Random Series

Watched yesterday.
This is a movie of immense beauty!. It belongs to an art gallery.
The theme music is also wonderfull. And Nat Cole singing "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps" in Spanish!
Who would have thought that getting noodles can be this sexy? lol
It also shows that you can a make movie with lots of sensuality and sexisness without any explicit scenes, nudity or creepy stuff.

I don't think anything can beat Reply 1988.
It has all types: Brothers, Sisters, Brother-Sister, Old Brother-Kid Sister.
And, they are all so real and key to the series.

It achieves its goal as a tearjerker. It made me cry.
But, it is fairly ordinary other than that.
6/10.

BFI Player has fairly large collection of Japanese movies, but the overhwlming majority are very old/old.
It costs £4.99 a month.

MUBI also has some Japanese movies that are newer, but much less on offer, and it costs around £10 a month I think.

There are a lot of unbelievable decisions made by characters.
While I liked very much what the show was going for and with its set-up, I don't think the writer was successful in creating believable reasons for the actions in a lot of situations.

Any news on the release date?

Fantastic set-up (especially the hierarchy) and great set design, but only decent execution, in most departments, so the show never really fulfill its promise.
I felt the biggest weakness of it is the writing. It was a bit too chaotic and all over the place.
I didn't feel it was paced well. Games were boring, but infused with some brutal violence.
Many might disagree with me, but the violence here is MUCH MUCH worse than Squid Game.
SG violence was overwhelmingly gun shots in a very "business like" manner. Here, it is personal with basic weapons inflecting serious pain.
The actions of characters were often hard to understand as well.
Last episode was a letdown from about the middle with a sequence of events that didn't make sense.
The show also failed to get me emotionally invested (apart from deep hatred towards 6 & 8)
But, let me end on a positive note.
I really loved the presentation of hierarchy, power dynamics, power play, and a whole bunch of other social and economical comments. It also had some good tense moments.
I was mildly entertained by it, but, it will go down as missed opportunity mainly.
6.5/10

I must say in advance that I don't vibe a lot with Cdramas. I dropped many of them, and the two I finished got 5.5, and 6. The biggest issue for me was after very strong start they keep declining.

But, I have decided to give this a chance because I like time loops.
I certainly enjoyed this one, and some episodes were really very good. The main actors had great chemistry as well.
But, I felt it was longer than it needed to be. I think 11 episodes would have been sufficient. Also, the last few episodes were really hard to believe. Some of the actions and interactions between characters were too unbelievable.
The Police, in general, was hit and miss. Sometimes they made perfect sense, but sometimes I was thinking there is no way Police would interact like this with civilians.
Overall, the early episodes were better written and much more believable.
But, despite all my objections, I was entertained, and engaged very much with the story.
I was going to give it 8, but I didn't buy a lot of what they were selling me towards the end.
So, final score 7.5/10

P.S: I would like to have some of that melon, and the Policewoman in blue is cute :)

I didn't rate Squid Game 2, and I will not rate it.
I rate only series that I have finished.
I am STRONGLY against rating something you haven't seen.
I was just voicing my feelings. I will never agree to rating something low without watching it.

But, I do have very strong opinion against multiple seasons, and I wish they fail, because once they become the norm, you will start to have very few new series. Now we have very high number of new series, and people can always find something to watch.
But if multi-seasons system become the norm you will keep seeing the same series with one season after another.

Well, I want it to flop because Netflix is making multiple seasons because people are watching them.
Netflix (and other platforms) doesn't care whether something is good or bad. All what it cares about whether people will watch or not. If Netflix get the message that Kdrama viewers don't like multiple seasons, then it will not make them.
And, I think myself (and PrettyCat Eyes) have already mentioned why we think multiple seasons are bad. You don't have to agree, but those are the reasons.

As to your second point.
If a series has been phenomenal, then its continuation is most likely make it bad or average by the end of those seasons (unless this has already been planned and announced, not artifically extended because of success). You had something great, cherish it and saviour it.

Of course there are always exceptions. Nothing is absolute.
Personally, I have never watched Sweet Home, and I won't watch any of the sequels.
The only one I might consider is "Extraordinary Attorney Woo" because that is just slice of life and episodic in nature. So, there is some room for a sequel. But, even if I end up watching, one extra season is the absolute maximum.
I am well aware that I am in minority. I think people will keep watching. And my frustration and fear is that Korean companies will start adopting this system because it is cheaper. They are already struggling against Netflix and other American platforms.
So, in few years, the Kdrama scene will be very much like American, just with Korean actors. And thus losing the thing that made it unique in the first place.

There is BIG difference between "Squid Game" haters and haters of mindless sequels.
I rated "Squid Game" 9.5/10. If you check my watch list ratings, this is one of my absolute top series. And I consider E6 one of the best TV episodes I have ever seen.
But, I hate these sequels that are completely needless, and they will keep doing them until the series which was once great become a parody of itself.

Well, I won't watch it. That is given.
But, I suppose my point is if there is something introduced (regardless of the field) and you really hate it, then you wish for it to fail.
I seriously think the artifical milking of series is very bad, and therefore I wish for it to fail.
But, I don't believe it is "next level pitiful". But, if you feel that way, then that is your right as well.

P.S: The only good thing is that the writer and director hopefully got paid some good money this time.

I passionately hope it will flop.
I loved "Squid Game", but it has already finished as far as I am concerned.
I just hate this endless milking of series. But, sadly, people will keep watching.
See you in the comment sections of Squid Game 8, Sweet Home9, Bloodhound 7, All of Us Dead 6, ete etc etc.
Just give it few years and all you will see numbers next to series names.
I am SO frustrated by this!

Interesting article, and I actually think your answer is well balanced.
(My only unhappiness is asking me to come up with a solution. I am not a writer, and this is not my job. I feel it is a bit unreasonable )

Now, we can discuss whether 2 or 4 were met, but I don't think it will change a lot because it is a matter of opinion.
I think even you acknowledge how convenient and last minute it was whether it was DEM or not.
But, I will meet you somewhere down the road, maybe not in the middle though haha. The solution had some sort of plausibility. It wasn't completely ridiculous, or outright bad.
My initial response remains though that the solution is not clever. Maybe I have different definition of that word, but to me a clever is something above average, and not many people can come up with.
I don't believe the solution was such.

But, I am the first to acknowledge that this is art, and it is subjective. We are not solving equations here.
So, I have no problems if someone thinks it is a clever, or even genius solution. I am merely stating that I don't believe so :)

I am sorry, but did you read all my post?
I said I liked it a lot, and it is very good.

I didn't say it wasn't good. I said the solution was not clever. These are two very different things.

I beg to differ. I don't think it is clever at all.
It is pure and simple Deus Ex Machina. Most of us could have come up with something similiar. To be fair, this writer is not unique in doing this though.
Sometimes writers get themselves in a such difficult position to solve something, the only way they can do it is by introducing something extremly late in the story out of nowhere that perfectly solve all their problems.

I have no problem if people loved the way it was done. Good for them, but it is NOT clever. A clever would have been to find a way with what we already have.

By the way, I liked the series a lot, and I thought it was very good, but that doesn't mean I have zero issues with it.

lol..talk about bespoke superpower lol.

It wasn't bad ending. And certainly was surprising.
However, it wasn't very satsfying either for me at least.
I actually would have preferred it if they kept him dead instead of producing a child with incredible power just to get out of the bind. I would have applauded the courage of conviction.
Ideally, I wish they had found a better way, but it is OK.
I am almost convinced that if this was up to the writer, she would have left him dead, but knowing how negatively the overwhelming majority would react to a sad ending, they waved a magical wand in the very last few minutes.

All that said, I throughly enjoyed the uniquness of the series, and had a good time with it.