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MJ Koontz
Back to being lost in America
The tale of two straight chefs who try to be lovers and enemies but fail at both.
I am keeping this short and sweet, because well, the series is very short and so sweet it is the equivalent of a diabetic coma. Now, the opening scene is a feast for the eyes, just like that other food BL Bite Me (which has a multitude of its own problems). That is, we fade into the "Hot" Chef of the duo showering, shirtless, and showing the goods as much as Asian television will allow.Now, I suppose this should have been a warning (Hindsight is 20/20 ya know). The production team on both shows were basically letting you know what you are here for, and its not story, characters, plot, or drama. You are here for hot guys and maybe two of those hot guys will kiss before it's all over and done with if you're lucky. Nothing more and nothing less.
If that is all you're looking for. If that is all that is required to be a success in your book. If that makes the time spent here decent enough. Then by all means, this will not disappoint. But if you expect anything, and I do mean anything, above this very low, low, (Did I say low?) bar, then you likely aren't gunna be too keen on this in the end.
Now, My Sweet Dear begins winningly enough. While the production shows its seams, the budget clearly at the shallow end of the Korean pool, the series does a decent job of choosing where to spend that budget. Yes, the show reminds me of 1990's US independent Gay cinema (Trick anyone? Anyone?) production, but it does have a banging soundtrack that is ready for all the girlies to hit shuffle to on Spotify. And well, that's the core audience here. As long as the music is good, the boys are hot, and they have lovingly long stares, it wins.
Well, kinda. You do get a trickling of "Well like on a snowy or rainy day where I just need something bubbly and cute," that seems to say its not REALLY worth your time, but will do if you need it to.
Jang Eui Soo as our new, attitude filled, hot shirtless chef Jung Woo, comes out swinging. In the beginning he gives it his all and makes a character you instantly do not like, but still want to drool over. He's cocky, arrogant, conniving, and all kinds of sexy that led every commenter from here to Mars to brainstorm backstory in hopes of clearing his asshole set-up. But, that backstory never materializes and, well, you are left with who and what his character is, and that aint very pretty.
Somewhere Eui Soo gives up. I'm not sure where, but his acting becomes more cardboard-like and his swagger dissolves as the story progresses. Did he realize what type of series he actually signed up for and just decided, ehh, who cares?
Lee Chan Hyung never manages to turn our other half Yoon Do Gun into anything more than a grumpy one dimensional statue. He seems bored from the beginning. Wooden in every interaction. And uncomfortable when the script tries to force him to do anything resembling intimacy. But, the character of Do Gun does come off as the victim and kind. So you can at least still root for him. If you want.
There is another player in Laura, the owner of Laura's, the restaurant that houses most of the story. She is a villain. That is all you will learn about her. So I guess, let's move on just as the series did.
Now, the premise is outrageous; a Michelin star chef being forced to compete with a no name to keep his job. It is preposterous in every way and, well, you just have to swallow it if you really want to sit through the 8 episodes. (They are only like 12 minutes so its an easy gulp.)
Somewhere in the middle you will become invested and will be treated to yet another long winded frolicking BL beach scene. Wasn't Why R U enough? This is basically the "middle" of our story development in the series, simply they go to the beach.
Then in episode 6 the underlying plot gets turned on high, but it never simmers. It just comes to a raging boil in episode 7 and then is immediately taken off the flame. When this very simple easy plot actually manages to create tension, conflict, and drama, it is snuffed out unceremoniously for the sake of creating a happy ending.
Characters serve the sketched outline of a plot and do not act or behave like human beings. Instead they are Ken Dolls ready to be posed in an empty forever smiling embrace for viewers to set as their wallpaper. You will get that kiss guys, but it will make you squirm in discomfort and make you wish that maybe they just held hands (I'm a gay guy and I'd rather see that from these two....that is bad). And well, for no apparent reason one lead forgives the other lead for everything, just because, and you are served an audience tested and approved ending.
OMG THEY ARE LIKE SO CUTE AND ARE MY LIFE. ITS SO FLUFFY AND AMAZING AND MAKES ME SO HAPPY. JES IS SOOO HOT!!!! DO YOU ALL KNOW WHERE I CAN FIND THE OST?
And Korea says YES!!!! We won again!!!!
But, did you? Really, is this what you wanna call a win?
Anyway, 4.0/ D-, 2-Stars. Hardly worth watching.
If you wanna add some zest, make a BINGO card before you start and mark down BL plot points and endings...It will be fun!
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The actors mostly shine, the director shows talent, and there is sex appeal for a while, but...
Yes, Bad Buddy is good. Let's put that out there before I get attacked for not giving it straight 10s.With that said, there are also some huge holes in its story, unneeded or unexplained awkward gaps in time, some poorly executed moments, and enough drawn-out product placement to question if it's an infomercial or a television show.
Sold and packaged as a Romeo and Juliet story, Bad Buddy, in-the-end, shares very little in common with the over-taught, and over idolized, tale. Yes the two main leads, Pat (A sexy and charismatic Ohm Pawat Chittsawangdee) and Pran ( A Soft, cooing, emotional Nanon Korapat Kirdpan) come from warring families and friends that just refuse to get along. However, everything else in this series is its own and does not use anything more than this basic plot device to create the age old trope of enemies to friends. For a while you may be trying to decide who is who with all the side characters in play and maybe MOST importantly who is Romeo and who is Juliet, but the story never lends itself to those rigid character constructs (For our male/male leads this is a good thing and recognizes the differences in homosexual relationships) and the tale never allows any of these side characters, or main characters, story arcs to play out in any meaningful way, Thus, in the end it will be a fruitless endeavor with time better spent on not trying to match these characters up but to just toss the Shakespeare play you know away and watch the series as simply an Enemies to Friends story. (To be fair it IS adapted from a novel and not the age old play so this fits)
Our two main leads spend the first couple episodes lost in the chaos the story is trying to design around them and create a base of why these two just can't like each other or be together. Yes, you will get their introductions and a helping of some backstory (that stays muddled so future episodes can put it more into clear focus), but you will not really spend time with the leads in any truly meaningful way while this is happening. These beginning episodes are repetitive, long winded, and obnoxious with only some golden nuggets of moments for the audience to cling and see that their may be something worth staying for here. It was enough that the MDL rating dipped almost out of the 8's into the humdrum 7's at the time, and the director took to media to tell everyone to just sit tight and stay tuned that the show was about to leap forward.
So it was a rough start that mainly only the attractiveness of the stars and the rabid fan base kept afloat, not to mention the BL industry being so disrupted by Covid that most 2021 projects found themselves delayed or canceled and such Bad Buddy came along in an anorexic marketplace. Also, the music in these episodes is by far the best. Not only the theme song and the introduction to Nanon's single (Which I will say I liked) but the score of these episodes is a fun techno crunch of leftover 90's and early 2000's synth kits that are energetic and fun to hear. I missed them in the latter half of the series.
Trying to steer clear of spoilers, in broad strokes the center of the series, or middle episodes, explode into some great story telling, exceptional acting, truly emotional moments, and amazingly choreographed scenes that possibly may be considered meteoric and will be ensconced in the "Greatest Ever Moments" annals of BL fandom. Or ya know, maybe they won't. But, it is, in all honesty, this portion of the series that awards Bad Buddy with a rating in the 8s. What comes before it is very average 5-6 area. And what comes in the later episodes is much more 7-8 range. Meaning that if the middle hadn't been so incredibly strong this would probably only be a level 7 rated series at best.
Unfortunately, the creators cannot keep this momentum or strong storytelling going, and it all collapses into the heinous episode 7 which is set to restart the story in an ACT II design. Yes, it covers, or hides, the very poor writing under heaps of sexiness and flirtatious moments that had the fandom reeling and social media in overtime with edits and clips of these scintillating moments. But, these distractions were layered over an illogical time jump that makes the "game" the leads are playing seem to last for months of time off screen, while changing nothing of the actual story except to bring Pat's younger sister Pa into the University for a side plot. This jump comes out of nowhere and is awkward to watch and swallow. The fact that at least a1/4th of the episodes runtime (or one whole section since the episodes are delivered in 4 part installments) is taken up with product placements is shameful and cheapens the overall feel of the show. It is, by far, the largest disappointment the series comes to offer and its juxtaposed in an episode that highlights some of the great chemistry the main leads have with each other, which makes it one hell of a frustrating watch.
The ending of the series will finally follow the story lines built in the beginning episodes. One of the friends of one of our leads will do an unforgivable act. Long rivalries will be discovered but left unhealed or left in their toxic states. Pa, Pat's sister, (Played motherly and humble by Love Pattranite Limpatiyakorn) comes to cement herself in the series as one of the MVP's along with (Head strong and kind Milk Pansa Vosbein) as a mutual friend to all in her wining role of Ink.
The final episode is, like many I have watched, both satisfying and disappointing. Overall, the series has always put their strongest moments and best parts of every episode mostly in the part 4/4, or end of each episode to get you to come back the following week. That is, for the most part, the beginning of each episode is throw-away that eventually grows into something of more importance by the end. In fact, it could almost be said that you could watch Bad Buddy as a series of part 4s and have a very strong almost level 10 viewing experience. That rings true even up through the final episode which starts off very awkwardly, again with a time jump that is mostly not needed plot-wise, but ends very winningly.
I will give this show the benefit of having some excellent chemistry, acting, and directing choices. While the end starts to feel more perfunctory, and as some have stated, Bromancy (With sexual acts inferred and talked about playfully, but never attempted to be shown in even a G-Rated way and kissing moves more to cheek territory, and you just start to feel like you are watching best friends play around with each other) at one time it was palpable and exhilarating with some truly strong moments. Nanon and Ohm show they are a head of the pack in their acting chops and capabilities than most Thai BL's casts while Jimmy Jitaraphol Potiwihok as Wei gives a star making performance (Already with a new show for 2022 announced). Bad Buddy brings a lot of goods. But it only hints and has moments of Greatness, its own story the weakest part of production and dragging it down. But boy how moments of greatness can elevate an otherwise average encounter into something noteworthy. Bad Buddy could be a case study.
8.0 = B+, 4-Stars. A solid all around entry that will likely not disappoint.
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The only errors here are the limitations of the budget and unwillingness to leave a college setting.
South Korea has been bombarding the 2022 marketplace with BL's. Like the Philippines last year, it seems everyone is starting to salivate over the dollars that can be made in the genre. However with the bombardment, we are getting a large serving of subpar, stilted, or simply archaic stories. Unbalanced acting, truly thin skimpy budgets, and forgettable series are starting to fill up the South Korean landscape. Soon, and honestly already beginning, BL (and LGBTQ+) audiences will have to separate the good, the bad, and the just plain ugly like you already must for Thai (or the aforementioned Philippines) for shows worth watching.Luckily, Semantic Error, is not litter upon this landscape, and is something filled with genuine attraction, development, and pulse. It delivers bona-fied episodes of 20 minutes or more making it feel like an actual show and not simply a chopped up movie. Yet unfortunately, it still scrapes the bottom of the budget barrel. But, like many lower budget endeavors with strong players at the helm, it uses its budget effectively and for the most part you will forgive (and even forget) the cost cutting finish. The cinematography is cool with realistic tones of winter pallets. The world feels honest and tangible. The characters come off as true people and not just dolls here to tell a saccharine love story. Thus, the strengths begin to far outweigh the shortcomings.
One of these shortcomings is the stale setting and even staler story. This is an enemies to lovers tale unabashedly and it is, of course, set in college (at least it is not another High School series). While, it tries to be more modern and fresh with the main cast being digital designers and computer programmers (Not ya know, the forever Thai Engineers and Doctors) it still succumbs to the cool kids versus nerd trope which gives us our set-up. Luckily, the story moves adeptly through this repeatedly tread ground and doesn't waste time or draw plot points out needlessly.
The characters, and the casting of those characters, are what make this series shine. Park Jae Chan as our main lead Chu Sang Woo is an endearingly stubborn rule stickler with compulsive "robotic" tendencies. While the show never mentions anything psychologically or developmentally, you get the feeling that Sang Woo may be on the spectrum, though severely highly functional. Park Jae Chan is shockingly worm and funny in this role, even while the story makes him an unforgiving, friendless, developer savant. He is unquestioningly attractive with some of the pout-iest lips you have ever come across, and a face that is strangely expressive, it is all in the eyes, while remaining very stoic. You will become attached to him and root for him easily.
Park Seo Ham as our other main lead Jang Jae Young is a more stock bad-boy rebel artist designed character. The cool kid that gets all the girls, he is revered by everyone he meets and has swagger for days. Jan Jae is of course the bully of the pairing that ignites the back and forth of the enemies to lovers plot. Yet, Park Seo Ham does a great job at bringing a light-heartedness to this character and quickly, not to mention easily, makes our Jae Young cuddly, likable, and funny. Seo Ham is very much more of South Korean archetype beauty. Tall, pale, high cheek boned, strawberry shaped face, fit, and fashionable he is a literal check-marked boxes of perfect leading man design. Luckily, he never comes off arrogant (something that seems many times used as an actual attractive quality to my disdain). He is the one that starts to recognize his burgeoning feelings first and watching him move through his understanding of who and what he wants is quite a lot of fun indeed.
When the leads are with each other, playing off each other, and building the relationship on screen it is enrapturing. There is a current that runs between them and it intensifies throughout the story as their relationship grows. It is, perhaps, the strongest entry South Korea has given us since 2021's To My Star in the world of displaying a sense of true want and attraction between the leads. There is never a moment where the cast seems not to want to be here, or to hesitate and hold back from what they are portraying. Everyone really seems to have come here to give us a story of two guys falling for each other, and everyone seems both fully willing and happy to do so. This is undeniably refreshing to watch and fun to wade through. Butterflies will blossom in your belly as you watch these two spark with each other. As for the kissing, I dare say this entry maybe posses the strongest South Korean has to offer in the current BLs they are delivering. This isn't the cardboard empty uneasy to watch kisses you find in Color Rush or My Sweet Dear, nor is it a one and done affair tacked on at the very last moment like Were Your Eyes Linger or Light on Me. Again, like To My Star, the kissing happens very naturally and a multitude of times, though I will say Semantic Error brings a bit more heat and passion than the former.
This is a prime example of what can be given even if in a tired cliched setting and story. It is thoroughly enjoyably, highly re-watchable, well acted and yes even sexy making you honestly not really care that you've done this story to death, because for some reason, this time it feels fresh and new.
9 = A, 4 1/2-Stars. Strong in all aspects, Best of the Bunch and worth your time.
Now if South Korea would just take this as an example, plop it into a more original base story, get it fully funded like straight romances, and churned up to hour long 16 episode orders, then we could knock it up to perfection.
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Aparently all is well that ends well since happy music played at the end of this very dark tale.
I'm prepared to not be liked here. From the overall decently high rating on MDL (Currently 8.5) and the sheer volume of "I loved this," or "Best Couple of the Year," remarks on the Dali and the Cocky Prince comments board, saying anything negative is likely going to put me in hot water and get me scolded. Unfortunately, if I have any integrity and aim at all to be honest, I must confess that DATCP is one disappointing outing that is MANY things but NOT anything near what I would call light and fluffy.Yet, these two adjectives, light and fluffy, are probably the MOST used to describe this series by commenters. I've recently been watching a bit heavier, or more serious, content and wanted a break for something fun and easy. I had read positive feedback about DATCP while it was airing and held off so I could binge it once it was done. Thus, here I am writing this review long after the final episode wrapped and I wish I had a better more carefree experience. My hopes were not fulfilled.
The first episode was very enjoyable. I came for cute, funny, and light and it gave me cute, funny, and light. The characters are sketched fast yet sturdily. We open on Jin Moo Hak (Played effectively by Kim Min Jae) as a young wealthy business minded money loving son to a growing empire. Unlike most heirs he isn't out spending his families money but is the driving force behind the family's empiric rise. His greeting is fast paced, funny, and delightful. In the process he angers his father as he jets off to Holland for a business meeting and thus when he lands finds himself financially cut off in a foreign land.
Enter our female lead Kim Da Li (Played effervescently by Park Gyu Young) a wealthy heiress studying art abroad in Holland. She is, in most respects, the opposite of our male. Wealthy but not caring about money. Book smart but lacking most practical understanding. Elegant, kind and refined, Dali lives in the world of the elite while never becoming one of them. When the museum curator she studies under asks her to pick up an art critic for a high-end schmooze fest from the airport, a comedy of errors ensues. With the same last name our male lead thinks she is the poor errand girl sent to fetch him, and Dali not knowing what the art critic looks like is shocked by the arrogant playful attractive man that approaches her.
By the end, the chemistry between these two is a massive blaze. The show is funny, cool, fresh, sexy, and yes fun, and you think, or I thought, yes this is going to be a great ride!
But then tragedy befalls our female lead when her father dies back in Korea, and she must instantly go back from where she came. Our male lead Moo Hak feels rejected and is convinced by his staff that she played him to get his wealth, and the hunt begins to find her.
This is where the fun stops. While the second episode is filled with moments of "Look UP!" she is right there, oh my God I can't wait for them to get back together mishaps....when it finally does happen....it is gross and devastating.
Our male lead to this point has been fun and funny. Arrogant, money grubbing, short sighted, and uneducated yes, but he has still been rather friendly, cute, and kind in his own right. He is fun to watch, and fun to hate. Our female lead has been smart, driven, kind, helpful, and caring.
But episode 3 turns the tables and ruins this set-up. In a single scene that hollowed me, our male lead degrades, berates, demoralizes, and threatens our female lead and turns himself into a monster. She is days out of her father's death, in the midst of mourning, being hunted by family and creditors, the world she has lived crashing upon her and is one step from bankruptcy and losing everything she has ever had. Our male lead knows ALL of this, but to make sure no one thinks he is soft, to show that all he cares about is money, and to prove that he doesn't have any feelings he stands up and screams a diatribe down to our female lead calling her his debtor and that he will sell everything she owns to get the money her father borrowed from him.
The series is not interested in righting this wrong at any point. It is just a plot step to the end. Our female lead accepts being treated as such and never even remotely requires an apology. The next time our leads see each other cute love music plays the entire scene, she trips and falls into his arms, they stare lovingly into each others eyes, and the oh look at how cute they are music swells.
For the next few episodes our male lead will continue down this path tormenting and degrading the female lead. By the middle of the series Dali has become a prop. She makes not a single decisions on her own. She is fully controlled by all the men around her. She is saved left and right just for being the girl everyone wants, and her character comes off stupid and insipid. She sells her entire life to keep a gallery afloat and before the end of the series is physically attacked multiple times.
Our male lead grows and becomes better and by the series end is basically back to how we met him in Holland. But never does he ask Dali's forgiveness and never does he admit his actions were wrong. Near the end, when he is subjected by our "bad guy" to the same demoralizing scene he subjects Dali to in episode 3, our male lead is allowed to get angry, require an apology, and ignore and fight with Dali over it, even though it wasn't her that degraded him. In what is easily the greatest double standard I've seen in programming this year.
He gets so mad that he calls our female lead a whore. Tells her "To have sex to get his 2 million back. If she did she could probably get 20 million ." In what is the lowest point in the series.
It is immediately followed by a kiss by the way. He calls her a whore and then kisses her, and we are supposed to ship it.
Everything outside of our main leads is a wasteland. Besides a woman at Dali's workplace and her childhood best friend/like brother...every other character in the show is a villain. All of them plotting the downfall of the leads. The story lines include family betrayal, government corruption, blackmail, secret killing, drug smuggling, bankruptcy, public slander, disownment, orphan shaming, suicide, forced prostitution, and just if there weren't enough bad guys (the count gets up to 9 I believe) or degrading and depressing plot lines out pops a long lost uncle that reveals a secret adoption and thus we get to degrade and shame adopted children publicly and then try to take everything away from them because they aren't blood.
In short, there was nothing LIGHT or FLUFFY to be found. There is a lot of disgusting, depressing, and abhorrent story lines and characters and there is little value in any of it outside of empty shallow entertainment. The large gulf of cultural divide between the west and Korea is glaringly obvious here.
If you want to watch this with blinders on that is fine. No one can stop you. Yes, there are comedic bits. Yes, there are moments where our leads are adorable and fun to watch and be with. Yes, there are things to like here.
But taking those things and adding them all up will probably net you a total run time of 3-4 episodes. The other 12 episodes are filled with the male lead being a nasty piece of trash, our female lead being a helpless victim, and all the junk awful story lines I just ran through above with massive amounts of time spent with these other horrible characters.
For a brief stent the show seems to be aware of how awful it is, one character having a conversation with the other, "Why would you act like that and do that? Pulling her hair? What is this a soap opera?" and the answer is yes. It is a trashy soap opera that does little more than fill your time.
6.0/C/ 3-Stars Average in every way. You got a 50/50 shot of liking it simply depending on your taste.
At least we had Holland and that first episode of a much much better show.
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The sucking here, isn't from drinking blood or that other thing. (Dirty thoughts much?!)
Kissable Lips is a an exercise of childish daydreams. The plot makes no sense. The characters are hardly sketched beyond their purpose (I Vampire you Pureblood Argh). The time-frame it all takes place is unknowable (It seemed maybe a week or two). And there is enough glossy over-lit melodrama to say, hey Hallmark Channel we coming for you.The budget is small, but fine, the acting is the strongest aspect of the entire affair, not that it saves much. Some side characters over-act with the best of them. There is even a sequence that requires an actor to maniacally laugh because they are trying to be invited into the league of supervillains. (Illuminati...whaaat!) However, our two main actors do a decent enough job, though for the first few episodes are mostly flat and lifeless. (Ha ha, vampires...lifeless...ugh)
You will be treated to a dose of Romeo/Juliet style old school romance. Ya know, where two characters meet, have love at first sight, and within a week are ready to die for each other and want the other next to them for all eternity. That sort of romance. If you like that, then maybe go for this, maybe. The actors are cute, and you will get some good kissing (Which for a Korean BL is RARE so lap this shit up! But this year does seem to be the year of progress in that department.) But be prepared for everything and I do mean everything to be underdeveloped, unbelievable, and empty.
How much will it all just kinda happen and be ridiculous well, here is an imaginary conversation:
Me: Before, I can go any further, I just gotta ask what is a Pureblood?
The series: It is a person that can cure vampirism if a vampire drinks their blood.
Me again: Ok, so what distinguishes a Pureblood from a normal blooded? How do Purebloods come to be? Why do they exist to begin with? And why is our main character one, when even his own brother is not?
The series:Um, it's Pureblood...just ya know it's Pureblood.
Me: Is it Virgin Blood? (And his brother has already done the nasty?) Korean Blood only with no other bloods from the rest of the worlds races? (But then wouldn't his whole family be this? And hello racism!) Is it blood without something in it, like a hemophiliac or medichlorians (Looked that one up..I giggle). Or blood that has something in it...like mystic magic...yay (Or liquid sunshine!!!)
The Series: Look...it's just Pureblood kay. It is Pureblood. Just accept it.
Me: I think Hermione would have some issues here. Well lets switch and talk about the vampires.
The series: The vampires are sexy and non-threatening. If a vampire kills their snack, they too will die, just not right away, like over time, like a lot of time, until in like a matter of days they fade away sometime in the future.
Me: So like they are in agonizing pain until they die right?
The series: No, they just ya know take this long drawn-out march towards death, and in the meantime they still need to eat, and fall in love, have sex, and have a normal life knowing that eventually they will die.
ME (With side eye): Uuummmmm...isn't that called being human? I mean, isn't that what we call living life? So these are just humans with icky eating habits now?
The series: No, no, cause if they go and drink a Pureblood, killing that Pureblood, then they can become HUMAn. Just as long as it is before they ya know fade away.
Me: Wait, so if the vampires drink a person's blood and that person dies, then they too will die unless they go and...KILL...another person and become human which means they will eventually still die. Really....So kill 1 bad eww cursed with eventual death. Kill 2 good yay humanity and still death..as long as it is a Pureblood. (Which can't be defined, they just exist and this guy is just one). What if the first person they killed was already a Pureblood, then would it cancel out the original curse and it would be like nothing happened, just instant human?
The series: ...um....well...well...that isn't the point of the series. There are just ya know vampires and Purebloods and stuff. There are shirtless guys kissing too. Everyone likes that right? Oh and the vampires also have blue glowing eyes. So yay, that's fun right?
ME: Well that came out of left field and didn't answer any of my questions. But all the vampires have blue eyes that also glow?
The series: No, no, they have normal color eyes that just sometimes glow blue and well, not just blue, sometimes red too.
Me: Oh why red and blue when those aren't their eye colors?
The series: Well ya know the good ones glow blue...the bad ones glow red.
Me: Wait what, like Twilight's Golden eyes versus Red eyes? Are their "vegetarian" vampires that eat animals completely obliterating the term vegetarian and meaning they are on the side of humans?
The sereis: No ours just glow those colors they don't actually become those colors. They just glow Blue and Red depending on if the vampire is a good guy or bad guy, nothing else.
Me: Like light sabers? (2nd SW reference and I don't even like SW)
The series: That's green and red.
Me: No that is Christmas colors...Wait, the vampires are Christmas vampires, this takes place over Christmas?
The series: (Silence)
5.0 = D+, 2 1/2-Stars. Lacking and filled with flaws. Die Hards will likely still love it.
It is fun for a good laugh and a nice sexy scene and that is about it.
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If only it had ended as well as it began!
Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha begins with lightning. Somehow, the creators were able to align everything just right for a simple story about a woman dentist hitting a wall in her life. The premise isn't new, and well, one could honestly call it a mid-life crisis series, except they purposely make sure to let us now the characters are just at true adult age (their early to mid 30's) and not yet on that particular journey.Yoon Hye Jin (Played by the absolutely stunning Shin Min Ah) is a morally steadfast dentist who can no longer take the greedy pressures of the Seoul clinic she works. After a final run-in with the owning dentist, she quits, with enough money to keep herself fed, but not enough to open her own clinic in the expensive city. With her name in the mud with other dentists and unable to find a new position, Hye Jin runs off to a small coastal town she visited as a child that holds the last great memory of her mother. Meant to be only a day trip to celebrate her long deceased mother's birthday, fate intervenes trapping her there money-less, shoe-less, and roofless.
Enter our male lead, Hong Doo Shik known as Chief Hong, a dashing townie (Played winningly with just the right touch of sex appeal by Kim Seon Ho) who does basically every job the town has to offer, and shows up everywhere our female lead is too. As he hands her a single found shoe, Cinderella and her prince end up in tongue sparring match, as Chief Hong finds our destitute Hye Jin snobbish and entitled.
Just suffice it to say, that in this single day and night in the fictitious seaside town of Gongjin, Hye Jin meets every power player the series will deliver, and has a whirlwind of experiences that ultimately make her decide to open up a dental clinic here, where she can actually afford too.
Thus, the fish-out-of-water big city girl in small town life begins, and how enjoyable it is to watch.
Every single side character has a story to tell, and those stories, unlike other series such as Racket Boys, actually intertwine and affect our main journey and main characters. Everyone is, for the most part, believable as real people living their lives in this small town. You learn to love, be annoyed at, or mostly not like everyone in play. This is an utter triumph compared to what is many times delivered by such stories.
The first ten episodes of the series are some of the most heartwarming, funny, romantic, believable, and, I dare say, honest storytelling hours I have seen in a while. The director, and writers, always went right up to the line of over-the-top without actually crossing over into it. The restraint was admirable, and it makes one want to lay back smile, giggle, and press play in the most refreshing sense of enjoyment.
However, episode eleven is where this praise abruptly stops. When the series shifts gears with its main leads, in what should be a great payoff, the audience instead ends up with a saccharin, ridiculous, and trite hour plus episode that could cause whiplash. Whatever restraint the makers had shown instantly dissolves into a story that goes full force into territory seemingly written and executed for teenage schoolgirls.
It takes a few episodes for the series to stabilize, but at this point what existed between our main leads seems to have become a thin anorexic version of what it was previously. The story begins working overtime to create teachable, emotional, and sentimental moments. The natural honest feel good storytelling that earmarked the first ten episodes being replaced with cloying, fake, and melodramatic plot lines.
When the penultimate episode fifteen begins, you find yourself embroiled in an almost entirely different show. We get a long hinted at and hidden backstory that rolls out in the most unbelievable fashion. The events are over-the -top worst case scenarios that string together in a waterfall of tragedy. That our Chief Hong even remotely blames himself for a laundry list of events that are completely and utterly outside of his control is aggravating. Even worse, the self medication, nightmare having, therapy going lead never addressing the elephant in the room brought up episodes ago, in that he feels he causes the deaths of everyone he has ever come to love. This is left unresolved, or in truth most things end up being resolved by just a good long cry. Which is especially frustrating considering after all this exposition and chaos the episode ends with the death of one of the most beloved townspeople. Just to top of more tragedy, not that you won't see this plot point coming.
I will admit, I am short changing this a bit, but not by much. It becomes so heavy-handed at this point, I actually found myself yawning and reaching for my phone. Yes, I can tell you the current CNN headlines. And considering that this show previously had me losing sleep for just one more episode, is a very very mighty fall.
In the end, everything becomes about marriage. Marriage for everyone. Everyone in love. Even children. And to push this moral further you will be subjected to one of the worst and most manipulative scenes I've ever watched on shaming people were get divorced. It even involves a child crying. But, all is good because the townsfolk you have spent any time with at all are making a ridiculous parade down to the beach to take pictures all together in joy!
What started out amazing, ends in a bumbled, frustrating, trite, and unrealistic mess. But the beginning episodes can be watched over and over again until the end of time. And they alone keep this at an 8, B+/A- , 4 stars. If only the ending had stayed as strong.
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A Journey Too Late
This was originally 2 different comments I made on the message board that I have slightly reformatted to make a review. I get it lacks some of my normal wordsmithing and is brief, but it gets the job done easily enough.Watched entirely in 1 sitting starting at realease time to around 6:30 am in the morning in my neck of the woods. I wont go too in depth here.
So let's quickly breeze over the strengths.
Great acting, good intimacy, some strong chemistry, appropriate realistic skinship, 3 dimensional characters, some real-world struggles, heartbreaking moments, and adorably cute moments. Directing was strong, cinematography solid, texture and feel to the series was complete and both realistic yet simutaneously dreamlike. Hour long episodes in a Netflix-like 8 episode dosing with a decent budget and a cast with some recognizable faces and not just no-name-this-is-their-start actors.
I do want to interject here that our main lead Nam Yoon Su gives an outstanding performance. He brings the character to life and doesnt hold back allowing our Ko/Go Young to be a fully realized being. He should be proud of his performance, and more than any role he has yet had, shows his acting chops.
I also want to give a shout-out to the deft Jin Ho Eun. He is a true chameleon on screen. He has a sturdy list of shows under his belt and has skillfully shown how to be both a monster to, as in this series, a cute as a button bright eyed engenue. I feel he is overlooked a lot as he has delivered strong performances one after another and again doesnt dissapoint here. I also am happy to see him in a role that actually highlights how attractive he can be.
HOWEVER, it has some flaws and shortcomings which hold it back from being an exceptional experince. Which I'll list in a spoiler tab below. Thus, it's held back from being great to instead being a solid good show. It is worth your time but its real world approach and overall sad and depressing ambiance and general story will keep it from being most peoples favorite or go to series.
BELOW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS
The flaws:
1) Usage of time.
There are a lot of missteps in how the 8 episodes covers almost 10 years of the main characters life. This is aggrivated by how they break the story into 2 episode mini stories, thus the 8 episodes tell 4 different love/encounters. Making large swaths of time defaulted and inserted inbetween the blackout of 1 story and the fade in of the next.
Since they only have 8 episodes many of the significant relations come and go very quickly and are delt with too clean and neatly. Our main character's relationship with Mi Ae seems little more than a blip on the radar with no lasting significance. Same goes with the loss of his complicated relationship with his mother, who if you add up the time jumps had a very slow march towards death over at least 3 years. The main characters childhood is told in blink or your miss it clips that bring up some serious trauma and issues that are mostly left unexplored or dealt with but seem just to be reasons for his bahavior, sadness, and state-of-mind.
Also, the clothing, accessories, look of the world and characters doesnt change from begining to end...which for a decade of time...especially for hip 20something city boys, is not realistic.
The final 2 episodes are dreamlike in their delivery and feel like a very different show compared to the previous 6 which make it a pain point that this is where we end our journey with these characters. In a weird sexual depression fever dream while having an affair with a married man who takes our lead to various hotels around the world while he recalls the love of a relationship he had ended, as far as i could tell less than a year ago. It is supposed to symbolize the end of this era in our leads life, but is so whimsical and non-concrete, more like a mental exercise than true substantial growth. The relationship that plays in our Go Yeoung's mind didnt yet seem to hold the gravity and importance it should as it was still very fresh. Youd expect this type of story after many years have expired and with age you look back and realize that was love and you lost it. The wisdom of old age making you see your regrets. It was further exacerbated by the relationship being mere minutes ago in the viewers mind as we had just spent 2 episodes moving through it begjning to end and seeing many of the scenes already...again a failure of how they use time
2) Stunted emotions and growth.
Possibly it was just the time limit but a lot of the emotions came and went with the wind. Like mentioned above in the time problem, it bleeds over here into a stunted growth and emotional problem. Our main lead has many revelations but changes very little of himself due to them. He deals with major life altering hurtles, death of a lover, death of his mother, suicide, and of course contracting HIV, but all of it comes in a scene and leaves in the next. This could be a societal issue, yet other Korean shows do not operate as such. This could be a character issue, but then the whole point of the show is about the emotional and mental growth of our lead andnwhat he wants and expects out of life which makes this here then gone approach to the story feel misplaced. It may be the fault of the writer of the original work or the writer of this adaption, as in they all have Peter Pan complexes, much like our lead, and thus do not know how to write true explorations of healing, moving through trauma, overcomming, and changing ones life. Instead its shed some tears then run to the bar and get trashed and then never talk about or deal with it again. Its solved, the emotions were let out...
It makes a lot of the issues, which are devstating and hefty, feel skin deep and easily managable. When he is driven to suicide by a toxic closeted self hating lover while trying to mend the broken relationship of his mother dying from cancer who has the same Christian damnation outlook on him...it grows until he tries to check out...but then wakes up saved, gives a thumb heart to his friends, and then moves on never talking about it again. Like well he didnt die...lets go get drunk....and party. And this his how the show handles every truly emotional milestone. As if acknowledging it happened is the same as healing through it.
3) The HIV card....
It is the gay plague after all...even though world wide, it is more prevelant in heterosexuals than homosexuals since the late 90s...but still this is a gay story, we must have HIV.
For Korea, and where they currently are on LGBTQ+ representation and stories, as well as real laws and overall societal view of homosexuals, I can see how having a realistic story that represents the trails of a realistic homesexual and what he faces including the taboo HIV seems bold and groundbreaking....
As a westerner this is 30 to 40 years too late...this whole series was reminiscent of a 90s gay story. From the film Jeffrey to the show Queer as Folk to even the 80s independent film (which too has a splattering of famous male leads) Longtime Companion. Let alone award winning Angels in America...which is currently being performed by famous Korean actors in Seoul as I type this.
At least they didnt make him die in the end.
But Korea has had films, that have dealt with these themes already, and are much older, let alone the western stories that can be watched. It made the story seem archaic and out of place. Made too late.
This is exacerbated by the fact the story would not have changed at all, if the character DIDN'T have HIV. It affects nothing. It is even brought in only half way through as an almost suprise twist. His contracting it is a brief monologue. He tells only 1 person that he even has it, he has no health issues because of it. It does not cause him to loose any relationship or sexual encounter. And it is little more than a plot point. Thus, simply having him NOT have it was an option as its only point is for him to say its with me till i die. Again it feels superficial and a stunted and an unneeded poor use. Thus, just as point 1 bleed into point 2, now point 2 bleeds into this point 3.
Last note on this, the way they introduce the HIV was confusing..as in did he contract it between his mothers dying and meeting this new boy. But then he meets the boy on the night of his mothers funeral. And it has only been 1 year since his last relationship...and then he says hes had it for 5 years...and then your like...did i miss a time jump...there are alot of them...and then you relaize wait...this happened b4 the show started. Hes been HIV positive since the first frame. And it slowly sinks in that you watched him have sex with mutliple partners and carryon two meaningful relationships without telling anyone involved that he is HIV positive. He then has more partners and doesnt tell them...this weirdly, at least for me, makes the HIV have a detrimental effect on the character. This is a serious sexually transmuted disease and he selfishly and irresponsibly goes around and does whatever he wants while hiding it so he wont be stigmatized or ostricized. He pretends....and it kinda makes him a really bad person.
8.0 = B+, 4-Stars. A solid all around entry that will likely not disappoint.
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When a Psychopath turns his College Sweetheart into his Battered Wife, its Amore!
Let's be honest here, straight quick cut to the core, and admit the elephant in the room.This is NOT a psychological drama.
This is a schoolgirl romance with a psychological hook. Claiming otherwise is simply trying to elevate it from the squishy mess it is into something greater. It also devalues true psychological dramas that honestly explore the dynamics of the human mind and the foibles, toiling, and clogs that come with it.
Do we ever peer into Yoo Jung's (Our Male lead played stoically by Park Hae Jin) mind and deal with the mess it is? No we do not. Instead we get ruminations on his actions from our female lead Seol (Kim Go Eun being as blank as possible) as she tries to decide if he is good or not. Then once she comes to a decision it changes to deciding if she is okay with who he is and rationalizing everything he does so she can love him....because I guess she just decided too.
The series never explains, explores, and makes plausible Seol's switch of thinking the main lead is a duplicitous jerk, to being her secret boyfriend. It just happens and with neck breaking speed. We then spend the rest of the series discovering all the horrible deeds our main lead has done, watch him do more horrible deeds, and become victimized by his horrible deeds and never hold him accountable for any of it.
Yes, thrilling isn't it?
While we move along this trek our Seol becomes quite tainted. She begins to play into his schemes willingly. She learns to become duplicitous and watch as her boyfriend's designed fates terrorize and destroy those around her. She feigns innocence and even helps console victims of his plans all the while knowing who was behind it all. She always, always forgives him for everything he does no matter how severe it is, who it is against, the reason for doing it, and even when it affects her.
Even when we discover he may or may not be behind unleashing a stalker on her that has terrorized her for over a year, taken photos, posted stories online, physically accosted her, and followed her home, as well as gotten other classmates to attack and degrade her and work against her by manipulation......all is good.
She will stand by him always and forever...............never leave...........always will understand him...........it goes on and on.
Saying this is a college romance is a very hard stretch. It is, AT MOST, on the developmental level of high school. Bella Swan and her Edward could replace our leads and the only difference would be White People for Koreans.
Our almost mid 20 something lead Seol is a puritanical virgin who has never been kissed and is so untouched that even holding hands is effectively an X rated affair. She is controlled by every person she comes into contact. Has no self actualization or agency, and though lives on her own, works multiple jobs, wins scholarships, and is a top student, she can't seem to figure out which way is up in any decision of her life.
How much stronger is its ties to high school over college? Well, when she "runs away from home" (Because she JUST moved back and had been living on her own, but whatever) a character comments "What is she going through puberty?" Which to be fair is a question I asked myself. Later, near the end, she receives a pat on the head as a character proudly proclaims "You've matured." This I was willing to go to the mat and argue against, but we were almost done by this point anyway. And when she goes through a break-up you will find her bed ridden for weeks unable to speak like Bella flipping the pages of an empty diary before bay windows.....the links are very strong my friends.
Our male lead, Yoo Jung, is a handsome rich empty vessel for everyone to swoon over. Literally. He spends most of his screen-time staring blankly at people and then smiling at our female lead, or being angry and plotting his deeds with a scowl on his cellphone. That is his character in a nutshell. "But, he is a sociopath, that is how he is drawn," the fans scream. "Leave him alone!!" And I answer, "No he is a psychopath, there is a difference, and yippee for us that is how he is drawn. So exciting."
One cannot help but think of You (Originally on USA Lifetime Network then continued as a Netflix original). While it is western show, yes, it is also a college romance with a psychological hook. There are deep parallels here and one can easily see a female lead who is real, smart, and flawed that falls for a psychopath. Except no one here is an empty vessel. Our psycho Joe is charismatic, sexy, sweet, and funny. Our female is layered, intoxicating, seductive, and mature. It explores the minds of these characters and those around them in deep drilling dives and amasses a unique tapestry that is riveting to move through.
And unlike this tale, no one kids themselves and roots for Becks to end up happily-ever-after with her psycho Joe. No, no. no, no.
Yet here, there are pages of comments swooning over Yoo Jung as a character and how he is an anti-hero, a non- trope character in a refreshingly different story. That the show reduced his screen time too much by the end...etc....showing a demographic, culture, and maturity difference between those that watch CITT and think it great to those that watch You.
Lets also be clear, Yoo Jung is not an anti-hero. Nothing he is doing is more than his petty revenge over being made angry. He lets off rapists, blackmailers, and the like if they are his friends or ask for his forgiveness. He has no remorse for any action he does and can reason that every negative affect from any of his plans are the fault of the victim. There is no justice he is fighting for. No wrong he is trying to right. He is just a soulless man that likes a girl and anyone that messes with him or her he will destroy. Again, that is a psychopath, not an anti-hero.
As far as not being a trope, its laughable. There is an entire genre of manga dedicated to cold, calculating, assholes, as the main lead who terrorizes the female lead before they fall in love with each other. This is just one of those stories on repeat. It is a single big trope and does nothing to move beyond it.
As for the side characters go, the most important are the twins. A brother In Ho and sister In Ha that are almost "adopted" siblings to our male lead. In the past there was a falling out between the male twin In Ho and Yoo Jin, that still brings their blood to boil upon sight. Now I am not going to talk much about these two because they are better drawn than anything else and deserve their own dissection. (Which this isn't the proper place.)
They are the highlight of the series. It is true, and many a comment admit to it. In Ho ends up as our second male lead and (because yes this is one large trope) a point in a love triangle. Although, honestly it is a pointless point, because our female lead never once even eludes to him being anything more than a friend almost on the same level as her own brother. As so many of these shows, the triangle, is a triangle in name only, and not in actual execution.
In ho proves a more interesting character by far than Yoo Jin, and Seo Kang Joon's heartfelt charismatic delivery quickly and effortlessly eclipses our main lead. It isn't Park Hae Jin's fault, his character is just that badly created. It didn't help that yes his screen time does get much shorter the longer we are in the series. Because, again, his character is extremely one note.
This doesn't become a 2nd lead syndrome diagnosis. Never once do I want In Ho with our female lead. NOT FOR A SINGLE A SECOND. The only thing I want for this character is to find a better story to go be in far away from everything else here. He proves himself the MPV, and I already have Kang Joon's MDL page up to find additional dramas with him, as this was my first taste.
By the end of the series you will come across a serial rapist that is never punished and with our friend group to the very end. You will meet 2 misogynistic stalkers. A "Single White Female" life copier of our female lead. A mooching alcoholic senior whose voice is as annoying as his characters constant victimizing of those around him. And a laundry list of extras that are there just to have additional voices to berate and degrade the leads when need be or be victimized by the designs of our male lead.
Soel will lose what little soul she has and be the wettest of blankets. She will end up in life threatening situations but hold-fast to her true love even through he creates the very situations endangering her. Our second male lead will be blamed for everything and anything that happens, no matter what, well because that is what his character is supposed to do. And any respect you might of had for Soel gets sucked dry when she discovers the truth of the 2nd male leads injury to his prodigal piano playing hands. Its incredibly sad that she accepts this and wraps her arms around the male lead and says" how hard it must have been for to have all those emotions and no outlet." Its even worse when the second male lead apologizes by the end for his own hands being crushed while the psychopath walks away somehow as the morally good guy.
How, I dunno, because everyone wants him to be dreamy and the winner even though there is no excuse for what he has done.
5.0/D+, 2 1/2-Stars. Lacking and filled with flaws. Die Hards will likely still love it, just because.
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A muddled message weighed down by K-drama traps; yet, it still manages to stay strong
It seems the world of the anti-hero is here to stay. In K-dramas, 2021 has served up a cornucopia of Batmanesque stories with some of the big splashes being Vincenzo, Taxi Driver, and now The Devil Judge. Out of them, The Devil Judge is very much the winner, even if Vincenzo is more pure in its anti-heroism. Both Taxi Driver and The Devil Judge are honestly just revenge stories, which of course have been churned out non-stop by Hollywood lately. While Vincenzo is the story of a man who slowly gets pulled into other characters plights, until he takes up the mantle of responsibility, thus actually following the classic hero's journey. Oddly, The Devil Judge does have this same journey, it's just not the tale of whom the show calls the Devil.Quickly, the BASIC synopsis of The Devil Judge:
A newly appointed judge ( attractive every-man Park Jin Young) is placed as one of a triumvirate panel on a live broadcast, viewers vote in, major crime trials television show in an alternate modern day Korea. Once there, he finds himself caught in a political cat and mouse game being played by the charismatic and enigmatic central judge (Ji Sung showing how to be thrilling in a role while not going overboard). As plots unfold and more light is shown on the world around our new appointee, he finds himself confronted with traumas from his past that threaten his ideologies on what makes one a good man and if the law is truly just.
Yet, even though this is the synopsis, it is the central judge character that leads the show as if he is Gatsby to our protagonists Nick. The revenge plot of TDJ begins with Ji Sung and only pulls Park Jin Young in later and, I argue, is what ultimately causes the story to come-up short. While some heavy themes are layered into the 16 episodes covering current day crises such as virus outbreaks, vaccine practices, isolationist political leaders, racism, ethnocentrism, government corruption, fearmongering and wealth elitism, the story only deals with these issues because they are perpetrated by the same group of evil doers that our judges are seeking revenge against.
That is, the show seems to want to cover lofty ideas like changing the system, cleaning house, and bettering the world. All things we can get behind as viewers. But, it only brings them up and uses them as means of blackmailing or trapping those that selfishly escaped a fire ten years prior. The fire being the true evil act and not the long list of atrocities above. It makes TDJ come off as small. While we are dealing with presidents, ministers, and conglomerate owning villains who align in an almost Illuminati type power group, we are only after them cause they hurt the judge's family.
Also, as the TDJ makes these societal moral judgements it does so while allowing homophobia. In a scene where a punishment is handed down to a sex offender, the society-which votes for castration (Yep), is appeased when our Judge instead shows video inside of a Texas Prison for sex offenders and slides down a cell block where all the men make sexually suggestive remarks, kisses, and say they can't wait for the convicted to come join them. The courtroom erupts with applause and you hear people shout they knew the court wouldn't let them down when it came to a punishment, and our criminal all but faints saying he won't go.
Because yes, going to a prison with gay people is as bad if not worse than being castrated. Really? Note it wasn't a South Korean Prison because Koreans don't do the gay stuff that's over in the west....it was quite distasteful and caused me to pause. Remember this was done by our heroes and not the villains.
As for these villains, for a K-Drama, most are actually well portrayed. The two female villains steal the evil throne. Both being vicious, powerful, and one of which is the only evil doer of the bunch who gets their hands dirty. The male villains are much more average and mostly forgettable. That is except our good o'l Mr. President played by Baek Hyun Jin. Mr. Baek ends up falling into cartoon over-the-top territory. He chews up every scene he is in with eye roll worthy antics, that yes are based on the USA 's Donald Trump, and are just as grating. While one could argue, that was what he was supposed to do, IF you have seen Taxi Driver, you will find this EXACT SAME VILLAIN there just as a CEO instead of a PRESIDENT. Range and nuance are not on display here, which is a true pity, considering The President's character is written in a way that could have made him a truly terrifying enemy. His lust for stardom and power sends us and him on a totalitarian power grab that includes a bit of genocide. But the show always turns him into a clown instead of letting us actually fear him.
Now as I have mentioned, two of the villains are women, and they make up half of the females on display that matter. Here the program, like most K-Dramas fails its females. While, yes the BEST of the evil doers are women, that is just it, powerful women have always been portrayed in media BUT always as the villains. When we move to our two counterparts on the good side, they fair little more than a sacrificial love interest and a sidelined judge who quickly becomes the "softer side of Sears" for the televised trial program. Her role is to cry, look pretty, and be liked. Something she is happy to do as long as she is a judge fighting along side the dreamy (picture on her desk) Ji Sung.
As for our love interest, she only shows up when she needs to be there for our main male lead. Her life has been about following him around and taking care of him and even asking him to be her guy 5 times over and all 5 times him turning her down. But she still always shows up vigilant as ever in waiting. She does get the most rewarding slap to someone's face and gets to utter "Don't ever show your face to me again," in one of the strongest scenes of the series, but this strength comes with a steep price paid very soon after.
As for our male leads, the show mostly shines. From the get go Ji Sung's Yo Han is mesmerizing and terrifying. Intense, forceful, relentless, and yes beautiful, the interest he shows in our protagonist is intoxicating. That is as long as he is not theatrically grand standing in the televised trail room. Yo Han quickly establishes that he is not a good guy, but he is fighting the good fight. Flat out stating he does and will continue to do illegal acts to get what he wants because he has a goal and plan and everyone is either part of his solution or part of his problem. The character is layered with his own childhood trauma, that is further exacerbated by the aforementioned Great Church fire of 10 years past, and then burned in his skin (crucifix style) by the hate of the only people today that he has any inkling of caring. Yet, the greatest side of his character is the relationship that blooms between Yo Han and Ga On.
This relationship quickly becomes a homoerotic bromance with brotherly trimmings. Any novice YouTuber could make one of those 2 min BL videos to music without even trying with the scenes the show delivers. From staring longingly out of windows as the other frolics in the sun, redressing of wounds as one cowers over being topless, intense stares and shoulder crumpling embraces...yeah its all there. Except its all because Ga On looks like his dead older brother, which is never explained except for mere coincidence. Remember the homophobia I talked about earlier, just bringing it up again cause the show has let us know where it stands here. So now lets go back and basically have these two fall in love with each other....no homo.
Park Jin Young's Ga On is a bit more to chew on. The character is written extremely flawed, and honestly if I were asked to pick which one is the Devil, I would actually pick Ga On. You see, the Devil thinks he is right, and righteous, and is actually liberating heaven and the world from a tyrannical God. The Devil doesn't see the evil in himself. This is Ga On.
Yo Han sees his evil and knows his evil but honestly believes the means justify the end. Ga On is given to the audience as a noble bright eyed moral judge, and he believes himself this. When he begins questioning the world and himself after he falls under the thrall of Yo Han, he always comes out on the pious end. Yet, as we go through the series we learn that as a teen he was troubled, attempting to kill a man. He attempts to kill that same man again within the first half the series. He also attempts to kill two others during the show and also attempts to kill himself. He commits crimes as a judge, but somehow remains morally superior to Yo Han, and is only brought back to earth by the earnestness of his lady love. He has remorse, but then turns right around and repeats his crimes. By the shows finale Ga On has done just as many criminal and heinous acts as Yo Han, but the show tells us hes the better man. He still believes he is the better man. We are supposed to accept him being the better man. But he isn't.
This brings us to final muddled message of the show. Society and justice are a game with no true good or evil and no true right or wrong. Whoever plays the game the best decides who and what was truly just. Wealth is all that matters as it has the most influence.
Now, this isn't wrong perse, its just isn't right either. A society cannot function and operate if this is honestly what the people think of their own world.
Yet, the ending of TDJ reinforces these ideas in a final show of anarchy and nihilism. Just like Vincenzo and Taxi Driver before it, the only place for true justice is at the end of your fist. What a sad world we live in that the public, as in the show, cheers this message forward. But there is a bit of light in all the dust, and I assure you that there is entertainment and fun to be had along the path to reaching this climax whether you agree with its message or not.
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Warm, cute, and sincere, this tale has a great message for LGBTQ+ Youth wrapped in a BL coating.
Here on MDL I have come to find certain terms thrown around with WILD abandon. One phrase "Light and Fluffy" is maybe used more than almost all others collectively. Unfortunately most of the programs given this badge, do not deserve it. So many shows have their comment boards decorated with these adjectives but then upon viewing, you come to find storylines of suicide, misogyny, violence, crime, death, loss, betrayal, on and on it goes. Sometimes it is even all of the above, cough "Dali and the Cocky Prince," cough. But because there are a handful of cute scenes, or funny moments, the entire show is labeled "Light and Fluffy," when it clearly is not.Kieta Hatsukoi however, is the exact definition of what is meant when a show has the right to be deemed "Light and Fluffy." There is hardly a moment that isn't written to bring warmth to the viewer. There are not convoluted over-the-top overly dramatic plotlines. There are not vile evil characters working to destroy the leads. There aren't toxic people acting against the story. Everything here is made sweet, endearing, funny, joyful, and above all easily digestible.
For the most part, this works wonders, and created a Saturday viewing pleasure that was an easy break from the more soapy and overwrought tales found almost everywhere else. KH is in itself, an antidote to the humdrum world, the covid plagued reality, depressing news cycles, and heartbreak that makes current day reality. It is the purest of ventures in the art of escapism.
Our leads Aoki (Played adorably by Michieda Shunsuke) and Ida (delivered silent and sexy by Meguro Ren) are both winning in their juxtaposed personalities. Aoki is geeky, insecure, dramatic, and in-touch with every emotion that runs through him. Ida is contemplative, popular, sporty, and lost inside his stoic world not understanding a single feeling that is awakening in him. As the two comicly fumble their way through finding possible romance with each other, the viewer get to delight themselves with cute gags, silly interactions, and heartfelt moments of self realization.
Helping our leads along is a straight side couple Hashimoto and Aida. This possible couple seems to be a heterosexual version of our male leads. To a certain extent they face the exact same obstacles as our male male story. Fukumoto Riko as Hashimoto is cute as a button and a perfect ally and friend to our Aoki. Suzuki Jin as Aida is playful and cocky, while remaining kind and sincere.
The choice to have the "homosexual" storyline followed almost exactly by the supporting "heterosexual" couple seems to be an attempt for the story to normalize what is happening as much as possible. To show viewers, hey, see, these boys really aren't that different than anyone else. Look at how they face the same issues as the guy and girl. This was welcomed, and also effective, as you will enjoy this side couple just as much as our main male leads.
Now, you might ask, MJ but you are giving it an 8 but only saying great things about it. Trust me, an 8 on my scale is a very solid score. While, I do have mostly only positive things to say here, the show isn't perfect. There are some acting choices along the way that I didn't enjoy. There is a feeling of some filler episodes and spinning in place plot repetitiveness, though still HIGHLY enjoyable to watch, shows that the story could have had some stronger plotting and pacing as it is only 10 30-minute episodes. The story itself is also very simplistic. It works, so this isn't really a drawback per say, but it does keep me from awarding it a higher score since it keeps itself always in easy-town, not matter how fun it is being there.
In the end this tale is winning and wonderful. It closes with a great message for everyone involved on how love can blossom if you allow it, how being open can breed happiness, and how living truthfully can bring companionship. "We don't have to be like everyone else." our leads tell each other. No truer words have been spoken no matter if they come from a "Light and Fluffy" tale. I just hope the audience watching is also listening.
8.0 = B+, 4-Stars. A solid all around entry that will likely not disappoint.
May we all have a day of such beautiful illumination!
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A strong cast trapped inside a low-budgeted banal story equals mediocrity.
Oh! Boarding House is carried by its cast. Episode one made this apparent, something previously stated in the comments section after the first viewing. However, as the series progressed even the acting faltered at times. Still, it was a simple easy experience. As humdrum unoriginal the plot is, it doesn't serve up any disappointments, "from left-field" moments or plot twists, nor does it manufacture fake moments or head-scratching plot forced reconciliations simply to make a happy ending. Everything here is very safe plotting using point A to B to C movement and development, which works, but also bores.Our two leads, handsome and kind boarding house runner Seol Won played by an up-to-task Shin Yong Seok, and physically dominant sports coach Kim Cheol Soo played by the sexy and effective Im Sung Kyun look like a natural paring. Seeing these two men fall for each other is NOT a stretch of the imagination because they carry equal footing in appeal and attractiveness. The chemistry between them never explodes however, it exists and it putters sparks here and there, but it isn't exactly swoon worthy nor weak-at-the-knees inducing. Like most of everything here, it is just simply functional and fine with a kissing scene that gives at lest some realistic oomph before it finishes.
Many have commented on how the emotions of Cheol Soo seem to come out of nowhere when they start to develop. But, the story tries to let you know ahead of time what is actually happening. Using a gym workout sequence with a girl hitting on him, and focusing on his reaction to it, without plain stating it out-loud infers that Cheol Soo is simply gay and has been interested in men from the get go. This is further reaffirmed later in conversations when he states its normal for him but understands that Seol Won may need time, as Seol Won seems to not understand his attraction and thus it is also inferred it is his first time liking a male.
The rest of the cast is mainly comic relief. We do get a straight possible couple pairing using one of the tenants, but it is severely underdeveloped. Also Seol Won's best friend Cha Bong Deok, played geek sheik by Shin Ki Hwan, has an unrequited love that forms a love triangle that wasn't. just because love triangles are always required. But otherwise, there is not really any use for the side pieces, except to have other bodies on film and fill the house.
Be prepared for rough edges here, from lighting, overall finish and look, to sets and settings. The budget here was very very small, and yes it shows, sometimes blaringly. There are some poor directing choices along the way too, but also some pretty good ones as well. Again, showing that everything here is simply an average undertaking. You do get the feeling that this story and production might have fared better if they would have just made it a very intimate story between just the two main characters in a house with no other settings or characters. That is the story of a male owning his apartment and renting out a room and the attraction and story that develops from there. It would have saved money on cast and multiple settings while still being able to tell the exact same main story. Thus, possibly raising the overall quality on display. But, they didn't choose this (It was adapted from a Webtoon and so they tried to keep some of what was there, though still changed a lot I am told) and so the production is what it is. BUT THEY STILL MANAGED FULL 20 minute + episodes.which, again, makes it feel more like an actual television show and NOT just another chopped up movie. Good work here and take the props.
In the end it is a simply okay, fine, not-bad, mediocre, gets-the-job done, affair. For many that is good enough. For eye candy this is very strong, the leads are at the top of the BL Korean heap on looks and carry the most "main stream" appeal, and both will likely be coming to hetero Korean love stories soon. But, what this is not, is anything close to great, a must watch, or even I just have to finish it type story. It is what it is, and it is fine.
6.0 = C, 3-Stars. Average in every way. 50/50 shot of liking it due to viewer taste.
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Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency
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Nothing in this depressing midevil tale tries to be original. Well, there is that techno Kpop dance.
Flower Crew is a huge mess of a series. At it its core it is the same vying for the throne Joseon story that Korea just keeps making on repeat. It dresses itself up as a cute comedy of an all male team of matchmakers, but doesn't deliver on that premise. The opening scene is the death of the king followed by an assassination of the prince. Now lets pan to some small town where a lonely peasant girl is breaking her back trying to earn enough money to both survive and hire someone to find her enslaved brother who has been missing since she was a child on the run.And there it is folks, a comedy for the ages!
This tale follows the point by point checklist of what a Joseon story should possess.
1) Politicians vying for power and trying to overthrow the throne: Check
2) A King with no power who must figure out how to out maneuver the politicians that surround them : Check
3) Peasants caught in the middle of the political fray that will decide the fate of the story: Check
4) An entire subplot about consolidating power by wedding the king to his queen: Check
5) A queen dowager with her own plans for the kingdom: Check
6) A courtesan house that features all the secrets and information of everything happening: check
7) A love that is against all odds and hangs in the balance as everyone plays their cards: check
8) The big bad has a single swordsman assassin that does all their evil wetwork: check
Oh but again, this is a comedy not a drama. Did we tell you that?
For the first few episodes the show actually tries to pretend it is a comedy and not just a stale Joseon tale. The matchmakers actually do some matchmaking. There are attempts at comedy. The shows always has a sound effects laden soundtrack roaring with cat calls, dinging bells, kazoo glides, and other zany noises to say, hey look, this is funny. You should laugh now. And there is enough slow motion tripping and falling into peoples arms and long stares to fill up 30 minute You Tube clip collection video.
And then our second male lead is taken to the palace, crowned as king, and held against his will......and the story never looks back.
Character wise you get a handful of stock archetypes. Our main male lead Ma Hoon (Kim Min Jae) is the stoic soft hearted intelligent nobleman with a tragic backstory. Our second male lead is Lee Soo (Seo Ji Hoon) a noble kind lovelorn blacksmith son who ends up the secret bastard of the now dead king. Our female lead Gae Ddong (Gong Seung Yeon) is a tough as nails ex slave who will do anything for coin (except sex stuff). This is our triangle and this is where we will spend the bulk of our time. For the most part you can like and love these three. They mostly always error on the side of good, and remain heroes for the length of the series run.
That can not be said for the rest of the cast. Our second female lead Kang Ji Hwa (Go Won Hee) has not a single redeeming quality. She is one of the females that will vie to be queen. Along the way she will beat servants, sell of slaves, break promises, degrade our core characters, and help in a plot of attempted murder. Yet the story will still make her the love interest of one of our Matchmakers Do Joon (Byeon Woo Seok) as the second couple of the series. In doing so it basically assassinates Do Joon's character in his willful blindness to accept the monstrous things Ji Hwa does, and love her anyway. Why any of the rest of the cast have anything to do with him by the end is a bit of a head scratcher.
Though you also have Go Young Soo (Park Ji Hoon) as our final matchmaker and likely the most problematic character of the series. Designed to be the comic relief, his character is basically there to annoy everyone. He attacks the female lead constantly. Is jealous that our main lead Ma Hoon is giving his time to someone other than him. (There are lots of references that he may be gay and in love with Ma Hoon. And Ma Hoon seems okay with that and loves him back as much as he can which is kinda cool). Yet, the character will ultimately be given the most backstory of anyone with horrific flashbacks of his time before becoming part of the Flower Crew. This back story has lots of lifting to do, as it is meant to explain is superficialness and justify some horrible actions he will eventually take.
Everyone else is evil and there to do bad stuff.
I will say I never forgive any of the characters, the story doesn't give me time to, nor give the characters enough remorse over their actions to warrant it. There is a lot of betrayal. There is more gore than is to be expected. And there are fight scenes that look like they were made by a high school film class. Which makes for a very lackluster affair. Even more odd is the choice of the soundtrack, which oscillates between love ballads, kpop, and techno, in a Joseon period historical show. There is even a dance number to the techno as the flower crew tries to hire a female to join their ranks. It is definitely the last straw on any viewers looking at this series as anything of weight or noteworthiness. This is not a trend I can get behind Bridgerton!
In the end, this series is utterly and easily forgettable. It isn't good at anything it tries to do. As a Joseon piece it is repetitive, derivative, poorly constructed and a joke in historical context. As a comedy it is tragic, depressing, horrific, and serious. As a romance it falls limp and asks us to ship a side couple that viewers will have a really hard time getting behind and rooting for. While I do like the two main male leads, both doing excellent work here in acting while also being attractive hunks, that is really the only praise I have for this. I could have done without every wasting my time here. 4.5/D/ 2 1/4-stars. Flaws far outweigh the strengths here. Outside of a few bright spots little enjoyment really exists.
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You may ask why? And the film seems to answer with....
Life is short, people are bad, religion persecutes us and requires us to sacrifice ourselves eternally (no matter which religious body one is subscribed), the world of gay men is filled with aging vampires who want to suck the beauty and youth from the naive and wide eyed. No matter what our end may be (fate), the journey there still matters. Our lust and greed will actually consume us, (His death was his decision for money he didn't need and after, his remains are cannibalized-literally consumed).In short nothing new, morals and topics covered much more in-depth and with more resonance elsewhere, and without erotically charged graphic gang rape, pornographic bloody body dismemberment and cannibalization.
So possibly the grotesque and shocking scenes are meant to haunt you and create a greater impact of these themes...but IMO detract and over-shadow the topics at hand.
Though, out of everything, the interviews at the end have the most impact. Is the director willingly stating that he is as much of a monster as what he depicts in an almost slap in the face to his own actors as they share their own life dreams on turning 30, sitting nude, exposed, and being exploited for the film he is making now? Or are all of them still in character and meant to drive home the fact that men, or people, in this world are truly as naive and lost as our protagonist was?
Most interesting to me, was that upon the first cross, all in the white of innocence, our main character is duped, tied down, and forced into being gang raped by 30 men. While his last scene he is a willing participant who undresses himself and puts himself on the red cross, an active agent in his own death and ultimate perversion. We never really get to see this transition in character and mindset of our protagonist, it just happens.
There are many things that don't add up in the story.
The character of his brother is never explained. They aren't blood related but its simply stated that they are as true as brother's can be. But when and how did they meet? Why are they so close? What is the purpose of this character existing? One of the large underlying themes is that he is alone with he weight of caring for his ailing mother, ye then there is the brother character which doesn't fit and isn't explained. If they are so close that he will not participate in the gang rape, why will he cower and watch and not try to free his "brother?" What was the point of him throwing himself in the way at the very end for the last perpetrator? Why isn't he the manager instead of the man that is? Why does he continue to allow his brother to perform sex work after seeing what was done to him? We will never know the answers....
As many reviewers have brought up outside of MDL, why is the protagonist so blindly trusting of his manager? Almost every ill-fated event that transpires in the film is at the hands of his manager. And yet, our protagonist and his "brother", keep the manager as if family, calling him uncle, and sharing their fortune with him, up to the point that manager arranges himself a lofty payout by putting our protagonist in a snuff film, and walking away with half the remains which he cooks up for dinner. And apparently the "brother" still never suspects or goes after him after our main character suddenly disappears and this guy becomes filthy rich, because it takes the creepy Buddhist who arranges the aforementioned earlier gang rape to exact revenge in the final scene of the film.
Any rational person would have never had contact with the manager after he stands idle watching rape and going for the money they make off it, before trying to help the demolished main character.
How does our main character never show trauma? His virginity is taken in violence by people he knows and trusted in a group act that leaves him bedridden. But then once his body is healed, he returns to his life and all relationships as if nothing ever happened, and actually becomes at peace with doing sex work and using his body for money. He also easily finds himself in romantic relationships. It is all very bizarre and unbelievable. Psychology having no place in the story.
Religion is superficial here, while Buddhism gets a bit more in-depth, the most tragic events occur upon and around christian iconography. Yet, little is said about either in any substantial way. There is a witch, who's mysticism has more screen time. In the end, all the fate and troubles are boiled down to past lives. So while the "secular" scare our protagonist with hell and shame and he is sacrificed both sexually and physically upon crosses, it is all done at the will of Karma and Buddhism so nothing here comes out unscathed.
With all this said, I think if you watch the film it will haunt you a bit. So the director probably feels successful in creating such in his audience. But, with the messages he seems to want to press upon us, and a story that is pretending to have much to say and not be just an excuse to watch beautiful men run around nude and doing sexual things, this creation sadly fails, and quite fantastically.
Even worse The world has seemed to not care about any message. In trying to find the film you will likely end-up on some porn sites where watchers have edited together the graphic sex to be something for masturbation. And can there be anything more perfect than a film the uses sex work and gang rape to show the utter destruction of its main character, and then those very scenes be used by the world for arousal, proving that the world really is as heinous as the film suggests. And maybe, just maybe the director didn't use the best methods to tell such a story.
Then again, one of the actors is a famous porn star, so maybe this being the films legacy, is the exact META statement of our society he was aiming, again bringing us back to the interviews before the final credits and what exactly was he trying to get across with them.
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Writing your own destiny is hard work considering so many feel they should write it for you.
This came recommended to me from a fellow MDL netizen after reading my review for Extraordinary You. As with that drama, I had no clue what this was about and actually hit play on the first episode without even looking it up here on MDL. I like going in blind, it averts any expectations I could build and lets me experience the content in the raw. By the end of the first episode I fully understood why this was recommended, and I smiled pleasantly.Now being a web drama, I was shocked at the special effects and production value. Yes I get all aren't equal, but most of the Korean web only shows I have thus seen are more on the production value of independent cinema. You do not have to worry about that here, the only thing that lets on this wasn't released by one of Korea's big networks is that its only ten 20-30 minute long episodes. Otherwise, you will be treated to some great camera work, high production values, winning soundtrack, and mostly strong acting. So do not fear here.
We open on an ominous library that would make MC Escher proud and a tall drink of beautiful Korean male specimen walking slow motion through its innards. This is our first roundabout meeting of our male lead, Shin Ho Yoon (The sad eyed Ki Do Hoon playing contemplatively stoic) who we will soon learn is a Deity of Destiny. That is, the world doesn't have just one fate, but a working cadre of tall sexy men that divide up the population of earth between them. (Why they are all men, I do not know, maybe it was told to me at some point but I didn't catch it.) Shin Ho Yoon has decided to write the fate of one his charges (Jung Ba Reum played childlike and fun by Kim Woo Suk) as the greatest love story every told. The only problem, he doesn't understand what love is.
In order for him to create his great work he borrows (plagiarizes) plot lines from the teenage essay writings of one of the tenant's daughters from the high-rise he owns to hide amongst the people of earth. Unbeknown to him, this no longer a teenager writer is our female lead Go Chae Kyung (Amongst other names) played by Jeon So Nee. The problem here is that she ends up being the 1st love of his own charge Ba Reum for which he is trying to make a legendary love. Thus, he ends up putting her in the very scenarios she wrote years before to of course deja-vu disastrous results. This causes him quite the pickle and forces him to start spending more time than he intends in the presence of this feisty female writer. This leads us to the crux of the tale, as Deities of Destiny are not allowed to have feelings, connections, or opinions on humans and what is done to them.
This, if you can't already tell, is quite a fun set-up and it is equally fun to watch play out. With the brevity of the episodes everything is always moving at a brisk pace. There are very few lagging moments or episodes. Fun and light heartedness are baked in here, and done quite well. I laughed whole heartily during a scene of "The Accounting of Marriage" (A show our female lead writes within this show) as it took a stab at the utter ridiculousness that is found in many a stories of dramas (Kdrama or not). Let's just say the sexy male leads (One of many cameos from the BL world Lee Shi Kang) abs are the key evidence for a confused family that causes the father to fall to his knees. And trust, the flash of skin will make you fall to your knees as well.
A bulk of the comic relief will also come from a frenemy bromance of another Deity of Destiny Myung (Playfully handed to us by Park Sang Nam). This character is an MVP for the story and steals many of the scenes he is in. As much as he is a nuisance and seems at times callus and cold, by the stories end will be a very warm center that always had a whole lot of heart for everyone involved no matter how close he played it to his chest.
Unfortunately you also have a lot of throw away characters that weren't needed. Our female lead's best friend could have been left on the cutting room floor and not changed a thing. The childlike newbie deity female Sam Shin, who has something to do with pregnancy, offers nothing to the story and has a whole love interest of her own. By the way, does anyone know what happened with this love interest? Is she still in school? Are they dating? Does she still exist at the end? Is she allowed to have feelings since she is not part of people's destinies or do all deities have to be unfeeling and unconnected to humans? Where did she go after that scene in front of the high school?......I dunno any of the answers to any these questions and you will not either.
There are bursts of META folded into the story dealing with tropes of romances, dramas, ideas of love, and of course fate, but they are far and few. The show keeps its storytelling light and airy never wanting to dig too deep into anything. This is okay, again what is on screen is enjoyable and fun and everyone, and I really do mean EVERYONE, is down right beautiful, so very easy to watch. But, I will say that it leaves you with an empty feeling.
I'm not sure why, but I was entertained, I was laughing, I was lusting, and I was finding out what other shows our male lead is in because I knew him from somewhere (Catch the Ghost BTW) and wanted to see where I could feast on him after this was over, but I wasn't emotionally connected.
Everything is sleek, stylish, high quality, interesting and fun. But also detached, hollow, superficial, and very much gliding across the surface of a very rich mythology, world, and concept. When the last half of the show starts to unravel secrets and move more into emotional territory, it was simply fine. My heartstrings are never tugged, tears never well up, and I'm never really "moved." Myung's character ends up striking the strongest chord of emotion in the series, and he is a support character with no romantic attachments to anyone, (Unless you want to fantasize a possible BL one). And when the actual leads are running towards each other in slow motion trying to beat time with soaring music it felt over-the-top, melodramatic and a blunder.
The underlying theme of taking control of your own life, and writing your own destiny seems more a plot device than a lesson. I am not sure if the show expects us to honestly do this for ourselves. Both the characters that are given a peek at the annals of time, and the power of their own pens, do so by the will of Deity wanting to hand it to them. Everyone else still stays bent to the will of the gods. The gods themselves are still stuck in the rules of their omnipotence. And the end seems to keep the cycle repeating even for our own lead. Thus, fate, destiny, and the future still seems the writing of others and not ourselves.
Ultimately I did enjoy this romp and had a good time. I'm very happy it was recommended to me. But, I also didn't love it and wish there had been more. While the story does build the idea of a great romance that spans time, it does so hectically and with the bulk rushed at the end right before the bough breaks and the whole of everything comes tumbling down. That is, I do not get to spend enough time cherishing what love there is, living inside of it, and feeling the loss of it. If you wallow in the fun escapism of this story you are going to have a great time, there is heaps to enjoy here.
7.5/B/ 3 3/4-Stars Shows its flaws but remains strong and will likely be enjoyed.
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Real, intimate, at times devistating, Yumi's Cells is an adult romance take on Pixar's Inside Out.
That isn't to say that the Pixar animated tale wasn't adult in its own right, it very much was, but the story there focused on an adolescent and was the most adult when dealing with the drivers inside of her mind. Here, Yumi is at its most adult when we are dealing with the real world or the grown-up protagonist and, unfortunately, is at its most childish, and disappointing, when dealing with cells and their functionality within her.If I was honestly going to choose my largest complaint about the series, it is by far the animated portions. The animation itself is subpar, the characters all act like children, and how they handle, respond, and decide to go about things inside of Yumi, and at times Woong (Our Male Lead), is as if it is the first time any of these cells have had to make an adult decision in their existence. The cells are, well, a plot device to try and say this isn't just another romance but something different and basically serve as the comic relief of an otherwise very honest and real tale. I could have easily done without them and at times wish they weren't a part of the story.
That isn't to say they don't add a great way to see some of the inner turmoil of our characters, and is a refreshing narrative approach to keep from having to watch the characters constantly look off to the side while speaking to no one about their desires and feelings as most Kdrama's tend to do. ( This is probably in my top 3 overall complaints of Kdrama's as a medium.) It was nice to just see the actors ACT with their faces and bodies instead of their mouths, as the cartoons took the burden of letting us know their dilemmas.
However, when the story stays in the real world of Yumi it becomes a harrowing journey to behold. So strong, so emotional, so earnest in its take on love and life that it MORE than overshadows any faults that can be found elsewhere. Yumi is as real as a person can be and just as broken. As we watch her navigate her blossoming feelings, and simultaneously come to understand her past and all the baggage that was created getting to this point in her life, we very easily see ourselves, our friends, or our family members.
Kim Go Eun shines in her role. She is beautiful, but still common. Strong, but still unsturdy. Detached, but still warm. The subtleties she brings to our protagonist Yumi is raw, unguarded, and relatable. While you will find yourself frustrated with Yumi as a character at times, especially in the latter few episodes before we reach the end of the series, Go Eun will keep you firmly on her side, and make you understand almost every action she takes.
Ahn Bo Hyun is also winning in his role of Woong. He is equal parts sexy and adorable, kind and selfish, caring and cold. He is arguably the MOST broken of the two leads, and his flaws affect the story and their romance more than hers. That you still like him, care for him, and yes root for him, when there are times he is clearly in the wrong, shows how effective both Woong is as a character and Bo Hyun is in his delivery of him.
All the other characters are very much side dishes. Every single one of them come off just as authentic as our leads, but really only exist to keep the world Yumi and Woong alive and feeling full. The character of Sae Yi has the most impact on our tale outside of our couple. Park Ji Hyun plays her effectively as someone who isn't a villain as much as a person with their own agenda and motives. Sae Yi is almost a female Iago here, her influence on Woong directing his actions more than her outright doing dastardly deeds. She is still a real person and not a cartoon. While you may not find her the nicest individual, you will still find parts of you inside her, and see her as a real person. Something that more often than not is not the case for the enemies in Kdramas.
The series is steady in its delivery and pacing. It doesn't rush to get to plot points and doesn't lag never going anywhere. There is never a time, when watching, you wish that we could just move on. This is taking too long. Or, this is just filler and there could have been less. In fact, in one of the few times watching, I was disheartened there was only 14 episodes instead of the normal 16-20. I would have loved to spend more time here.
Season 2 is already confirmed, and shooting, and yes there are characters you meet in season 1 that seem designed to be dealt with later on in other seasons. Here we meet them, understand their beginnings, and get whiffs of what is to come, but they still remain mostly innocuous for the story of these 14 episodes. This is fine, since season 2 is happening, but would have been a detraction, and a waste of actors and time, if this story was all that ended up being made.
Yumi's Cells will stick with you. It will jolt your emotions, light your anger, spark your desires, and cause you to swoon at its stars and their romance. But it never sugar coats the world and life. People are subjected to societal standards so ingrained in them that they cannot move past the insecurities it causes. People have their own issues brought on by a lifetimes journey and all the pitfalls they have already worked against. People hurt and cause pain and this story runs through the gamut of it all. Undoubtedly one of the most honest tales I've had the pleasure of watching from South Korea. 9.0/A/4.5 Stars, shouldn't be missed by anyone who enjoys journeys of the heart.
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