5
11
cityhunter
the fucking shire
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Sunny Happiness is one of these rare t-dramas, 25 episodes and NOTHING exploded. the last 4 or 5 episodes do get a little "one life to live" but it fits with the plot, which is very entertaining, so it's cool. another thing that really grabbed me was that this is probably the ONLY believeable reason i've ever seen for a contract relationship. there was good reason to pretend and good reason to actually make a contract, so that was refreshing.
Mike and Janine turn in really impressive performances for this type of story. they are emotional w/out being over the top and they are believeable. the supporting cast, like yong yong's family tend to be relegated to traditional t-drama antics and they do thier fair amt of wailing, but it never quite reaches the epicness of say fated to love you or hi my sweet heart.
the one thing (or more specifically four things) that i really just never got into were the two other couples that got a surprising amt of screen time. Wang Lan and her producer were dull to watch. there didnt seem to be any emotion in it and the same for the brother and his chick. little bro is cute as a button, but he just never gets off the ground. it's like he's groggy throughout. in all honesty i'd give their sceenes a minute or two to grab my interest and when it didnt i would fast forward.
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i would classify this as pornographic, there are explicit sex sceenes, which is fine, but you have to be in the mood for porn to watch porn. i was in the mood to watch a movie.
a previous reviewer talked about it being a pedophiles dream and stated the male character was 17. he's actually 19, i even turned off the subs and listened to them state his age, my korean leaves alot to be desired but i can count, so by american standards it isnt pedophilia. the actor that plays him was also well over the age of consent in both america and korea at the time of the filming, so if the under age thing had you skeeved out, dont be.
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i love the female lead. She's smart and determined without resorting to over the top "strong female lead" tropes.
the acting is pretty good but there are moments where Lin Liu Di shows he's not as good as his co-stars. it throws off the vibe but not much and not for long.
i love Chris Wu but here he feels a touch miscast, or maybe it's just the direction or his performance. the character seems to have wanted to be animated and lively, but Wu's portrayal is muted and occasionally joyless.
still a great drama though.
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the main leads are great, so much so that the 2nd leads just annoyed me. Why were we spending screen time on them when we could have been watching Win and Wan Neung? Their chemistry was amazing. Wan Wan is a truely diabolical villian, even if he is a caricarture and very static. there are some really great supporting actors who did fantastic things with poorly written roles. Lukpit and Tom were really no more than the animal side kicks from a Disney movie, there to show us how we should feel and make us laugh a bit. the actors brought a lot to their respective roles even if the characters did tend to disappear for long stretches only reappearing to make story telling easier.
the only song that sticks out is what i think is the OTP's theme, it's song by a woman and it's lovely with just enough pep to make it stick in your head in a good way.
i will totally rewatch this. maybe tomorrow. it's one of only a handful of thai dramas i've watched and i hear it's actually quite a bit different than your standard Lakorn. if Thailand keeps making such delightful rom coms i will definitely watch.
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what it is trying to do, and does very well, is tell a fun and interesting story. there is a lot more of what americans might expect when they think romance than you usually see in k-drama. the four leads all nail thier characters and evoke in you exactly what they are supposed to when they are supposed to. it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out what happens next, but you like the characters so much that you want to watch it happen, even if you know you arent going to be shocked.
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bad writing ruins a good idea
super disappointed. such a cool concept.They get so bogged down in the minutia of this love story that they forget to flesh out the fascinating mythology. the apocalypse is nigh and we're playing house? the environment is one the brink of supernatural collapse? lets go to work at the travel agency! They also spend an absolutely mind numbing amount of time on characters that amount to little more than set dressing with lines. Sometimes these drawn out threads of story or pointless characters intersect with the plot but when that happens it feels less like an intentional choice from a skillful writer or editor and more like "why not use one of the people floating around the office doing nothing?"
few of the characters are compelling. the ones that are lost to bad development- or no development. the villains feel flat and unconnected to their stated motivation.
the acting is....passable i guess.
Alice Ke is the only one who really shines. But she's just doing the best she can with a criminally undeveloped character. she can't act a good character arc into existence. Joanne Tseng is Joanne Tseng. if you've seen her in anything else, you've seen her in this. they are the only two worth mentioning. everyone else just sort of showed up and clocked in.
in conclusion the bones of this are interesting. The mythology is vibrant and will be new to most viewers but it's poorly utilized. Rainless Love in a Godless Land leans too hard on modern Taiwanese romance tropes, a choice that eats away at the magic of the story. Weak writing and acting that ranges from ok to lackluster further dull what should have been a spectacularly different gem of a drama.
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a swing and an, unfortunate, but probably well intentioned miss.
the premise seems to have been "good doctor, but with lawyers." and it did not go well.they never seemed to quite get into a good rhythm with the problem of the week structure. the k-drama penchant for caring more about the audience's emotional reaction than story telling is on full display, inflicting a fatal wound to a narrative already beleaguered by bad choices. with every case and every client they couldn't stop themselves falling into tropes. They tried to make their main stream, culturally accepted points of view seem progressive, radical even, but with all the nuance, craft and situational awareness of an 80's after school special.
and that's before i even mention the irresponsible and lazy depiction of autism.
if you can over look some "oof" the romance is cute. The acting is good and the characters who get development are interesting, sometimes even funny.
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The Pretty Mess and False Advertisement
**there are plenty of reviews that say nice things about this drama. i even agree with some of it. this is not that review. **Of all the things Dali and the Cocky Prince tries and fails to be about (which is a lot ) it fails the hardest at being about art. This is about Art the way any office drama is about the industry it takes place in. If I'm being honest I've seen office dramas do better in that regard. Any time one of the characters has to talk about art in a way that does not apply directly to their job they sound like 12 year olds being asked why art is important to them- in front of their art teacher. For a show that takes place largely in an art gallery there is very little attention paid to the art. This would not be a problem except the show sort of sold itself as being very much about art. if this was the biggest problem they may have been able to over come it but this is just the beginning.
Both the show and Dali were advertised and quirky and upbeat. For most of the show Dali is a wet rag of a person sullenly trudging through her problems, dragging the viewer along with her as we wait to see which male character is going to solve the thing for her this time. That's not fun. it's not quirky. it is NOT up beat. it's dull, repetitive and disappointing.
The plot is cluttered and groaning under the weight of so many characters it might even give a daily drama writer pause. the central conflict isnt really central, being itself about too many things and offering a patch work of villains. Because there are so many of none of these villains get enough development so their motivations stay shallow and often don't match the vitriol of their actions. A similar problem plagues some of our good guys too. Won Tak for example exists solely for plot convenience. his development is thin and his relationship with Dali is incredibly inconsistent with the development that they do have.
given these other issues weird editing might seem like a nit pick but i assure you it's not. there is at least one, often more, distractingly bad editing choice in every episode. We've got pointless and poorly executed spit screens, we've got flash backs the reek of ret con, we've got really weird effects and pacing that is constantly being wrecked by waaay too long close ups of the aforementioned sullen Dali. like, i get it, she's sad, her life sucks. but i got that three episodes and fifteen lingering close ups ago. stop. PLEASE. And for the love of all things holy step away from the photo shop painting texture brush or whatever that abomination is. If this show wasnt supposed to be about art it might not bother me as bad but simply applying that texture over scenes completely misses the point and the beauty of highly textured brush strokes.
the chemistry is good though...and the over all production design is spectacular. if only they had put as much effort into the substance as they did into the looks.
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it started out promising with a likeable cast and a fairly entertaining plot.i watched the first half with great enthusiasm.
some where around episode 7 or 8 it got very contrived, almost as if the writers just said "oh, screw it!"
on top of that i am OVER k-dramas where they take a perfectly attractive girl and through awful clothes and hair make her much less attractive. the female lead is a hot mess 90% of the time also, how did tha male lead walk? his pants were so tight i was amazed by his ability to breath in them, much less deliver lines with a straigh face.
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the biggest problem, for me, was that in a drama about super secret super spies the characters often did some VERY conspicous often pointless things. Kim Tae Hee's character is the WORST SPY EVER, which is saying something b/c she is surrounded by other characters that belong in a Spy VS Spy short. even the NSS director has moments that make you scratch your head and not in a good way. 007 is on a beach somewhere drinking his martini, laughing and planning to call Hyun Jun and invite him to come work with some real spies.
next biggest issue for me is Kim Tae Hee and her character. Kim Tae Hee always fails to impress me. this is the 3rd drama i've seen her in and i was hoping that with a meatier role i'd finally see what she could do. and i did, about four or five times. in a 20 episode drama she brought it in a handful of scenes and that was it. the rest of the time she has this pinchy expression or her deadpan smile that irratated me so badly in my princess. of course it's not ALL her fault. some of it has to fall on the writers who some how managed to make a talented, intelligent, strong female spy just as weak and blah as every other k-drama heroine you wished you never had to see again. it probably woulndt be as noticable if she wasnt standing next to Lee Byung Hun. the man is a raw nerve, believably conveying every emotion, no matter how heightened or dramatiic.
my last major complaint is that it all seems to fall apart in the last few episodes. it's as if the director and writers suddenly realized that tightly ploted drama they had created did not leave the characters where they wanted them to be so instead of wrapping up a good drama they slapped together the last hurrah, and it wasnt nearly as well done as the rest.
now we get into less glaring issues. the music. ugh, esp at the begining the music was either in appropriate, jarring, just plain bad or a combination of the three. it gets better in the second half and the instrumentals are great.
this last bit is just me being nit picky. TOP. now dont get me wrong, i adore TOP and i loved watching the 20 minutes he was in this drama. i dont understand why TOP's character was presented as an intragal part of the plot b/c he just isnt. i get that he was included to attract a younger crowd, but his presence is seriously over billed. there were other characters that got a lot more screen time that didnt make the opening credits.
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1. THE MALE LEAD IS OBSCENELY GOOD LOOKING.
2. THE FEMALE LEAD IS LESS ANNOYING IN THIS THAN SHE WAS IN BAD GUY.
I REALLY WANTED TO LIKE THIS DRAMA, BUT THE TWO LEADS WERENT THAT LIKEABLE. ONE WAS ANNOYING AND THE OTHER WAS A HORRIBLE HUMAN BEING. IT'S HARD TO GET INTO SOMETHING WHEN THE WHOLE TIME YOU'RE DOING THE FACE PALM.
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it feels like the drama was missing something, and at the end i really felt like i was ending right in the middle. a little contemplation leads me to the opinion that the stroy of Ma Te's parentage and the corprate machinations took up just waaaaay too much of this drama. but alsa that is not the only problem.
alot of the character growth (where it existed) was abrupt, nonsensical and lazy. i would have really liked to see a lot more growth out of Bo Tong, but i'm not surprised at how stunted her character was. it seems like everytime korean drama puts forth a worthy woman they then proceed to push her as far into the shadow of a man as she could possibly go with out disappearing completely. Arang (arang and the magistrate) and Yowol (gu family book) come to mind.
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