Reviews

"Which elementary school did you go to?"

The Night of the Undead had zero zombies in it if that’s what you are looking for. Without giving away any plot points, the title refers to a dark night with aliens and humans who all seemed very difficult to kill. The movie was far more comedic than frightening.

So Hee is living a great life. She resides in a huge apartment and has a gorgeous husband who cooks her breakfast every morning. When Man Gil’s late nights at work and disturbing text messages pique her curiosity, she goes to The Mystery Research Lab. Broccoli, the man in charge of the shabby agency, follows her husband and brings back a disturbing report. Man Gil is not only a philandering husband, he’s also an alien. When her loving hubby attempts to murder her, So Hee calls upon Broccoli and her friends Sera and Yang Sun to help her put a permanent stop to his lethal ways. Killing a murderous alien was harder than it looked as he was nigh on indestructible. He also had his own crew of indestructo buddies. The Korean version of Men in Black were also hunting down the unbreakable Choi Man Gil. It might take a combination of the Earthly forces and a bizarre feline concoction to save the planet.

The film ran too long, it would have benefited from a 90 minutes running time. Some comic schticks were beaten dry of any humor from situations. Having said that there were genuinely funny moments. If you were needing something suspenseful, look elsewhere. Due to the comedic nature of the film, the grim happenings couldn’t be taken too seriously. The story had serious plot holes and implausible elements which were difficult to overcome. This was also one of those films that only had enough money to pay for the rights to one song---Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy played several times.

It’s rare for a sismance to take center stage in a movie, but So Hee, Sera, and Yang Sun banded together despite their differences in the past. And any woman would be lucky to have a friend willing to take a cleaver to her psychotic alien husband bent on exterminating humans and taking over the world. Night of the Undead may have been a deeply flawed film but it had some entertaining moments.

10/20/23

Read More

Fairly entertaining, insanely ridiculous.

Did I have fun? Kind of. Did it take me 4 hours to finish it? Yes. Did I feel bad about being bored while watching all the kids dying? No. And that all kind of sums up all the problems I had with the movie.

Personally, I’m the person who needs some kind of explanation for the events happening, otherwise I cannot connect to what I see on the screen and I get bored. And we got exactly zero explanations in Battle Royale. What was the goal of the law? What was supposed to be the positive effect it has? What was the motivation make it happen? We don’t know and I honestly cannot think of a truly logical one myself that would make sense in any universe. So the movie ends up with being just… kids killing themselves and each other. And that’s kind of boring.

That said, there were two aspects I did enjoy:

My favorite part of the movie was for sure everyone taking their sweet time dying after being shot 4868374587439 times. They do need to give their final monologues after all.

Jokes aside, one thing I truly liked is how the kids are accused of basically the collapse of moral standards and crumbling society, but as the movie progresses, we see many flashbacks of all the adults who failed the same kids that are blamed now. Great way to showcase how youth is often blamed the negative consequences of adults’ actions and decisions - still relevant 23 years after the movie was made. It’s not the kids that ruined the society, it’s the society that failed the kids.

Read More

Surprisingly Good

Watched this in: iQIYI
[ X] As paid subscriber
[ ] Free
I consider this as
[ ] Excellent
[X ] Great
[ ] Good
[ ] Just Okay
[ ] My Mother taught me to be quiet rather than say anything bad.

As for recommendation:
[ ] Highly Recommended/Worth the Subscription Payment
[ X ] Add to your watch list
[ ] Watch if you need something to watch while waiting for a good one to release and can be seen for free.
[ ] Do not waste your time

What I like about this entire series:
[X ] Production sets/Props used; attention to detail is evident
[ X ] Wardrobes fitting scenes wellp
[X ] Artists portrayal of individual roles are good
[ ] Theme Music: opening credit, closing credit
[ X ] Story and good way it was written for the screen
[X ] DIRECTOR'S creative vision and imagination translating the script into a visual form.
[ ] Awesome CGI
[ X ] Fight Choreographies are beautiful and synchronized.

What personally didn't work for me
[ ] Lead Actor's Role portrayal
[ ] Lead Actress Role Portrayal
[ ] Story
[ ] Costumes Used
[ ] Set Designs
[ ] Script Lines could have been better
[ ] Too many, too much corny & cliche scenes
[ X ] COUPLE of scenes that do not make sense at all. Inconsistencies. Daughter of Imprisoned Lord talked excitedly about her loot before mentioning her father being imprisoned.
[ ] Too many fillers (useless scenes) to fill time.
[ ] The Director's work here can be described as "someone who got paid first, and did the bare minimum with didn't care attitude.

Read More

Korea's oldest surviving Kaiju movie

Space Monster Wangmagwi is the oldest surviving Korean Kaiju film. It also boasts one of the largest cast of extras for any film coming in around 160,000. The Koreans put their own stamp on a rampaging monster tearing up a capital city while the military watches powerlessly genre.

Bride-to-be Ahn Hee and pilot Jeong Hwan are celebrating the eve of their long-awaited wedding when Jeong Hwan is called back to his base. What everyone is about to find out is that aliens are orbiting the Earth and have unleashed a monster in their quest to conquer the planet. Even with people running around screaming and abandoning her wedding day, Ahn Hee dresses for her event, even having her hair done until the stylist scurries away. When she realizes no one is coming, not even the groom, she and her mother decide to leave as the monster slowly approaches them. Each one took turns falling down over and over again, in order to give the ugliest Kaiju in Kaiju history time to catch up. Ahn Hee is grabbed by the monster a la Fay Wray in King Kong style. A young street boy named Squirrel, who has stolen food and a knife from a deserted house decides to run up the monster instead of running away. The boy takes matters into his own hands and does more good in thwarting the aliens’ objectives than the military and civilian forces combined.

Space Monster Wangmagwi was quintessentially Korean. Instead of focusing on a handful of characters directly involved with stopping a monster, SPW had a series of vignettes that had nothing to do with saving the world. Some of the things you would never see in a Japanese Kaiju film included—a long pooping scenario, several instances of theft, child birthing, and two idiots betting about different things during the catastrophe and wagering everything including one man’s wife. There were also copious amounts of tears.

The building miniatures were exquisite as was the rubble, looking far more believable than some of the cardboard towns Toho was using at this time. I thought at first they were using forced perspective or some other film magic and then the monster would lean against one of the buildings or start tearing it down. Very impressive work. Too bad they didn’t put the same care into the monster suit. I didn’t think anything could top the moth-eaten Kong suit in King Kong vs Godzilla (1962), then Wangmagwi said, “Hold my beer.” The costume looked like a flight suit covered in cow dung, I hate to be crude but that’s the first thought that came to my mind. Wangmagwi also seemed to forget that he was holding a human in one hand when he was beating on buildings. The Gamma aliens weren’t much better, they wore what appeared to be dented gold buckets on their heads. And when the spaceship was flying the wires showed as it wobbled. The science was bizarre. Due to different gravity from the home world, the monster grew 500 times his size when dumped on Earth. Setting aside the absurdity of that “science,” wouldn’t the aliens have become gigantic as well, making settling the planet awkward?

My favorite part of the movie would usually be my least favorite. There have been many Gamera movies where I hoped the giant turtle would snack on an annoying child. Squirrel may have been cocky but he was cleverly proactive. The precocious thief’s actions, and not the military, saved the day. His maneuvers also pointed out how slow-witted the aliens were. The aliens only fear of the military was that they would trash the neighborhood and leave the planet uninhabitable for the conquerors.

I enjoyed having the chance to watch this film that was largely unavailable for decades. I might not have relished the poop and wife betting comedy, but I was happy to see this piece of Korea’s Kaiju film history.

10/19/23

Read More

Couldn't continue

Watched this in iQIYi as a paid subscriber.

Early in the episode, I already got confuse with the cave scene wherein a young gir with her Dad wearing mask are trying to capture a robber.
What's confusing is that the robber saved father and daughter from the deadly live vines using fire but after they got saved the robber stabbed the father killing him. Seriously did not make sense to me. This is how vengeance became the lead female's motivation for continuing to wear a mask and hunt down her fathers killer. Then she comes across a general who is about her age and because she found the same ring the robber had from ten years ago, she assumed he isbthat robber. Didn't make sense again: he would have been a young kid like her in that cave. Nit even half way through and so many senseless scenes and lines casing me to lose interest.

I still continued watching even though the female lead doesn't seem to be working for me. The supporting actress looks better fitting the lead role. This lead actress' facial expressions are sometimes contradicting for the scene.
The male lead actor is handsome but seems to be lacking chemistry between him and lead female actress.

I tried to keep watching hoping the artists will grown on me and story will hook me however, it wasn't enticing enough. Story is not flowing smoothly and there were few contradictions in characters for both female and male lead on top of senseless scenes and lines.

There may be an explanation as to how the cat masked came about but i didn’t come across it before I dropped this series.

It wasn't worth the time for me and definitely wont consider rewatching it. I have dropped series before but placed it on list of possible rewatch but not this one. I do not recommend this series at alk but it is my perspective which can and may be different than yours so give it a try and decide.

Read More

Kick ass movie with fresh action

This proves Korean cinemas ability to make high quality quality action flick with a woman as main lead even better than John Wick. It has a strong drive, very strong villain and excellent music. The strong female lead drives it through with her charisma and thoroughness. Such a well made movie. No nonsense sex scenes like the ones in Hollywood. There is no lag in the movie and the movie swings by in a zippy. This is a needed movie. It shows how today’s clubs massage parlours still have shady things and shady people. This movie literally kicked me out of my drama slump and out of the couch. I feel so energised after seeing it. It’s definitely not for the faint hearted.

Read More

Good.

-Neg:

1. That Rio has reinstated his old role. (accident)
2. That he could not express his feelings to Haruhiko.
3. Too few kisses
4. The Music during the lovescenes were not fitting.


+Pos:

1. The Maincouple
2. Acting (especially the Kissing and Lovescene). It was excellent. i don't even want to know how hard that was.
3. That the two became a couple towards the end.
4. Finally few Lovescenes. I have been desperately waiting for this (already in the series). The Lovescenes was excellent from the Quality and the duration. Iam Very satisfied.
5. The duration of the kisses. I loved it. They killed me right away. Lol

Read More

Good. The kissing was the best in the Movie!!!

WHAT THE ....heck was this kiss O_O ??????? I have never seen in any Movies/Series that they kissed so passionately, wildly...... and for so long.......why didn't the two already kiss in the Movies before? Why they didn´t slept together ? Unfortunately, this is far too short for a Movie - why only 12 minutes? I would have liked to see more of this couple. :-OOOOOO
They killed me with that kiss. OMG Lol.


-Neg:

1. Movie was too short
2. No Lovescene. Very disappointed


+Pos:

1. The Kiss was the best of this Movie. I could watch this every day. It never gets boring. Very believable.
2. The Maincouple
3. Acting

Read More

OMG!!!!

One of my Favorite Gay Series....omg this was hardcore. What was i looking at anyway haha xD...????????...The acting was way too good...was that even acting...???? The lovescenes were too sexy....... O_O


-Neg:

1. In the end, I wanted the love scene to be a bit wilder.
2. Not enough Kisses. I wished for more.


+Pos:

1. Story was interesting.
2. Acting was Perfect
3. The Main Characters. I love them as a Couple. *-*
4. Music
5. The Lovescenes was Really Hardcore.
6. Am very happy that the two are a couple. Searched and found.

Read More

Like opening a lot of time capsules from 20 years of their lives

This is hard to rate because it really depends on what you want from it. I wanted nothing in particular as I knew nothing but who the leads were from the poster… I loved my couple of hours with them because it really fit my wandering/daydreamy mind that was fine just quietly observing while curled up with a ball of fluff.

This is a slice of life… we are getting a moving image selection of time capsules of these characters’ lives, and where they are and who they are with in that moment is all you are getting, not some huge plot of what ifs, just a beautiful depiction of how the choices of each person at every stage made them grow, change, and all the same keep looking back and letting their hearts linger at a time long past. The child actress was an astonishingly good match, something I didn’t realize until I kept seeing them back and forth. She was also just plain good at connecting to this story in that quiet, nuanced way I see depicted in a lot of Japanese art. Minimalist in some ways, sure, but more like precision, a lack of clutter in what is shown so you see precisely what you should.

What you see? Beautiful cinematography, truly. The parts that are a bit more raw like the early months working in a cheese factory for the ML feel entirely intentional. When things are more harmonious, it is very clearly meant to convey the state of mind/level of comfort and peace in that singular moment. Everywhere is thoughtfully decorated, and this one warm older woman kept giving me Kim Hye Ja feels and I wanted her to feed me, too. Even the food, while only a few moments of it were shown, was really tender…

It is, from my viewing, about finding your home (your soul’s home in particular) and healing from things that made you run from even your happiest moments. The connections are not some pretty, perfect picture. They are realistic. The leads are understated in their expressions much of the time, her more than him, but their faces show pretty clearly how they are processing their emotions… you could probably turn off subs for 80% of this and still get 90% of what is said… ah, the music is also truly good, well-fitting for this film (which is actually “adapted from a song” which sure isn’t a tag I will see much, is it?). There is a bit of a shortcoming in the story itself a few places, mostly approaching the end, and I don’t love time skip endings in general (well, I particularly don’t like these barely there time skip endings… like why not show more between the ferry fireworks end of era capsule and the final one? I feel slightly, well, slighted there. Sure, it definitely works this way, but some things, even done well, make you ask “coulllldn’t you? We would be soooo happy to see this process after so many others were shown in such detail!” Alas, they jumped ahead in a way that felt a little disjointed and peculiar after the rest was so detailed in making sure the moments would linger…

I really found myself appreciating the hair and makeup stylists here!! They found the right ways to make time pass and make them seem definitely older, and that really helped in times when things were not going as desired. It was convincing, and they carried themselves in a way that matched the visuals the team crafted through makeup and hairstyles. The supporting cast were all just excellent, too.

So that is the spoiler free (slice of life doesn’t really have a ton of spoilers) reaction for this thread of fate being entwined, tangled, snapping, tied back together, etc. for every person in this whole film… the emotions are not loudly expressed very often, but they are palpable. Just know it feels a bit like an art film that is more about impressions left than any particular plot being carried out (almost 20 years of time are covered, so lots of small plot moments make the impressions, but they don’t directly connect in a linear fashion; rather, they culminate). It is reflective and has some flashbacks that some may not love. I would not want to watch this if my mind was busy/distracted. It is something to just immerse your eyes in and soak up, to feel as you observe… I didn’t find myself thinking about any what ifs at all. I just rode its wave which was gentle enough to sweep me here and there without making me drown in any place or lose my balance. The simple words “Are you okay?” becoming a grounding force for someone in a bit of a bad place is one of its most lovely details… those tiny words can make someone feel able to breathe again, able to smile. Okay, doesn’t hurt if the other is adorable and adoring.

Read More

What happens After SUNDOWN!

Based on the runtime, the experience was enjoyable. However, it would have been better if the movie had a longer runtime, around 170 to 180 minutes. This would allow for a more substantial background story and character development. Additionally, I wished there were more horror elements.

The relationship between the couple, Phloeng and Rawi, was portrayed well, but I was also interested in the development of the relationship between Phutson and Kraiphop. 😁

Another aspect that I want to know about is the backstory of Kannika. If Pharit wasn't the father of Kannika's child, I'm curious to know where the child came from.

Yes! I like more drama and horror 🫣

There are several other aspects of the plot that piqued my curiosity.

P.S. - My review is just based on the movie. I haven't read the novel.

Read More

that's just life

As a person who didn't grow up with their parents who are divorced but suddenly taken custody of by my mom, also being gay I relate to this a lot. I thought that this was a BL but I consider it more of a family-kind of drama. I hated it at first but as it went on I ended up enjoying it, if it weren't for the reconcile of the family nagisa made, I wouldn't even liked it even if shun and nagisa reconciled but the family didn't because I would feel bitter about it, sora really was important here and brought everyone together, the best girl!!

I really hated Nagisa but the movie really made it make sense and understandable. It doesn't change the fact that he was selfish and a coward that hurts a lot of people, made some problematic decisions, it's realistic and there are some things in life that we can't go back to and make excuse for but instead we should move on forward and make things right then on which nagisa did in the end thankfully.
I still hated him because of his ways, like breaking up with shun out of nowhere which left shun confused without being able to move on then coming back with a child then trying to pursue shun again which is again, so selfish! shun was about to move on and actually make a new life but nagisa stopped him, I feel bad for shun cause it's everybody's wish who are still in love with their ex is for them to come back and nagisa took advantage of it. Also sleeping with other men to satisfy his lust while being married with a child (which omg, thankfully sora has no idea about) basically a cheater, the unrealistic part is that he said shun is the only one who can satisfy him in the end which was so icky for me, so his lust was more greater than being content with his family like even if he is gay, don't sleep with others while being married!! Break it off first. So like the possibility of him cheating on shun too is pretty high.

Overall, great movie! If I'm being honest, I was angry and bored at the first half, like stuffs weren't making sense and they really make you hate nagisa then as it went on, things were explained and it gets quite exciting. Chemistry of the two leads were so good and the way nagisa reached, hold him close (like very tight- lol) and forced shun to stay with him was quite realistic for people that don't want people to leave them, I felt that scene a lot! It was the memorable part out of the movie for me. I feel for the mother and daughter, my mother also works a lot so I barely spend time with her but I was taken custody of but I still barely spend time with my mom so I'm really happy with the way things went in the movie the only difference is that I don't even bother to think about my father or want to get back with him, for now I'm good. it's like life where you can only experience things once, I dont find any reason to rewatch it.

Read More

Too much talking, not enough monster

If you saw The Rock’s Scorpion in The Mummy 2 and thought, wow!, that’s amazing CGI, you may be impressed by the brief appearances of the Scorpion Monster in this film. The synopsis said the film was based on a famous Taoist monk, but he never made an appearance in this story. There was Ye, a self-absorbed officer for the Monster Killing Bureau and Yan, a self-absorbed monster hunter who was ordered to help Ye by the imperial court.

Yan had consumed the power of a Red Wolf demon and managed to bring her into human form. Ye and his two cohorts dropped by and ordered Yan to help them find the missing Yue Ling village. Ye feared the Scorpion Monster was at fault for the village’s disappearance. When they finally found Yue Ling they discovered the villagers were indebted to the Scorpion Monster who had saved them and wished to live in harmony with him. Neither Ye nor Yan believed that was possible even though Yan and the wolf demon had become close. In the shadows, was a mysterious woman who whispered into Ye’s ear (repeatedly) that Yan was responsible for his father’s death and if Yan absorbed the scorpion’s powers, the emperor would make him a state preceptor instead of Ye. In the end, it would be a struggle to see who would conquer or kill the scorpion and what would become of the villagers.

The above bland description of the basic premise of the story was actually more entertaining than watching this plodding movie. A movie with the title Scorpion Monster, should have some exciting scorpion scenes. There was very little Scorpion Monster in the movie, and probably for the best as the CGI was quite poor. The acting was on par with the CGI. The writing was substandard, dull, and quite repetitive for a movie that ran less than 90 minutes. Eighty minutes into it I was wondering who I was supposed to be rooting for aside from the monsters. And the final battle was the definition of anticlimactic. I actually said out loud, “Was that it?”

Normally, I would try to think of something positive to say about a movie for those who might possibly be interested in it even if I wasn’t. But with below average acting, writing, CGI, and fights, it’s hard to recommend. If you get a kick out of watching a cheaply made monster movie that only shows the monster briefly a couple of times, this might be for you, otherwise best to skip this one or get stung.

10/17/23

Read More