Totally engaging. Fast paced. It’s over before you know it. And leaves you wanting more. Or imagining your own story of what’s next.
Fantastic ensemble acting. Every single character occupied their space and interacted with the other characters so well.
I enjoyed the mix of gritty realism with the somewhat comic like monsters and scenarios. It felt like it came from a manga or Webtoon,, in a good, entertaining way, while giving characters who were so compelling that you’re attached before you know it,
Liu Yu Ning really steals the show. His is the best written character and he performs it so well. LeYan is second best character in terms of development and their pairing is fantastic.
First of all... Check out the spoiler box, because you are literally spoiling the end to everyone...Second, you…
I suppose it could be interpreted that way. But, he shot himself in the head. I thought he was just having last thoughts before heading into the light.
Well executed makjang farce with anti-hero theme. Great ensemble comedy. Wonderful acting jobs. A theme we don’t hear often enough: if the infrastructure of a society will not embrace and provide justice, there will be those who will rise up to righteously mete out what they can.
Han tae sul is genius inventor who invents a machine which can sort of teleport things to different time and space.…
I think we are agreeing on that. I was trying to work out if there was a plausible explanation for how Sigma would have sent the nuclear missile back in time, if there had been no war originally. But, I can’t make that plausible. In the original timeline, he’s a down and out artist who has no money and no social power. How would he have gotten into the position to send a nuclear warhead back in time, if the society hadn’t been completely upended by a nuclear war? So, yes, there had to be a war in the first place, for the story to exist. Yet, if there had been, that war was launched when the uploader had only existed for one day and Sigma was a nobody. So, what caused it? If I’m traveling back in time, I’d be looking at international politics and how to change that dynamic.
On your comment about US/UN, etc. The US is the one who has turned S Korea into a nuclear state. And, if you look at the history, the US was just fine bombing every city on the Korean Peninsula during the not-Korean War. (It was really a war between Russia and the US.) we leveled the entire peninsula. No one has seen that magnitude of destruction before or since. (Well, maybe Syria, now, which were also involved in.) The UN has never stopped a US military incursion. It can’t. We have overwhelming military might and we just ignore any objections. And we’ve spent decades demonizing N Korea, specifically so we have can claim justification for going back in and doing what we did in the 50s. Koreans have experienced it and it’s the thing which frightens them the most. The US has been adept at using this fear to turn N Korea into the bogeyman that S Korea needs us to protect them from. N Korea has never launched a first strike. Never. But, the history of what has happened on the peninsula makes the war scenario depicted here fit the S Korean storytelling norm.
Scene where we see Sigma upload a nuclear bomb to provoke war chain reaction.
But was there a war in the original timeline? If not, how did he go from lowly artist who can’t make a buck to man with enough power and resources to send a nuclear mission back in time and force a war that never occurred in the first place?
If there wasn’t a war, in the original timeline, how come Future Seo Hae doesn’t know that?
I don’t understand why anyone thinks Tae Sul is alive in the final airplane scene. He shot himself and died. All future trajectories were erased with action. We see everything reset to a concrete present, with no war. The future is now unknown, as people move forward. He didn’t leave them the uploader, so here couldn’t be more time travel after that.
Tae Sul is basically Sisyphus, who finally realizes that the only way to finally stop pushing the boulder uphill is to take himself out of the equation.
None of this explains, though, why the original war had anything to do with him or Sigma. In all the scenarios the uploader isn’t even created until the day before the war. So, how could it have been the catalyst? Sigma didn’t exist in the original timeline.
So, if you’re going back to prevent a war from killing 50mil people, shouldn’t there have been some research into what the original cause was? Time machine or not, something caused the launch of a nuclear conflict on the Korean Peninsula. That seems more important to figure out than whether HTS creates the uploader.
Han tae sul is genius inventor who invents a machine which can sort of teleport things to different time and space.…
Though, I will note that if we assume that everyone was lying about who set off the first nuclear missile, there may be a link between Sigma and the war.
If we assume that the uploader was created without a war happening, but that, somehow, Sigma got enough power to send that nuclear missile back in time....
But, I don’t see how the loser artist dude would have achieved enough success to be capable of that. (I saw someone suggest that he ends being the one to develop the uploader, but that makes no sense. All the most brilliant scientists couldn’t do it with without Tae Sul. So, I’m tossing that theory aside,) So, we’re back to needing to figure out how the original war started.
Because, really, the existence of time travel wasn’t the core problem. It was the death of 50mil people.
Han tae sul is genius inventor who invents a machine which can sort of teleport things to different time and space.…
How did the first war happen? That is the biggest plot hole in the story. Because the original war happened without Sigma. It had nothing to do with him. So, getting rid of him doesn’t change that.
It’s also not clear that it had anything to do with the time machine. Seems like the thing was invented days before the war.
If I were going back to figure out how to stop the war, I’d want to know the original cause. Yet, not once does anybody bring that up.
I also found it eye-rolling that they blamed nuclear disaster on N Korea.
While I completely get the anger over Chinese appropriation of Korean culture, I'll never understand the worship of monarchs. And to be upset that some historical monarch is not represented the way you think is historically correct in a fantasy fiction?
Why are people so enamored with authoritarian figures? No matter how relatively "progressive" you think that person may have been (and, let's be honest, history is documented and passed down by those in power, with a vested interested in presenting their ruling in the best possible light), he was still an authoritarian ruler. He didn't represent egalitarianism. He still followed the concept that his family should be in the seat of power.
Also, its one thing if the drama is presented at all, as though its factual. But, hello! Zombies and vampires. I don't think anyone would mistake this for a history lesson.
And to ruin the career of people over it. wow.
Though, I will say, that having Chinese sponsors influence the production and bring an overly Chinese representation to a Korean period piece is utterly offensive. Utterly. I hope no other Korean production company makes this mistake.
Still.... it.is.fiction. And it promised to be one of the more interesting stories to come out of S Korean TVland in a while. So. Sad.
I won't sign the Netflix petition, though, out of respect. I'm not a S Korean citizen and its their capitalist and nationalist history that they're speaking to. I'll leave that to them. I can just be sad.
I find it’s more the way the character is written than the actress herself. While she’s smart, even as the…
Wow. That’s fascinating. Without that reference her character makes no sense. I wish they’d figured out a better solution if they were going to completely remove the context.
If you like slow burn romance then you'll surely love it. But if you like the love at first sight story then you…
It may be her real voice, it it’s dubbed and you can tell. There is a weird cadence to all the voices. No sentence just flows. They have these pauses which make it feel unnatural.
Also, the dialogue is poorly written. They also often sound like they explaining to the audience rather than having a real conversation.
Story of Ming LanUntamedJoy of LifeAncient Detective(I find they do costume dramas better than contemporary ones.)
Go Ahead is an exception. Definitely worth the watch. Some very interesting storytelling of a sort of blended family made out of trauma and tragedy, how they coped, bonded, loved and healed.
If you like slow burn romance then you'll surely love it. But if you like the love at first sight story then you…
I don’t mind the slow burn. What’s making it hard for me to get through is the stilted dialogue and the constant posing. It all feels staged and not natural. This is one where I really wish I could have heard the actors’ voices as they were doing the scenes rather than the dubbing.
Trying to enjoy it because at least the FL is somewhat smart and doesn’t have a baby voice going on.
Such mixed assessment of this drama. I like that they start with the stomach-churning tropes and then nip them…
One more note: writing the FL that way is one thing. Okay, we’ll go with it. But, no self-respecting person would then want her as a partner. She’s selfish and unreliable. Her lack of discernment means a lot of potential for harmful people to mess with your life. For someone like the ML, with a high profile, highly responsible position, he can’t afford to have someone like that in his life. And the ML character is written as someone who brushes off people who are problematic. He’s imminently capable and serious about his life’s pursuits. So, from an internal story integrity standpoint, it doesn’t work that he’d keep pursuing this woman who could be a time bomb for his life, with her lack of discernment.
Such mixed assessment of this drama. I like that they start with the stomach-churning tropes and then nip them right in the bud,
The ML is warm and competent and, though he takes his time (which lets things fester), he’s firm and direct and no one can manipulate him.
It’s been rare to see a CDrama or KDrama with the very relaxed type of affection that they have the ML showing to his girlfriend. (Though, I’m not a fan of the thing where the men pet the women on the tops of their heads as if they’re pets or children.)
The nasty girl isn’t given much leeway here. Even her supporter has his limits with her ridiculous behavior. So, we see her toxicity, but she doesn’t get far with anything.
The controlling rich mother is being handled.
The work partner who feels entitled to romance gets shut down pretty readily. Her attempt to coerce is called out for its lack of integrity and she gets nowhere with it.
Yay for all this.
I can’t stand the way the FL character is written. She’s very self-centered. Feels way too young. (Can CDramas please stop having young women talk and behave like young children?) All of her relationships are about how people are helpful to her. She doesn’t reciprocate. Her relationship with her brother is summed up by the fact that she bullied him, as they grew up and she thinks that’s okay, but the fact that he cursed her under his breath over it as unacceptable.
The most stark example is her best friend from college. They are in the same publicly aired TV competition, with time limits for their assignments. She gets her friend to give her an inordinate amount of time helping her create some batik fabric. How does the friend have time for her own project? And why doesn’t she offer to help, in return? It never occurs to her.
Then, when dating, she is well aware of another man’s attentions. Several people have pointed out to her that he has romantic interest. Her BF asks her to keep her distance. The BF has known him since childhood and says he’s not trustworthy. He also admits that it bothers him that she’s giving so much attention to another man. Minutes after promising to keep her distance, she goes into the other man’s apartment and eats a meal with him.. Her BF learns of this and is upset. She’s mad at him for not trusting her. She has zero consideration for his feelings. Which is consistent with her character. It makes her unlikable. Also, she doesn’t get that she basically showed her own lack of integrity. Her words cannot be trusted, And she has no discernment or boundaries.
The writers seem to have her learn. To be seen. There are a lot of episodes left. What can be left in the story to fill up all those episodes? The mystery about Fang’s sister. But the only other piece of the story to fulfill is the central relationship. As a romance drama, they can’t have more than half of it not be about that. This suggests that we’re in for more tensions as she makes more selfish choices. Also, that she’ll be manipulated by the 2nd ML into a dark impression of the ML before we know the whole story of the sister.
Hopefully, I’m wrong. The strength in this drama is that the actors are pretty good and the story doesn’t let the common toxic tropes take over. But, what can fill the remaining 27 episodes? They seemed to have sacrificed the idea of a decent FL character for the sake of generating drama, because they couldn’t come up with anything better.
Maybe I’ll find out that there’s actually some interesting news aspect to the story. Fingers crossed.
Lastly, one trope they seem to want to stick with is this idea that someone is completely daft about another person’s romantic advances. In the beginning, the CEO of a large company is doing little things for all the time. He’s engaging in warm and playful conversation, He’s giving her nice gifts. Yet, she has zero idea that he is romantically interested? Even after her brother suggests it? And her best friend directly tells her that all these actions on his part can only indicate that? Not buying it,
And the brother is the same? He could see that his inter was kind to someone’s interest, but then he’s even more blind? Hen they are spending all their time together? And she’s cherishing the meals he makes for her? In a culture where people don’t invite opposite gender friends into their home, she has repeatedly done so. He hasn’t accepted and is avoiding encountering her family. But, to suggest that at this point he would still be oblivious is so unrealistic.
This is a trope that has some validity. Some of us can be oblivious, at first. But, CDramas take it way too far and it becomes laughabl and infuriating. It feels insulting to waste the viewer’s time and emotional investment in the story with this. I hope they learn to tone it down. Way down.
Fantastic ensemble acting. Every single character occupied their space and interacted with the other characters so well.
I enjoyed the mix of gritty realism with the somewhat comic like monsters and scenarios. It felt like it came from a manga or Webtoon,, in a good, entertaining way, while giving characters who were so compelling that you’re attached before you know it,
It’s a ride. Enjoy it!
On your comment about US/UN, etc. The US is the one who has turned S Korea into a nuclear state. And, if you look at the history, the US was just fine bombing every city on the Korean Peninsula during the not-Korean War. (It was really a war between Russia and the US.) we leveled the entire peninsula. No one has seen that magnitude of destruction before or since. (Well, maybe Syria, now, which were also involved in.) The UN has never stopped a US military incursion. It can’t. We have overwhelming military might and we just ignore any objections. And we’ve spent decades demonizing N Korea, specifically so we have can claim justification for going back in and doing what we did in the 50s. Koreans have experienced it and it’s the thing which frightens them the most. The US has been adept at using this fear to turn N Korea into the bogeyman that S Korea needs us to protect them from. N Korea has never launched a first strike. Never. But, the history of what has happened on the peninsula makes the war scenario depicted here fit the S Korean storytelling norm.
If there wasn’t a war, in the original timeline, how come Future Seo Hae doesn’t know that?
Tae Sul is basically Sisyphus, who finally realizes that the only way to finally stop pushing the boulder uphill is to take himself out of the equation.
None of this explains, though, why the original war had anything to do with him or Sigma. In all the scenarios the uploader isn’t even created until the day before the war. So, how could it have been the catalyst? Sigma didn’t exist in the original timeline.
So, if you’re going back to prevent a war from killing 50mil people, shouldn’t there have been some research into what the original cause was? Time machine or not, something caused the launch of a nuclear conflict on the Korean Peninsula. That seems more important to figure out than whether HTS creates the uploader.
If we assume that the uploader was created without a war happening, but that, somehow, Sigma got enough power to send that nuclear missile back in time....
But, I don’t see how the loser artist dude would have achieved enough success to be capable of that. (I saw someone suggest that he ends being the one to develop the uploader, but that makes no sense. All the most brilliant scientists couldn’t do it with without Tae Sul. So, I’m tossing that theory aside,) So, we’re back to needing to figure out how the original war started.
Because, really, the existence of time travel wasn’t the core problem. It was the death of 50mil people.
It’s also not clear that it had anything to do with the time machine. Seems like the thing was invented days before the war.
If I were going back to figure out how to stop the war, I’d want to know the original cause. Yet, not once does anybody bring that up.
I also found it eye-rolling that they blamed nuclear disaster on N Korea.
Why are people so enamored with authoritarian figures? No matter how relatively "progressive" you think that person may have been (and, let's be honest, history is documented and passed down by those in power, with a vested interested in presenting their ruling in the best possible light), he was still an authoritarian ruler. He didn't represent egalitarianism. He still followed the concept that his family should be in the seat of power.
Also, its one thing if the drama is presented at all, as though its factual. But, hello! Zombies and vampires. I don't think anyone would mistake this for a history lesson.
And to ruin the career of people over it. wow.
Though, I will say, that having Chinese sponsors influence the production and bring an overly Chinese representation to a Korean period piece is utterly offensive. Utterly. I hope no other Korean production company makes this mistake.
Still.... it.is.fiction. And it promised to be one of the more interesting stories to come out of S Korean TVland in a while. So. Sad.
I won't sign the Netflix petition, though, out of respect. I'm not a S Korean citizen and its their capitalist and nationalist history that they're speaking to. I'll leave that to them. I can just be sad.
Also, the dialogue is poorly written. They also often sound like they explaining to the audience rather than having a real conversation.
Untamed
Joy of Life
Ancient Detective
(I find they do costume dramas better than contemporary ones.)
Trying to enjoy it because at least the FL is somewhat smart and doesn’t have a baby voice going on.
The ML is warm and competent and, though he takes his time (which lets things fester), he’s firm and direct and no one can manipulate him.
It’s been rare to see a CDrama or KDrama with the very relaxed type of affection that they have the ML showing to his girlfriend. (Though, I’m not a fan of the thing where the men pet the women on the tops of their heads as if they’re pets or children.)
The nasty girl isn’t given much leeway here. Even her supporter has his limits with her ridiculous behavior. So, we see her toxicity, but she doesn’t get far with anything.
The controlling rich mother is being handled.
The work partner who feels entitled to romance gets shut down pretty readily. Her attempt to coerce is called out for its lack of integrity and she gets nowhere with it.
Yay for all this.
I can’t stand the way the FL character is written. She’s very self-centered. Feels way too young. (Can CDramas please stop having young women talk and behave like young children?) All of her relationships are about how people are helpful to her. She doesn’t reciprocate. Her relationship with her brother is summed up by the fact that she bullied him, as they grew up and she thinks that’s okay, but the fact that he cursed her under his breath over it as unacceptable.
The most stark example is her best friend from college. They are in the same publicly aired TV competition, with time limits for their assignments. She gets her friend to give her an inordinate amount of time helping her create some batik fabric. How does the friend have time for her own project? And why doesn’t she offer to help, in return? It never occurs to her.
Then, when dating, she is well aware of another man’s attentions. Several people have pointed out to her that he has romantic interest. Her BF asks her to keep her distance. The BF has known him since childhood and says he’s not trustworthy. He also admits that it bothers him that she’s giving so much attention to another man. Minutes after promising to keep her distance, she goes into the other man’s apartment and eats a meal with him.. Her BF learns of this and is upset. She’s mad at him for not trusting her. She has zero consideration for his feelings. Which is consistent with her character. It makes her unlikable. Also, she doesn’t get that she basically showed her own lack of integrity. Her words cannot be trusted, And she has no discernment or boundaries.
The writers seem to have her learn. To be seen. There are a lot of episodes left. What can be left in the story to fill up all those episodes? The mystery about Fang’s sister. But the only other piece of the story to fulfill is the central relationship. As a romance drama, they can’t have more than half of it not be about that. This suggests that we’re in for more tensions as she makes more selfish choices. Also, that she’ll be manipulated by the 2nd ML into a dark impression of the ML before we know the whole story of the sister.
Hopefully, I’m wrong. The strength in this drama is that the actors are pretty good and the story doesn’t let the common toxic tropes take over. But, what can fill the remaining 27 episodes? They seemed to have sacrificed the idea of a decent FL character for the sake of generating drama, because they couldn’t come up with anything better.
Maybe I’ll find out that there’s actually some interesting news aspect to the story. Fingers crossed.
Lastly, one trope they seem to want to stick with is this idea that someone is completely daft about another person’s romantic advances. In the beginning, the CEO of a large company is doing little things for all the time. He’s engaging in warm and playful conversation, He’s giving her nice gifts. Yet, she has zero idea that he is romantically interested? Even after her brother suggests it? And her best friend directly tells her that all these actions on his part can only indicate that? Not buying it,
And the brother is the same? He could see that his inter was kind to someone’s interest, but then he’s even more blind? Hen they are spending all their time together? And she’s cherishing the meals he makes for her? In a culture where people don’t invite opposite gender friends into their home, she has repeatedly done so. He hasn’t accepted and is avoiding encountering her family. But, to suggest that at this point he would still be oblivious is so unrealistic.
This is a trope that has some validity. Some of us can be oblivious, at first. But, CDramas take it way too far and it becomes laughabl and infuriating. It feels insulting to waste the viewer’s time and emotional investment in the story with this. I hope they learn to tone it down. Way down.