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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Finally I finished watching this drama after like 2 years procrastinating. I started watching the Japanese adaptation first before watching the original. Since the Japanese remake tend to be shorter in length than the Korean one, the pace for the former tend to be faster and some parts from the original may not be included in the remake. While at first, the slow speed at how the plot on the original may feel a bit draggy when compared to the remake, the plot later gradually pick up and revealed to be as engaging as the remake.

Having watched the remake first, I couldn't help noticing that some of the scenes was a bit more cleaned up in the remake. Regardless, it didn't mean the the original production wasn’t as good. Loved the casting, and Jo jinwong and Lee Jehoon made a very good pair for partners separated by 20 years between them. It was an unlikely partnership yet you can tell that they really can work together well as a team despite the barrier between them.

At first, I wasn't really taken to Jehoon as Park Haeyoung. Probably because he was in a period drama prior to Signal, the accent that he used to speak in the drama seemed jarring to me. But gradually that awkwardness in the way he spoke throughout the drama started to fade away and I was able to continue watching his scenes comfortably. Jehoon's acting started to grow on me due to his more recent works so it was really interesting to see his older works and him taking a role of a soft-spoken profiler. That aside, I was much more familiar with Jo Jinwoong's works so it was pretty enjoyable watching him play a righteous detective who tried his best to solve crimes.

Overall, I like how the entire plot had been written. Considering a lot of the cases shown in the drama was based on actual cold cases that happened in South Korea, it was an interesting story on how things like a transmission from the future may affect the outcomes of the past and change the future.

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I guess this was one of those heavy dramas that one should thoroughly prepare oneself before committing to watching the whole thing.

Frankly, the initial premise of the show being that it may be possible to identify psychopath genes from the very beginning to identify future serial killers was an interesting idea. Yet, it also presents a moral dilemma of whether or not it's okay to try to decide whether or not it's okay to kill fetuses who may end up getting those genes. Or whether or not everyone has said genes will inevitably grow up to be killers.

While starting this drama, I suddenly recall Lee Seunggi mentioning that he wanted to play a psychopath character, which was a break away from the usual good guy roles he used to get. I guess, with Mouse, he's really getting that wish. With that in mind, one most likely needs to be wary while watching this drama since you may end up encountering some unexpected twists.

As much as the plot initially intrigued me, because it's been a while I doubt that I'd actually find the time to watch this. Dropping this drama because I'm no longer in the state of watching this without ending up becoming depressed about it.

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I really love this series so much!

The first impression I got from this drama was that this show was about a vigilante taxi driver out to serve justice to the bad guys as revenge. And then after watching the drama this is like the Korean version of Knight Rider lol. That said, I went to look at the webtoon that was what the drama was based on. Though have to say that the only thing that was similar between the original webtoon and drama was the concept of the revenge taxi service and Rainbow Taxi. Though to be fair, that was fine with me as the webtoon was more violent and gory and had fewer actual taxi battles. I love how the drama incorporates the whole Knight Rider feel to the whole revenge taxi thing. That was cool. And I love the fact that the drama had Prosecutor Kang Hana's character, which didn't exist in the webtoon but adds an even more depth into the story to include the narrative from the side of the law enforcement people.

Loved the ost and the bg music. The Eurobeat tracks really fit in with the show's movie-like atmosphere. And I love how Kim Dogi and Kang Hana's character being written. And I really love the dynamics between Lee Jehoon and Esom in the drama.

I noticed how halfway through the series the writer was changed to a different person though I'm glad that the change in writers didn't feel so noticeable in the drama. For one, I like how Kang Hana's character started becoming more prominent and become as important as Kim Dogi. Because it'd be a shame if her character becomes underused despite Esom being the main female lead.

I really love how the writing not quite romanticising the idea of vigilante activities yet also admitting that the law might not be fully perfect, to which one might have a need for some kind of vigilante 'hero' to fix the flaw in the law. The overall tone was hopeful and healing and I love the journey from the beginning to end. This is one of the webtoon adaptations that I'm glad that it took a different narrative and give us a great story in return.

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I cried lololol

Finally I finished watching this movie omg and I love it. While the story wasn’t really THAT unique if you wanna compare to like many other space scifi movies that came before, it's really an impressive movie. Not to mention it was the first made by Koreans and starring Korean casts.

Never really expect a story about some junk scavengers would spiral into a race to save the Earth but there ya go. I really love how the back stories of the main characters were gradually revealed... not to mention how Taeho turned out to be like Yoo Sijin in space lol. I had lots of tears of sads and happiness throughout the movie I never thought I'd get hit with so much feels in this movie!

And another aspects that I really love in this movie was how much multilingual this movie is like everyone of different ethnicities were a lot of times communicates using their own languages and everyone could understand each other using a universal translation gadgets that they all have. That was really rare to see in even Hollywood movies. I had so much fun watching this movie, I really love it so much!

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Initially I didn't really have much interest in watching this drama, even when it's available on Netflix. But then since OneAsia had started reairing older dramas including Haechi, I ended up watching it anyway.

I had to say that I had no regrets for starting to watch this drama. As was common when it comes to sageuk or historical dramas, it's usually the political intrigues and conspiracies that tend to wear you down, especially when it involves the battles to gain control of the political powers and the throne. But strangely enough, I didn't have much difficulty while watching this drama. Because rather than allowing himself get swept by the palace intrigues, Lee Geum strive to overcome every obstacles by working together with his trusted comrades and subjects.

And I suppose it also had to do with the fact that there wasn't anyone in this drama who were truly black or white, or completely evil or righteous. Also, I like the fact that political elements in this drama were not written too depressing and the politicians weren't just scheming against each other but they do earnestly want to do what's best for their country, even when they might get swept easily by false rumours or lies. Or make decisions that don't often end up being a good one.

And I like the fact that the drama's core plot were mostly centred on Saheonbu and how in reality, it was very difficult to judge between right and wrong. Yet, even with that odds we ended up rooting for Lee Geum to gain the public approval as King and gain support from all of the political parties.

I really love the analogy using the legendary creature Haechi and how trying to judge between what's right or wrong may seem simple in theory yet hard to implement in reality. And I like how in the end, life and politics were shown to not always be either black or white and that making a slow progress might not really be such a bad thing.

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This drama had a potential to be good but it was a shame that it ended up being cancelled prematurely. Just when I thought I'd be able to see another drama where Jang Dongyoon playing another prince role.

From the setting of some kind of a demon possession being the reason for the existence of undead people, this drama could have been a fresh take on the zombie genre. Well, since the drama had been permanently taken off-air we would never know how the drama plot could have unfold.

Casting-wise and writing-wise, if one could try to judge from the initial two episode, it does appear that there's a lot of care and detail done to get people to become interested in the drama plot. For one, this is an interesting take on King Taejong as compared to quite a number of dramas that did feature him in the past and there was a lot to be curious about regarding the troupe that ended up coming in contact with the third prince as well as the mystery surrounding this Azazel entity. And drama already was dealing with a situation of dead people coming to life in ancient Joseon. THAT itself was already a fictional setting... so I don't really get to uproar over the 'historical inaccuracies' especially when there are ALOT of other sageuk dramas that already made various interpretations of historical figures that may or may not be accurate anyway. As in there are plenty of sageuk dramas that depicted the same historical figures as BOTH evil and good on different dramas to fit a certain narrative so why now only that people making such a fuss about this for Joseon Exorcist? Why don't they do that for the other sageuk dramas that do this? It's ridiculous, to be honest!

Regardless, even if the writing of the drama was really problematic, considering the drama only just started there shouldn't be much problem to just ask the writer to make adjustments/rewrites to their writing and refilm the rest of the drama. If other productions can do that like with Delayed Justice and River where the Moon Rises where they paused airing and recast and refilm the scenes to remove appearances of problematic actors, the same should be possible for this drama. Banning this drama without allowing the production to make amendments to the drama to fix the problematic scenes/plot was an overreaction. What about all the works that has already been poured into this and Jang Dongyoon even got hurt! It was unfair to everyone who have worked so hard to make this drama only to have almost the entirety of the production scrapped.

While it was understandable that everyone would be wary about how some chinese people trying to claim certain aspects from kdramas as theirs, I hope people wouldn't be too rash in trying to cancel everything recklessly.

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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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Having already watched at least two, wait... FOUR of Park Jaebum's earlier works, I have to say that I'm really looking forward to watching this recent project. Not to mention that this drama had Song Joongki and had a hint of a mafia theme, it sounded like the drama would be a lot of fun to watch.

While I wouldn't want to criticise other's choice in their preferences in watching the kind of drama that they want to see, I have to say that if there was any opinion to be made about this drama... you might as well need to keep watching till the end before making any strong opinion about it. Having completed Fiery Priest and quite a bit of Chief Kim, I've grown to be fond of Park Jaebum's style of comedy as well as writing.

Since this drama is still ongoing, it'll be pretty rash to make any conclusion on whether it was good or bad just because certain episodes may move a bit too slowly or too boring to some. In fact, personally, I felt that that the current pacing is just fine. A good story plot doesn't have to always have to be bombastic all the time in order to be good. It needs to have its ups and downs and even more important it needs to have a good plot and character development in order to give a good story. Or else, the story wouldn't be very memorable in the long run. And this series is a black comedy, yes but it is not makjang.

That said, I was pretty intrigued to find quite a few interesting similarities and parallels between the two main characters of Vincenzo to the two main characters of Fiery Priest. And I have to say, as long as Park Jaebum keep up the good writing and pace as he did for his earlier works that are of the same genre one can look forward to a great story.

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This is a really fun and lighthearted drama. Since lately tv have been reairing old dramas I ended up encountering this show.

I thought it was only in recent series that Choi Kanghee has started doing characters who are quite feisty and knows how to fight... so this drama had intrigued me after seeing Queen of Mystery as well as Good Casting. Same with Jisung tbh. Like it was interesting to see his earlier works as compared to his more recent works and seeing how much his acting capabilities had expand since.

All in all, the drama was quite enjoyable and not too heavy, which means that you don't really have to stress to much while watching the episode. And the rest of the cast was also pleasant and charming and the comedy was well timed and enjoyable. It was fun to see how Eunseol and Jiheon's story unfolds and how they try to work their way out over the things that life had put in store for them.

Overall, this drama was surprisingly fun.

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Never thought I'd be able to see this movie so soon, what with the pandemic et al so when this movie appeared on tvN Movies I immediately grabbed the chance to see it!

At first, it may seem to be a mediocre start as we were initially introduced to the plot setting, as well as the main characters. And the case that was chosen to be the first one being held with a jury seemed to be a simple case of murder, with what seemed to be a clear motive for murder by the defendant. It may turn out to be a boring case as the jurors chosen seemingly more interested in resuming their normal lives rather than taking seriously of the task at hand. But with the eighth juror starting to doubt that the case was as simple as it appears, that was when the plot started to get interesting.

I have to say that I was really fond of Hyungsik's character, Kwon Namwoo in this movie. He was so adorable, even when it seemed that it might be too hard for him to handle the responsibility of being a juror in a court trial. That aside, I love how throughout the movie we can see how the rest of the other jurors also started to take their job as jury seriously because of Namwoo and try so hard to find out whether or not the defendant of the case was truly guilty of the crime that he was accused of. And I have to say the final outcome of the case was really unexpected and sad.

Watching Hyungsik in this movie was really a treat, I really can't get enough of him making his surprised face. And I love how Hyungsik really pull off Namwoo's honest belief and sincerity to want to save the defendant to the point that you could really believe that Namwoo's honesty was what moved the rest of the jurors to change their minds and help him.

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Was recently doing yet another rewatch of this drama after almost one and half year so might as well write a review. If you're looking for a family drama which is wholesome while also having a bit of chaos in it yet not too exagerated—then this drama is perfect for you.

The first time I watched this drama I was drawn to how relatable the Cha Family story was, especially when it comes to the youngest son, Cha Dalbong's story. Well, to be fair... most of the drama characters do feel relatable since they do reflect the struggles of people just trying to make do for themselves—and to people who watches this drama can find their own comfort and consolation while watching this drama. For me, personally, the more I rewatch the drama the more I relate to the life and challenges of the Cha family, considering like Dalbong—I'm also a third child and also felt the same insecurity about myself and the future that I would have. And I have to say, that the drama also helped me cope with my father's death last year. To which, while it wasn't exactly similar... helped me to come to terms about stuff regarding my own father.

That aside, Park Hyungsik as Cha Dalbong was very adorable and lovable and I couldn't help to want to root for him from the beginning to end. Yoo Donggeun as the Cha Sunbong was really the best kdrama father you'd ever see and I love how throughout the drama you can just see how much love Cha Sunbong had for his family, especially for his three children. And yes, these two father-son combo was the main reason that kept me to wanting to rewatch this drama over and over.

Words of warning though, if you're the type to cry easily over things... do prepare lots of tissue before watching this drama.

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Considering that this drama were led by two of my favs Oguri Shun and Nishiyama Hidetoshi and written by Kaneshiro Kazuki, it shouldn't be surprising that I'd be drawn to this drama. XD.

As was common with dramas of this genre and one that focuses on the Public Safety division, it should be expected that the drama will have some pretty grim storyline. Yet, considering that we do have Oguri in the lead it's to be expected that there'll be some unexpected light-hearted moments that can brighten up the grim plotlines.

That said, I love how despite the plot was full of conspiracies and the dark sides of humanity there was still a glimmer of hope and good in between; which makes the story not be too depressing at times. I love the camaraderie between the Special Security Squad and I love how their relationship with each other as well as personal struggles gave the drama a heartwarming feel and make the characters be so human and relatable.

Then again, this was a common theme in Kaneshiro Kazuki 's writing and I'm glad that I manage to encounter this drama. But gosh, Kaneshiro Kazuki's pension in ending things with cliffhangers I tell you.... never cease to catch me off-guard.

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When this drama initially released, I wasn't particularly interested on it. Not to mention there was quite few other medical dramas that was released in the same time/year, and I was quite picky on the kind of medical dramas that I watch. And then years later, I finally try to check it out... and somewhat regreted that I hadn't tried watching the drama much earlier. Like sure, the title did sound a bit cheesy but who am I kidding? Since Lee Jongsuk starred in this drama I should've expected quite a lot of angst in the story.

While I'm not quite taken to the political plot, having the setting where Park Hoon being kidnapped to NK and then being a doctor in that kind of environment pose an interesting conflict to the whole medical plot in the drama. And as to be expected, one can see a good amount of conflicts resulted from the fact the doctors in SK would have some kind of bias against North Koreans in general and how that would affect the treatment on Hoon, despite the fact that he's still a fellow South Korean who had the misfortune of growing up in such a harsh place. And that alone made this drama unique in terms of focusing on cardiac surgeons with a side taste of the North vs South Korean politics.

And Lee Jongsuk pulled the character so well that you can feel such an intense atmosphere around Hoon and can't help wishing for happy outcomes for him. And I love how the music and overall production having this certain sentimental air which was reminiscent of the 80's period when it comes to the North Korean plot. I never thought that it's possible for a drama to have a genre that could only be described as medical noir but here we are.

That said I guess it somewhat fit my feelings regarding Jin Seyeon. Not sure why, but I tend to like many of her noir roles. Provided that the drama had good writer and great production to carry the drama towards its intended goal, I tend to like the dramas that she's in. And I'm thankful that Doctor Stranger really had some of the best writing one could've hoped for. It wasn't always perfect, particularly on the political plot... but the drama did leave us with some hopeful feeling that some things might become better afterwards.

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A very human story

If you want to see a supernatural drama involving evil spirits and possessions that leads to people commiting unforgivable crimes, well you've come to the right drama.

The Guest is a very human drama about a young psychic and two others as they inevitably had to deal with a strong evil spirit that has set its goal on one of them and proceeds to terrorize everyone who ever come in contact with them. It was a scary journey as well as dark one, yet in a way it was quite healing as we watch how Hwapyung, Yoon and Kilyoung try their absolute best to try saving as much people they could while also trying to hunt down the evil spirits as well as the corrupted people that calls for it.

While the supernatural and criminal aspect of the story could be quite dark and scary, the fact that our trio were able to counter the obstacles and save people who were being possessed carried a healing message of hope that good can defeat evil. And that was quite healing, in a sense.

That said, I love the soundtrack. The main theme Somewhere have fully captured the emotional turmoil of Yun Hwapyung and his internal struggle for being the one targetted by the evil spirit. The song was quite haunting and filled with a sense of loneliness. Yet, there was still a hint of hope as you can hear a plea for help slipped in between the song lyrics.

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