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  • Last Online: Apr 7, 2024
  • Gender: Female
  • Location: Seattle (USA)
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  • Join Date: May 4, 2021

Turtle Stomper

Seattle (USA)

Turtle Stomper

Seattle (USA)
Completed
Man to Man
1 people found this review helpful
Jul 18, 2021
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed 3
Overall 5.0
Story 5.0
Acting/Cast 5.0
Music 1.0
Rewatch Value 1.0
This review may contain spoilers

I haven't got enough disbelief to suspend to make this thing enjoyable.

SO...clearly a lot of people put a lot of effort into making this drama, and I fully respect that effort. However, this drama was pretty poorly executed. The story was long and drawn out with lots of inconsistencies and super slow parts. I think the flaw though was the role written for the female lead. It's pretty incompatible with the role written for the male lead. There didn't seem to be a lot of chemistry between the female and male lead, I believe the issue is primarily in the way the script depicted them both.

While the story is standard enough, a spy who falls in love and wants to give up the spy life to pursue love, it's the love part that is its downfall. The spy is pretty clever and does all sorts of clever spy things....but the female lead is portrayed as a complete simpering idiot.....not in a loveable way, in a pretty obnoxious way. She seems to have a few skills and they could have made her pretty clever too, but instead they have her be an obnoxious, judgy, lovesick, bimbo...and it's pretty annoying to watch. There doesn't really seem to be anything in her personality or appearance that the spy would be able to fall in love with, especially not in the represented timeframe. She's basic as shit.

When you start with a flawed premise, the things that follow become flawed as well...the viewer is expected to suspend disbelief not only with the normal spy never dies and overcomes all odds shit, but also with the main love premise of the show, it's too much. I don't think casting a different female lead would have made a difference, I think the material she was given to work with was inherently flawed.

The side characters were actually pretty well written. Dark Death and his long lost love were both very fun to watch and their interactions were stellar....though her suddenly being accepted and taken into confidence by her estraned bad guy husband was a little hard to believe. The male spy handler dude was pretty well written as well and provided the only highly limited comic relief in this dry inconsistent drama.

Overall, I would not recommend this drama over most of the dramas I've seen and I for sure would never force myself to slog through it again. 5-stars might be too high, but I wanted to at least respect the effort that went into makingit.

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Completed
Whisper
1 people found this review helpful
May 30, 2021
17 of 17 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 6.0
Story 5.0
Acting/Cast 7.0
Music 1.0
Rewatch Value 1.0
This review may contain spoilers

Dude, UR screwed. No, UR screwed. UR even more screwed! UR INFINITYx1000 SCREWED NO BACKS!

50% of this drama is "all opposing groups meet coincidentally in a hallway and stare each other down for 5 minutes". The other 50% is split between them bragging to each other about their forthcoming actions/upper hand and political strategizing. With that sort of script, it's pretty difficult to pull off an epic drama. Still, the actors were at least marginally not terrible and the plot line is interesting enough to follow even if there are slow points where you read Buzzfeed instead of the subtitles. I rated it as a 6, but I don't know what sort of person I'd recommend it to.

The male lead is really good at looking sullen, sulky, pissed off, and occasionally sad...but most of the time he's an unreadable blank wall. That's sort of his style though, and it seems to work for him with this character. The two female leads did fairly well at their respective roles, even with not much script support. There was a heck of a lot of gloating from every one of the main players, it got a little old to watch at some point. Sometimes it made sense, they would gloat to force their opponent to take action that would create a vulnerability, but more often than not the gloating just caused their own party pain in the end. They basically shit talk at each other constantly for 16 episodes. The rapey premise for the two leads working together was a little difficult to justify, it seemed like a pretty long stretch and I think they could have found a better plot gimmick to fix the two together.

The story seems to switch back and forth between three basic groups of people, each one having the upper hand at times. They all seem pretty hell bent on mutual destruction. It bothered me a lot that they were willing to kill off people that got in their way...but not the two main leads. That made zero sense to me...like these two righteous shit heads keep messing up your plans and you...just sit back and watch it happen? Idk...if you're gonna murder anyhow why not murder the people actually in your way? I did, however, like that the male and female leads were opposed for the first many episodes, each basically forcing the other to behave as they needed, it was a fun dynamic. But then...that's what everyone in this drama does...the entire thing is people forcing other people to do shitty things. I think that made it a bit overkill...like it worked for the two main leads, but when everyone else is doing it constantly too it just loses its impact.

Overall, I don't exactly regret watching it, I managed to eek a few moments of enjoyment out of it...but it's not something I would ever be able to make it through again. It tried to be much smarter than it was capable of being. Also, I'd like to know wtf kind of fishing poles they have in Korea that you can stab a person through the middle with them.

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Completed
Stranger
1 people found this review helpful
May 4, 2021
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 10
Story 10
Acting/Cast 10
Music 4.0
Rewatch Value 10
This review may contain spoilers

Amazing performance by lead actor!

This k-drama has a non-typical lead actor. He's not unrealistically attractive, he's sort of short, and he's awfully understated in his movements/speech. I absolutely fell in love with the weird little dude after watching this drama. There's a presence and force that he has when acting that is really fascinating to watch and this character really played to those strengths. His character in this drama is almost mousey; he's shy, reserved, bowing, almost like background noise. But hiding behind his unassuming presence is a masterful powerhouse of skilled orchestration. It was utterly compelling to watch this character navigate the events and complications throughout this drama.

The female lead is similar, she's not your typical k-drama female lead; she doesn't look like a fashion doll came to life to spit lines out on the screen. She is perfectly paired with the male lead, they have such an understated but powerful chemistry together. Her impetuous forcefulness plays so well against his composed reservation. Her character's idiosyncrasies and lone wolf tendencies really fit well with the male character's personality, they feel like they are different representations of the same person, like they just GET each other, like soul mates. Whoever cast this show is a genius.

Apart from the characters/acting, this show actually did a really great job intertwining the various mysteries, bleeding discoveries out slowly and tying everything together at the end in a way that made every single part of the story suddenly even more relevant than you'd previously realized. It was all super masterfully done.

I'd for sure watch this show again because I feel like in all of the various plot threads there were probably little things here and there that I missed or that would play out differently if I watched them with knowledge of the ending in mind.

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Completed
Fated to Love You
1 people found this review helpful
May 4, 2021
20 of 20 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 7.5
Story 8.0
Acting/Cast 10
Music 4.0
Rewatch Value 4.0
This review may contain spoilers

If you watch nothing else, watch the first 5 minutes of this show

So I came to this drama a little late, I've seen the lead actor in lots of other shows and think he's incredible so I pulled this drama off his acting credits and decided to give it a shot even though it didn't sound appealing at all from the synopsis. Everything prior I'd seen this guy in was more recent, in my mind he's a hot middle aged intelligent actor, not a thirst trap. In this show he's 100% a thirst trap. Holy god is he a thirst trap. Like I can't even believe it's the same actor level of thirst. The scene he does at the start of the first episode should just be a standalone movie by itself. /drool

Apart from the first scene, the drama went along fairly well and had lots of good comedy. The lead actress is fine, the supporting characters are fine, but the male lead really carries the entire show. He brings such intelligence and depth to his comedy, even when depicting someone shallow and superficial. It's like there's an inside joke he has with himself and it makes his performance really seem like he's a dude that has life figured out and is in on the cosmic joke of it all.

I don't think I'd rewatch this (apart from the first 5 minutes cause wtf a girl's gotta live life somewhere) simply because the story is sort of 1-and-done with not a lot of nuance to glean from future viewings. But I'm definitely glad I watched it.

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Completed
Misaeng: Incomplete Life
2 people found this review helpful
Aug 2, 2021
20 of 20 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 8.5
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 9.0
Music 5.0
Rewatch Value 1.0
This review may contain spoilers

The Art of War meets The Office

After hearing so many references to Misaeng in other Kdramas, I decided I'd better give it a go. The synopsis sounded so boring, but my watch list was getting slim anyhow so it's not like I had options. Boy was I surprised by how much I liked this drama! It's SO well done! Every single character is well written, consistent, and interesting. The acting of the male lead was a privilege to watch, little dude expressed the emotions of his character so well you could feel everything the character was supposed to be feeling.

I related a lot to some of the plot points, though the job market is different here in the US, it's definitely difficult without enough education (or education from the right schools), so I've gone through similar experiences and thought the emotions and ideas represented were rather consistent with my own experiences. The interactions between the characters, more than anything else, made this drama exceptional. From their facial expressions to their petty disputes, every single one of them did such a great job playing the roles they were given. I especially liked how random things they'd say would help the other person solve a tough problem, they all felt like they had such solid synergy.

I will say, my one disappointment with this drama (and it's something a whole lot of kdramas are guilty of) is that they start with one plot device and then drop it toward the end. In this case, it was the male lead's tendency to strategize and relate everything back to baduk. In the earlier and middle episodes everything the little dude did had some grand strategy behind it, sometimes he won, sometimes he lost, but it was all part of his strategy. Toward the end, though, they really drop that piece out entirely and suddenly nothing is defined and explained in terms of baduk anymore really. Like...I get that it was part of his growth to learn how his strategies result in sometimes devastatingly negative situations and that thinking about people as humans rather than opponents is the point of his progression...but I don't see any reason why he would pretty much completely drop his in-depth analysis of his endless strategies after getting burned a few times. In the beginning he was always trying to learn and improve his strategies, but toward the end he just let everything wash over him without much impact or growth. I didn't feel like that fit in with his character very well.

The ending is rather predictable because that particular company's office situation was not sustainable, which they mention frequently....but I still liked the ending. It got a bit obscure, but I liked the outcomes for the characters.

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Completed
Meow, the Secret Boy
2 people found this review helpful
May 4, 2021
24 of 24 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 5.0
Story 4.0
Acting/Cast 5.0
Music 1.0
Rewatch Value 1.5
This review may contain spoilers

Another taboo romance...this time with a cat!

Straight up I have no idea what I was thinking when I clicked play on this Kdrama. Like...it was ok, I enjoyed it well enough....but holy crap is it weird. The entire time I was watching this (and for some time after) I was like...how weird would it be if my cat could turn human cause like he's seen EVERY side of me...I can't even go to the bathroom without this little turd.

That said, this drama is pretty shallow easy entertainment. I didn't hate it. I wouldn't watch it again, but I don't regret watching it. The storyline isn't terrible. The acting is average. The whole thing is average.

But seriously....the basic theme is that she loves the dude whether he's a cat or a human. DO YOU ROMANTICALLY LOVE YOUR CAT? CAUSE I SURE DON'T. I really tried to justify the theme like...ok I mean I've watched dramas with 9-tailed foxes that are in human form and how is that different. But it definitely FEELS different. It's a housecat. She's in love with her housecat.

They did make a few good jokes about themselves in this drama's script, I especially like the one about the litter box cause for sure that was a question I had rolling around in my head as well. Those sorts of logistical issues were basically all I thought about when watching this drama. Like...is there a cool down period between when dude was a cat, used the litter box, and cleaned himself off and when he is a human and you kissed him. Like...when he turns human does it also wipe away any residue that might be left on his tongue?

Overall, I'd recommend this drama if you're high and want to contemplate the bigger mysteries of life (like whether or not you'd swap spit with a cat). But otherwise...idk, there are probably better drama options out there.

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Completed
Sisyphus: The Myth
2 people found this review helpful
May 4, 2021
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 9.0
Story 10
Acting/Cast 6.0
Music 3.0
Rewatch Value 3.0
This review may contain spoilers

The story is great...but the wrong male lead was selected for this role

I'm rating this show super high because the story was so masterfully done. Every single plot thread mixes into this gorgeous tapestry of mystery and suspense. The story plays like a well written sci-fi novel and it's amazing. The lead actress is incredible in this role, she does an exceptional job navigating her character and is a 100% badass. I absolutely loved her in this and loved the role they wrote her into.

That said, the male lead was not the right choice for this role I think. His performance felt awkward and out of place. It felt like his character from Stranger straining to be something grander and more extroverted and there were many times I felt like his character absolutely did not belong in the story at all. I've seen the guy in other things from before Stranger, and basically I think Stranger ruined him. Like he's 100% the right guy for Stranger and I love him so much in that role...but now every other role kind of feels like the character from Stranger. IDK how he breaks away from that, but I hope he does cause it's painfully awkward to watch the guy in some of the scenes. It's almost like he's a semi-retarded child being led around by goddess. I'm 100% the guy's fan, but I would have enjoyed this drama a lot more with a different nerdy engineer male lead.

I would, even so, watch this drama again because the story was so exceptional and it's always fun to watch a chick kick butt.

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Completed
Hello, Me!
2 people found this review helpful
May 4, 2021
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 6.5
Story 6.5
Acting/Cast 6.5
Music 3.0
Rewatch Value 5.0
This review may contain spoilers

Relatable female life comedy.

I should start by saying the fake freckles on this actress are a little distracting in some scenes. The actress I've liked since Queen of Mystery, she's got a really unique look and voice. She did really well in this role, and the comedy was totally on-point for female-specific life experiences. The male lead...I can't even remember his face and I only watched this show a few weeks ago. He was very forgettable, but I guess that's ok because this story is mostly about the woman and her experiences as she traverses a life that really didn't live up to her own expectations of herself.

That being said, this was not as fun or as memorable as I had hoped it would be. The lead actress often just comes off as whiny and ditzy. I would have liked to see something other than a panic induced high-pitched whine session from the main character in every single episode. It was CONSTANT episode after episode two chicks bickering. SO MUCH BICKERING. And 90% of the bickering wasn't comedy. There was plenty of lol moments, but definitely a lot more whiny bickering.

I think it's still a good watch when you're out of other things to watch, but I definitely would never rewatch this drama. I got all I'm going to get out of it...which is disappointing because I was really looking forward to it.

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Completed
Mouse
2 people found this review helpful
May 23, 2021
20 of 20 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 9.0
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 9.0
Music 2.0
Rewatch Value 6.0
This review may contain spoilers

They got me....over and over....

Man....the first time they really got me in this show was in like episode 4. It's really hard to get me, usually I am like 500 miles in front of any plot twist. But, they are suuuuper mean in this drama and intentionally mislead you at the end of almost every episode, so you spend like 80% of your time watching the drama like WTF IS EVEN HAPPENING OMFG I AM SO LOST. There are a lot of moving players in this drama, so it's difficult at first to keep track of everything. Those mean suckers use it to their advantage and at the end of Episode 4 they make you think Ba Reum has the little boy hostage. OMFG...I was SO PISSED. I was like...nooo why you take this sweetheart and turn him into the bad guy in episode MF 4?!!? I should have known then that I was in for a bumpy ride. They bring it all together as the drama progresses....but everything gets a lot more sci-fi than I had expected.

Its still taking me some effort to get past the major gimmick of this drama. I won't spoiler it for you, but I was like....this some serious sci-fi BS right here. Except... nothing else in the drama is sci-fi at all. So like...it doesn't mesh well in my brain to only have that one weird "technological advancement" that the entire drama is centered around when it's so far outside the realm of possibility in the modern world setting. I think fantasy/sci-fi dramas work best when they have multiple outside-of-reality plot points.

I will say this....maybe skip this drama if you are soft hearted about pets being brutally murdered. Like ok, they put a disclaimer that it's not real and the pets are fine...but you can only watch so many puppies and kittens and birds and mice be slaughtered and still be ok, even knowing they're CG. I had to cover my eyes a few times so only the subtitles showed because I just didn't want another dead puppy in my brain. It's weird right? Like you could show me piles of dead bodies on TV and I'll be like...oh so it's a murder show. But show me one dead puppy and I'm like... YOU GD MF BASTARDS HOW TF YOU KILL A CUTE LITTLE PUPPY WTF. Aside from the general human gore, the only other disturbing thing I saw in this drama is that Lee Hee-Jun (older detective lead) has one nostril like SIGNIFICANTLY larger than the other. ....there were a lot of up-nose shots of the poor dude.

Overall, if you can tolerate the gore, this was an exceptionally well done crime thriller drama. The acting was across the board well done (except that one weird scene from the past with english speaking actors who were all so bad it made me physically cringe...the valley girl they had in the wheelchair who was supposed to have CP delivered some of the worst acting I have seen in my entire life...that whole segment should just be axed it was so hard to watch). The writers and directors did a super great job stitching together such a compelling twist filled narrative that managed to keep multiple plot threads all woven together without any significant plot holes or tangles. Definitely one of the better detective crime thriller K-dramas I've watched. Masterfully coordinated.

I'll probably rewatch this at some point, in a year or two after I've forgotten most of the finer plot points so that I can relive some of the anxiety induced WTF IS GOING ON HERE moments.

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Completed
Vincenzo
2 people found this review helpful
May 6, 2021
20 of 20 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 10
Story 10
Acting/Cast 10
Music 10
Rewatch Value 10
This review may contain spoilers

Don’t play with your food, just eat it.

This drama was so so good. The production values are high, the actors are great, the special effects are great, and even the music is exceptionally well done! There’s comedy, light romance, action, big brain strats, lots of plot, and plenty of gimmicks. It’s one of the most well produced dramas I’ve seen.

However...two things bother me.

1) the lead actor is incredibly hot but how TF he sometimes looks like a 15 year old kid wearing his daddy’s suit while others he def looks mid 30s?? And I’m not talking flashbacks to teen years, it’s every episode and sometimes it alternates like several times a minute. IS HE A MAN OR IS HE A BOY??? Did they CG his face to look like a child angel sometimes for lols??

2) how TF does he keep getting his lighter back. Dude throws his keepsake lighter away constantly and yet somehow he always has it five minutes later when he needs to flip it open and closed to look slightly more badass.

Seriously though, the acting in this drama is so well done. The lead chick is hilarious, the lead devil chick is so full of personality, all the actors were so good. And of course the leading dude is really well done. Tiiiny pet peeve with him sometimes seeming to drop character, acting in a way that seems slightly out of character for his role, but tbh I think that’s the writers’ error. Like sometimes they make him do/say things that don’t actually fit with his established personality, but not often enough to define the variances as parts of his core personality...so they seem out of place.

The lead antagonist (and dude there are a LOT of antagonists in this show, it has a HUGE cast) was perfectly cast into his role. He speaks in English a lot and thank you god they went with an actor who has actually lived in America and can talk without a thick accent. It bothered me a lot in other dramas (like Mr. Sunshine) where the character supposedly grew up in America but his accent was so thick and his pronunciation so bad it totally broke immersion. In Vincenzo, however, they did it right and the lead antagonist’s English is perfectly pronounced and sexy as shit.

Overall, this drama is definitely worth watching and rewatching, it has so much depth you’re sure to see something new every time you watch it. ...and let’s be real, there’s never gonna be a situation where you’ve had enough of Song Joong-Ki’s angelic eyes.

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Completed
Strongest Deliveryman
1 people found this review helpful
Jan 21, 2022
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 3.0
Story 3.0
Acting/Cast 5.0
Music 1.0
Rewatch Value 1.0
This review may contain spoilers

The only redeeming quality of this drama is Kim Seon Ho's laugh talking.

I was pretty hopeful going into this drama, and it started off ok, but for me the entire script was weighed down by really gross and unclean feeling behavior by almost every character. That's no reflection on the actors, who clearly tried their best...but the script is actual trash. I will say though, Kim Seon Ho is really fun to watch in almost every show. Little dude does this really pleasant laugh/talk combination that just makes him super likeable even when he's playing a dick or, like in this drama, a whiny entitled little crybaby.

My biggest issue with this drama, apart from the arguably weak plot hooks, is the cringe behavior of most of the characters. You've got the rich whiny dude, the rich rapey hyper-agressive immature chick (probably the best character in the show tbh, from a comedy perspective), the physically abusive FL, and the domineering-under-the-guise-of-being-helpful ML. Of them all the ML got the worst character in the script. It was gross how he forced his own personal beliefs on how people should live onto literally everyone he met. It was gross when his interactions with the FL lead turned from sweet to controlling. It was gross when he forced people to behave in ways he deemed appropriate, even when they asked him to stop. It was gross when he was allowed to behave poorly and get mad but chastised the FL lead for doing the same. The whole thing got super cringe super fast, which was disappointing because the interactions in the first part of the show seemed so healthy.

I couldn't get into this show...I almost stopped multiple times, but I have a disease where I want to finish whatever I've started...so I dropped several more hours into the frustrating and honestly offensive world these poor characters had to exist in. And I'm not talking about oppression and poverty, I'm talking about unhealthy, unsustainable behaviors that are morally questionable but try to force viewers to accept these same behaviors as some sort of pinnacle of humanity.

In the end, I regret wasting my time a little bit. I can appreciate the effort from the cast and crew, but the script was pretty banal and cringe, so what's the even point.

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Completed
The Guardians
1 people found this review helpful
Nov 20, 2021
32 of 32 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 7.5
Story 7.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 9.0
Rewatch Value 1.0
This review may contain spoilers

Nose whistles, bird chirps, this drama has it all!

Dude....the emotional parlor tricks at the end of the last episode...why do kdrama directors hate us so much. Like dude, I've already watched 31.5 episodes, do you really need to plant your hook so deep to ensure I watch the last 15 minutes? IDK, it was a dark but reasonably well done drama. The actors were all so pretty, so it was fun to watch. There was nothing super innovative about it, it's a pretty cliche topic. But I guess that's not a bad thing, it felt familiar while still being just different enough that it was worth watching.

The acting was decent, although some of the bad guys were pretty one-note stoic, which was a little weird. The Police Team Leader chick was pretty killer. Her emotional range is really broad and her brisk but assertive tonality in her line delivery really makes me believe the character she's trying to sell. They did an exceptional job with the casting, outside of those few I mentioned before.

Some parts genuinely bother me. Like if you spend 29 episodes making these heroes seem like geniuses, how in the last 3 episodes do they suddenly become ineffective half-waits that suddenly can't solve simple problems. Did they all take idiot pills at the end of episode 29 and I just missed it? Lazy lazy writing to end a story using an easy excuse. Really annoyed with that. The other thing that bothered me is that some of the soundscape noises just aren't right. The birds outside from inside the church were one of the worst offenders. They did, however, manage to catch every inhale, exhale, and nose whistle. This is probably the only show I've ever seen where I hear one of the main leads nose whistle faintly a lot when they breathe. I think I should have used less sensitive speaker settings.

One thing that stood out impressively in this drama was the OST. Some of those songs really stick in your head and the action scene songs really set the stage and pull you into the excitement.

Overall, it's pretty good, worth a watch, not excellent but not every drama needs to be excellent.

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Completed
D.P.
1 people found this review helpful
Sep 23, 2021
6 of 6 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 8.0
Story 8.0
Acting/Cast 9.0
Music 7.0
Rewatch Value 1.0
This review may contain spoilers

Crying Through Inhumanity...if you laughed during this drama, just straight uninstall your brain.

The acting in this drama was very well done on all counts, especially the lead and his eventual partner. Whoever titled their drama review "laughing through the misery",,,or something similar to that....is a legit barbarian. This show was immensely depressing and raw, there might have been a few mildly funny moments from the lead's partner, but for the most part it just piles depressing circumstances upon depressing circumstances. I legit hate the things men do to each other in this drama. It's worse than a prison drama. The intense bullying, abuse, and violent depravity made me angry and disappointed, yet again, with the depths to which humanity will sink if allowed. Joy, humor, comradery...these were all dim candles ruthlessly snuffed out by the writer as the events unfolded.

The storytelling was very good, even if the subject was miserable. The pace of the episodes is perfect, the stories have sufficient detail and background to be meaningful even in such a short format by KDrama standards. The overarching theme, apart from commentary on the S.Korean military system, was essentially about the battle to retain some semblance of humanity in the middle of inhumane torment. In the end, the system they were stuck in gave them little opportunity to achieve that goal, and instead they were continuously losing battles in which honor and dignity were weak cards in a doomed hand that stood no chance against opportunistic torment.

I wouldn't watch this again. It was horrible to see the extent of the bullying and I'd rather just pretend people don't actually treat each other that way. I hope Kdramas like this, and all the ones about school bullying, eventually drive change so that people don't have to ever face situations like these. In watching the drama, I hope in some small way I add my one tiny voice to the litany of people screaming in outrage at a system that would allow even a fraction of this inhumanity. I think it's important for these stories to be told, and I think it's important that people are brave enough to tell them.

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Completed
Hyena
1 people found this review helpful
May 31, 2021
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 9.5
Story 9.5
Acting/Cast 10
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 10
This review may contain spoilers

Horrendous sideburns aside, this drama was INTENSE in the best possible ways.

NGL, I skipped over this drama soooo many times because the female lead's hairstyle just looked so ugly with those weird chunky sideburns. I know that's a stupid reason to skip a drama...but dudes, they are like a toupee for her ears. It grew on me though, after awhile...or at the very least it stopped bothering me. Once I did finally start watching this drama I was floored by how great the acting and chemistry between the two leads is. The story is also super engaging and entertaining, especially in the first several episodes where the leads are essentially enemies. Their interactions were intense and clever and so so funny. They both have exceptional facial expressions and know how to use their eyes to deftly convey messages without words. The female lead, especially, dude she shoots harpoons from her eye holes...not daggers, literal harpoons. She's SO intense. Although, with all that badass intensity it was pretty hilarious to see her walking around with a grandma level phone chain.

The side characters were also all extremely well done, each had a very distinct presence and well defined reactions. The acting in this drama is impressively coordinated. I mean...not to play favorites too much but any comedy with Jun Suk Ho and/or Hwang Bo Ra is going to be hilarious as a given, those two are stellar at supporting character comedy. But really, all the comedic side characters were so well performed down to the lowest screen time thug. Whoever cast this drama did an amazing job.

I will say...there were several points where I wasn't sure if the male lead was maybe having seizures. Like most of his body comedy is really funny, but every once in awhile he'll do something that seems...well...like he's got Tourette's. Like episode 4 at about 41:20. What is he EVEN doing with his face there. I was 900% sure he was having a stroke (at this point in my review I popped out and googled him a little to make sure he wasn't actually having a stroke cause it would be pretty mean for me to poke fun at that right). I just cannot figure it out at all...like I guess if it's not a "oops I have brain damage" plot twist, then he must have been trying to express annoyance or...hold in his anger? IDK. It was SUPER strange though. Like if he were actually having a medical issue they would have refilmed or cut that segment right? So it must have been intentional? IRL if you see someone do that...idk wouldn't you ask him if he's ok? Like she just doesn't even seem to notice his face is spazzing out in the middle of delivering a serious line. I'm still astonished tbh.

The OST was also really well done, however I was super confused when I looked up the OST online because it felt like the songs listed weren't the songs I was hearing. The OST you'll find online is all filled with lovey dovey slow songs, but the actual music in the drama has so many upbeat and badass lyrical songs. This is the first drama where I haven't been able to find all of the soundtrack songs on Spotify/Youtube/etc. I'm a huge fan of dramas that use the OST to amplify the story being told, and this drama did it so so well.

I would 100% watch this drama again just to see the great character development and the intense interaction of the exceptional lead actors. ...maybe it was gagging? Based on his dialogue at that moment, he says she disgusts him right after he makes that face...maybe he was like...idk trying to gag? Like to show how disgusted he was? If that's the case, dude needs to seriously eat or smell something disgusting in front of a mirror so he can understand what disgust actually looks like...to prevent himself from having seizures on screen in the future XD

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Completed
I'm Not a Robot
1 people found this review helpful
May 26, 2021
32 of 32 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 7.0
Story 6.0
Acting/Cast 7.0
Music 3.0
Rewatch Value 1.0
This review may contain spoilers

The eyebrow gods have intervened!

The front end of this drama is pretty funny, lots of easy laughs and funny interactions. The back end makes you feel like a bit of an asshole for laughing at some of the things that happened in the first half. The latter probably 10 episodes have far less comedy and far more drama, which is pretty common I've noticed in K-Drama comedies. Sometimes they bring you back to high comedy at the end, this one kind of brings you back to this sort of fragile mild comedy, which sort of mirrors the kind of fragile new beginnings state of all the character's lives toward the end.

The script itself wasn't mind blowingly impressive, but it did the job well enough. The acting was pretty solid from most characters, though some of the side characters had pretty weak story arcs to work with. OMG the American/English speaking acting was horrible. Like ok....toward the end there's this one scene with this big sort of grey haired, stocky, Richard Branson looking bad guy and he opens the crate to see the robot isn't in it and he screams "WHAT THE HELL" and throws his body backward in shock....but his dead eyes stay 100% dead no expression or emotion....not like in a cool way but in sort of a "braindead but my body is moving" way. It was the hardest scene to watch and the MFers play that thing TWICE....so much cringe. The English speaking (non-Korean) actors were all pretty much like that. It ends up really highlighting how Koreans in dramas act with their eyes masterfully. Even the tiniest Korean part in a Kdrama has such huge emotion poured into it....but not in an over-acted sort of way, more like in a way that's multi-dimensional and feels relevant to real life.

The two lead actors are super cute and fun to watch together. The lead male actor impressively has his eyebrows under control in this drama. He seems to have extreme OMFG THERES A HAMSTER ON YOUR FACE level eyebrows in a lot of the dramas he's in. So it was nice to be able to focus more on his beautiful eyes and less on the bushy caterpillars dancing around his forehead. The lead female actress is super pretty and does well with emotions and comedy even though they've written her part like every boring K-drama female trope...she definitely did a lot with what they gave her to work with.

Overall, there's no reason to rewatch this drama, it was definitely worth an initial watch though. I skipped over it several times cause it sounded so boring, but it ended up being plenty entertaining and I never felt like "omg another 10 episodes to go".

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