Really looking forward to it at first, but got disappointed middle way because of how the drama unfolded the way I was not expecting it to be.
Still it’s one of the few kdramas that I wait for the release every week. It was more likely like a slow ride that I was surprised with the turn of events up until the ending. Though I had my disappointments, I still think this drama is worth the watch.
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The Escape of the Seven: War for Survival
14 people found this review helpful
the 7 deadly sins
There's details, then there's lack of logic.Having known that this is written by Penthouse's writer, Kim Soon Ok, I couldn't help but feel ecstatic. The trailer and preview looked intense, and there's an underlying wish for 7 Escape to be just as thrilling.
The downfall of Penthouse in my view, was the rushed progression for S2 and 3, despite the quality that S1 has offered. There was a sense of lack in preparation or simply wanting to release the seasons quickly to reduce the wait for the audience (striking while the iron is hot with ratings, which is understandable).
However, it's already announced there will be a S2 for 7 Escape, so there's high hopes to avoid this blunder.
After Ep1, this definitely has a lot of potential, and surprisingly I found it hard to gauge the primary theme of this drama (unlike Penthouse, which circulated around revenge). From the very start, Kim Soon Ok's distinctive style and intentions emerged through a rich tapestry of symbolic depictions, and this was established from the intro itself.
This exploration is far more in depth in comparison to Penthouse, with the statue of Hera, and I believe these would also serve as a catalyst for exciting theories regarding the plot progression.
In this case, we are seeing strong biblical connotations based from the title of 7 members that ultimately revolve around the naive and innocent girl - Da Mi.
The other key characters are yet to be known, and it would be very interesting to see if there would be variations regarding the representation for the 7 deadly sins, or references to stories associated with these traits that can serve the plotline. From personal observations, greed/gluttony, envy, pride and wrath have been spotted, all in connection to Da Mi herself. But it’s just a wild speculation at this stage.
As mentioned, Da Mi - who I believe will be the victim soon enough - has been roped into this cut throat world of elites. Her potential d3ath would be the basis for the entire drama, and without spoiling, could potentially have ties to the man who’s played by the prolific Uhm Ki Joon (Matthew Lee). This is the second biblical connotation, where I’ll talk more in detail. The characters associated with her will be plunged into a "Lord of the Flies" scenario where a game of survival is involved, and this also remains to be seen - how and why would they be in the same place all at once?
Matthew, according to the Bible, was a tax collector. It could suggest he’s there to “collect his dues” if you will. They are also said to be deceptive, which may be a highlight to his character. Perhaps if Matthew does have ties with Da Mi, the game would be very interesting to view from that perspective to determine his motives.
The third and final biblical connotation is in the intro, with the snake curling up a man’s arm. This is in association with Cherry Ent’s CEO (played by Yoon Jong Hoon), and also a self explanatory representative of “the enemy”/Satan.
Initially, this was meant to be a review. It turned into details that I hope provides enough reason to give it a watch. In regards to performances, the actress who played Mo Ne (Lee Yu Bi) has blown me away in particular. I have yet to dissect the connotations to using the name "Monet" for a character, but that ending segment in Episode 1 was not a coincidence. This exact scene also threw logic out of the window (without spoilers), and it's hard to overlook.
Yes, one might argue 7 Escape is a recycling of Penthouse tropes, similar OST and same high production style, but there’s potential depth that’s yet to be seen and it’s evident Kim Soon Ok has intended to take the symbolism idea much further than Penthouse had indicated, which I believe has made it unique and memorable in the first place.
A 7/10 in this early stage.
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Your closest grocery store is run by idols
I picked this up because of the idols in it. I really like EXO, so I am obligated to watch since Xiumin is in it. To me I found this drama a very nice surprise. I put it on for leisure, but had started really watching.The whole vibe of this drama is one that isn't taking itself too seriously and has a star-studded cast that is doing a fine job so far. The roles they are in are all unique, with each of them being an idol in their disbanded group. The story itself is something you wouldn't get out of an every day situation, but it is made for a k-drama, and I like that. To me, the unrealistic story is good, and they explain pretty quickly why and how they own this mart.
The acting is pretty good, not amazing or anything, but serviceable. It is fun to watch since it is k-pop idols, and since it isn't too serious that makes it all the better. There are some emotional beats that most likely will happen (I won't explain since that could spoil), so there might be a little weak spot. So overall this drama is easy and doesn't feel lengthy because it isn't. The story and scenes flow nicely and it's pretty funny too. The romance if any is something I see happening naturally and is there to develop the characters. The setting is perfect for funny scenarios and I can see myself staying entertained the whole way.
So far so good! I couldn’t finish this simply because it’s nothing I see myself needing to watch. It’s not bad though, it’s just sort of background fluff.
It’s just so average but a little worse? I don’t know.. I watch for the idols but it got lost for me and I don’t see a need to finish. Good while I just had it on in the background
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A story worth watching
It has good combination of1) story
2)cast
3) world
Whole story has good flow, not like Korean drama where they make emotion intense at last five minutes , many advertisements (they are becoming annoying , and symbol of decline of Korean drama industry as they have to rely on that extra money)
For mandatory 500 words
Whole story has good flow, not like Korean drama where they make emotion intense at last five minutes , many advertisements (they are becoming annoying , and symbol of decline of Korean drama industry as they have to rely on that extra money)
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This review may contain spoilers
BEST SHOW EVER!
After watching the 6th episode, I can clearly state that this show is the most intense, drama-filled show I have watched.I love all the acting, especially in episode 6, Book and Khaotung delivered on all aspects. I cannot wait to see how Mew will act in the next couple of episodes, with the truth finally coming out.
Moreover, the history between Top and Sand interests me so much! I cannot wait to see how their relationship is evolving with hopefully more information coming to light, and potentially an appearance of Sand`s ex.
The only negative about this show is that 12 episodes are not enough :)
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This review may contain spoilers
Love that grows from strength to strength
A beautifully told tale of a love story that started out as an accident and evolved into a relationship of trust and genuine love. No unnecessary misunderstandings and jealousies to tear them apart was much appreciated. Instead their obstacles were the situations they were placed in.A love triangle of sorts, the villain turned out to be victim of circumstances but the flashback sequences of him with the FL was sweet and gave you the usual “if only” wishes hoping he had it better growing up. The reveal during his end was not unexpected but good enough to tie up his storyline.
The star of this drama is the ML. Watching him grow from a carefree, playful person to one who sacrifices himself to fight for the good of the people was the highlight of this drama. Kudos to the scriptwriter for some of the most intelligent and interesting dialogue for this character. He delivers it so well and righteously in keeping with his character’s personality.
It was also nice to see the FL transform from originally resigning to her fate of just being a typical wife to having her own aspirations in business. However, this changes seem too jarring at times, one of which was when she went from crying on her wedding night to suddenly being extra gung-ho as she led men to the entertainment house to chase down the her husband. Brandishing a sword to get him was a nice humorous touch. However, her revealing all her marriage aspirations and how the ML ruined it in front of the many people in there felt so wrong. A normal person would have some reservations about sharing such private information in public, what more she had just spent years learning about a family’s code of conduct. Overly dramatic. (also found it strange she had no reaction when she saw her original target husband in the crowd there)
Watching her start her first business showed some smart moments but not fleshed out enough as she quickly turned things around after 2 weeks of slow sales. Not enough moments to make me believe she is this super business person especially when she was in the capital and when she was lying low during the 3 years.
One of my favourite parts would have to be in Wangdu and how the ML defended it with just 10,000 men against an army 10x bigger. I loved both his confrontations with his uncle here - perfect lines perfectly delivered!
Didn’t care much for the palace storyline with the new Emperor suddenly being sick all the time compared to when he was just a Commissioner. Liked the Empress Dowager and her daughter even less especially their senseless meddling. The twist here became too convenient and a few extra scenes on how it happened would have been better.
The ending was good enough, showing us what happened with all the main characters and how some of them still go on despite not having a spouse. A definite must watch if you are a fan of the ML as he was truly in his element in this drama.
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Best C-drama for me
this is the best cdrama for mee!! the story is so beautiful and so cute, can't stop watching it TT when i thought the problem is solved, there's another problem arise but they have smooth transition, not feel out-of-place at all!! the ost also feel good, i always listened to it. And for me all the main/support character is so handsome & pretty!!usually i feel some cdrama story flow kinds off. but this one is so good i feel like watching a new generation of drama. even thought it's more bromance than bl. but seriously, might as well become a bl cause their chemistry is so good.
if cuteness can kill i already died thousands times. Hope i can see s2, i reallyyy want to see them again!!
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Excellent Drama!!
one of the best wuxia drama I have ever seen. Kudos to the team of MLC. I hope there will a season 2 ( fingers crossed🤞) even though i know it is a novel adapted series and it is rare to get another season when the novel itself is finished.Dynamic trio ( Li lan hua, Fand dou bing, Dei fei shing) make the series complete. I must say the chemistry between all the characters are amazing but this trio will surpass even the word chemistry. The humor and seriousness of the drama is well balanced along with the character development. Investigation plots are well explained and like jigsaw puzzle. Some might find little plot holes in the case solving but its not that detectable. Fighting scenes (like sword fightings) are beautifully executed by all the characters in the drama.
To be honest I didnt like the ending much. its not because its open ending. li xiang yi suffered too much for others. he brought lot of people back to life while losing his inner power all the time. atleast he should have a chance to live a carefree life with his besties. since he himself missed his master and lost everything searching for his senior who at the end betrayed him, he should have consider the feelings of his disciple( fang duo bing) and besties who would do anything for him and is searching for him everywhere with a tinge of hope. it was irresponsible from his side to just leave like that without giving himself a second chance.
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Wanru’s Somewhat Rambling Journey
Using my personal rating system of "loved," "liked," "meh," & "nah," this started as a “liked” but ended up a “meh”.Spoilers ahead b/c I didn't follow the rules of writing a review. :D
The deets:
Young woman with a mysterious past (with hints that she’s been transmigrated from our world into an alternate one) who lives on the streets and makes money by scamming people tries to scam the wrong person and ends up being forced to take on a false identity. She apparently is identical to a developmentally delayed daughter of a powerful pugilistic clan. The lady of the clan has decided to sacrifice the life of the developmentally delayed daughter—who is the daughter of a concubine—in exchange for healing son by blood. But since the lord of the clan really likes his daughter, she decides to replace her instead with our FL. Our ML notices right away that something is not right with his half-sister and quickly figures out she is fake (which helps with the ”ick” factor of him falling in love with his half-sister’s face and name; they were also raised separately so he didn’t grow up with her, either). The half-sister is betrothed from infancy to our SML (more costume/period dramas with Deng Chao Yuan please!) who turns out to be a very decent guy. All three meet up at a pugilistic academy for young people where about half the action takes place until the plot kind of falls apart and they spend a lot of time hiding out in luxurious bamboo houses in the woods while they fight the machinations of various powers-that-be in the pugilistic world.
Things I liked:
The story started out very interesting. It’s a short drama, ~30 minute episodes with a total of 24. For being relatively low budget, it kept me very interested basically until the end of the “academy” arc. The fight scenes were really well done. I didn’t have any objections to the way the three leads were written, they were all decent people, their motivations seemed solid.
Things I did not like so much:
This drama could not decide if it was a BL between our two male leads or a reverse-harem between all three leads. The most believable chemistry was between the two male leads and the chemistry between the ML and FL was a bit forced. The ML went from really disliking her to suddenly liking her and she went from crushing on the SML to suddenly falling in love with the ML. As if the script writers and director were suddenly like “oh crap, this is becoming a BL, we’d better put a beard in there STAT!” The storyline kind of fell apart after they left the academy to try and run their respective clans in the pugilistic world. It got draggy and asked one to suspend one’s disbelief A LOT! The FL supposedly had minimal martial arts yet could hold her own against trained killers whenever necessary—but only until the point it was time for a male lead to rescue her. Seriously, were the heroes live-streaming all their actions!? The evil guys ALWAYS knew what they were up to and yet the heroes were always relying on pigeons that magically found their target to matter where they were. And also, everyone could apparently travel huge distances in a couple hours. I get that in a wuxia you have to suspend your disbelief a little—all the flying round & stuff—but there’s a limit. The ending is happy but ambiguous as in the FL never really settles on her choice of male lead.
Should you watch it?
I found it free on YouTube. It’s relatively short. The male leads are easy to look at. The FL is sweet with a good heart and not a complete idiot. It was pretty decent at first and by the time it gets less interesting, you don’t have that much farther to go to get through it.
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Very solid first season. The acting from all the leads and supporting characters was astounding and the chemistry between the Counters was so natural. Plot-wise, an interesting idea, pretty well executed, except for some moments of dumbness where unreasonable decisions were forced for the plot's sake. Was it predictable? Yes. Was it still fun to watch? Also yes. I felt the serious topics were well blended with the funny bits, and I liked the "territory" light effects, even if some of the more practical bits look quite rough and fake (particularly the wire work). For the casual action-adventure watcher, I feel like this would be an entertaining show.
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The actors did a good job with their characters and its acted fairly well with how it is written though the emotional scenes don't carry the weight to make you feel them as the viewer. The story however did not stay consistent throughout the show. It is told very much like an outline of a story that hits all the main plot points without any thought behind the how or why of it all. Business problems that don't seem to make sense, money problems that aren't explained, and the characters almost seem to devolve as time passes. In an early episode there were many comments about how Qingqing was so young and even Mr. Gu made a comment about them having a generational age gap though they never actually tell you his age. But in all the flashback scenes of their childhood, which felt like they were added as an after thought purely to try and give the couple a past connection, the kids looked very close in age. The first half of the drama is fairly fluffy and fun with their bickering and Qing's character was made to be immature and at first it really was not a huge deal and easy to overlook. But when the couple finally get together later in the series it became painfully childish to watch most of their scenes together. The couple set rules that felt like you were watching two high schoolers in love for the first time not two adults and the fights and misunderstandings between them were immature.
I wouldn't recommend you spend your time on this drama. There are far better fluffy romances that deliver much better chemistry and a more coherent story than this. I would have rated this higher before I got to episode 20 but after that I found it difficult to even finish because of the behaviors of the leads.
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Was gonna be a flop....
A very strong contender for the worst medical drama. The equivalent of filming two patients' beds and calling it a "hospital". From the very beginning they did such a poor job in setting building that it's constantly sticking out in your face. To give a few examples: The hospital is completely dependent on a single skillful witch doctor that otherwise everyone would be dead without his witchcraft which eliminated any hierarchy in the hospital. The hospital had no rules, anyone can come and go as they please, anyone can get a patient into the operation room and perform a surgery and no one faces consequences to anything they do because writing such scenes would take more effort. The hospital management is non-existent, there's only one guy in charge (the bad guy Tae In Ho) with no one around him or beside him managing the hospital. Even worse, the actor is known for his side roles as a subordinate character so giving him a position in charge while lacking any intimidation and gravity to his character has ruined the role and killed the little tension the drama had. There are more examples to this lackluster hospital setting but these were the most obvious.However, if you managed to over glance the entire setting and just hyper focus on the main 2 leads then the drama is alright. The 2 main leads first encounter and the first episode had an abhorrent and despicable dynamic to watch on screen but, to my surprise, it got a lot better later on and turned out to be fun which was the only reason that saved the drama and made it watchable.
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