solid production design, largely forgettable

tw: extreme poverty, post-apocalyptic class stratification, suicide bombing, violence, medical

I picked this to watch because I'm hanging out with my dad this week, it was short and the trailer looked really interesting. In practice though, this was ultimately a high production flop for me.

The performances were quite solid all around (I do not recommend the dub, which I had to watch because my father is hard of hearing and has trouble with subtitles), the set design and general world building was interesting and there are definitely parts of this that feel really cool and interesting to watch, but they do not coalesce into a whole that is worth even the 6 episodes we have.

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Beautiful Production Design

For some reason, this took almost two years for me to finish.

There's nothing inherently wrong with Hotel Del Luna - it's certainly a solidly constructed K-Drama. IU is a phenomenal casting decision, and is absolutely the star of every scene she is in. The additional casting is also good. This has some of the best production design, especially costuming, I've ever seen in a show.

Where this series loses me is both in the overall plot and the principal romance. I do not buy the main romance of the series, in any shape or form, and it does not drive the plot forward which is unfortunate since the final episode is about 3/4ths just that. On their own, each of these performances is fantastic - together they build towards a pile of nothing. I wish I was more engaged than I was.

The secondary plots were by far the strongest parts of this, and I honestly wish there was a sign that the Hotel del Luna sequel was coming, because I would love to see it.

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Kind of Fun Trash

I really do appreciate this drama but it's definitely not for the story, which at its most polite could be called meandering. Every head canon you can create for this story is better than what they actually put into this.

But what makes this show engaging and honestly fairly rewatchable is the cast - there's two pretty solid pairings in Milo/Apo and Bible/Build - I'm not sold on Jeff and Barcode, who could maybe play brothers but who I do not buy as romantic partners.

There is almost no fully formed idea in this script, which allows it to go off the rails when it needs to (a sex scene around bread? Tankhun? the healthiest sex scene happening between a couple half-kidnapped?) but also makes it less engaging at times. Generally speaking, I only really recommend this if you know what you're getting into.

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all horror movie villains should be waylaid by hot boys on guitars

I am not entirely sure how I ended up here.

This has some college production vibes going on here - I chuckled when they both somehow managed to put all their electronics on a table next to a pool, clearly one or both of them was going to go in.

It's short and I honestly found the acting to be pretty solid - specifically from Jeff and Gameplay. I can see why they both have had more work since then, they honestly sold this pretty well for me. The lines they were given to deliver were pretty bad to be honest - also telling a dead person that your romance is a comedy is kind of funny but only in the fact that it's inherently untrue.

It's a solid 45 minutes, if a little melodramatic and it made me want to watch more from the two leads at the very least.

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Catgirl

I'm currently going through and watching as many baihe or wlw Chinese shorts. This one came up a lot in my research, probably because it stars Wang Laoji - who features in several other shows in this specific variety. She is obviously quite beautiful, but she's also really good at giving a solid performance in not a lot of time.

These shorts seem to be largely heavy on longing glances and gorgeous shots of the location or just hanfu, so there isn't a lot of time for plot to be delivered. There's a great deal of plot here for 7 minutes, but it doesn't really overstay it's welcome or try to cram too much into too short a time.

Videos like this are honestly one of the reasons that I don't love MDL's requirement for 500 words in order to submit a review.
Writing a full review for something that is 7 minutes long is honestly quite funny since the review would be basically as long as the video is.

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short and a bit undercooked

This doesn't really feel like a short film at all, more like a well-produced music video. It has a certain quality to it that makes it seem like a film that was shot in a day - probably mostly in terms of little things in production value like the costuming, the sets, and the lack of additional performers.

It is gorgeously shot and the costumes are lovely, but the reliance on the soundtrack to tell the story and the limited dialogue made the entire thing just feel very, very simple.

I was surprised to find out that the two women who star in this were dating (they seem to have had a cycle since where they broke up and then are back together). It was a pleasant surprise.

Honestly even though I cam down kind of cool on this, I would love to see more wlw wuxia. There doesn't seem to be a lot of it out there - I've been compiling a list - and I would love to see more.

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reincarnation

tw: major character death, bad family dynamics

I accidentally started watching this first in the Legend of Yunze series before realizing this was clearly a follow-up special. It's really interesting seeing a reincarnation/I'll always be waiting for you kind of story with these characters.

It was a little confused on the tropes - it kind of felt like a grab bag and in certain cases felt really rushed. Like ok now it's a coffee shop AU, but it's also a roommates AU, and it's also a long-lost love situation. It was a bit much for 11 episodes. While I felt like the first series handled the short format a bit better in what they tried to cram in, this special seemed a bit more intent on trying to get everything in and I'm not sure that was the right decision for this story overall. There were more moments to get excited for in this series than the prior, but I would still rate it a bit lower.

re: bad family dynamics - I don't always tag those, but A-Ze has a really verbally abusive foster mother who is clearly using her for her money, and while it is something that is dealt with in the text of the drama, it still feels like something that could be triggering.

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cute, short

tw: suicide, violence, and implied sexual assault

Despite those trigger warnings, this was actually pretty cute. The relationship between the two main characters was fun to watch even though this felt like the first episode of a much longer drama. As opposed to some other shorts I've seen they didn't really cram too much into the time frame. The acting (specifically on the sterner female lead) was honestly pretty solid, the writing wasn't too bad.

The format was honestly the worst part - I think this was originally made for Douyin and so it's split into 2 minute episodes that include a lot of recapping. If someone made a cut of this that was just the actual story without end credits or recapping, it would probably only be about 10-15 minutes.

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would have loved more

trigger warnings: imprisonment, strangulation

This was kind of odd, both in the sense that it is 4 minutes long and that it feels like a trailer. So much so that I had to like, triple check that I wasn't watching the trailer for this very thing.

Short films like this often make me hungrier for a larger work (looking at you 2019's Kiss of the Rabbit God). The game attempt by the director and team here to just like, try to fit an entire web novels plot into 4 minutes is pretty solid but there is just too much plot for that little amount of time (this is also why it feels like a trailer).

A comment on the video I watched said something about how if BL can do the toxic master/disciple relationship so can GL and honestly, go for it girl. I just hope that there are more longer form works down the pipeline.

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A+ Set Design

I'm not wild about the story - it's a relatively straightforward "murder game" take, though I think for me one of the most interesting elements plot wise is the pseudo informed consent of the participants. A lot of murder game takes - from Most Dangerous Game to Battle Royale - have unwilling participants. But these participants (barring the ones in the first game who did not entirely know the stakes) continued to play willingly. In fact, that seemed to be part of the point.

There's no particular reason to stress the anti-capitalist messaging in this. If you have read anything about Squid Game it's probably about that. It's interesting, but also to an extent deeply nihilistic in a way that I find a bit unengaging. while accurate, hopelessness in the face of death like experiences just feels....pointless. I know that I'm likely to go bankrupt if I suddenly get cancer, and I know that there are people who have so much money that they could easily wipe my debts but instead build a (probably fictional) massive murder island so they can sit on human furniture and take bets on whether I'll off myself after she dies. Bleak af.

For me, the thing that stands out the most about Squid Game is the set design. There's a real story in the way that each of the sets is designed from the bright yellow piggy bank floating like a light in a casino above the room to the childrens's school yard at the end. The performances - specifically newcomer Jung Ho-yeon - were also really solid.

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Trigger warnings for suicide and very stylized eye trauma.

I am not very familiar with the source material, either the web novel or drama. I watched some of the drama but only enough to know it wasn't for me.

The production design of this movie, specifically in terms of practical sets and costumes was pretty solid. The decision to put every actor and actress in miles of chiffon is one I agree with. From what I've read this is a director who is best known as a cinematographer and I think that carries through in terms of direction.

Where the movie falls apart for me is in terms of plot and narrative.

Without a Wikipedia plot summary, I'm not sure I could've followed along with this movie. There is a lot of information crammed into 2 hours, which while admirable is perhaps not advisable. These characters have lived thousands of years worth of plot relevant suffering and giving us a cliff notes version of those years is a good way to give your audience narrative whiplash.

The overall performances are fine.The rest of the movie is, in a word fine. l have never seen a more beautiful movie that I did not care about.

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Louis Koo understood the assignment

This is a video game movie. Not in the sense that it's based on a video game (it is) but that the game FEELS like several game actions strung along with the barest, flimsiest plot. Perhaps the plot would be more familiar with it if I was more familiar with Three Dynasties stories, but I'm not.

Of the performances, I feel like Louis Koo was one of the only cast members who seemed to like "get" what kind of movie he was in. There's a level of like, sincere and stoic that he hit that is perfect for Lu Bu and a film this ludicrous.

I love the absurd butt rock while men run around and fight each other in wire work. Like ok, give me more of that nonsense than like, posh orchestral scores. This feels oddly visceral but then, that's Dynasty Warriors.

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Why is this my first Miike movie?

I have no idea why this is the first Takashi Miike movie I've seen. The prolific filmmaker has made a bunch of movies that should be up my alley but for some reason this movie is the first of his that I've seen.

It's uh...interesting? It's kind of a mess to be totally honest. The characters are a bit of a type, and there aren't a lot of true surprises when instead you consider the gore-heavy shock elements also at play here. I'm not familiar with the manga and reading up synopsis of that work honestly only made this seem less surprising in context.

Ryunosuke Kamiki, who plays Amaya Takeru, is probably my favorite performance. A good psychopath in this style is probably best done with a sense of manic glee that he embodies so well. He just looks like he's having so much fun, it's hard to really hold all the death against him.

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Found Through YouTube Algorithm, Now I've Gotten Everyone Else Into It

I found this show, and this specific season, through YouTube's algorithm putting together that I am both deeply interested in dance videos and also the idol Wang Yibo.

Good news, they were right on the money.

At this juncture, having finally finished the show, I have successfully convinced about 10 people to watch this show and having finished it, I have no regrets. This show is fantastic. I love competition reality shows, and this manages to combine things I love - competition! dancing! - with things I didn't know I needed - a fierce camaraderie, friendship, and a certain kindness that I find lacking in a lot of competition reality shows.

I love the captains - from Wallace's kind uncle energy to Lay's commitment to Chinoiserie - and this show gave me a greater appreciation for the judges I was previously unaware of. To be honest, the only person I knew on this show before I started was Yibo and by the end I'm now a fan of the other captains and am honestly really excited for Season 4.

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Obsessed!

I feel like it's important to reference the show is in heavy needs of trigger warnings for things like sexual violence, murder, miscarriage, abortion, and basically any terrible thing that has happened and can happen to young women in bad situations. I don't think the show necessarily suffers because of these inclusions, but since this show is highly recommended on a lot of different channels, it seems important to reference these trigger warnings somewhere since they're usually not included.

I love this. Max and Tul have, once again, phenomenal chemistry together. This is the second drama of theirs I've seen, and I'm definitely interested in following more from them. They have a natural charisma together that works really well and sells their relationship and comfort with each other.

The actual plot is also fairly interesting, focusing on a mysterious set of murders and death and a medical examiner. The first few episodes lean hard into some educational elements surrounding true crime, a thing that the show later mostly discards. The secondary couple is also very cute together.

Generally, if you can handle crime dramas and the massive trigger warnings, I would recommend seeking out this drama.

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