gatalito
Cool...!
This is a very good film and definitely underrated here on MDL.If for one thing it doesn't suffer from the usual Chinese cliches. I mean to be over melodramatic, or with a trillion irrelevant subplots for the minor characters, or plagued with political or social messages etc.
I really enjoyed the very good acting, the plot that had plenty of twists, the fast pace, the settings and I was positively surprised by the international cast, ( that should have been credited in the description as well).
Do watch this film and ignore the trailer that is irrelevant and almost made me skip it.
9,5/10
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Domestic violence from a very Japanese POV....(?)
As the title of my review says, this movie is dealing with domestic violence and child abuse. The problem of this movie is that it does so from a very Japanese point of view and based on situations that either don't exist in reality or must be applicable only in Japan. In other words the weakest part of the movie is the plot. Spoilers ahead.The mother of three adolescent children kills her extremely violent and abusive towards them husband ( and father of these children), knowing that she is going to go to jail, in order to save them and free them from his abuse. The brutality that the father has already shown to his own children, is what justifies literally and figuratively her action.
Fifteen years later she is released from jail in order to go back and find that not all of her children appreciated her sacrifice while the family's social circle is divided. Some justify the killing of the abusive husband and some others call her a murderess and have already ostracized the murderess' children.
The problem with this situation as it is presented on the film, is that the children are shown sooo brutally and so obviously abused in the first part of the film , that makes the viewers wonder why the police didn't interfere in the first place in order to arrest the father. The children are so badly beaten up and injured that I doubt that their case wouldn't have been recorded at the hospital, that provided medical help to these children. Which in its turn raises questions about why the mother was sentenced for so many years in prison, leaving as a consequence the children on their fate to grow up with a guardian blaming their mother for what happened to them.
The acting is great the music decent but the plot that deals with such a serious matter as domestic violence, exaggerates everything up to the point of not being believable.
Unless such situations do indeed happen this way in modern Japan. Do they?
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A fantastic and well made prequel of the original 1954 film.
I never really liked or bothered to watch the countless films that followed the first Godzilla film because most of these sequels exploited the " bad monster destroys cities" theme again and again and again without having any serious plot or character development. Where the first film was all about how human actions affect our environment, the sequels were all about disaster entertainment based solely on the special effects and the scary monster that in the process wasn' t that scary after all.I'm glad though that I've gave a chance and watched this prequel that has all the things that I enjoy watching. It is focusing on the characters, and it is a great commentary on the consequences of war and disasters on people and society, the survivors' guilt syndrome and the honnorable suicide that was and still is used as an "excuse" for the most horrendous crimes or the most stupid actions.
This prequel makes Godzilla a support character. The monster is still there but in the background and it is the actions and the reactions of the characters that make the monster actions get some meaningful and realistic impact.
The production is great, the special effects very realistic, the depiction of the era accurate and the music compliments nicely the scenes.
Overall is a great film to watch after watching the original 1954 one in order to get in the mood and see what Godzilla was actually all about. Kudos to the producers of this film that they managed to make Godzilla relevant again.
9.5 out of 10 from me as I reserve the perfect 10 for the original first film.
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Weak story plot and plenty of anachronisms
This is the case of an obviously expensive production with great cinematography, that fails due to its weak and inconsistent and not particularly original and engaging story plot and the inability of the director to recreate the era that this story is supposed to take place.The casting was good but the scenes look like they were patched randomly together making the film look like it is made by two different story lines that come together out of the blue. The film also suffers from uncountable anachronisms that make the movie look like Mission Impossible going into Dr. Who!
Spoilers below:
The ML goes as an agent in Shanghai to support the local resistance movement against Japanese occupation .
The FL though is just a student who ends up cooperating with the ML agent out of the blue. How these two ended up together to play the married couple is not explained. It just happens in the middle of the film. And then the film turns into something else.
Now as I said previously the film suffers from uncountable anachronisms. Early on in the film we see the ML character changing his appearance with the use of latex make up prosthetics that didn't exist not even as an idea back in the late 30s in Chinese Shanghai. They appeared first as experimental and very expensive make up options in Hollywood in 1939 because Hollywood productions had the means, the people and the budget to have such kind of prosthetics. Where the heck did the ML character find liquid latex in Shanghai? And who applied this thing in his face by the time that this thing needs to be custom made??
Another anachronism is the selfi photo that one of the agents takes at some point in the film with a manual 35mm film camera. This is impossible simply because the camera lenses of that era didn't have auto focus options. You couldn't photograph yourself by simply turning the camera towards your face! And the 35mm films were not rolled into plastic cases fgs!
The karateka pro Japanese lady is like she escaped from an 1980's James Bond film. Her appearance, her hair, her behaviour all about everything on her are out of the concept of that era. Same applies to the agents/spies guys that follow her who wore black coats that closed with zippers in the front. These kind of minimal coats first appeared in fashion in TV shows like the 1960s Avengers, Barbarella and such things. These are very 1960's fashion elements unheard back in the 1930s.
The huge aquarium with the large glass panels, the white super modern Yamaha grant piano, ( Yamaha didn't produce white pianos back then and it didn't use the logo that is using now ) generally whatever is shown in the ball room scene is product of the imagination of the director but didn't exist back then. Either because they didn't have the technology to have it or because it wasn't in fashion.
Generally speaking anachronisms might work and enhance the visuals of fantasy films, but they can destroy historical fiction films. If the director wanted so desperately to include them, ( I want to believe that it was intentional and it wasn't a product of his ignorance) he should't have had specify in the first place, the era that this story is taking place.
Anyway...
5 out of 10 from me. MDL suggested an overall rating of 4 but I 'm giving to this film another point just for the sake of the cinematography and the expensive production.
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When the recipe works ....!
A super production with a complicated plot, with Game of Thrones costumes, Lord of the Rings background music, set in an unspecified Ancient Chinese Kingdom... What could have gone wrong??Strangely not that much. The recipe worked for one more time.
The badass but cool prince fights and saves his beautiful wife (that she is not a rebel and she is not a princess either) and the whole Kingdom countless times, with surgical accuracy and perfect timing while the rest of the characters are able to do all about everything in their fight for the Kingdom's throne.
Unfortunately the princess herself is the weakest link. Not because she is not pretty, not because she is not elegant but because she is expressionless, and very aware about her looks.
It is a pity that such a renown and experienced actress as Zhang Zi Yi is, fell in the trap of looking eternally pretty instead of spoiling a bit her looks and as a consequence her chance to give the acting performance of her life, in her own -actually- drama.
Putting aside this, this drama has some great performances from the rest of the cast, with Zhou Yi Wei - that I've never heard of him before- stealing the show with his performance. This guy is acting so expressively that I didn't need to read the subtitles in order to understand what he was saying. (And no... I don't speak Chinese. I have no clue of Chinese). His acting reminds me that of Toshiro Mifune whose face expressions changed so fast and so accurately that saying his lines was actually optional. Zhou Yi Wei
acting is of this class.
So in order to conclude. The Rebel Princess is an almost perfect production based on a well tested recipe, with beautiful cinematography and photography, some great performances from the majority of the cast, huge filming sets, luxurious costumes, and an interesting but dragging for way too many episodes plot.
If you don't mind the literally decorative presence of Zhang Zi Yi , I would recommend to watch it.
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Pure perfection..
Excellent. Consistent in its plot, straight to the point with just enough episodes to say the story without diverting to irrelevant sub plots, strong character development, great acting from all the cast, with a female lead that understood her role and made it her own, suspenseful action scenes, very nice OST with some low bap bits that I personally favor and a finale that for once made sense. I wish more dramas were that good.10 out of 10 from me.
P.S No need for a second season. This drama is complete as it is and there is no need to expand or try to repeat it.
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Our time is way to valuable to waste it on such kind of dramas.
This drama is all about everything ending up offering absolutely nothing.My review doesn't contain any particular spoilers just warnings in order to protect the public from wasting its time to watch this drama.
This drama is the ultimate mashup of different genres' elements randomly dropped in the same plot. A little bit of everything in order to attract the attention of the viewers.
A little bit of action adventure, with a little bit of supernatural, and history, and comedy, and melodrama and ghosts, and folklore -you name it - all mixed and mashed up without any particular reason or purpose. It is a bunch of surreal events that happen randomly here and there without having/ making any sense or adding something to the plot or character development.
The characters are weak and uninteresting and up to the 4th episode that I've managed to watch, don't seem to know what they are doing and where they are going.
I have to admit that it is the first time in my life that I've seen a psychic ranger whose spirit ends up being his comatose body's ghost! ( if you didn't understand what this is it's ok... I didn't either!)
The first two episodes look - as another member said rightly on the comments- like they have been shot with an shaky ipnone, making the viewing of these episodes a challenging and rather nauseating task.
The filming location - Jirisan Mountain National Park in S. Korea- looks like one of the most beautiful places to visit but this drama is so badly executed that not even the beautiful scenery was able to persuade me to keep on watching this drama.
I wouldn't recommend this to anyone, Or it would be more accurate to say that I would recommend this to my enemies!
Do watch it if you hate yourself!! lol
1 out of 10 from me.
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Plastic gore....
This drama is neither the hard core gore that other reviewers claim neither a masterpiece. I've made the mistake to take seriously the reviews and I've ended up watching one of the most boring crime dramas out there. The reasons are below ( spoilers).The culprit is revealed early on and its motives are not persuasive.
The cops that are supposed to solve the case are in a some sort of nirvana state. They don't seem to try that hard to solve the case and they look rather dumb. The supposedly super intelligent profiler on the other hand doesn't seem intelligent enough to protect his self from being victimized.
And finally the supposedly gore props look fake. If the intention of the director was to persuade us that there is a maniac killer that cuts off corpses, he failed because these "corpses" look so plastic, that didn't make me care that much on how many pieces the killer cut them. I hope only that after filming they recycled them! lol
I could of course keep watching this drama for the sake of Vic Zhou who is very handsome guy but ......handsome guys can't persuade me to keep on watching boring crime dramas that can't trigger me intellectually to figure out who is the culprit or they don't have some interesting "good" guys.
The best crime or detective dramas are those that can engage their viewers with a good plot, character development and suspense but this doesn't belong to this category.
4 out of 10 from me for this one.
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The sickest Kdrama ever...
This was one of the sickest dramas I've ever watched up to the point to make me wonder about the state of mind of the writer/s.The production was decent, the acting decent too, but the story plot was based on the sock dogma and the characters lacked any realistic background.
The final explanation about the motives of the victim were not believable as no normal and sane person would force his own brother to become the S.Korean equivalent of Jack the Ripper ( or better say an Inca priest lol) in order to make a point to his own father. Seriously now.. who writes these things?!
The worst part though of this drama is that it was approved as suitable for 15 year olds!
If you want to listen to my advice... don't even think to allow your 15 year old children to watch this thing. They will get nightmares!
1/10 from me
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That's what happens when the writers play with their viewers' intelligence
This review is published twice on both the first and the "second" season's pages of this drama.I've started watching Shinhnannin Flag with the impression that this was a moderately long mystery drama that would conclude in ten episodes. The story plot looked promising and I rated it with an 8 after watching the first four episodes as each and every one of them concluded with some interesting and in some cases thrilling cliffhangers.
Unfortunately in the process these cliffhangers became the reason why this drama exists!
The story plot doesn't seem to have any direction or plan. It didn't and it doesn't move forward or progressing in any logical manner. The unnumbered characters that were introduced in the first episodes are completely two dimensional and most of them are depicted as caricatures, for reasons that only the writers know.
The only character who seem to have some solid background is that of the ML played by the very experienced and serious Nishijima Hidetoshi who is trying his best to depict the grief stricken and victimized husband in a case of triple kidnapping.
All the characters of this drama have been used and have been presented as possible suspects, with the mere purpose of providing a supposedly unexpected twist and a cliffhanger at the end of each and every episode, without resolving anything, without giving any new information and without any reasonable connection with the plot.
The first ten episodes completed without any conclusion to this drama but don't worry because one week later a "second" season started .
That was the point where it became obvious that the writers seem to find as a good idea to play with their viewers' intelligence and patience in order to retain the viewership.
This drama's first and second season ( or this 20 episode's drama) don't have a plan and a plot or real solid characters and it serves only one aim. To manipulate you to keep on watching it hoping that the plot will progress towards something that makes sense, something that has not happen up until the 14 episode that I personally managed to watch.
The only thing that this drama managed to make me feel is to be disgusted by the way that the writers are trying to manipulate the viewers and that is the reason why I'm now rating both the seasons of this drama with a very valid 2,5 and I intend to blacklist both the director, the writer and the actors of this drama.
I'll note down their names and I'll avoid from now on to watch anything that the they make or participate.
If you are thinking to watch this drama DON'T.
And if you are thinking to keep watching this drama DROP IT.
2,5 out of 10 to both seasons with a DROPPED flag though I watched the first 10 episodes and I even gave a chance to next four episodes because I don't like to be cheated and manipulated.
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The Three Body's problem is its non existent scifi plot!
This review contains spoilers so don't read it if you intend to watch this series either way.I have read the book that the series is based on.
The problem of Three Body series is its uneven and self cancelling sci fi plot that follows closely the book that it is equally uneven and badly constructed. The book and the series are full of interesting ideas and scientific information, but it is obvious that the author of the book on which the series are based on, was not able to manage and develop properly his ideas and his material ending up having a flimsy plot that doesn't stand on its own and it needs a lot of special effects and complicated explanations in order to make sense.
The scifi plot lies on the imaginary Trisolar planet whose inhabitants have a non linear civilization, a civilization that is progressing in "episodes" due to the unpredictable way that their planet is destroyed constantly and it is literally reborn from its ashes. ( which is a very interesting idea btw).
All the rest of the plot and the subplots and characters and their actions take place on Earth and can be explained with many alternative ways. There is f.e a cult that believes that the aliens are coming to invade the Earth and is inspired by the ideas of a rather psychologically disturbed scientist. There are scientists that commit suicide and others that get killed. There are strange phenomena that are happening and make scientists hallucinating. There is a cop that is trying with unconventional methods to solve the mysterious deaths of the scientists. In other words loads of interesting ideas that could make the plot suspenseful without relying in complicated pseudoscientific explanations that mash up all about everything. From alien life,to environmental distraction, to particle accelerators! ( ok... whatever)
Instead the whole story about the Trisolar planet, turns out that is just an assumption made by the characters of the books, enhanced with plenty of fantasy presented into a VR game and there is nothing else in the book and nothing in the series to support and make realistic the whole Trisolar planet plot, other than the claims of the disturbed female scientist main character about the exchange of just four messages that supposedly are the base of this messy plot.
The messages go as following:
Message 1/ (Earth people send a message to space with the hope that someone will answer it).
"Hello we are from planet Earth and we have a multicultural civilization here and we are looking to contact other civilizations".
Message 2/ (An alien civilization replies:)
Don't send another message because we will come to conquer you. ( why??!)
Message 3/(The disturbed female scientist replies).
Do come and conquer us because we can't solve our own problems and our world is in a mess and we need the expertise of your civilization, ( that according the way that WE imagine that your civilization is, can't solve not even your problems),
Message 4/(The Aliens reply).
Ok we are coming. We'll be there in 450 earth years! In between will destroy with some sort of advanced technology (that we have but we don't use it to save our lives and our planet), your science in order not to be able to confront us when and if will manage to come, because we are considering you the equivalent of bugs!
Now how both of these civilizations came up to these conclusions is not explained.
Neither how the Earth people acquired information about the history and the environment of the Trisolar planet. Or how the Trisolarians figured out that Earth is suitable for them from this correspondence.
I assume that by now you can see what is the problem of the scifi plot.
That there is no actual scifi plot! Or there is one that of some aliens that are coming....!
This series though has an expensive production, some great acting, some very touching scenes by the actresses that play Ye Wen Jie, some very light criticism towards the Chinese Cultural Revolution ( Destruction) - in not to offend Zi Xiping I assume- and that's about all. I could go on and on and on writing about the plot holes of the sub plots, and the awful last episodes, but its meaningless.
The sci fi plot is not there and the VR game that we are forced to watch through the eyes of its players is boring as hell and has bad CGI. This demo didn't persuade me to buy the equipment that is needed in order to play it.
5.5 out of 10 from me for the whole concept.
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That's what happens when the writers play with their viewers' intelligence
This review is published twice on both the first and the "second" season's pages of this drama.I've started watching Shinhnannin Flag with the impression that this was a moderately long mystery drama that would conclude in ten episodes. The story plot looked promising and I rated it with an 8 after watching the first four episodes as each and every one of them concluded with some interesting and in some cases thrilling cliffhangers.
Unfortunately in the process these cliffhangers became the reason why this drama exists!
The story plot doesn't seem to have any direction or plan. It didn't and it doesn't move forward or progressing in any logical manner. The unnumbered characters that were introduced in the first episodes are completely two dimensional and most of them are depicted as caricatures, for reasons that only the writers know.
The only character who seem to have some solid background is that of the ML played by the very experienced and serious Nishijima Hidetoshi who is trying his best to depict the grief stricken and victimized husband in a case of triple kidnapping.
All the characters of this drama have been used and have been presented as possible suspects, with the mere purpose of providing a supposedly unexpected twist and a cliffhanger at the end of each and every episode, without resolving anything, without giving any new information and without any reasonable connection with the plot.
The first ten episodes completed without any conclusion to this drama but don't worry because one week later a "second" season started .
That was the point where it became obvious that the writers seem to find as a good idea to play with their viewers' intelligence and patience in order to retain the viewership.
This drama's first and second season ( or this 20 episode's drama) don't have a plan and a plot neither solid characters and serve only one aim. To manipulate you to keep on watching it, hoping that the plot will progress towards something that makes sense, something that has not happen up until the 14 episode that I personally managed to watch.
The only thing that this drama managed to make me feel is to be disgusted by the way that the writers are trying to manipulate the viewers and that is the reason why I'm now rating both the seasons of this drama with a very valid 2,5 and I intend to blacklist both the director, the writer and the actors of this drama.
I'll note down their names and I'll avoid from now on to watch anything that the they make or participate.
If you are thinking to watch this drama DON'T.
And if you are thinking to keep watching this drama DROP IT.
2,5 out of 10 to both seasons with a DROPPED flag though I watched the first 10 episodes and I even gave a chance to next four because I don't like to be cheated and manipulated.
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I've dropped it without remorse as a matter of principles
This review contains spoilers for the first two episodes so don't read it if you eventually intend to watch the drama.They say that power ( and money of course) change people.
In reality power and wealth can't change our character. They can give us the chance to manifest what our true character actually is.
This drama tries to depict a bad ass female character.
As bad ass though is considered a character that is daring and fearless, strong and willing to overcome any difficulties.
Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case for the FL character of this drama who comes out from the very first episodes as person who lacks all sorts of empathy and is misusing her position and power. So this drama is depicting ( from the very first episodes) just a very bad character.
I haven't seen in any series or films such an unlikable character. We see a person that disrespects her colleagues, disheartens and discourages her juniors, is arrogant even towards to her employers ( the phrase towards the president of the law firm "your business is me and I'm your business" says everything about her attitude), slaps people while they are apologizing for their mistakes, disregards anyone who is not in her position, lacks any kind of collaborating spirit with her associates ( in a law firm that is not her own firm), disrespects the profession of a teacher and finally attacks personally, blames and despises the claims of a presumably rape victim in such a cruel and traumatic for this person way that drives it to commit suicide.
I don't know if the writers of this drama thought that these are the traits of a strong and feminist bad ass female character. If that is what they were thinking when they developed this character I can assure them that these are the traits of a narcissistic character, of a person with serious personality disorder and they are not the traits of a person that has any kind of principles or the moral foundations, is dedicated, or skillful and willing to serve, work and succeed in any field, let alone any legal field.
A character like this is an insult for all the emancipated women that try to establish their positions in the higher ups of their field with their skills and hard work.
She is the worst and the most distorted depiction of how women in positions of power are supposed to behave.
But THIS IS NOT HOW POWERFUL WOMEN ARE. It is rather how sexist S. Korean males think that powerful women are supposed to be. Psychos or even worst! lol
Personally now this depiction of female empowerment (in the South Korean style) offends me so much that I'm dropping this drama without remorse and without having the slightest inclination to give it a second chance and watch a few more episodes.
There is not chance for the writers to manage to justify the actions of the FL in the first two episodes. because some of these actions contradict so much with, at least, mine established moral and professional principles that simply can't be justified or be undone with some tricky plot twist.
1 out of 10 from me. One of the worst two episodes that I have ever watched that also made me reevaluate my opinion about S. Korean society in general.
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Dropped due to incomprehensible subbing.
This is not a review. I'd like to write one but unfortunately it was impossible to watch this drama due to its awful subtitling that was probably made with some auto translation tools.I will rant though about this matter in a review in order to remain here and be read by the incompetent team that subbed this drama this way.
So my question to the sub team is the following?
Why did you bother to sub this drama by the time that you didn't have the skills nor the will to provide comprehensible subtitles? Even if you are subbing for fan, or for hobby, or in order to practice your translation skills, you have to provide comprehensible subtitles. It is the only requirement after all!
If you can't provide this kind of subbing THEN DON'T DO IT AT ALL. It is not that it's obligatory to sub in a language that you don't know. But if you decide to do so, then you are obliged to do it right. It is either/ or. There is no middle ground on translating in a foreign language.
I'm saying that as a subber of a good number of dramas in my native language and not like someone who has no clue about the difficulties of translating at a foreign language.
Using auto translation tools and on top of that not bothering to check the subs for errors is an insult for those who spend countless hours to offer translated subtitles and an insult for this community.
I'm not rating this drama as it is unwatchable without decent subtitles something that is quite unfair for those who worked in this production. Actors and production team alike.
The rating that you see above is for those who subbed it the way they did so. Shame on you.
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I read Nakayama Sichiri's book....
... Nocturne of Remembrance and I have to say that this drama that is based on three of books falls short on regard of the fantastic plot, atmosphere, characters, motives.Sichiri's Nakayama novel -at least the one that I read -is an intriguing book full of interesting characters, with a troubled protagonist and a complicated multilayered plot.
The series on the other hand deconstructed completely and lighten up the story of at least the first novel that I have read, ( I think this drama covers three of them) making the main protagonist looking like a vain egoistic pig, his secretary Yoko looking like a stupid rookie and destroying completely the mystery and unexpected twist of the end.
I managed to watch only the first two episodes of this drama, appalled with the way that the script writers messed up the universe.
Did the writers of the script read the same book that I read and if they indeed did so, ( and didn't read only the summary on the cover of the book) , is THAT what they got from this book?
Just asking because I don't understand how such a intriguing crime legal novel ended up to look like this.
Dropped without remorse.
1 out of 10 from me and I suggest to everyone to read Shichiri's Nakayama books which are by far better as it seems, than their stupid TV adaptations.
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