Grooty
"Everything is connected". A perfect example of Butterfly Effect. Our life choices are our own fate.
Train was an astounding drama. Every episode is like a literal roller coaster that builds up momentum until the end of each episode, at the end of each ride (episode), you will be wanting more! The acting, the cinematography, engrossing story, amazing soundtracks that added depth to every scenes and the big to tiny pieces of details that are connected and made a lot of sense.The story is consistent and logical. Every scenes are well connected to each other; to main plot and to what the show is trying to convey. There are no filler episodes; the plot is tightly packed. It may seem the story is focused on serial killer but it's actually not. The show dealt crime and investigation but in its core, it tackles how our life choices affect us and the others around us without even knowing, and how our choices become our fate that mold our life to who and what we are in the present. That one's choice will not only affect you, but also of countless of other people around you. The two worlds perfectly demonstrated this effect. The "what ifs" of World A were perfectly mirrored and manifested to World B. The characters of both worlds are basically the same but were differently molded by life experiences because of one's choice.
The parallel world execution is one of the best I've seen. Switching between worlds are crystal clear and so clean. You can easily distinguish each worlds by their transitions and color tones. The actors also did really well differentiating their characters from both worlds.
One thing that I wish they were able to do was to explore more of supporting characters backstories especially Do Won B. I was fascinated by the character that I keep wanting to see him more. Sadly, this was only a 12 episode drama that is already tight as it could be and there was no room for more backstories that could potentially slow down an already great pace of the drama.
The acting was very commendable. Everyone did excelllent job portraying their parts. I was completely pulled in especially during emotional scenes. I never ever cried in a heavy thriller drama but Yoon Si-Yoon made me teared up numerous times. His emotions will just draw you in. Portraying parallel characters in this drama is extra difficult because the characters are the same but with different life experiences. So the actors need to simultaneously show similarities and differences which they pulled off really well.
The full soundtrack was amazing. The high bass mid tempo sounds, the revealing deep violin sounds that incorporated in suspenseful events, the combinations of different instruments that are exhilarating, the use of actual voice to create haunted whistlings. Also, the songs "With You" for emotional scenes and flashbacks and superhero-themed like "I Will Never" song that was played at the end of each episode are the best! All of these plus the acting, the gripping story, the cinematography have come all together to create a wonderful drama!
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There were a lot of things that weren't shown or revealed but I think that's part of the beauty of the story like we can't judge people until you know the full picture and the writers gave us a chance to draw conclusions on our own.
The main character, I loved Sera. She's not perfect but tries her best, not smart but knows what's right and wrong. She loves her friends and family without showing it. The only thing that I didn't like about her was how she was really physically aggressive towards Gong Myung.
Gong Myung was stoic but with Sera with him, he found the perfect balance. I just love their relationship. There should be more couples like this in Kdrama, couples who talk about their problem and resolve them immediately.
The OST in this drama is one of the best!
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This review may contain spoilers
Hello Hello Disappointments
It leans towards the heartwarming and over the top sentimental department but the show majorly struggled to stretch the story into a 16 episodes, their solution was a series of subplots and fillers that felt hollow. It's like the 3 writers didn't agree with what direction they wanted to go and did their individual scripts instead.One big major flaw was the writers ditched what seemed to be a major plot that they were brewing up from earlier episodes only to change direction midway.
A stalker follows and observes everything Dae Hyong does, he noted Dae Hyong's whereabouts and his change in moods and behaviors everyday. They even altered his voice to add to the mystery. But by the 2nd half, they revealed he was obsessed with Si-a instead. It unfolded in a very underwhelming way that lasted like a minute, everyone quickly moved on from it. The writers basically bait and switched. You would think the stalker was part of the major plot that would affect the main characters by how they were showing it from the beginning. Their workaround to change direction he was to make him be Si-a's stalker instead. It didn't add up and didn't make sense at all. This is such a bad writing, on top of already dragging story full of hollow subplots and fillers.
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CLOY is riddled with ridiculous but enjoyable (to some extent annoying) clichés
The chemistry between the leads was oozing like I could watch the whole series just them staring at each other.The story had a lot of loop holes, but I enjoyed watching every character so I kinda shrugged it off. It's a bit corny at times too. Sometimes I felt like the interaction between the leads were originally written for teenage lovers. The theme was original but the story telling was a little too cliché. They could've reduced the obvious meant for each other trope, they highlight that part too much. There's some lazy writing going on in the later part of the drama. Leads and the rest of characters really carried the show for me.
Acting were great overall. It really adds a punch when all the characters felt like characters and not just actors acting. Although I noticed their North Korean accent weren't all the same.
CLOY is peak kdrama, the feel, the setting, the tropes. It's the epitome of a romcom KDRAMA. You'd find most kdrama tropes in this show that there were times the writers make fun of it themselves.
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Keeping it shorter: No, don't waste your 16 hrs to this.
This mess is a combination of bad writing and directing. The first time they used the disturbing kdrama romance tropes to show TY and JG motherly connection, I already knew the other aspects of the show would be that bad and it was a result of bad directing. The writers used scientific terms like quantum entanglement without really knowing what to do with it like "this term sounds cool, let's use it" to make their viewers feel genius with the unfamiliar and fancy terms used in the drama.How I wished they have only used Alice as just a mere plot device to help explore more of the characters instead of delving too much into it because in the end, everything did not make sense.
The ending really threw everything that has happened in 15 episodes out in the garbage bin. The show itself is bad, but maybe worth a look if your only reason of watching is for the actors because they did great.
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This review may contain spoilers
Just to be called unique in the BL genre, it tried to add elements they couldn't execute well.
The acting was pretty good considering they're rookie actors. The plot progression however was disappointing. It was trying too hard to blow our minds with the world building with ML getting transported into a virtual world and some time loop that was added in the last minute for what purpose exactly? The overall execution was terrible. I rarely say a show is overrated but this definitely does fit the bill. For the sake of being called unique in the BL genre, it tried to add elements they couldn't even execute well.Yeo Woon got annoying when he started acting aegyo, my whole body was cringing
SPOILER:
It's so funny how Yeo Woon ignored Myungha for days after he misunderstood on why Sang Won brought Myungha home. Myungha tried to resolve the issue by communicating but he just ignored his existence and even said "I'm exhausted leave me alone" in his face but when Myungha wanted to break up, Yeo Woon didn't want to, acting like the victim in the situation like make it make sense.
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A great concept with bad execution.
This will be very short review:It started great, fast paced first 2 episodes. From episode 3-16 was just pure boredom. Lacing the drama with a lot of clichés and typical power struggle trope that weren't good or original at all. The last 2 episodes were so anti climatic. That's it? pure disappointment.
It's like the writers watched a BL and Sageuk dramas simultaneously, got inspired by it, wrote a drama fusion between a BL and a Sageuk but found out they couldn't air it on Korean's National TV so they decided to put on a Crossdresser trope. The result? disaster.
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Ratings of each story
Han-su & Eun-hui - 9.0/10Good story introduction to what is to come. I personally think this story encapsulated the whole theme of the drama perfectly.
Yeong-Ok & Jeong-Jun ‐ 8.5/10
Poignant with a lot of love. Their love story started slow but in steady pace and I really the way it was shown. Confusion to confession to affection.
Yeong-Ju & Hyeon - 8.0/10
People think they act like brats but that is how teenagers are, they think they know the world before they turn 20. This story really shown the reality of 'some' teenagers
Dong-seok & Seon-a - 7.0/10
Needed more episodes to fully flesh out their story as individuals and couple
In-gwon & Ho-sik - 9.5/10
I didn't know this two grown men would made me cry. Love the bickering
Mi-ran & Eun-hui - 5.0/10
Felt like a filler and feels disconnected somehow
Yeong-ok & Jeong- jun & ... - 10/10
My personal fave, need I say more? go watch it!
Cheun-hui & Eun-gi - 7.5/10
Filler done right
Ok-dong & Dong-seok - 10/10
I cried like a baby, a perfect closer for the whole drama. The characters honesty is so raw, a reflection of people's real emotions
Overall - 8.5/10
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Beautiful depiction of tragedy, healing and moving on
This drama is one of the best of OCN's this year. The tragedy of losing someone when theyre missing was masterfully depicted in this drama. Losing a loved one does not stop at death, but only starts there. The healing, the sacrifices of the characters were all done in magical and beautiful way. The concept was really good although the story telling had some hiccups along the way but the ending made it more special.The characters made it all somehow relatable especially to the viewers who haven't experienced of losing someone.
Everyone did a good job for their acting, but I wanna highlight Mr. Jang (Heo Junho) acting prowess. I've only seen this actor doing villain roles but his acting here as a father losing a child was really convincing. I rooted for his character the most in the entire drama, big part of it was because his portrayal of such character was really convincing, genuine and relatable.
In short, Give this underrated drama a chance!
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There is hope
The movie was raw and so emotional that would make you feel different level of emotions. They were able to turn this to an emotional masterpiece from a real life story of a brave girl who have went through something that any kid should never experience.Sowon is a brave and smart girl. Despite all the things she went through, she did not give up and learned to heal herself from emotional and physical trauma. Her name really fits her, Hope; she was the hope of everyone around her. She was the victim but she was the one who gave healing and hope to her parents who are also suffering from what happened to her.
Her parents were very commendable for showing their child tremendous love and support despite being always on the verge of breaking down.
It's crazy that a human can do evil to a kid like that. The culprit should rot in jail but the flawed justice system failed the kid. It's an eye opener not only to the viewers but also to lawmakers to fix the holes in the justice system.
The acting was really good that I forgot I was watching a movie. I was carried away the whole time.
Although this was very heavy, it had many light moments of a kid on her way to healing. I personally won't be able to watch this again because it dealt heavy stuff experienced by a kid.
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It was like a comforting smell of pavement after a rain. It really represents what this drama was supposed to be about. The simplicity was its biggest strength
Second half:
It was like a humid room without any window. The major conflict that was introduced to keep the show interesting felt so out place. It lost its essence by making things too complicated for the leads
The leads didn't have an ounce of chemistry. Usually having the same personality means they're compatible but with the leads' case, they were too similar that they kinda repell each other like magnet
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Top tier sports-politics
99.9% politics, 0.1% gameplay. I expected a sports, gameplay driven drama but it's mostly political. This may sound discouraging but it's actually the strongest part of the show. It's engaging, very well written masterpiece.You will feel like part of the stove league post season improvement throughout the show. Every episode tackles all the problems (the reasons they keep losing every year) and important part that leads to the overall improvement of the team, not just the baseball team but most especially the internal people that make up the whole dream team. It's something that you will cherish as you near the end.
It's so refreshing to see a show that let us see what happens internally in a sports team. What can I say? it's certainly chaotic!
Nam Goongmin is an excellent actor. His role as the General Manager was very convincing. Everyone did their part harmoniously.
This is an excellently well-written drama that even for people who don't usually like sports (like me) will surely enjoy.
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Revenge was unsatisfactory
It was good but I was kind of underwhelmed with the protagonists' "revenge". They suffered so much and that's all abusers received? I think the writer was trying too hard to make Dong Eun vengeful but law abiding which is quiet hilarious. I hoped it wasn't all black and white. Dong Eun could've been a murderer herself I wouldn't really care. She lost 18 years of her life being physically and emotionally abused but that's all the revenge she got in the end.Yeo Jung's hell plot was meh. Wasted screentime on him and the murderer conversations talking about the same thing over and over. They're trying to give his character more depth but the excution was so bad. You can skip their part and you wouldn't really miss a thing. The time jump to give Yeo Jung his revenge was unecessary as the build up towards it was bad.
Scene stealers were Hyun Nam and Do Young. Their acting especially Hyun Nam was captivating.
Overall it was good but could've been great if the revenge wasn't tamed
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