Reviews

Short, Sweet, & Silly

Incredibly fun, engaging story that is character driven. Like a comic book, with perfectly tailored villains that contrast the heroes in ways that work for the plot. Each of the main characters have a villain counterpart whose powers and personalities provide the perfect counter. Not only our heroes have resistance to the villain teams abilities, it's their flawed personalities that throw the villains for a loop. This is simply good writing. It couldn't have been just anyone to save the day, it had to be Chae-ni and her rag-tag group of new friends. The characters move the plot forward.

The show is well-written, humorous, while emotional. Even the villains have a tragic stories that create empathy in those who watch. You want them to make the right choice, even when they fail to do so. Along side the tragic stories, there are villain's whose pure evil makes us hate them even more. While it may benefit from an extra episode or two to give us more time to digest some info, the show is definitely worth the watch!

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The WONDERfulls? (Yes or no?)

If you could have a superpower, what would it be?
Me?
I'd pick the power to rewrite dramas that had so much potential but didn't really live up to them.
Not good?
Then I'll settle for my body turning into superglue every time I lie :(

I've actually been looking forward to The WONDERfools since it was announced, because read the synopsis and tell me it's not fun. I can't even say that after having watched it (we know it happens sometimes) it was super fun! And funny too, I'll admit it took a minute but once they were on a roll, they couldn't be stopped.
Watching three characters who inadvertently received superpowers try to manage it by following around another superhero they inadvertently found while an evil organisation plots the end of the world, set to the background of Y2K? That is fun.
The weird camaraderie between the four leads was a delight to watch, they may not be extremely expressive or outwardly affectionate, but those four cared for each and it was more than obvious.
And.. and..well, I still kind of wish some things were done differently.

To be clear, I am a huge fan of the "superhero saves the day" trope, I enjoy it no matter how outlandish it may be, and I wanted that here. Superhero with a side of relatability.
Even with the concept of superheroes whose powers are not really "super", Kdrama writers really do know only one way to execute, which is neither here nor there. If you're going to go for it, do it. Or don't do it at all! It's clear who the lead was even when there were four leads and I suppose it happens all the time but that's my point. It happens all the time, and why do the writers fear trying something new?
I guess that was my biggest problem - the Hero's Journey (which they clearly followed here) could only really be applied to Chae Ni's character. Un Jeong was the mentor, Son ahjussi and Robin her companions and that's nice, but I really wish the other characters had more depth. I will say they were headed there, and right then, the credits rolled.

Initially I was quite impressed with the balance between the mystery and the comedy, but the more I watched it was incredibly clear that this was a very tactfully marketed superhero series. Think about the story formula for any movie in the genre and it was it.
It is somehow both a Kdrama and a quintessential superhero story and I guess that's exactly.. that's exactly what it's supposed to be, but wait! Imagine the things that you would associate to any and every Kdrama or Marvel movie and they're ALL here lol.

I don't know. I'm just super confused about everything about The WONDERfools, even whether I like it or not and that counts for something, right? It's like for every positive I think, there's a negative I can think of, but right then there's another positive. I'd say the best option is to watch for yourself, pace yourself while you watch and yes, maybe you'll be just as confused as I am.. we can be confused together :)

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Game Show: Performance Face-Offs and Director Challenges

This is a game show featuring performance face-offs, where teams of actors are divided under different directors. Each episode presents a series of challenges, and these images represent each challenge per episode. Sometimes, team members compete against one another for seats and are graded by the lead directors. Other times, teams compete against each other, with the audience acting as the judges.

I had a lot of fun watching this show, which I started primarily for Guo Jingming. Since much of it wasn’t subtitled, it was difficult to consistently gauge the commentary, and I occasionally used a translation app to understand the praise or critiques given by the directors. Even so, I found myself really immersed in the clips and short performances, which I felt were the heart of the show and where the raw talent truly stood out.

Because the episodes are almost three hours long, by the midpoint this became more of a background watch for me. I paid closer attention to the parts that interested me most—such as the challenges—and less to the judging, unless Guo Jingming was giving commentary or performers I liked were on stage. That said, I plan to continue with season two, and I’m excited to see the performers that were cast.

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Hidden Identities and Palace Betrayal

I consider this drama a hidden gem because not many people were talking about it when it released, and it’s still one I rarely see recommended. Some people feel microdramas can’t be executed well, but I think this one proves they absolutely can. It avoids many of the pitfalls that other microdramas fall into, such as glorifying brutality against women or feeling underdeveloped due to weak scripting and production.

I absolutely loved this and easily consider it a top-shelf watch. It’s a hidden identity revenge narrative built around a false eunuch and assassin premise, but it also delivers genuinely hilarious comedic moments that had me in stitches. The villain and adversary dynamics were incredibly well done and made the conflicts engaging while also making me appreciate the antagonist. Add in poignant backstories, palace betrayals, and a romance that truly landed for me, and this became one of my favorite watches.

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Wow…

Man these Kishibe Rohan movies are really something else… who comes up with this stuff? It is utterly BIZARRE and I’m here for it. So this Japanese guy comes to Italy as a laborer and meets this other poor tortured Japanese laborer (how many Japanese are there in Italy? Probably not a lot, what’s the likelihood? Oh well..) who hasn’t eaten for 5 days. Well instead of offering him a sandwich when he asked for food, the mean laborer pretends to give him a sandwich and then takes it away and forces him to do his share with the promise of earning that sandwich. He is so cruel to his fellow Japanese man, and the poor tortured laborer basically fall down the stairs from extreme weakness and dies. Then as the mean Japanese laborer watches, the dead laborer’s spirit comes and curses the mean guy, saying at the height of his happiness he will meet his worst downfall. But did this incident change the mean guy into a good person with humility? No way. He is just as mean as he always was. And he is hit with one stroke of luck after another- the happiness curse, which is an ominous sign that something terrible is about to happen. So the mean guy tries to subdue and suppress his happiness by always tying himself with omens of bad luck like black cats and broken mirrors, but they don’t exactly work which just shows that those bad omens are also a lie.

Kishibe Rohan happens to hear this mean guy’s confession in a booth at a church in Venice. I thought it was kind of funny because it’s possible that neither of them were Catholic as far as the viewer knows, and if it was a real priest, he would have started with the invocation of the Christian trinity and ending the confession with an absolution of sins, but he just remained silent. And the mean guy was just like “Can I be saved?” lol… that should have been a clue that whoever was listening was not a priest. And Rohan also happened to be Japanese hah what are the chances? The mean guy wears a mask during his confession and I thought that was interesting- the symbolism of masks throughout the movie and the setting of Venice complements that.

Well there is this grotesque scene with the spirit of the tortured dead Japanese man coming back in the form of his daughter’s tongue which is so weird and off putting that I had to remove a star just for that scene- it was so unnecessary in my opinion- they could have done that same concept but with some other visuals, because this was just gross. But anyways, Rohan was awesome as always, and I feel like he was just caught in this weird situation and dragged into it, along with the mean guy’s daughter who is also bound by the same curse. Then for some reason Rohan seems to be hit with the same happiness curse as well. But Rohan is a rather comforting reassuring presence in a. Weird chaotic world, and that’s why his character is just so awesome. Takahashi gives life to that character in a way no one else could. And I love how he comes to Italy and starts speaking in Italian like his software just updated, and the same thing with French in the last movie. And he reads people like books because well.. everywhere you go, people are the same. So he is confident in himself no matter where he goes. H elbows who he is and is not swayed by the culture or its people. I like that.

As for the mean Japanese guy, his confession was essentially useless not just because he wasn’t talking to a priest nor received absolution, but rather because he had no remorse for what he had done, and had not changed himself at all. He was still the same terrible person, just trying not to die from the curse, and he was ready to ruin a anyone’s life including his own daughter’s in order to not die from the curse.

What was the moral of the story? I suppose none, except for seeing how Rohan stayed in his worn center the whole time, even though he helped people, he didn’t lose who he was to the curse, Italy, or any person.

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A zombie movie that will make you reflect.

A great watch inside of the cinema!

The creator/s packed this film with all the ingredients a movie needs to succeed. A death of a good character for someone not worthy, a smart lead, a strong lead, characters you would root for to survive, characters you would root for to trip and die, circumstances that made you clutch your friend beside you... Colony's formula might not be unique but the execution, for me, was one slap away from being fantastic (if you watched it, I think you know whose bully's ass' deserved to be b*tched slapped, I know everyone I watched it with was hoping for it to happen). They stuck to their plan and it landed well.

Most importantly, Colony isn't just a zombie movie that is all thrill and jump scare, at the core of it, the movie conveys multiple messages and truths to its audience. Humans, like any animals are just animals: it's one for all, until self preservation says it's all for one. There are many, but what struck me the most, based on my own interpretation of what was shown on screen, was something that reflects where I currently am. People, especially, when it comes to politics have this hive mind. They would defer to their number 1 like brain dead zombies, until they end up spinning round and round until all that's left are shells. It's really important to think on your own, humans, have their own brain, they should use their own brains and form their own thoughts end decide what they, as an individual should do.

It's funny to me how this movie, showed that one character Koo Kyo-Hwan’s character wants to connect all minds for everyone to get the same exact message with all the feels and nuances to avoid miscommunication, because I feel like, social media is just one step away from controlling us this way…

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Suprisingly enjjoyed it for a long drama

The long daily/weekly Kdramas are definitely not my preference. But I decided to watch this one mainly for actress Lee Se Young. I really enjoyed her character in this drama even if it wasn't the main character. Also the whole drama was actually a fun decent watch as well.

The biggest surprise of the drama for me is the chaebol characters. I've only seen few long Kdramas and the chaebol characters are evil and unbearable. In "Wolgyesu tailor shop", the chaebol family here did not fit much into those two categories as much. At the start, it seems like they're heading that way with the mother and son conspiring together to take over the company from the ML. But as we get to know more of these characters, they lean towards more the comedic silly tone. The chaebol son Hyo Sang does have his moments of living up to the typical evil chaebol figure but he gets the best character growth at the end where the change in his character is noticeably seen. The other members of the chaebol family do go through character growth as well which was hard for me to believe for the older sister and sister in law who were the two worst characters of the drama. But I am glad they went this route for these chaebol characters that the long journey of the drama was worth it. The mother and daughter(Lee Se Young's character) were the best part of that family. I would have liked for them to had cast an actor to play as the father who had passed away but was still mention as important character to the family. Their father built and led their company with his hard work. It seemed like he was an inspiring person the way they talked mighty of him which again is a surprise for a chaebol family. I would have loved to see them throw flashback scenes of their father and the connection he had with his family.

The tailor shop family are a delightful group of people. They do a fantastic job in establishing the 4 gentlemen and their story they go through during the drama. I feel a bit dumb for realizing that the drama was about this until the ending scene. The cover photo of the drama does make it look like all 4 are working in the tailor shop but only 2 did. Dong Jin the ML and son of the father who owns the tailor shop is a strong, confident, and smart person. He misjudges the FL for a person she is not where he's unlikable for a bit treating her harshly but apologizes to her after seeing the truth. This part was an amazing watch to see how his character took a turn from hating the FL to loving the FL. Tae Yang comes from a poor family background. He works multiple jobs. He ended up working at the company where he met his future wife. He leaves the company after finding out how he was hired which was Hyo Sang playing around wanting to monitor what kind of guy his girlfriend Ji Yeon dated before was like. You get your typical messy story of good characters connected with the bad characters that they have to learn to accept each other as family later on. Ji Yeon is Tae Yang's girlfriend at the start of the drama but she cheats on him with Hyo Sang because he's rich and successful. Hyo Won the daughter of the chaebol family has a bright fluffy energy that can be immature. She falls for Tae Yang throughout the drama which was a wonderful watch. Even tho Tae Yang is poor he is a handsome, caring, brave, and kind man. Seeing the chaebol mother being against him dating her daughter but slowly opening up to like him was very fun. A missed opportunity was some deeper background on his sister like relationship with the FL Yeon Sil. A flashback scene would have been nice. The FL Yeon Sil was alright for me. She had her ups and downs tho for her character whether she had grown stronger or reverted back to how she was before she met the ML.

This drama does go a bit over kill with all the weddings that happen. Maybe it's just me and I haven's seen enough long Kdramas with so many couples that need for wedding scenes. Overall the drama is a decent watch with fun characters and their journeys.

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A Disappointing Waste of Jang-Jang

I was ready for something light and humorous, and the poster promised that. The MDL rating was low, but I often enjoy what others don't. It featured the two Jangs together—they're so natural with one another—and I couldn't understand why the rating wasn't higher. Having completed the drama, I wonder why it isn't lower!

The Good:
• Jang Hyuk and Jang Na Ra are always fun to watch.
• I loved the character of Cho Tae Gu. He had put up many walls emotionally, but Min Seo kept crashing through them. Their interactions were fresh and engaging.

The Bad:
• Talk about an inconsistent tone. First, it was slapstick, then it was unremitting brutality. Kang Yu Ra was the sweet, supportive family member who always mediated and cleared up misunderstandings until they were her own. Then, she was dark, sullen, and non-communicative. The drama couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a silly comedy or a dark action thriller.
• Nothing had to make sense. No brain cells were required. In a top secret facility, someone could waltz in, kill off an important witness, and there was nary a guard, security camera, or even a lock on the door.
• I don't believe even one set-up was ever brought to completion. Even Grandpa's love life wasn't resolved. Obviously, they were planning on a second season that never materialized. The viewer was left hanging with absolutely nothing resolved.

I added a half star for the character of Cho Tae Gu. Kim Nam Hee made an unlikable character sympathetic.

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fell flat

Overall: I didn't take off points for the ending, but the way they accomplished it made me feel nothing, it didn't hit like it should have. 44 short episodes, 1-7 are free to watch. Aired on the Shortime app. My invite link (you get a bonus) is https://playground.shortime.app/en/invite/NKNIWI - the code is NKNIWI (those are all capital letters, that's the capital letter i). If you do all of the rewards it will take about 2 days to watch the series for free.

Content Warnings: death, illness, manipulation

What I Liked
- the dream in episode 33
- brother kind of redeemed himself

Room For Improvement
- not enough romantic relationship between them, I think one scene was more of a dream
- showed a side character as the stereotypical handsy/comedy character
- if he grew up with sight and then recently lost it, I think his eyes would track where someone was speaking from
- choppy between 33 and 34
- with the 1 guy having a girlfriend/ex girlfriend it felt like a gay for you trope
- no idea why his eyes would be blue at the end? (I looked it up online and it doesn't make sense)

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Original Korean storytelling set in a unique Filipino setting

I've watched both the original and our very own adaptation, and I must (and sorry) say, I liked this version more than the original Korean version.

In this adaptation, the storyline is switched to the rural Philippines during 1976 which falls under the Martial Law Era of the Marcos Regime. Compared to the original Korean version which is more simpler, the Filipino version is much more colorful and lively with scenes filmed in Greece and Batangas, Philippines, particularly the countryside house and the market scene which was filmed in Taal Heritage Town. The barn and other props in which were not originally part of the countryside house were carefully and wisely designed and created by the production team.

The two main leads had great chemistry together. Rabin and Angela perfectly nailed the roles originally played by Song Joong Ki and Park Bo Young. They both gave justice to the original actors and their roles. Candy Pangilinan was a great comic relief, and Albie Casiño played Yoo Yeon Seok's villainous role very well. I also find this adaptation more humane and emotional than the original version. I loved how they portrayed the older Sara (played by veteran actress Lorna Tolentino) in her current self upon reuniting with Boy (played by Rabin Angeles) without switching back to her younger self unlike in the original version. I also loved the Acacia tree scene which wasn't in the original film. The film also has 2 theme songs: the Tagalized version of "My Prince" by Angela Muji and "Mahal Kita, Walang Iba" by RabGel. Love both songs, but loved MKWI the most. The ending scene was also touching and meaningful.

Recommended for fans of both K-Drama and Filipino Drama. The adaptation remained faithful to the original storyline while blending in with unique traditional Filipino cultural elements. Already watched it a few times, and I enjoyed it very well. Hope you enjoy it too, even if you're not Filipino. Kudos to the director and production crew for this wonderful adaptation of a Korean classic hit. More power to RabGel💪❤️

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