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.

Read More

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

Read More

So so....

This is a good live action series of the well known One Piece manga and animation saga. The sets and the costumes are very well done, it is obvious that this is a very expensive production, but the plot and the characters are not that well done. There are countless flash backs which are a not so successful attempt to show some how the background of the characters who end up though, being extremely two dimensional. Their appearance is there but their motives dialogues, aims etc aren't. The characters seem like a fraction of what they are in the manga and the anime series. Same applies to the plot that it has been adapted to fit in a 8 episode series missing this way a lot of the side characters, plots, dialogues. I found the dialogues quite boring. The plot is a mush up of bits and pieces of the original plot that are not put together that well.
Over all this series looks like an half cooked introduction into the One Piece world. If you have read the manga and watched the anime series you are going to find it incomplete. If you have no idea about what One Piece, is you are not going to get engaged unless you are under 12 years old and you don't mind as long as the whole thing is colorful.

6,5 -7 /10

Read More

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.

Read More

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.

Read More

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.

Read More

Great CGI, incomprehensible plot with no substance.

I will be brief in this review because there are not that many things to say about this movie. It's main problem is the lack of a comprehensible plot and not the lack of special effects that are top notch but they can't save the inconsistencies of the plot.

Here are some of the things that didn't make any sense in this story.

Why they kept for forty years the development of Jung_E by the time that they had already alternatives, well developed and combatable humanoids that not only did what they were ordered to do but also didn't hurt when they got injured and had complete lack of feelings? Why did they spend all these resources, time and effort and human work hours in order to develop this particular model with the conscience of Jung?
The project wasn't public to start with, in order to satisfy the public's feelings that considered Jung a hero, and trying to develop a humanoid that would work with Jung's conscience in combat conditions didn't serve any purpose because they already had such kind of humanoids. And the war was about to end either way and there was no point to repeat again and again in simulation the same old last Jung's combat that after forty years would have been out of date on regard of the technology used in it.

Also why Jung's daughter (Yoon Seo Hyun- that is the name of the daughter) released her mother into the body of another humanoid? To serve what purpose? If she wanted to save her from this thing, she should have deleted her completely.
And what about the other versions of her mother's conscience and the backups?
Her mother's conscience was in a digital form so there should have been copies of her brain mapping all over!

And how did it happen and she didn't know what were the terms and conditions of using someone's conscience in type C contracts? How did it happen and she wasn't aware of the terms of these contracts by the time that she was so deep into R&D of this technology and she used it without any moral doubts at her own mother's conscience?

Anyway.. the whole plot doesn't make any sense because it can't justify and explain the characters' actions in order to justify their feelings and reactions too. The melodramatic end is not justified by facts.

The characters are the only ones who know the true reason why they are crying their eyes out! We just don't!

The plot is hollow and without any substance and the CGI that were very good, simply can't save it...

2 out of 10 for the CGI ( I feel for the FX artists and the work they've put into it).
Skip the rest, because they don't make sense and they don't worth your watching time.

Read More

The most underrated crime/investigation drama out there.

This must have been the most underrated investigation drama I've ever watched and I can't figure out why this fantastic drama passed undetected by the fans of the genre.

This drama has two distinctive 12 episodes parts and each part covers the investigation of a different case. I have the notion that the producers intended to release this drama in two different seasons but they ended up merge it into one.

The investigations of these two crime cases, that look quite unremarkable at the beginning, literally unfold in each and every episode with countless twists and revelations that drive the plot into some very dark pathways. Don't get fooled by the lukewarm start of each case. Keep on watching because each of these cases starts to become very interesting after its first two episodes.

The cast is very good as well, with the actor Dong Chang giving the performance of his life on the second part of the series. This guy is a fantastic actor, and obviously underrated too as I had not heard of him up until now. In this particular drama he is literally living into his role, giving a heartbreaking performance as a person forced by the social circumstances to become a criminal, deep into depression, self-pity and self destruction. He plays a very intelligent and very self aware criminal into the second part/second case of the series.
But the rest of the cast is great too, doing their best to depict the very realistic and solid characters that look real because they are not strictly either very "good" or very "bad". All characters have a background that is shown by their actions and not with countless irritating and garrulous flashbacks. ( that drive me mad most of the times! lol)

Don't expect way too much action, as this is an investigation drama after all, but get ready to see some very realistic action scenes that are not over the top. No acrobatics, martial arts or exaggerations and such things at the action scenes.

Overall this is a surprisingly good drama that I definitely recommend you to watch, and rewatch, as it has high rewatching value as a case study of how a well written and well directed plot ought to be. Do watch it and don't skip any scenes as it worths your time and your attention.

10 out of 10 from me.

Edit to Add: It is available at YoYo English Channel on Youtube subbed in English.

Read More

A lot of potential, over the top execution, full of cliches...

This film had every potential to be interesting and suspenseful one mainly due to its main concept idea. Unfortunately it failed to engage me due to its over the top production and the countless cliches that we have already watch them multiple times in other disaster movies.

Spoilers below.

The idea of a biological terror attack during a flight has not been that much used ( the only other movie that had a similar concept was 12 Monkeys).
But unfortunately the director gave more attention to the "poor_passengers _who_ were infected_ and _are _in_ danger_ because_ the_ plane_ is_ not_ allowed_ to_ land _anywhere_ and_ the_ only_ one_ who_ can_ land_ it_ has _psychological_ problems", instead of focusing mainly on the ground operations, f.e how and why the company got the virus, how the terrorist ended up to be so revengeful, to emphasize in other words what was going on on the ground before and after the attack, instead of what was going on in the air that was the simplest and most boring concept of all as it was expected.. In other words to make the movie a bio hazard political thriller with social parameters instead of just a disaster one.

The cast and the acting was really good, the music was in some scenes over the top and loud and the production was great as always, but went in vain because it is not interesting to watch that all the passengers got eventually infected by a virus. The twist would have been to not get infected after all!

Anyway.. 6 out of 10 from me for the very good production.
The plot was one of the same.. Air flight disaster adventure vol. 9.387.938.775!
Same old stuff, same old story.

Read More

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.

Read More

Very loosely inspired but in the mood of the book.

I'm writing this review having watched 7 of the 8 episodes and having already read the book that this drama is based on.

I will start my review by mentioning some things about the book that is a fantastic read and I recommend to read it. Jake Adelstein is the only American journalist ever hired at one of the most prestigious Japanese newspapers as a crime reporter, something that is of course an achievement by itself. Through his work as a reporter he had to deal with the whole spectrum of Japanese underworld, the Japanese mafia ( Yakuza- that it is worst as it seems than the Italian one! ) and of course with the police and all the people, the press and all other institutions, involved in this world.

In his book he mentions the most notorious of the cases that he covered as a journalist, and of course he gives a first hand account about how intertwined are the Police and the Press with the Japanese underworld.

And that is exactly what this drama is all about. It is not that much about the characters that are just some examples of the persons that Adelstein encountered in the 12 years that he worked as a journalist in Japan, but mostly a very good and accurate depiction of the attitudes, the dealings and the doings of all these people that live and operate in this particular world.

The story plot and the characters are original - inspired by the book or picked up from the book, but not so well developed in the book- but the mood is there intact. Where the book is full of information and facts as a reporter would have written them the drama is full of character development and a solid plot. So 10/10 from me for the fantastic and original in a manner of speaking writing of this script.

The production is great with the touch of Michael Mann ( the guy who produced the legendary Miami Vice and directed Collateral ). Don't ask me who is Michael Mann. Go a check out the films and dramas he has produced and directed.

I'm also impressed by the cast and all the actors participating in this drama as half of them had to learn how to speak Japanese and the rest of them to learn how deliver fluently their lines in English! They all deserve credits for their work, as we all know how difficult it is for westerners to learn Japanese and for Japanese to speak English.

So - in order to conclude without any spoilers- this is a fantastic drama with a very solid plot, great character development that you will not find in the book, and very good - and difficult due to the bilingual nature of this drama - acting.

If you haven't read the book yet do read it.
If you haven't watched this drama yet do watch it as it will put you in the mood of the book but with an original and different some how story plot.

10/10 from me for the writing and they way that the source material was used, the character development and the very good production and direction.

P.S After watching the final episode I have to say that the second season will be welcomed.

Read More

Dropped on episode 8!

I'll be brief as there is not reason to over analyze the complete and utter inability of this drama's writer to conclude the plot in a reasonable manner.

As many others mentioned in their reviews and on the comments this drama started with a very promising and interesting mystery sci-fi plot to end up in a mess that made me for the fist time in my life to put on hold and then drop a drama two episodes before the finale.

And that because the plot kept on raising more questions than giving answers. By the end of 8th episode there were so many plot holes and paradoxes, incomprehensible scenes and events that I found myself losing all kind of interest about the fate of the characters but also not even interested to keep watching it as nothing up to this point made any sense.

If you plan to watch it, avoid it even if the first episodes look promising. You are going to waste your time.

3 out of 10 from me

Read More

Surrealism at its best!

If this drama worth for something it's for its surrealism.
The plot was weak, the characters inconsistent, the FL had a completely childish behavior, the Goblin's character is weak and immature and the end was horrible as the Goblin didn't manage to get what he wished for.
The clever trick of this drama is that we watch the story from the Goblin's point of view though the actual protagonist and the character that leads the plot is the Reaper.
Anyway...
The plot is inconsistent and boring but interaction between the actors who were improvising and had fun while they were filming ( probably due to the lack of a solid script!! lol ) along with the cinematography and the music make an unbeatable combination.
It is the kind of series that you would expect to see if Pedro Almodovar , Guillermo Del Toro and Tim Burton joined their powers to make a festive ( Christmas or similar ) series.

9,5 out of 10 from me for the surrealism and fun factor.

Read More

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.

Read More