Reviews

poor story & dialogues

what to say …. this movie was such a disappointment! I wanted to live this movie as knights of the zodiac was a big part of my childhood. Mark Dacascos & Mackenyu were well casted but can’t say the same for the rest of the cast. Costumes don’t make justice to the anime at all and the special effects are low quality and we don’t realize the power nor the increase of power of Pegasus.

Now, the plot … they massacred the story. It doesnt make sense, they tried to summarize so many things and missed the whole point of the knights of the zodiac purpose. I don’t know if they tried to copy marvel sense of humour, but this whole “I’m a goddess” jokes weren’t funny and rather made the character of Athena look like a pretentious little girl.

This was a miss. I hope that if they continue the serie, the director & script writer will change. Otherwise, it will be a waste of time & money and will also stain actors credibility.

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Woke up still thinking about this movie

I'm not the best with reviews so keep that in mind. This movie really surprised me I thought it was going to be a regular slice-of-life movie with a student going through hardships but I found it to be way deeper than that. The main protagonist goes through life trying to find some sort of love or comfort that she can't get at home. A home I relate to very much where no one expresses love to each other. She looks for relationships to fill that void but even those let her down. She meets this teacher, and they become close. The teacher looks like she's going through her own hardships in life but still can relate to this lost elementary student. She becomes sort of a mother figure or guidance for the girl. What I felt during this movie is life can be hard it's so easy to be numb from what we go through but people and life are worth getting to know.

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It could have been 4 hours and still not boring.

Lets begin with what I said on the headline.
Don't get me wrong, a 2hours movie of this kind is still quite long, but...
..considering how rushed the content was with a bit too much plotholes, it should have been longer or even divided in 2 movies. The holes were a bit too big to pass.

You dont need to go line by line from the original story but there are certain keynotes that by taking out, cuts the overall experience.
I think even if I were to watch this without have read the manga or watched the anime, Id still feel parts were missing.

It began well up to 30minutes in, then the rush began and it went downhill.

The story is still beautiful but I wished the actress played Myio even more humble and puny.
In the alternative media I kept the feeling MUST PROTECT HER BY ALL MEANS but in the movie I really didnt felt as moved. The maids had a quite impact in the story but the were cut off rather short because, again, there was no room for anything else.
This is what lowers the score.

Fx wise I was happy. It was flashy and yet not as much to ruin it. I find it was kinda subtle and fitting for film and the music felt just right.

All in all, it was an adaptation that went its own path. I missed a lot of things from the story.
I recommend watching the anime (on Netflix and has finished airing) or reading the manga (that is not finished).

I still recommend this but Id say, watch the movie first then the other media otherwise you might be as disappointed as I was.

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Family friendly tear-jerker

I tend to overthink my choices when deciding what to watch, often getting so caught up in choosing something that I end up not watching anything at all! Surprisingly, I made the spontaneous and random choice to watch this one. I didn't recognize any of the actors in it at the time and made my decision solely based on the storyline. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Doh Kyung Soo's compelling portrayal of his character left a lasting impression on me. It was around the time when I was binge-watching a bunch of movies and dramas back to back, and he kept appearing in all of them! I remember thinking, whoa, who is this guy? This was before I knew he was a part of EXO (I knew of the group but didn't recognize its members individually at that time), and I was genuinely surprised to discover that he wasn't primarily known for being an actor, considering how exceptional he was! Needless to say, I became very interested in him from that day on; he's undeniably multi-talented.

I particularly enjoyed the bromance in this film. It delivered on precisely what I was hoping for in this movie —a nice gradual development of their relationship despite being complete opposites. While I highly value character development, I must say that in this movie, it felt somewhat abrupt for the ML. However, I found it realistic enough, considering this was a 2-hour movie and not a full-fledged 16+ episode drama.

The story itself wasn't groundbreaking, and I would describe it as relatively average overall. I wasn't expecting it to be as melodramatic as it turned out to be, especially considering the main genre tagged here on MDL was comedy. However, it was the acting that made this movie memorable for me. Both actors did exceptionally well in portraying their emotions, which made me tear up too, especially at the end.

Overall, I would recommend this to anyone looking for a good bromance film.

(Completed: 2016)

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Emotional, Dark, Sweet Revenge.

This movie is about a girl who is on a mission seeking revenge on behalf of her friend. She encountered a dark world of blackmailing, extortion and drugs.
If you're into action and revenge stories ( John Wick style ), then you gonna love this movie.
The lights, the cinematography, the choreography of the fights, everything is amazing.
The story is good, some people say it's superficial, I don't think so, it's a MOVIE, not a series, so ofcourse it won't have so much details.
The soundtracks are top notch, and acting was great!
Overall, an amazing movie to watch, I'm sure if I get the chance I'll re-watch it many times!
I would love a sequel!! 😍

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A nice queen?

Already at the edge of my seat 10 minutes through the film.
Am not too excited with the actor who played Renjie here.
Spectacular CGI with dragons and ghost soldiers
Zombies appeared here too. I was caught off guard of Di Renjie's being chopped the first 6 minutes of the movie. What I dont understand is the queens order to do the fineral in secret. Renjie has rendered meritorious achievements for the royal court and country and his death was cruel. The queen couldnt even grant him a descent funeral.
As the title says resurrection and the renjie that returned from the dead (he is pretending) is not timid at all and can be borderline pervert.

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Zombified Dee

Title in Iqiyi Detective Dee: The Sly Red-Eye

Started gory but good CGI. Story starts with prior year military assignment in a cave discovering the first zombies.

Excellent production: location, wardrobe, props, etc. I love the hundreds of palace military soldiers lined up outside the palace shot.
Of course, it won't be the classic Dee Ren Jie if the queen is nice and sweet.
Story involves the living dead - zombies.

I am partial to any Dee Renjie movies and series and as many Dee Renjie work out, I still rewatch some of them.
I am glad that there's still interest in producing Dee Renjie series and films. I hope many more will be done. It is like the James Bond movies and series: the actor who plays the lead role may change but it doesnt stop being interesting enough to attract viewers.

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Family drama movie

A heartfelt family story about a daughter coming home after the death of her father. She meets her half-sisters for the first time, and they bond over hotpot. Very good production values in the writing, casting, acting, directing, directing and editing departments. Toward the end the movie, I wanted it to keep going, but there is a two hours' time restriction. It would have been nice if she had kept the Fagara restaurant open for business. Life in Hong Kong might have financial rewards and job security, and restaurant business might be hard and rewarding, but the family tradition of Hsia Liang's Hot Pot secret recipe would continue.

Sammi Cheng looks youthful, fifteen years after her movie with Andy Lau, "Magic Kitchen". Sammi Cheng, Megan Lai and Li Xiao Feng were perfectly cast as the sisters. Their acting performances were awesome.

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REVENGE !!!

If there’s one thing I love about revenge plots, it’s when women do it. AND against a bunch of disgusting men.

Let me tell you, the main character wasted NO time. Killed the main boss in 3 seconds of his dialogue which was HILARIOUS!!! And soooo satisfying to see.

She was really there to get her revenge and spared no time for stupid villain dialogues inbetween the killings. Straight to the point, she made her mark and showed them what she’s really here for.

I loved the lovely story between the main character and her best friend. It was a beautiful friendship and i’m devastated that this story was about one of them dying and the other avenging.

On a side note, I really love when women help each other out, especially when okju helped the other girl out of there and the girl helped her too.

Really good action movie and I couldn’t recommend it more!!! Plus Okjus actress is superb at these type of roles. Really amazing. 10/10!!!

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Nice, standard Action-Revenge flick.

It's basically your standard "ACTION-REVENGE" movie... so there's nothing that really stands out story-wise but at least they were able to put some "new" things here and there that makes it somehow "fresh".

The Acting/Cast is actually quite decent and the music was okay. (I've seen worse where the cast looked like total amateurs)

it's just that... you never really watch ACTION-REVENGE movies more than once unless the ACTION part is super impressive.

If you're looking to have some fun watching an ACTION movie then go ahead. It's definitely worth watching at least once. The people giving it a 5/10 and below are just overreacting. I don't know what they were expecting this movie to be but I guess they were just "THAT" disappointed.

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The story and the acting were superb ...

I was very anxious to watch this movie because it had two of my favorite BL actors, but also because it was widely anticipated. It took awhile to find online but someone finally posted a link on Google Drive.

First off, Zee and Nunew were perfect in their parts. They fell into the characters and you truly believed that they were those people. Nu's acting when possessed by Kannika was amazing. He looked possessed when seeing his facial expressions and sporadic movement which were so good. Zee's arrogant behavior at the beginning fit the idea of the spoilt rich guy that felt he was entitled. Nu's comments about changing his mind and agreeing to the bond was so funny. Watching the two of them fall in love and begin to trust each other was beautiful. You could see the process of Zee falling for Nu as the movie went forward.

The secondary characters were also very good. Anyarin Terathananpa as Kannika was really good. The scenes where she was terrorizing Nu was very scary. The parents and grandfather of Zee were actors that I had seen before and they were once again marvelous.

I highly recommend this movie to everyone. The storyline, the acting, OST, and Special Effects were top notch.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10SItla98b0_hitgg0fu5cC35G24o91bL/view?pli=1

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As the saying goes: the book was better. Not to say the movie is bad, quite the contrary, I did enjoy it, but it didn't introduce Jiyoung's story as well to me as the book did.

The book is divided into sections, showing Jiyoung's life as she grows up, her childhood, her teen years, her adult life in college than working and finally her marriage as we see her mental health deteriorate due to the years of misogyny she - and every woman living in korea - suffered.

The movie on the other hand, spends most of it's time on married Jiyoung and her life as a housewife and mother, showing a handful of scenes of her life growing up, which to me took away the build up the book did so well and excluded really relevant and important scenes from her early years which showed not only her but her family dynamic as well, instead what they did was include scenes that TELL the audience "this is why Jiyoung is unwell", which didn't work for me.

I can't help but feel like that happened because they casted big names to play Jiyoung and her husband, so they didn't want to spend most of the movie on other actors that would play young Jiyoung and when her husband wasn't present in her life which would be most of the story, and the reason why I get that feeling is because they introduced scenes from the husband's point of view that don't exist in the book, and these scenes don't need to exist because the topics discussed in them - sexual assault and sexual harassment in the work place - are present in Jiyoung's life, we see them through her as she directly suffers from them, so they're more impactful.

The only thing these scenes added to the narrative was to show the difficulties women face in korean society and to show Jiyoung's mental health issues from the perspective of the husband, but both of them are already done well in the book without taking away her point of view, or they were done in a way that complimented her story in a better way, so to me it really felt like "oh we have to give Gong Yoo more scenes, it's Gong Yoo!".

As for the endings: I do prefer the open ending of the book, a sort of Twilight Zone ending, with no hope to it, because we end up with the feeling that this isn't a situation that can be resolved, because misogyny will always be present, hurting women everywhere little by little, taking away from our soul, or even that this situation is exclusive to Jiyoung, she is just one of many women who broke under our patriarchal society. So while the hopeful/happy ending of the film was a nice watch, it wasn't as impactful to me.

So basically if I hadn't read the book before watching the movie I would've enjoyed much more, because it is a good movie that showcases well the misogyny korean women face on a daily basis, while also, just like the book, remaining true to the experiences women everywhere face. BUT....... the book was better ;)

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