the organized drug trade between China, South Korea and Japan, as well as the boss of that Gangnam gang.
In particular, Ji Chang-wook as Park Jun-mo alias Kwon Seung-ho puts his heart and soul as well as quite some muscles and fighting into it. Whatsoever, he is impressive. But so are the others. It´s well cast and Disney+ apparently didn't skimp on anything...
For me personally, gang stories like this one aren't really my first choice. Too much crude violence, too much highly concentrated testosterone... "Worst of Evil" is no exception. Sharp blades and baseball bats are in high demand, especially in the first half. Nicotine seemingly acts as nutrition and even the fanciest suits can't hide the fact that a lot of blood is being shed unscrupulously...

Nonetheless.
“Worst of Evil” features complex characters and highly explosive relationship dynamics that is touching, gripping and, more importantly, provides emotional substance, too.
Eventually, undercover operations are psychologically demanding. The boundaries between true and false identity are blurring. A solid compass for right and wrong can easily be lost. The reality of living the undercover life creates new truths in which even the 'false' identity becomes a ´true´ part of one's own life. Coming to terms with this obviously is not easy. The return to the old life as it was before, even less so. In the case of "Worst of Evil", these internal and external conflicts of our undercover investigator become even more difficult by the fact that his wife has a history with the gang boss that he knew nothing about. She, his wife, herself a police officer and officially not ´his´ wife in terms of the new undercover identity, is now drawn into current affairs in a way that the small special investigation team could not have foreseen.
Not to mention the fact that the drug cartels involves powerful partners, not only in South Korea, but also in China and Japan. At last, the homicide police also get involved in dealing with everyday gang activities and murder cases in Gangnam. None of those involved is squeamish whatsoever. So danger lingers everywhere. Not only fists and fights, but also intelligent, diplomatic solutions are required. High-end improvisation is on the agenda for our hero.

"Worst of Evil" is thrilling, stirring, gloomy and – despite all the blood that boils over and over again (and all the copious amounts that are spilled) – it has its soulful strings, too. It's about trust, loyalty, bromance, the relativity of 'right' and 'wrong', and ultimately the ethical question of which end justifies which means...

Is the story predictable? Well, I can't fully deny that. But in "Worst of Evil" the journey is clearly the destination - what the undercover special operation DOES with this once "mother-in-law's favorite" and how he comes to terms with it. In addition, his counterpart, the self-proclaimed, brash, brilliant gang leader, is also quite interesting. With his vita, his goals and desires, he doesn't really fit into the usual cliché and thus brings additional dynamism. In addition, several other characters in the cartel (and police) environment impress with strong profiles, too.

As I said, I was pleasantly surprised. "Worst of Evil" had me. It's pretty well made all around and has actually more to offer than just ruthless gangs and action. (Nevertheless, be prepared, it still is about the milieu of ruthless gangs...)

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The most evil perfection

How should I describe this drama......a damn rollercoaster ride!!

12 episodes and it was enough to drive me crazy. The story revolves around a cop who goes undercover to uncover an international drug ring and things get complicated when his wife inadvertently gets sucked into the investigation. The story was perfectly written and I love how Park Joon Mo aka the undercover cop slowly gets the utmost trust within the gang and slowly rises up to become the key figure in the international drug deal. And at the same time slowly removed the key figures around the ring leader and substituted himself as the most trusted subordinate and friend of the ring leader Jung Ki Chul. What was more thrilling is, how he managed to corner all of them into a dead end and finally take them all out in one fell swoop.

Ji Chang Wook managed to pull out the psychological struggle of his characters in utter perfection and I could not be more proud of him.

Worst of Evil, was made the most perfect evil by the cast and directing with a solid storyline.

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Typically I don't like watching high school cdramas, because censorship makes it near impossible to portray a reasonable romantic story in them and also they often have content involving parents & teachers that I abhor.
This drama is a standout in in this genre in the sense, that they've shown innocent but very sweet high school dating. At times I was wondering how this passed censorship. Then later on ML's momster came and forced a 1 year separation, so everyone could focus on their studies & then I thought "okay, so that's how". There were also various moments in the drama, when the leads were vehemently denying their romantic involvement with each other, but it was never in doubt. It was very strongly implied that they knew each other's feelings and they did everything dating teens would do, other than skinship that is.
(This is the second crama I've seen that is like this, the other one was 'Meeting You')

Basically the show can be split into three parts.
1) The kids getting to know each other. (first 5-9 ep)
2) The friend group of 5 enjoying their best life. (this is very close to 10/10 amazing)
3) College, young adult life (last 6-7 ep)

I would say 1) is not great, initially I found the show to be the most typical Chinese high school drama I have ever seen. I was fully prepared to drop it, but I did not really have anything else better lined up & I needed something to watch during my late night workout sessions.. Upon reaching 2) I was very surprised, suddenly everything started working for me and it felt like I'm watching a different show, where EVERYTHING is better, including the acting, the editing and even the background music inserts. In fact episode 10 is one of the best cdrama episodes I have ever seen, it was absolutely magical.
After the forced separation we quickly transitioned to college life & adult dating. While I tend to enjoy a simple, fluffy and complication-free happy ending, I felt 3) to be lackluster in many ways. I really liked the second couple & they barely had scenes there. Much of the non romantic plot earlier was involving ML's brother & momster. FL did not meet ML's mom during the adult part of the show, at least other than us seeing the mom sitting there at their wedding there has not been anything else. The brother also only had like one line during the wedding, would have been nice to see what happened to the genius. Also there were at least two occasions when I felt the writer set up some big cathartic faceslap moments and the then things just fizzled out, not cool! Give me my loud slap! To sum it up, in 3) we just went through the motions without enough emotional impact. (well there was a little of that in the finale, maybe)

Anyway despite the negative points this one is absolutely worth watching, perhaps even just for the bromances, but to me 'A Love So Beautiful' -despite that annoying Wu Busong and the breakup- is a much better cdrama that is largely similar to this one, but feels far better overall. It's better acted, has several really epic moments, the final episodes are very satisfying and it's amazing from episode 1 onward etc etc.
Of course if I started to compare it to the best university/young adult cdramas then it would just fall short.

TLDR: It's the second best high school cdrama I've seen, but usually high school cdramas suck, so 8/10.

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I don't know how to feel about it..

I just don't know how to feel about this series. I may need some time to process what truly happened and what each of the characters really went through but for now I get this weird feeling of unfulfillement (if this word even exists).

I get that both of the main leads struggle with their own demons and they're not ready for love. I really get that and I think it's somehow real in terms of I can actually see this happening in real life. This story has no sugar coating and that's what I appreciate.

However - I personally don't like Kiyoi and the toxicity his character is filled with.

It's like "oh he's being mean to you because he likes you and just doesn't know how to say it" was a person but make it 100x worse.
Do some people really find being kicked, pushed around and sworn at attractive? A genuine question because even though I get where the toxicity's coming from.. I still somehow can't find watching it enjoyable. Rather than being happy for them to finally get together I'm worried if they'll fix each other or go down together.. It's hard to describe it.

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