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Not as Intense as I wanted it to be.
I am only adding my voice to this movie because I recently watched Ryohei Suzuki at the NYAFF say he was curious about what we thought about this movie (good things & bad things) and i appreciated that he said that. So these are my thoughts and views.The Egoist was kind of average, for me even the love story was somewhat unremarkable, maybe because less time was spent on the development of the romance between the MLs. Was it real love or transactional love?,from the novel we know it was real love but from the movie it was not so clear. At times I found Suzuki Ryohei's mannerisms a little too much and are stereotypical of "gay people". His hands moved but his body looked stiff,I would have to say the way Ryohei crossed his legs and sat on the couch and tried to be affectionate just came off as stiff and forced IMO. He wasn't bad, but he wasn't that convincing to me either.Their love scenes were very hot, but I feel like I needed more emotional depth, by exploring why he felt so lonely in this world before Ryuta and just how Ryuta influenced his life. Everything felt rushed.
The most memorable thing for me from the movie, were the conversations that he had with his circle of friends talking about being gay in Japan. My best moment being when t the other friends confess that they went to collect a marriage registration form and filled it out, though same-sex marriage is not legal in Japan. That act of rebellion was memorable for me.
Overall , Dear Tenant and Eternal Yesterday actually came to my mind when watching the Egoist. But both DT and EY were very persuasive in their execution and emotional story-telling in my opinion. They all revolve around love,death and unintentional family, learning to say goodbye to those who have left, some unresolved grief.
DT and Egoist share the same themes of love,death and unintentional family bond that involved the mother of the partner. Though DT has wider family dynamic issues (uncle,child of partner etc). Both partners pass away and the other partner becomes a sort of replacement son for the mother-in-law (for the lack of a better word) with differing degrees of sadness and success. Both bonds are formed either by guilt or kinship for the shared dead partner of the mother. At the heart of both stories is the concept of family & the question of what is family?.
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Doesn't live up to the Hype
I had really high expectations when i watched this one, but it didn't live up to it for me at least. Some parts i enjoyed but some parts i found draggy and just filler episodes. The ML does try to be a tough pimp (according to the novel) but it doesn't seem to suite the actor, we needed a better Bad Boy (hard with tats and all). I think it was a miscast. Yes Tor is handsome & juicy looking and all those other things but just didn't work for me.He looked too innocent and clean to be a guy on the edge.The FL is equally lacking in some respects, weak character. i understand she was representing the voice of reason for the ML but we can have a strong, assertive voice right.Some people saw chemistry, i saw none. I rated it a 7.5 because i enjoyed some of the action scenes but not deserving of an 8.3 because it wasn't consistently great. My favorite character that i think embodied what the series should have been is Aunty Mam. Maybe when they do another remake they make use my ideas (haha). But who cares right (lol), but i always love it when others leave honest reviews.Was this review helpful to you?
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Nothing New but Worth the watch in Intrigue!!!
I don't like long reviews so here is a short one....."Women should not be so assertive,assertive women will not be happy" Ep20
We have all watched these Makjang type dramas where the woman is trying to set herself free from the confines of marriage and the limitations that it puts on career and life choices for women. This story is no different as our FL was once a brilliant lawyer who gives up her career to be a housewife manipulated by her husband with anger issues. Of course there is always cheating and a crazy mistress that doesn't want to give up either.
What I liked about this drama is how even with 24 episodes, there is no moment to waste.If you watch cdramas you know how they can be sometimes with wasting time. The pacing was very good, there are a few episodes that were draggy but I mostly liked it.The only parts I hated were the FL's workmates who were feather brained for people that are supposedly lawyers. The ML's parent's plot was also a bit annoying, but thankfully it was shortlived.
The ML was very good actor, he was able to switch on the hot cold character very well. He even scared me sometimes with his coldness and those eyes.The FL wasn't that convincing though both as a weak and strong woman. I find it unbelievable that she never found her husband's behavior weird, her plotting also wasn't portrayed very well either. The kid actor was so exceptionally good, his crying scene for dad was gut-wrenching and he was cute overall. I maybe biased but I think Chinese child actors are advanced,professional little beings (so good).
Overall : It's not a new story line, but still very entertaining drama that kept me intrigued and waiting for more. I watched most of it in a day. That's how much it motivated me to watch it.
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A very weird drama!!!
The mothers in this drama will give you a headache. Not even one of them has a good character, pushy and unreasonable or supportive. Thank God, for ML's dad he is the only parent that didn't turn things into a circus.I find it so funny that her ex who couldn't even protect her from his mother suddenly had a protective instinct and wanted to marry her and protect her from all the work abuse. This is the mansplaining that ruins dramas about strong FML.
The whole plot with the SML was seriously bizarre, if you add Wu Fei in the mix it becomes another circus. Like why would you be with a man who can't make up his mind? He clearly didn't love her, but she goes back to him. He also never really knows what he wants, and pretends to everyone.
For lawyers, most of the people in this drama were so dumb and did not exhibit any intelligence. Even all the plotting fell short of the intrigue that the drama promised.
I hate the fact that she never confronted the other female partner of the firm who constantly used her, demoted, humiliated her, and then always dangled the partnership carrot in her face. That woman was the reason why, other women were disrespected at that firm and she came up with the single-people rule.
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Legal drama with no actual court drama!
As someone who likes legal dramas, I was looking forward to a show with some critiques on marriage, divorce, and the whole female perspective especially in a society like Korea. I was looking for riveting high-class court drama and theatrics that would leave me thinking about how fair or unfair the justice system is. But unfortunately, this is not the show.The cases the lawyers deal with are not presented in any dramatic legal way that is believable. At some point, the cases were also becoming a bit monotonous with the stories about mistresses, cheating, and petty fights. There are so many facets and issues that divorce cases have. There are some interesting topics like the guilt of working mothers and how women are often blamed for being bad mothers even when they excel in other areas of their lives.
I also dislike how even though it's a show that's framed as having strong female characters, both characters have men panting and chasing after them and saving them or "smoothing the path" for them. I think this is so unnecessary.
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