Izzu162

Have to say that the first half was definitely interesting, which was why I kept on watching the drama. But then for the last 4-5 eps, I started to question if I should continue watching this. Should have trusted my gut feeling when the plot started to turn uncharacteristically dark for no reason. And just when you thought that maybe things will be overturned later, you ended being disappointed and wondering why on earth you even bothered watching this.

Like seriously, the moment the villain starts getting clingy with the main pairs and wanna get the guy to kill his girl just to justify his own belief and started killing off every tom dick and harry around the main character the plot gone to the trash already. The villain becoming too overpowered to the point of ridiculous and the side characters acting stupid by not heeding the main character's warning to not confront the villain direct and ending up being killed stupidly as well. And the ending was so anti-climax that you can't help wondering if the writer themselves gave up in making the story be decent. Which was a shame, since the earlier plot was decent only to become a trainwreck at the end.

This is as bad if not worse than a lot of western b-grade horror with dumb main characters and overpowered psycho villains.

Tl:dr, as much the initial story sounded interesting, don't bother watching this. Please watch other much better dramas seriously. Like say, Ghost Seeing Detective Cheoyeong was good. It had a similar starting plot and was much written and balanced on the detective and the supernatural theme.

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At first glance, the drama appeared to have a similar storyline that inspired the creation of Gapdong, Signal as well as Tunnel. Suppose such first impressions are unavoidable when it involves stories that contain unsolved serial murder cases and cover-up plotlines. And because of Shin Hakyun, I can't help getting a similar vibe I felt from Less than Evil for this drama. Which is probably intentional as the two characters from the two dramas had a similar level of darkness, and the way Shin Hakyun carried both characters was almost similar.

That said, as much as I'm no stranger to these kinds of genres I have to say that this drama can be pretty dark, heavy and intense. In which it might get a bit taxing to watch as almost every character in this drama seems suspicious and makes you wary about everyone. And the way Lee Dongsik kept acting very suspicious at times can be pretty exhausting to watch as one alternates from wanting to believe he was innocent or guilty, and it gets worse when almost every character in this drama behaved in similar ways. You can't help feeling like you're being gaslighted to believe anything you're being told and later get fooled over and over, throughout the drama by almost every key character. It gets pretty tiring if you're the kind who easily becomes engrossed in the plotline and is treated with constant gaslighting and manipulations from the characters.

On the bright side, it made the plot very unpredictable yet on another, it makes one question whether or not you should continue watching the drama as the main character tried too hard to act as the ultimate villain, just because they've become quite disillusioned with how the law works. It only really gets better or tolerable halfway towards the end, partially because the truth starts to finally get unravelled and the main characters start to become much more honest with each other, and we realised how some of the earlier behaviours had just been a false facade/

Overall, it was a good story though you do need to have quite a bit of patience to get through the first half of the drama before being able to properly appreciate the mystery and storyline.

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To be honest, the series was quite decent. Not too bad nor too silly, contrary to what some people might claim the series to be. And in terms of acting, I don't see that to be any worse issue compared to any other Sentai series before or after Ninnin. Even for the actor playing Takaharu. Also for people who still question Nishikawa Shunsuke's acting ability, he IS a good actor honestly as you could see in later episodes where Takaharu's personality totally change whenever enemy monsters get up to their tricks. Or if you disliked the idea of a cowboy ninja, dude, Kinji's already is a Japanese cowboy prior so having him embracing his new ninja side shouldn't be weird.

Just because you have a biased opinion on the show or disliked how the characters were written, doesn't mean you can shit on the casts.

As with any other sentai series, as the episodes progress so does the acting as the cast gets more in tune with their roles. And to be honest, I wouldn't call any of the plot pieces to be 'bad' or 'boring'. Each Ninninger gets their own character arcs in turn and kept growing stronger as the episodes progress. And as they get stronger in power, so does their familial bonds. I wouldn't call the writing to be shabby when there's a lot of consideration placed on each of the members to allow them to grow as a team. By the end of the day, you'll see how each of the Igasaki family members overcome their own difficulties and grow stronger and much closer as a family of ninjas.

Ninninger is your usual super sentai show featuring fights with kaijin and monsters with ninja (and ninja cowboys) as its main theme. The show also had the elements of family (as it focuses on a clan of ninjas who are family) as well as an evil feudal warlord as the main villain. As someone who had seen a lot of old and new sentai series, Ninninger didn't fall too far from using the usual common tropes and writings that are prevalent than any other sentai series in general yet can still be entertaining, as well as wholesome.

Just because ninjas and family theme is not your cup of tea, don't be too brash to claim that the show was bad because you didn't like it. Or else you'll find quite a number of sentai series that by rights shouldn't appeal to you as well due to the similar themes and tropes that were present in their respective series.

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The moment that I find out about the setting of the story and the fact it's written by a Malaysian author made me want to watch this drama.

That said, the concept about ghost bride is something you can see often in a lot of East Asian mythologies and I was curious at how that would come to play here. Loved the Peranakan setting and the fact that it was set in 1980s Malaya. Aside from the supernatural elements, there was a touch of mystery involving Li Lan's mission to find out the truth about Tian Ching's murder (in order for her to save her father) as well as Er Lang's mission. Overall, the drama is quite good and entertaining. And if you're a Malaysian, you'll appreciate a lot of the little bits of local 'inside jokes' that come out occasionally.

I loved the casting for the drama. If you didn't know any better, you'd think everyone there (who're Chinese) were local people. Even when some of the main cast were actually Taiwanese etc. While there are some details in the drama that runs differently than in the original novel, the drama still manages to convey an enjoyable story. I love the attention to detail in the Peranakan culture, Malay culture as well as the culture of people from that time, it even had that quality you get from Yasmin Ahmad movies.

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This movie is such a great love letter to the franchise! It was really so beautifully written and quite action packed. While at times some of the sfx or superfast fight scenes can turn out to be quite anime-like, overall the stunts and battles and story telling still makes you feel so exhilarated and excited to know what happened next.

I know of Sousuke from the MOZU series almost a decade ago, and I had looked forward to seeing him play Hongo in his own image. And I have to say that I wasn't disappointed at seeing the result. Since the behind the scenes had been released way ahead of the screening, I was excited to see the final result on film and it was really great to see how all the shots play out.

With every single reimagination of Rider 1 and Rider 2 stories, it never ceased to amaze me at how unique each version of Rider 1 and 2 turned out to be. This movie's approach to introducing Hongo to the audience was quite different compared to how it was in The First, as well as in original. But I love how refreshing the story felt, even when at the very core of each different Rider 1 and 2, there's still that certain quality that remains the same.

I also love the reimaginations of the five kaijins or Augs, and how they have a different stories behind them... to which we learn how twisted they had become after joining SHOCKER.

The movie somewhat ended with a pretty open ending though, like it felt like there should be a continuation after this. Hopefully there is, because I really like to see more of Anno's reimagination of the Showa riders.

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What an enjoyable movie! I really missed seeing the trio together after so long and it was certainly a delight to find out that Higashino Keigo-san did release a new novel after Midsummer's equation. (Though I still wished publishers also pick up translating the other earlier novels, given how popular the series was. )

Fukuyama Masaharu was still great as Professor Yukawa, bringing out the many charms of an eccentric physics professor who also had a taste in mystery deduction. It was also great to see Shibasaki Kou back as Utsumi, bringing back the old Yukawa-Utsumi dynamics that everyone loved so dearly. And with Kitamura Kazuki reprising his role as Kusanagi, the ultimate trio is complete! Even more, I really appreciate this movie due to the fact that this is the first live-action adaptation of the novel where both Kusanagi and Utsumi were present in the original novel (ie most of the drama plot for Utsumi before was originally written for Kusanagi while plots that include Utsumi in - after Higashino-san start writing her in due to drama's popularity - end up being pushed to Kishitani)

But of course, due to some changes in the drama plot aka having Utsumi being sent away for training and slotting in Kishitani as her replacement as well as a few of Kusanagi's key scenes be given to Utsumi, the writing would be affected to reflect that but the overall vibe of the movie was still okay.

As usual, Kusanagi and Utsumi were dealing with yet another complicated case and ended up needing the help of our reluctant physics professor who always tends to find himself in the middle of a case. And this time, Kusanagi had to confront an old case that once traumatised him so much.

I really love the trio's dynamics, and I especially love how Utsumi grew to become this bridge that's connecting Yukawa and Kusanagi and mediated their relationship; as Yukawa and Kusanagi's friendship grew even more strained due to the case.

The case was interesting as well as it featured a conflict faced by the police when they couldn't prosecute the suspect that they were sure to be guilty yet unable to prove the crime as the suspect kept their silence despite mounting evidence stacked against them. It also presents a dilemma when they have to investigate the victims of the crime who may have committed murder out of revenge due to the failure of the police to punish a criminal using the law.

The movie compiled a montage at the end in the credits featuring most of the trio's past scenes in drama and movies which I find to be very sweet.

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Never thought I'd be able to see the Jinchu arc made it into the live action adaptation. So when the new movies were announced I was really elated as the Jinchu arc was one of my favourite arc in the manga, and half of me did wished to see that arc to appear in the live action. Especially since for the earlier three movies, the live actions did have certain parts that they changed in order to fit all the important plotlines while trying to stay close to the original story.

That said, it's been a long while since I've read the manga... yet I am glad to see some of the familiar plots reappearing in the live action almost exactly as it originally did in manga. And it intrigued me to see the parts that was changed and reimagined in order to fit the set amount of time for the movie. I was delighted to see the return of the Oniwabanshu members as well as certain surviving members of the Juppon Gatana who ended up fighting on the same sides. Not to mention the unexpected Seta-Himura combo was really amazing to see and enjoy. And I also love seeing more glimpse of Tomoe-Kenshin plotlines alongside the conflicts with Enishi.

I really enjoyed the movie and I'm looking forward to The Beginning as we get to see more of the past relationship Kenshin had with Tomoe.

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I laughed

Never thought there'd be a day when I'd welcome an insane dose of comedy in a supposed ghost 'horror' movie. But then you got this movie lol.

I'm currently on a Lee Jehoon binge where I try to watch his past works that may sound like a fun show to watch, and Jehoon as a young shaman was really an interesting concept. And his character did turn out to be an interesting one since Sukyun wasn't just any normal shaman character but one with a doctorate and using technology to fight and exorcise ghosts.

The rest of the exorcists also turned out to be an interesting bunch and you get almost every single interpretation of what an exorcist could be, to which later on it got narrowed down to a specific five-man group plus a journalist whose father turned out to also be connected to the place where the special ghost exorcism ritual was supposed to be done.

There were moments where the plot gets serious and spooky and dark... and then there were silly and hilarious parts that you can't help being tickled about, and there were parts that can be quite emotional yet cute. Like I'm aware that Jehoon had that super adorable charm about him, but this movie is too much lol. And then when you get that unexpected reveal about the relationship between Kim Sooro's character and Jehoon's, you can't help feeling even more drawn to the characters as they tried to put a stop to the big evil spirit's schemes. Kang Yewon was also charming as journalist Chanyeong and you wouldn't have guessed that she was actually several years older than Jehoon.

This movie was a lot of fun to watch and seriously it had a very good balance between the horror and comedy genre.

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Have to say that this drama was a blessing in more than one way. It's sweet, heart-wrenching, funny, exciting... and you can't help loving (almost) every character whether they are of the good side or bad ones. And it's also a drama that reunites Kim Namgil and Lee Honey ever since their last drama together which was Shark aka Don't Look Back: The Legend of Orpheus. And have to say, that their chemistry was as good and even better together.

I love the fact that as much as the series does have a fair share of serious plot from the beginning till the end, there was also a good amount of comedy slipped in between to balance everything out. And while it might not be related, I find it refreshing that this drama somewhat broke the 'tradition' that almost always happen to any serious themed Kdrama that Kim Namgil starred it. As in, his characters ending up dying in the end. (Well, I'm not counting his role as Heo Im since that one was of a completely different genre. But then again, I might as well count Heo Im as well since he did still end up dying a lot of times in the series anyway.) While Hae-il isn't your usual revenge-driven character that Kim Namgil often play, he does have quite a bit of his own dark past that clouded his present life. And because of that, you can't help finding similarities to Kim Namgil's past characters. So yes, I'm really happy to see Kim Namgil character surviving the end of their series lol. Cos seriously, most of his characters that have serious plot always end up dead in the end. The ones that didn't were usually those that are quite comedic. Live up to Your Name was a good example.

I first got to know of Lee Honey from Shark, and as much as I love both her and KNG's characters in Shark; their love relationship was mostly one-sided. Yet I still love the two of them together in this drama as they did have great chemistry together. In which, seeing them together again in this drama was great. Even if their characters still didn't end up together, they do still work well together. Honestly, I love how much Kim Hae-il and Park Gyeongseon work well together and how much the two of them really care about each other. In which in the end, influenced their choices and paths of life. Gu Daeyoung's character also turned out to be quite endearing as well. While at first, he started as a comedic character being paired up with Hae-il, bit by bit he started to change due to Hae-il's influence.

I truly love the writing of the drama; and how some of the tiny pieces of seemingly unrelated details in the drama would somehow turn out to be important later on. The writing was very solid with serious and dark themes while also occasionally make us laugh at the most unexpected situation. This drama is definitely one that I'd want to watch and rewatch all over again for the lovely plot as well as the endearing characters.

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What a fun and enjoyable watch. While at first glance the series seem to be a cheap take on the old spy plot combined with a corporate corruption drama, the drama turned out to be quite enjoyable with the cast of unlikely trio of female agents with different backgrounds.

It's basically a Korean Charlie's Angels drama with two of the female agent being mothers. The spy plot may be a bit old-school and full of clichés but Choi Ganghee did pretty well in playing the part of a super agent with a painful past. The addition of Lee Jonghyuk as Team Leader Dong adds a bit of comedic element to the series which made it fun to see this unlikely team of NIS agents try to solve the case of corporate leak conspiracy.

While as a whole, the series did have a simple plot with some predictable twists... the drama did not fail to make me laugh with the comedic gags as well as its old school espionage plot.

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Took me a while to get to watch this continuation after Two Worlds, but I finally managed to do it now. And I have to say that it's amazing.

The movie picked up after the loose ends left from Two Worlds, after Jahong was ascended and then the fate of his dead brother remained to be seen. For a second I had to wonder what was the connection with the other assignment given to Ganglim and his team aside from the matter regarding Kim Suhong but it turned out that everything still connected in an intricate way! It's really amazing, the writing that is.

We get to find out more about Ganglim, Hewonmaek and Dukcheon's past lives and how it turned out that it wasn't a coincidence that the trio was paired together. We also get to find out the circumstances of their deaths and how it leads the trio to become grim reapers and having to guide the souls of the dead in order to absolve their sins and allow them to reincarnate. And it turned out, the complicated circumstances of Ganglim's past life had also a connection with Kim Suhong's judgement. Loved the amazing writing, and how much the story in Two World and The Last 49 days seamlessly interconnected. It felt like it was also no coincidence that Ganglim's team was assigned to handle Kim Jahong's case and later on with Kim Suhong.

That aside, I have to say that the final reveal about King Yeomra just add the final touch on how the writing of everything been done well. It explained a lot on why King Yeomra have had quite a lot of interest in Ganglim in particular and why they seem to have a special relationship.

I really enjoyed the movie throughout. And while the movie's serious plot had been engaging enough, I love the fact that the comedy in between was still so amusing. Had to say that Ganglim, Hewonmaek and Dukcheon really had grown on me.

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This drama started well... but then halfway through the series for some reason, the production thinks that it was wise of them to CHANGE the main writer and have the FL being too sympathetic to the Psycho Dude and be very unkind to the person she's supposed to be more in love with and destroyed the drama. The only reason I'm still watching this drama is for Cha Hyungbin/Kim Soohyuk. Seriously, nothing else matters in this drama besides Soohyuk.

Seriously I don't get how Sabin could be so dumb and inconsiderate. Like even if she was trying to be so trusting in the good of people, I don't get how she could be so forgiving to someone who stalks her and acts like a psycho yet can be so biased to Soohyuk who might be a bit unforgiving towards anyone who had a history of criminal actions just because of that one moment where he messed up a bit due to some misunderstanding. Not saying that Sabin's character can't be very unrealistic; like it's understandable that she might feel confused about her own feelings towards the two men for the fact that there were some 'deja vu' she had with Jicheol where actually from Haeeun's memories of Hyungbin. Even then, her treatment of Soohyuk was much too biased for someone who's supposedly trying to see good in everyone around her.

Like seriously, I thought this drama was aiming to reunite a pair of lovers in their second life after dying prematurely over an unjust death. But No. It went off the charts in a really BAD way.

Somehow I wonder just how much of the plot had diverted from the original plan for the writer in this series. Like I heard how in the middle of the series there's somehow a change in the main writer thus one of the main reason this drama took in the stupid ridiculous direction. Yet even then I wonder about what part was still following the original scripts before the writer change obliterated it. Like tbh, I feel that Soohyuk/Hyungbin's plot was the only one that remained intact from the original writer's plan as his part of the story was the ONLY one that remained consistent as the rest of the plot went downhill just so that the second main writer could make the psycho dude be paired with the FL.

Tl;dr, unless you don't mind watching having your expectations of what a good story could turn out be destroyed during the next half of the plot, don't watch this show. Or you can be like me who had stuck around till the end because the second male lead was your ONLY salvation inside this drama. Like seriously, Lee Soohyuk was still the only good thing about this drama. I mean, as much as the mystery/crime plot seemed interesting at first... all that went to drain as apparently whoever has been brought in to replace the original writer cannot for the life of them write any engaging crime or court scene to make it believable and only focusing on love plot.

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Yoo Seungho played as the main lead... how can I not watch this drama? Though to be fair, this drama kept making me want to rewatch Ruler so many times due to the many scenes that tend to parallel some of parts of Ruler that amuses me a lot many times. And when I say there was a lot of parallel plots, there was really a LOT.

The character of Kang Roseo had been set up pretty well with her being a former noblewoman who ended up becoming a moonshiner to make a living. The crown prince Lee Pyo also have his own story to which it also connected with the prohibition order as well as the general plot around it.

And above all, Nam Young seemed to hold the biggest mystery that may lead to a clue that tied the three people together. He's quite a cute character (something that Seungho had a natural flair at playing it) and his upright as well as innocent persona was enough of a charm to make you like Nam Young. Though some may find him a bit annoying but that's how he's been raised. It'll be interesting to see how Nam Young would change even more while being with Roseo and Pyo.

The story was quite light-hearted enough and fun to watch. Though the serious plot would start to creep in the more the plot dwelve more into Lee Pyo's past and Nam Young's locked memories. As well as the romance that started to grow between an unlikely pair of inspector and a moonshiner.

Overall, the drama was really a fun watch. And while there was quite some loose ends that remained unresolved like what happened to some people after the truth was revealed, what will Young do with his life now and I'm still curious about Young's true parentage, the drama ended with a very good note. As much as the lovelines of the main and secondary pair ended up not being expanded enough, I like the fact that the romance didn't feel out of place. Young and Roseo made for quite a goofy pair and Pyo-Aejin pair were quite cute. And I really love the overall visuals of the drama that was as beautiful as the poem the drama was named from.

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Since this is Joo Won's first kdrama since his military enlistment I'm pretty excited to see how the drama will unfold. So far, Joo Won's character in Alice reminded me a bit of his character in Good Doctor, in which due to the circumstances of their birth they ended up living a life quite different than other people. Seeing Joo Won's performance in Good Doctor made me curious as to how he'll play Jin Gyeom and it was indeed interesting to see how much Jin Gyeom had grown throughout the series.

This drama had the theme of mystery and detective drama, added with time travel. While the detective theme at first appeared to be main thing that moves the plot of the story, eventually the scifi part starts to kick in and we can see how the time travel aspect with influence the story. And indeed, as the story moves forward we can see how the past, present and future started to mix together. It was interesting to see the drama dealt with the problem of paradox involving people from different points of time meeting each other at different stages of their lives. To which, it might end up very confusing for people who aren't quite used to the scifi genre, especially ones that involves time travel. In before I start quoting Doctor Who but I won't.

While some may have trouble watching some parts of the episodes due to the impression they may have regarding the doubtful relationship between Taeyi and Jin Gyeom, it may help a bit if one stayed open-minded while watching the drama by not immediately assuming that every single melodramatic scene in the drama to be a romantic one. Since the drama will involve a lot of paradoxes as people from past and future inevitably gonna cross each other's path, some emotional scenes may not be as straightforward as it appears. And love can be of any type aside from romantic feelings, so its better to not be so quick to assume the relationship that we see in the drama. Not to mention that we do have a character who had a disability in that he was not able to recognise emotions and understanding the meaning of said emotions.

As a scifi drama that dealt with time travel and parallel drama, I have to say that the plot of Alice was quite decent. While there are some parts that were still left vague and not executed well, overall it wasn't that bad a drama. With genre like this, it helps to have no high expectations and be open-minded to the many unexpected outcomes resulting from the timey-wimey.

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To be honest at first glance, I didn’t expect to take a liking to the story. The initial introduction to the plot was quite odd; like who'd think a story that somehow reference a relationship between two classical music composers had any relationship to these set of music student characters in the drama? But then I ended up watching the drama anyway and couldn't help becoming drawn towards the conflicts of the two main characters.

I wouldn't say that this is the best drama of the year that focused on the world of classical music, but the drama did give quite a heartwarming story about the struggles and hardships that could be faced by the characters in the drama. While there may be some parts that might be exaggerated too much or a bit cringy, the rest of the drama fared well enough that one may overlook the excessive parts.

For once I'm not bothered too much about the many references relating to the relationship between Brahms, Schumann and Clara, nor the many musical analogies that was present in this drama. I mean, considering the drama dealt with musical students, musical prodigies and people working behind the scenes of the classical music industry, it would've made sense for them to try relating their personal experiences to the past figures in classical music. Since the musicians in the drama would've spent most of their times practicing to become Ling Lings and wouldn't have a lot of exposure to things that didn't have much to do with classical music.

To wrap it up, I ended up growing fond of the characters in the drama. In a way, it's an interesting story about the lives of musical students who may feel insecure about their futures, as well as a (perhaps) one-sided relationship one may have with the things or people that they loved.

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