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This review may contain spoilers
So it goes
OK, I'm gonna be understanding and still critical. I can't help but feel that the last few minutes of the ending just showed what had been on my mind while watching it most of the time. This presented itself—in the words of many people—as a high- or even standard-quality mainstream/Netflix series, while there were such obvious fuck-ups that it just wasn't (though 90% of the time they were well hidden).
We'd all probably prefer almost any setting over the main leads standing in the middle of nowhere with some fucked-up computer-generated thing in the background, but at the same time, I can't help thinking that this is the result of everyone forcing everyone to avoid ambiguity and uncertainty by expressing everything explicitly. And because no one—or rather, most of us—doesn't even know what to do with that, they opt for a boring, explicit confession of love by the boring sea. Everything has to be dripping with romance, even if it doesn't excuse the main lead's previous behaviour at all or make anything easier for anyone; it just looks saccharine.
I think it truly was a highly above-average series, but if you want to make it exceptional, you need to:
a) Cut the AI/CGI sea thing altogether, along with the confession. Do something normal and in character for Tae.
b) No strange, idiotic moments like this: revelation – 2 minutes of nothing – then Ju Tae Seon childishly jumps to cover Chae's ears to "unhear" what was told ages ago. At some moments, Chae's overly submissive behaviour was just tiring. He's not only submissive, but also highly intelligent and observant, so... do something with it, please? We love emancipated submissives too, you know?
c) Pay more attention to the pacing at the END and the BEGGINING. If you keep it up in the middle, that's a great bonus, but yeah... well.
We are far more forgiving of poor production quality than of poor creative choices.
Aside from these complaints: good job with this one. Hope you get even better with the next three projects. Can't wait.
We'd all probably prefer almost any setting over the main leads standing in the middle of nowhere with some fucked-up computer-generated thing in the background, but at the same time, I can't help thinking that this is the result of everyone forcing everyone to avoid ambiguity and uncertainty by expressing everything explicitly. And because no one—or rather, most of us—doesn't even know what to do with that, they opt for a boring, explicit confession of love by the boring sea. Everything has to be dripping with romance, even if it doesn't excuse the main lead's previous behaviour at all or make anything easier for anyone; it just looks saccharine.
I think it truly was a highly above-average series, but if you want to make it exceptional, you need to:
a) Cut the AI/CGI sea thing altogether, along with the confession. Do something normal and in character for Tae.
b) No strange, idiotic moments like this: revelation – 2 minutes of nothing – then Ju Tae Seon childishly jumps to cover Chae's ears to "unhear" what was told ages ago. At some moments, Chae's overly submissive behaviour was just tiring. He's not only submissive, but also highly intelligent and observant, so... do something with it, please? We love emancipated submissives too, you know?
c) Pay more attention to the pacing at the END and the BEGGINING. If you keep it up in the middle, that's a great bonus, but yeah... well.
We are far more forgiving of poor production quality than of poor creative choices.
Aside from these complaints: good job with this one. Hope you get even better with the next three projects. Can't wait.
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