8.5?! Are you shitting me? This is as close to a 10 as it gets, people. 9.5/10 This is the most devastatingly effecting political/social/military/corruption-type movie I have ever seen. Once again a Korean film has left me wracked with sobs without being maudlin or sappy or overly, falsely sentimental. omg...I had no idea.
I am an American, born, raised, living here. I was 30 years old at the time in which this movie is set and I am utterly ashamed to say that I had maybe only a fleetingly vague idea of what was happening in Korea at that time. There are reasons for that...I was two years into a marriage with an infant son and a new job, but still, I was always a news-reader, long before the Internet and I should have known what was going on. ESPECIALLY because given the fact that 30 years after the Korean War, in which many U.S. military personnel lost their lives, there was STILL a piece of shit military dictatorship ruling South Korea means one thing for sure...the U.S. government to a large extent turned a blind eye and probably directly enabled many of the horrors depicted in this film. I am so sorry to all Koreans who may stumble across my babbling comment, but I was terribly ignorant at the time and I wish I hadn't been.
But the movie...omg. So well-produced, directed, acted, staged, conceived, filmed...I was a wreck thru most of it but I didn't feel manipulated. There are most certainly, even as I write this, MANY people who are doing, or are more than willing to do, the kinds of monstrous acts depicted here for a whole host of excuses and made-up reasons. THIS is why good people must always be on the watch for, and never forget, the many douche bags who throughout history have brought down unfathomable suffering on billions of others.
The spreading the ashes scene and the father in the water...just shoot me now. I have no words. And before that, the mother...THAT is what angry grief looks like when it's given its full voice. I want to go out in the parking lot and scream myself about now, but it's 2am and I'd be arrested. BTW, there are SO many corrupt cops in the U.S. it's pathetic and I know that firsthand. But nowhere near what I just witnessed through this painful but wonderful movie that I will recommend to everyone I know who cares about things like this and the medium of film.
Power will ALWAYS be abused and used to nefarious ends by assholes...it's just how humankind is wired. But I choose to believe that at least as many people are good and WANT good for others, and we are the ones who must be vigilant.
My eyes hurt so bad from crying and I don't feel the least bit embarrassed. Things like this need to be remembered and portrayed and wept over.
Here I am two weeks later. I thought about watching the rest, but the truth is I don't care, so I'm not going to force myself. Been dropping movies like flies lately. It seems I've lost all interest in watching things that don't grab me. I'm not someone to watch casually. I want to be completely inside the world of the series or movie, or not there at all. Which is why I hardly ever watch television I guess, and I can't stand American sit-coms or cop shows. I just don't get it or care to.
Hmmm...dropping 45 minutes in. I felt disengaged somehow, and something about the ML rubbed me the wrong way. I wasn't really curious to find out how he rationalizes this activity in his head or if he is a low-key psychopath, or whatever because the actor plays him as a bit intellectually-challenged. It felt to me that he wasn't questioning what he was doing at all, which just seems boring and if that is the case then there's nowhere to go, really. I can imagine what's ahead for the rest of the film given his reaction to certain personnel decisions made by the bath owner, and it just doesn't interest me.
Kind of tired of looking at that those two thin lips pouting also.
I think I disagree. I used to NEVER watch gang/mafia/thug-type movies with lots of violence, but surprisingly, since I started watching Asian flicks, I've stumbled across maybe four or five that had style, an actual engaging story, attitude and a point of view, usually along with great cinematography and an undertow of humor. Maybe I've just reached my limit, I'm not sure, but I checked out of this one at a little over half an hour. Same old disgusting people doing disgusting things, high school girls doing drugs and getting raped and wearing skirts up to their chins to school, moronic gang members killing or near-killing each other, blah blah blah. I started to lose interest in this one when that high school thug/brat beat the shit out of that girl while other guys watched. I mean seriously fucked her up...all the while her little panties in full few of course. Why is it these dumb girls don't wear shorts under those skirts, which are clearly designed to show off their legs? I don't get it. So main point: No, "this type of movie" isn't the problem. It's that THIS ONE of those type of movies is dull...meandering and I don't care about anything in it. I'm not really bored. Just uninterested. Plus, of course, this type of thing is hardly original.
I want to see a movie about a gang of kick-ass women who have trained and developed weapons that counter-balance and overcome the body size and weight/strength disadvantage women naturally have to men, who hang out, make men fuck them, treat them like dirt, etc. Maybe that would be boring too, but I'd love to see someone try.
I'm not really bored...I just don't care and wasn't feeling any anticipation at what was to come. I'm not a fan of senseless/bloody violence in general, but I've watched movies with a lot of it that I liked and stuck with. This one has some style and attitude; an undertone of dark humor and all that. I think I'm just kind of tired, right now, of high school girls in plaid mini-skirt school uniforms seeking out drugs, getting raped, treated like whores, etc. It's always the same shit over and over. I'm sick of the moron gang members and the usual schtick with constant, stupid fighting to severe extremes near death. The beginning of dropping this was when that high school thug beat the shit out of that girl while other guys watched.
Looking at all the high school girls in short-skirt uniforms in Asian flicks and series, and the way they are often treated in these movies, has me re-hashing my long-term ruminations on why it is girls and women all over the world are culturalized to dress in a way that puts at least the bottom half of their body on display for the enjoyment of men, even when they go to school. I mean, what is the purpose of that? Why don't guys wear skirts? I'm gay and I'd love to see guys' legs constantly. Why do men wear suits and sportcoats while women wear sleeveless, tight dresses that show off their boobs? Why don't men wear off-the-shoulder shirts and jackets?
I live in the U.S. and I've thought about this for a long time, but since I became a huge fan of Asian flicks, watching them has reminded me that this visual sexualization of girls and women is an all-over-the-world thing. I love sex. I'm an artist and love portraying/rendering the human body, male and female, in very sexualized situations and exaggerations. But art is one thing, and a 13 year-old girl having to show her legs to the world every day is another. China's got the right idea, where I see a lot of school uniforms that consist of track-suit-type clothing, very uni-sex.
At the very least, I don't get why these girls wouldn't wear short shorts over their panties under their skirts so as to avoid the longing gaze of young boys hoping for an up-skirt, sneak peak, and to make it harder for them when they decide to rape them after selling them drugs.
It's not really a mystery why this is the way it is: the world is built around the straight male-gaze. Why are girls brainwashed to wear makeup while boys never do? We all know the answer and that's what is so bizarre about it. It's right out in front of all of us but is rarely questioned or discussed unless you happen to go to a feminist, all-girls' college somewhere.
Maybe it would have if almost everything about it wasn't so amateurish, beginning with the ridiculous charcoal-and-smoke…
And I thought you would understand that this is NETFLIX we're talking about here, who has more money than god and can afford the very best of everything. Also, anyone who does not have "the money nor skills" to create super-realistic things should probably not be making shows requiring CGI.
I m on episode 7 and loving itMy only problem is with how drug addicts are portrayedEspecially since they re not…
My understanding is that Looney would take HUGE doses of the cold meds or even boil them down to concentrate the effects. I do NOT know if that has any connection to what would happen in reality. It does seem like the effects of his withdrawal have gone on WAY beyond reason but maybe he's brain-damaged. That said, even if the character doesn't make sense, like what's that baby voice all about? - I still find him hilarious simply to watch, as well as for what he brings out in other characters.
It's great, well written and high quality production but I can't help but feel at some points it's way too lengthy…
Yes! I've become very annoyed and angry with that sister just blowing off her brother and refusing to go see him. And it's not like she's sad about it every day either. She seems perfectly happy at this point to carry on her life while pretending she doesn't have a beloved hero of a brother who is incarcerated indirectly because of something she's connected to. At this point the irrational guilt has become cruelty. But then we also have JY blowing off his ex-GF...why?
I put off watching this for a long time as the synopsis sounded kind of dull to me, but I kept it on my to-watch list. Then a few months ago I finally started watching. It was certainly a slow, but not boring start, and it was NOTHING like I thought maybe it would be. Who knew I'd be watching a show about prison inmates, their associates/families/friends/enemies on the outside, the guards who keep watch on them and pro baseball, which bores me, and I'd be crying half the time. This show features so many instances and touching subplots whose connecting theme is our shared humanity, regardless of who we are or where we came from.
And all the surprises and odd little twists and turns...so enjoyable to watch. I'm about 2/3 of the way through episode 10 now and will sign off for tonight and probably come back in a couple of days. As much as I enjoy the show, for some reason it doesn't obsess me into binge-watching. Maybe its pace is slow, even for me...I wouldn't say I get bored; but I'll suddenly feel like "OK, that's good for one watch, let's come back in a bit..." Or maybe my tear ducts get sore, though I don't so much cry outright as spend a lot of time with my eyes brimming with tears...and the brimming can go on for awhile at times.
I was thinking tonight so that maybe they should throw in a real asshole or two now...even I don't want everyone to be sweet and kind all the time. Perhaps what the show does best for me is show the backstory on why people behave in the negative/antisocial ways they do, and that no one is all bad or all good. There is a great deal of redemption and forgiveness in this show. I love that.
Je Hyuk's little sister needs to get her selfish little ass to the prison to see her big brother though. That is one aspect of the plot I do not get. I understand her guilt, illogical as it is, over the fact that her brother is there indirectly because of her, but not because of anything she did. But she has had more than enough time now to ponder the situation, swallow that irrational emotion and go to see him YESTERDAY. Man, if I were the mom I would be tearing her a new asshole every day that she didn't go to see him. If someone can more fully explain how that plot element has not gone on too long, please do. I'm becoming angry at the woman.
YouDirtyWater - That's China for you.....ALL their gay dramas end like this.
Funny how your attacks on T-C are all personal insults and curses because that is the only means of attack you can muster; everything T-C says is true. China is ruled with an iron fist by a dictatorship. Will you now condemn me to the underworld for daring to speak a truth? lol pathetic
Maybe it was Nanon's choice, perhaps he wasn't comfortable getting shirtless, but I actually thought it was because…
lol I'm not going back to re-watch the scene to check on a towel. :) However, it's even stranger that someone would get up, wrap a towel around themselves and get back in bed with it on.
My thought was exactly like yours when I started watching this drama. But I thought about finishing it because…
Now see, that starts to sound intriguing plot-wise, but the incidents and just a lot of details/concepts seemed amateurish. Like the way the protesting god-lovers didn't seem authentic, it's a ton of little things like how extras are dressed, what they are chanting, how real or fake their signes look, what grafitti says on the wall and how it looks, squealing tire sounds dubbed in when it's just the lawyer driving, lol, I know I'm a bitch, the stupidity that some woman having adultery and raising her kids responsibly is more of a sin than waging war and killing thousands of people, that horribly annoying, flourescent-lipped freak on the Internet that started out as an interesting touch and then took over the show, those stupid mask-and-hood thingies the rich people wore when they came to watch that poor single mother be torn limb from limb, the idea that they would sit so close to a woman who was about to be violently, and messily, murdered, and on and on...
Idk if you’re familiar with the novel but I really liked how they threw some character behavior hints throughout…
oh now THAT'S kinky AND interesting...lol. Maybe I should check out the novel? I hate how almost all BLs have most of the sexual energy removed from them.
This is the most devastatingly effecting political/social/military/corruption-type movie I have ever seen. Once again a Korean film has left me wracked with sobs without being maudlin or sappy or overly, falsely sentimental. omg...I had no idea.
I am an American, born, raised, living here. I was 30 years old at the time in which this movie is set and I am utterly ashamed to say that I had maybe only a fleetingly vague idea of what was happening in Korea at that time. There are reasons for that...I was two years into a marriage with an infant son and a new job, but still, I was always a news-reader, long before the Internet and I should have known what was going on. ESPECIALLY because given the fact that 30 years after the Korean War, in which many U.S. military personnel lost their lives, there was STILL a piece of shit military dictatorship ruling South Korea means one thing for sure...the U.S. government to a large extent turned a blind eye and probably directly enabled many of the horrors depicted in this film. I am so sorry to all Koreans who may stumble across my babbling comment, but I was terribly ignorant at the time and I wish I hadn't been.
But the movie...omg. So well-produced, directed, acted, staged, conceived, filmed...I was a wreck thru most of it but I didn't feel manipulated. There are most certainly, even as I write this, MANY people who are doing, or are more than willing to do, the kinds of monstrous acts depicted here for a whole host of excuses and made-up reasons. THIS is why good people must always be on the watch for, and never forget, the many douche bags who throughout history have brought down unfathomable suffering on billions of others.
The spreading the ashes scene and the father in the water...just shoot me now. I have no words. And before that, the mother...THAT is what angry grief looks like when it's given its full voice. I want to go out in the parking lot and scream myself about now, but it's 2am and I'd be arrested. BTW, there are SO many corrupt cops in the U.S. it's pathetic and I know that firsthand. But nowhere near what I just witnessed through this painful but wonderful movie that I will recommend to everyone I know who cares about things like this and the medium of film.
Power will ALWAYS be abused and used to nefarious ends by assholes...it's just how humankind is wired. But I choose to believe that at least as many people are good and WANT good for others, and we are the ones who must be vigilant.
My eyes hurt so bad from crying and I don't feel the least bit embarrassed. Things like this need to be remembered and portrayed and wept over.
BRAVO! 9.5/10
Dropped. 5/10 for KSW's handsomeness.
Kind of tired of looking at that those two thin lips pouting also.
4/10
I want to see a movie about a gang of kick-ass women who have trained and developed weapons that counter-balance and overcome the body size and weight/strength disadvantage women naturally have to men, who hang out, make men fuck them, treat them like dirt, etc. Maybe that would be boring too, but I'd love to see someone try.
I'm not really bored...I just don't care and wasn't feeling any anticipation at what was to come. I'm not a fan of senseless/bloody violence in general, but I've watched movies with a lot of it that I liked and stuck with. This one has some style and attitude; an undertone of dark humor and all that. I think I'm just kind of tired, right now, of high school girls in plaid mini-skirt school uniforms seeking out drugs, getting raped, treated like whores, etc. It's always the same shit over and over. I'm sick of the moron gang members and the usual schtick with constant, stupid fighting to severe extremes near death. The beginning of dropping this was when that high school thug beat the shit out of that girl while other guys watched.
Looking at all the high school girls in short-skirt uniforms in Asian flicks and series, and the way they are often treated in these movies, has me re-hashing my long-term ruminations on why it is girls and women all over the world are culturalized to dress in a way that puts at least the bottom half of their body on display for the enjoyment of men, even when they go to school. I mean, what is the purpose of that? Why don't guys wear skirts? I'm gay and I'd love to see guys' legs constantly. Why do men wear suits and sportcoats while women wear sleeveless, tight dresses that show off their boobs? Why don't men wear off-the-shoulder shirts and jackets?
I live in the U.S. and I've thought about this for a long time, but since I became a huge fan of Asian flicks, watching them has reminded me that this visual sexualization of girls and women is an all-over-the-world thing. I love sex. I'm an artist and love portraying/rendering the human body, male and female, in very sexualized situations and exaggerations. But art is one thing, and a 13 year-old girl having to show her legs to the world every day is another. China's got the right idea, where I see a lot of school uniforms that consist of track-suit-type clothing, very uni-sex.
At the very least, I don't get why these girls wouldn't wear short shorts over their panties under their skirts so as to avoid the longing gaze of young boys hoping for an up-skirt, sneak peak, and to make it harder for them when they decide to rape them after selling them drugs.
It's not really a mystery why this is the way it is: the world is built around the straight male-gaze. Why are girls brainwashed to wear makeup while boys never do? We all know the answer and that's what is so bizarre about it. It's right out in front of all of us but is rarely questioned or discussed unless you happen to go to a feminist, all-girls' college somewhere.
OK, rant over.
3/10
Netflix can afford costumes too.
And all the surprises and odd little twists and turns...so enjoyable to watch. I'm about 2/3 of the way through episode 10 now and will sign off for tonight and probably come back in a couple of days. As much as I enjoy the show, for some reason it doesn't obsess me into binge-watching. Maybe its pace is slow, even for me...I wouldn't say I get bored; but I'll suddenly feel like "OK, that's good for one watch, let's come back in a bit..." Or maybe my tear ducts get sore, though I don't so much cry outright as spend a lot of time with my eyes brimming with tears...and the brimming can go on for awhile at times.
I was thinking tonight so that maybe they should throw in a real asshole or two now...even I don't want everyone to be sweet and kind all the time. Perhaps what the show does best for me is show the backstory on why people behave in the negative/antisocial ways they do, and that no one is all bad or all good. There is a great deal of redemption and forgiveness in this show. I love that.
Je Hyuk's little sister needs to get her selfish little ass to the prison to see her big brother though. That is one aspect of the plot I do not get. I understand her guilt, illogical as it is, over the fact that her brother is there indirectly because of her, but not because of anything she did. But she has had more than enough time now to ponder the situation, swallow that irrational emotion and go to see him YESTERDAY. Man, if I were the mom I would be tearing her a new asshole every day that she didn't go to see him. If someone can more fully explain how that plot element has not gone on too long, please do. I'm becoming angry at the woman.