I still think season one was the best of the three but I appreciated two elements of this season: the jettisoning of the pretense that what the Rainbow Taxi crew do is about "justice" rather than blatant vengeance (especially since they stopped imprisoning villains a long time ago), and that there was no romance. I actually originally dropped season two because of a case where Kim Do Gi and An Go Eun pretended to be a couple; it irritated me that much.
The fight scenes were especially well choreographed and brutal this season, and the general levels of violence were fun. Lee Je Hoon was particularly charming this season. He's always a delight to watch but he appeared to be having an exceptionally great time this outing.
The visual depiction of machine learning was often engaging. I particularly liked the way in which "memory" was utilized to demonstrate layering of input/output datasets, & how the near simultaneous experiences of different iterations of An Na served as shorthand for the rapidity of simulation processing by AI.
I'm not certain what the movie wanted me to feel, though. It tells you precisely what's going to happen, in plain language, before it launches into the AI training portion. There is no mystery, no hidden clues, no surprises. Humanity is extinct, synthetics modelled (presumably) on all types of Humans are being trained via simulations to develop their Emotion Engines, at which point they will all be launched toward Earth to repopulate it with Humanity 2.0. We are told the synthetics will remain on the lab station until they are ready to deploy, & there is nothing to suggest a time limit for that needing to happen. Assuming that lab had adequate support resources & wasn't destroyed by space shenanigans, the data centers could've run for a hundred years until the synthetics got it right. & what happens when they get to Earth? Do they merely replicate Humanity 1.0? Is that what I'm supposed to be rooting for, an imitation of a dead world & the beings that once inhabited it?
Frankly, I didn't care. Humanity had its chance & died. The synthetics are facsimiles, & their survival did not equate to the survival of Humanity. & since AI, by design, is meant to evolve beyond its input, these synthetics cannot possibly be bound by Humanity's ego & therefore Humanity's vision of itself. They are not us; we are gone. I was simply not invested in our echo. I didn't wish the synthetics harm but I also wasn't concerned with whether or not they made it. It's an almost Deistic watching experience, except in this case, "God" is very dead.
The one element I found interesting but that wasn't explored was: why this? Son Hui Jo had the right idea: if you have the power to create a new species, why not make something better? Why saddle a powerful AI with Human limitations? Why is Human narcissism the solution? I don't begrudge us for being so in love with ourselves that we feel we have the right to replicate ourselves (& only ourselves) even when our own planet kills us but, honestly, is our imagination so narrow it can't extend beyond a mirror?
But that's unfair of me. The creators didn't know about the world-killing asteroid, after all. Perhaps if An Na & her boss had known the world was going to end, it would've altered the parameters of their experiment. I imagine awareness of an extinction-level event would've shifted their focus at least a little, & given more time, they might've engineered synthetics that were...well, more than us.
As most Creation mythologies go, the creations ultimately violate the boundaries of their Creator(s), so I choose to imagine that these AI-powered synthetics eventually outgrew the perceptions of their erstwhile makers, & did become a different, perhaps better version of "Humanity". I might've enjoyed that movie.
Overall, I just found this movie trite & a bit of a dull sit. There are enormous, terrific, world-altering questions around AI, but this movie just slapped a well-trod, boring, basic Mother's Love story onto an otherwise interesting framework. I find the "Does having Human emotions make it Human?" theme to be pedestrian as well. No. The synthetics are not Human just because they have an Emotion Engine. They also have an AI brain. They are different, they are something else, a creation of Humans, a reflection of Humans, but NOT Human, & that's what is so terrifyingly awesome about the reality of AI & our role in its creation.
Frankly, though it has its own myriad issues, "Extinction" was a far more engaging & plainly entertaining story about synthetics, AI, & the power of love. As a bonus, it actually is kind of a disaster movie. Maybe go watch that instead.
It's as if they forgot they were making a BL and only remembered in the last episode. Weird pacing, middling chemistry (size differences mask only so many sins, I tell you), and the deadest of dead fish kisses. Seriously, it gets real retro at the end there, to the point where it might've been better if they hadn't kissed at all. Might give you a good chuckle during the NC scene though. Prepare him to be ploughed like a fallow field, Ogami, but don't actually kiss him, that'd be a bit much!
A lavishly dressed, gorgeously filmed glimpse into the professionalism, passion, and politics of competitive dance that is worth at least one watch for those elements. The love story was just meh.
I wish the ladies were more than exposition props. Even though they were little more than a set of talking heads to deliver insight on the men, I found them both more interesting in various ways than the leads. I am haunted by Yagami's perpetual melancholia, and I was so excited for Tajima when she finally zeroed in on her own ambition. For all the praise about subtext and body language from the leads, Yagami managed to communicate more aching despair and white-knuckle fear of failure in one single frame than most of the other actors managed in multiple scenes. If there is a sequel, please, someone give that woman a hug before she comes undone.
The painfully reductive, narrow "message" & that obnoxious hypocrite that is Death aside, my takeaway from this series was almost diametrically opposed to its intent. While living the lives of others, Choi I Jae destroyed two serial killers, psychologically crippled a homicidal sociopath to the extent he'll likely never harm anyone again, solved/stopped several crimes, took money from a malefactor & bestowed it on the victimized, gave a man redemption, brought justice to the corrupt, & actually saved lives. While there was, of course, sorrow & suffering, & he did a lot of it for purely personal reasons, if the argument is that the value of your life is in its meaning to others, then in the grand balance, the value of Choi I Jae's life truly was greater in death.
It also didn't help that most of the lives Choi I Jae took over were of people who didn't want to die: they were invested in their own existence, whatever their material conditions, & I felt compassion when their lives—lives they wanted, lives in which they found utility—were snatched away. I never pitied Choi I Jae for the choice he made, so his "happy" ending felt like less of a triumph & more of an anticlimax.
There is a scene where Choi I Jae shouts at Death: "I have to do something since God won't". That single line is so compelling because it's a reminder that Choi I Jae is a fighter. He fought hard all his life before numerous lost battles finally just took their toll, & he fought like hell in his afterlives too. He was a frustratedly powerless Human, not an inherently weak one, & the second he grasped how to wield the power of Death's game to his own benefit, he seized it. Such a shame that, despite that, the whole series ends on such a tiresome, predictable, saccharine note.
Still, worth at least one watch. The violence & bloodshed & vengeance does entertain.
That's got to be 2k$ PER night for multiple nights, right? Because there is no damn way 2k$ alone is covering surgical bills plus tuition. Who taught this kid how to art school? I was once a broke art student, I would've had that dude paying top dollar for the privilege of just looking at me. Choking me would've paid for grad school. Somebody play that song "Fancy" for him & get him on the right track.
Also, if you're going to tackle a subject like this, you really need to be bringing "Dangerous Drugs of Sex" energy. Fully-clothed kisses & some light wrestling is just a teasing bore. At least deliver on that front if you've got no budget for production.
"Tucker & Dale vs Evil" meets "Cabin in the Woods". If you've seen "Tucker & Dale", this remake holds few surprises; the jokes & sight gags are practically beat-for-beat, the cultural tweaks aren't enough to make it feel fresh, & it doesn't quite nail the earnest sincerity that made the original so hilarious. However, the cast is fun, there is a lot of energy, & the supernatural shenanigans sort of pay off in the end.
You know, Cheon & Cheol, I feel like if you just confessed your love to one another, you might not be having all these problems.
This sequel takes all the same beats from the first but the repetition is not only less humorous, it makes the first two-thirds a real chore to sit through. The first movie was clichés galore but it was mostly fun & it was part of the charm; the sequel is just painfully predictable. I fast-forwarded through a number of scenes. I think I enjoyed the third act here more than in the first movie, & I liked the cast just as much, but I wouldn't watch this one again.
That being said, I would absolutely watch a third installment, & I think that's just really down to the cast. They're a fun group to watch, even if the material isn't quite up to snuff.
By the end, I just wanted Jae Yi to murder everyone. I don't think the movie necessarily wants you to side with her but watching this hardworking, ambitious woman routinely being told she doesn't rate while having her agency constantly undermined by a narcissist who insists he loves her got grating quickly. I had zero sympathy for Mantis; she told him in a dozen different ways that his "simping" was unwarranted, unwelcome, & unasked for—as well as harmful & hurtful to her (& everyone else, including Mantis himself)—& he kept not hearing her while seemingly remaining baffled as to why she didn't just fall into his arms. I was never convinced he ever actually saw her, as either a person or a professional, & it's even more pronounced when compared to Cha Min Kyu's feelings for & treatment of Bok Soon.
I didn't particularly care for any of the characters in this movie but Jae Yi was far & above the most layered & interesting. All the others were tiresome or obnoxious or forgettable.
Overall, the movie was a downgrade from its parent story.
The series is the typical mindless trash that makes up the bulk of the Thai BL industry but the NC scenes are unapologetic & plentiful, & it's blatantly obvious the producers are aware that's the main reason anyone's watching & are just leaning into it. So, if you stuck it out through the likes of "Venus in the Sky" & "Be Mine Superstar" for the sex, set your expectations accordingly & work that FFW button.
I will say, it's kind of nice to see sex presented as a raw fact, & serving as the foundation of the main relationship, rather than gilded in romantic fluff like a Harlequin novel & treated like a precious gift, or else like a shameful aspect that must be overcome to facilitate "real" love.
Terrible series, even in comparison to Lee Long Shi's other awful shows. The most interesting aspect is watching an attempted murder be somehow more ridiculously handled than a supposed rape. One star for PerKan; their story had gusto. & stamina.
Also, where did Mud go? I guess I'll just headcanon that someone cared enough to ask why he thought he saw what he saw, took him to the hospital for a medical evaluation, & they discovered a massive tumour pressing on his occipital lobe, so he was sent to the US to have surgery.
Just a real nothing of a series. It's as if it's its own fanfic of itself, the kind that would be tagged "fluff" & absolutely nothing else. Which is fine, if that's what you're into, but I found the MLs boring & their story tedious.
I remain fascinated by the ladies. That one-liner about saliva exchange in their final scene was perfect. I kept watching the show just for the girls, & I would watch a spin-off series of just them. The glimpses we got of their relationship & their personality dynamics were more engaging & tantalizing than almost the entirety of that of the boys.
Lee Long Shi has starred in several awful projects but this bit of retro trash doesn't even have the good grace to be as entertainingly silly as "OMG! Vampire!" or as unapologetically twisted as "Love Syndrome III". & holy hell, I'm actually kind of missing Frank; I wouldn't go so far as to say he & Lee had great chemistry but Frank at least had personality. Or maybe it was the hilarious wigs. I don't know but it was better than the excruciatingly vapid dullness that Arm brings. Lee is trying so hard to sell this love story, it actually looks physically painful.
At this point, I almost believe that "Red Peafowl" fell victim to whatever horrific curse or intense blackmail is clinging to Lee Long Shi. His career just makes no sense unless it's almost entirely under duress.
It's all very stupid but...is anyone going to check on Mud? My major takeaway from all that nonsense is he needs to either get off the sauce for good or get his eyes checked or both. Just how drunk was he that night? I have been blitzed to blackout in my life but never to the point where my mind imagined a graphic, violent rape that was not happening. I'm unsure what that particular scene was about, whether it was what was being described to Mild or what Mild was imagining based on what he was being told, but it's apparent Mud believes that's precisely what HE saw so...Mud, bud, you ok?
I just want more scenes of Lin Xiao Yang & He You Mei. Every single thing about them, from their differing personalities to their interpersonal dynamic to their clothes, is just so much more interesting than the main CP. I think it's because they are much more mature & self-assured; even He You Mei, for all her weird manic pixie energy, seems to have a pretty solid grasp on who she is & ownership of her own (prob messy) choices in life. I sincerely believe their relationship, platonic or romantic, would weather any storm, & if they did date, they'd unapologetically defend tooth & claw their love & their right to love one another.
Meanwhile, the boys keep basically unravelling at every small hiccough. I know that's the point of their story, it's just such a tedious & predictable thing to watch. & I'm still not convinced Han Tuo's feelings aren't just childhood hero worship of a boy who made him feel included that he's mistaken for eternal romantic love. Everything about Han Tuo just screams "abandonment issues", & watching him be jealous over his boyfriend's nephew was both silly & pitiful. Does Lu Jun Xi really want to spend his life managing the exhausting emotional dependance of an obsessive, jealous, developmentally arrested man?
Who knows. Lu Jun Xi's general lack of personal agency would be frustrating to watch if he wasn't such beige wallpaper. Characters who let their lives be constantly dictated by the wims of others are a chore; I hope Lu Jun Xi grows a bit of a backbone before this enterprise comes to a close.
Even in a show of already subpar calibre, & almost irrespective of whether a rape was committed, episode six was atrociously, spectacularly tone-deaf.
Not that I would expect the Wattpadverse that is the foundation of such BLs to handle so complex & weighty a subject as a victim falling in love with their victimizer but, still, there are better ways of telling such a story than having the victim's circle gaslight him at every turn while simultaneously having him refuse to hear "the whole truth" he obviously wants to know just because the run time needs some Manufactured Drama to pad itself. Frankly, I don't care what the explanation is, or if Mild was raped by Knight; the real "truth" is that Mild needs to run far the hell away from that entire group of people. Hanging about with twats who tell you that your rape happened for a reason & was a good thing is exactly how you end up a podcast episode about death cults.
Humans are complicated. Trauma bonding happens. In real life, there are rape victims who partner with their rapist. These are stories that are as worthy of being explored as any other, no matter how uncomfortable or distasteful they may seem. "The Natural Phenomenon of Madness" was a difficult & conflicting watch regarding rape and affection but after observing this mess of a show unfold, I feel I may have been a bit harsher on that film than warranted. It at least had a grasp on its problematic subject, a nuanced narrative, & characters with layers. Most importantly, there was a palpable atmosphere of this-is-rather-fucked-up throughout proceedings. "Doctor's Mine", meanwhile, seems eager to make the point that whether or not Knight raped Mild is fundamentally irrelevant, which is certainly a choice.
I can't tell if Mud is just a straight-up sociopath, or if the character is unduly hampered by the actor, the director, or the source material. The last time I saw a character so smirkingly triumphant about their sibling's rape was in an episode of "Criminal Minds". I've spent the whole series thinking his on sight bullshite with Knight was rooted in some petty jealousy, & in hindsight...seriously, is he just mad fuckboy Knight never chose him? What is your deal, Mud?
The fight scenes were especially well choreographed and brutal this season, and the general levels of violence were fun. Lee Je Hoon was particularly charming this season. He's always a delight to watch but he appeared to be having an exceptionally great time this outing.
I'm not certain what the movie wanted me to feel, though. It tells you precisely what's going to happen, in plain language, before it launches into the AI training portion. There is no mystery, no hidden clues, no surprises. Humanity is extinct, synthetics modelled (presumably) on all types of Humans are being trained via simulations to develop their Emotion Engines, at which point they will all be launched toward Earth to repopulate it with Humanity 2.0. We are told the synthetics will remain on the lab station until they are ready to deploy, & there is nothing to suggest a time limit for that needing to happen. Assuming that lab had adequate support resources & wasn't destroyed by space shenanigans, the data centers could've run for a hundred years until the synthetics got it right. & what happens when they get to Earth? Do they merely replicate Humanity 1.0? Is that what I'm supposed to be rooting for, an imitation of a dead world & the beings that once inhabited it?
Frankly, I didn't care. Humanity had its chance & died. The synthetics are facsimiles, & their survival did not equate to the survival of Humanity. & since AI, by design, is meant to evolve beyond its input, these synthetics cannot possibly be bound by Humanity's ego & therefore Humanity's vision of itself. They are not us; we are gone. I was simply not invested in our echo. I didn't wish the synthetics harm but I also wasn't concerned with whether or not they made it. It's an almost Deistic watching experience, except in this case, "God" is very dead.
The one element I found interesting but that wasn't explored was: why this? Son Hui Jo had the right idea: if you have the power to create a new species, why not make something better? Why saddle a powerful AI with Human limitations? Why is Human narcissism the solution? I don't begrudge us for being so in love with ourselves that we feel we have the right to replicate ourselves (& only ourselves) even when our own planet kills us but, honestly, is our imagination so narrow it can't extend beyond a mirror?
But that's unfair of me. The creators didn't know about the world-killing asteroid, after all. Perhaps if An Na & her boss had known the world was going to end, it would've altered the parameters of their experiment. I imagine awareness of an extinction-level event would've shifted their focus at least a little, & given more time, they might've engineered synthetics that were...well, more than us.
As most Creation mythologies go, the creations ultimately violate the boundaries of their Creator(s), so I choose to imagine that these AI-powered synthetics eventually outgrew the perceptions of their erstwhile makers, & did become a different, perhaps better version of "Humanity". I might've enjoyed that movie.
Overall, I just found this movie trite & a bit of a dull sit. There are enormous, terrific, world-altering questions around AI, but this movie just slapped a well-trod, boring, basic Mother's Love story onto an otherwise interesting framework. I find the "Does having Human emotions make it Human?" theme to be pedestrian as well. No. The synthetics are not Human just because they have an Emotion Engine. They also have an AI brain. They are different, they are something else, a creation of Humans, a reflection of Humans, but NOT Human, & that's what is so terrifyingly awesome about the reality of AI & our role in its creation.
Frankly, though it has its own myriad issues, "Extinction" was a far more engaging & plainly entertaining story about synthetics, AI, & the power of love. As a bonus, it actually is kind of a disaster movie. Maybe go watch that instead.
I wish the ladies were more than exposition props. Even though they were little more than a set of talking heads to deliver insight on the men, I found them both more interesting in various ways than the leads. I am haunted by Yagami's perpetual melancholia, and I was so excited for Tajima when she finally zeroed in on her own ambition. For all the praise about subtext and body language from the leads, Yagami managed to communicate more aching despair and white-knuckle fear of failure in one single frame than most of the other actors managed in multiple scenes. If there is a sequel, please, someone give that woman a hug before she comes undone.
It also didn't help that most of the lives Choi I Jae took over were of people who didn't want to die: they were invested in their own existence, whatever their material conditions, & I felt compassion when their lives—lives they wanted, lives in which they found utility—were snatched away. I never pitied Choi I Jae for the choice he made, so his "happy" ending felt like less of a triumph & more of an anticlimax.
There is a scene where Choi I Jae shouts at Death: "I have to do something since God won't". That single line is so compelling because it's a reminder that Choi I Jae is a fighter. He fought hard all his life before numerous lost battles finally just took their toll, & he fought like hell in his afterlives too. He was a frustratedly powerless Human, not an inherently weak one, & the second he grasped how to wield the power of Death's game to his own benefit, he seized it. Such a shame that, despite that, the whole series ends on such a tiresome, predictable, saccharine note.
Still, worth at least one watch. The violence & bloodshed & vengeance does entertain.
Also, if you're going to tackle a subject like this, you really need to be bringing "Dangerous Drugs of Sex" energy. Fully-clothed kisses & some light wrestling is just a teasing bore. At least deliver on that front if you've got no budget for production.
This sequel takes all the same beats from the first but the repetition is not only less humorous, it makes the first two-thirds a real chore to sit through. The first movie was clichés galore but it was mostly fun & it was part of the charm; the sequel is just painfully predictable. I fast-forwarded through a number of scenes. I think I enjoyed the third act here more than in the first movie, & I liked the cast just as much, but I wouldn't watch this one again.
That being said, I would absolutely watch a third installment, & I think that's just really down to the cast. They're a fun group to watch, even if the material isn't quite up to snuff.
I didn't particularly care for any of the characters in this movie but Jae Yi was far & above the most layered & interesting. All the others were tiresome or obnoxious or forgettable.
Overall, the movie was a downgrade from its parent story.
I will say, it's kind of nice to see sex presented as a raw fact, & serving as the foundation of the main relationship, rather than gilded in romantic fluff like a Harlequin novel & treated like a precious gift, or else like a shameful aspect that must be overcome to facilitate "real" love.
Also, where did Mud go? I guess I'll just headcanon that someone cared enough to ask why he thought he saw what he saw, took him to the hospital for a medical evaluation, & they discovered a massive tumour pressing on his occipital lobe, so he was sent to the US to have surgery.
I remain fascinated by the ladies. That one-liner about saliva exchange in their final scene was perfect. I kept watching the show just for the girls, & I would watch a spin-off series of just them. The glimpses we got of their relationship & their personality dynamics were more engaging & tantalizing than almost the entirety of that of the boys.
At this point, I almost believe that "Red Peafowl" fell victim to whatever horrific curse or intense blackmail is clinging to Lee Long Shi. His career just makes no sense unless it's almost entirely under duress.
Meanwhile, the boys keep basically unravelling at every small hiccough. I know that's the point of their story, it's just such a tedious & predictable thing to watch. & I'm still not convinced Han Tuo's feelings aren't just childhood hero worship of a boy who made him feel included that he's mistaken for eternal romantic love. Everything about Han Tuo just screams "abandonment issues", & watching him be jealous over his boyfriend's nephew was both silly & pitiful. Does Lu Jun Xi really want to spend his life managing the exhausting emotional dependance of an obsessive, jealous, developmentally arrested man?
Who knows. Lu Jun Xi's general lack of personal agency would be frustrating to watch if he wasn't such beige wallpaper. Characters who let their lives be constantly dictated by the wims of others are a chore; I hope Lu Jun Xi grows a bit of a backbone before this enterprise comes to a close.
Not that I would expect the Wattpadverse that is the foundation of such BLs to handle so complex & weighty a subject as a victim falling in love with their victimizer but, still, there are better ways of telling such a story than having the victim's circle gaslight him at every turn while simultaneously having him refuse to hear "the whole truth" he obviously wants to know just because the run time needs some Manufactured Drama to pad itself. Frankly, I don't care what the explanation is, or if Mild was raped by Knight; the real "truth" is that Mild needs to run far the hell away from that entire group of people. Hanging about with twats who tell you that your rape happened for a reason & was a good thing is exactly how you end up a podcast episode about death cults.
Humans are complicated. Trauma bonding happens. In real life, there are rape victims who partner with their rapist. These are stories that are as worthy of being explored as any other, no matter how uncomfortable or distasteful they may seem. "The Natural Phenomenon of Madness" was a difficult & conflicting watch regarding rape and affection but after observing this mess of a show unfold, I feel I may have been a bit harsher on that film than warranted. It at least had a grasp on its problematic subject, a nuanced narrative, & characters with layers. Most importantly, there was a palpable atmosphere of this-is-rather-fucked-up throughout proceedings. "Doctor's Mine", meanwhile, seems eager to make the point that whether or not Knight raped Mild is fundamentally irrelevant, which is certainly a choice.