Honestly, a breath of fresh air, funny, satirical and realistic

I had high hopes going into this drama, after seeing the trailers and the actors and actresses set to appear in Love to Hate you.

There are a lot of corny and overdramatized romantic comedies out there today and I thought that Love to Hate you did an excellent job subverting those expectations. It gave us a legitimately funny and heartwarming show. It was a realistic depiction of an adult romance.

Our female lead is is played perfectly by Kim Ok Bin. She is a strong-willed woman who will not let herself be defined by the standards of society. She even says herself, she is not the “damsel in distress” waiting for the hero to save her. This is obviously a refreshing character arc for a female lead in Korean dramas. She is totally hilarious and leans into her role as the life of the party. If you’re looking for a strong female lead who not only competes in a male-dominated space, but excels in it, she’s here.

Her opposite Yoo Teo, also plays a believable, vulnerable man, who is weary of women. He is likeable, down-to-earth and easy to root for.

I honestly don’t want to go into it and spoil too much, as Kim Ji Woon and Go Won Hee, also play fantastic roles. Furthermore, the cast is filled with supporting characters that have their own stories and don’t detract from the main plot. I felt that this show was keenly aware of the usual tropes that romantic comedies fall into and used that for comedic effect. I thought it was also provided interesting commentary of the toxicity of the celebrity fandom, netizens and the internet. Nevertheless, Love to Hate you is short mini-series and an easy watch.

I can’t recommend this show enough. If you liked Business Proposal, I feel that you would enjoy this too. It’s fun, lighthearted and will definitely bring you back to the time when you first found someone you fell in love with. Watch this show!

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It starts off compelling, but loses steam, lacking anything interesting to focus on

Fresh off watching strong recent performances for Lee Jong Suk in "Big Mouth" and Wi Ha Joon in "Little Women", I decided to check out Romance is a Bonus Book, curious as to some of their characters they played in their previous works. I figured it couldn't hurt to watch RIABB since both of them were in it and I was looking for some lighter fare to watch.

Boy was that a mistake. I'll try to keep the plot points at a high-level, if you're still curious to watch this.

The show starts off fine enough. Dan-Yi's journey of rediscovering herself as a working woman after spending time away to be a housewife is relatable and admirable. We can appreciate her struggle, her sorrow and what a bad situation she finds herself in. Especially in Asia, where women are still expected to be the sole the caretaker of the house. This is all good. She is determined to find a new path in her life, work through the garbage tasks given to her at her new job and find new love.

Once the story turns the corner to her relationship with the male lead, the story goes all downhill. I don't know who comes up with these ideals that if you wait for someone for over *checks notes* "TWENTY, TWENTY years" that somehow you will be rewarded with an opportunity to shack up with them. It's almost bizarre how his character basically ignores her problems initially and swoops into the save the day later on.

Why would a man so perfect be single? He was waiting his whole life for the girl that got hit by a car for him? Sure, even if I accept that backstory as plausible, he basically says every girl he dated after she got married didn't work out because it wasn't her? I'm supposed to believe that too? It's no wonder why everyone has this made up fantasy in their heads that there is only ONE person in the entire world for them.

In addition, we also given our sad sack second placers to complete the love triangles with Wi Ha Joon and Eugene Jung, who in typical fashion, are generally far more compelling then the lead couple. I probably would have had more fun with the series had they focused a little more on these two, rather than all the middling side stores of the less important characters they added in for some reason. Did we need all the screen time for Park Gyu Young (who was actually kind of funny at times), Kang Gi Doong, Jo Han Chul and friends?

It's just time wasted that could have been better spent elsewhere. When the main couple's relationship advances, why is there no talk of the daughter? What happened to her? She was so important to Dan-Yi initially. Is the ML going to be her father? Is there no such thing as co-parenting with the ex-husband? Where even is she? Dealing with these actual issues would have been much better than the made-up issues they came up with to pad the run time.

The last few episodes were a drag and made no sense. They sure went to a lot of trouble to make-up issues for Dan-Yi just to have an magical ass-pull fix to remedy the situation that didn't even need to happen in the first place. What for? Because they really had nothing left to tell. Wi Ha Joon's closing arc is not worth noting either. It was a weak attempt to play at emotion to close the story.

In the end, they gave everyone a happy ending. Was anything learned? Not really. The book closes with a happily ever after. I don't think you'll be happy after watching it though.

Suggestion: PASS

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A deep and complex look at a traditional love triangle

Well paced. Interesting. Heartfelt. Emotional. Just a few words to describe 20th Century Girl. The movie does well setting the groundwork for the relationships that are built throughout its runtime.

This movie tells a deep and lifelong story about lost love in a short amount of time. I hope that more Korean dramas have pacing more on par with what we saw here. It never dragged its story with filler and continued to move forward at a pace that kept it fresh and interesting. Obviously, like most K-Dramas a lot of the issues that come up between our characters is as a result of an egregious lack of communication skills, but the motivation for the misunderstanding was plausible, so it gets a pass here.

Otherwise, I greatly appreciated the change in tone later in that movie and how it wasn’t so heavy handed with showing us too much. Sometimes it’s better to leave things up to to audience interpretation rather than have it spelt out so obviously, as tends to be a cliché in romantic K-Dramas. The ambiguity of the twist might be divisive, (depending on your tastes) but achieves its intention. Furthermore, maybe we could have spent a little more time with the other leads, but that’s a small nitpick in an otherwise fine movie.

I generally think they focused their attention where they needed to and that this is definitely a movie worth watching. If you’re looking for something a little different in the genre of Korean “romantic comedies”, definitely give 20th century girl a try.

Recommendation: WATCH

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A mostly forgettable and boring space romp we've seen before

I want to preface that I enjoy Song Joong-Ki and Kim Tae-Ri as actors.

Space Sweepers has all the looks of an ambitious production, but no substance to back it up. It's a real shame and a waste of talent. The plot is fairly generic and definitely something you've seen before if you've watched any science fiction from Hollywood or anime from Japan, which isn't necessarily a problem if it's done correctly (see: Bebop, Cowboy), but this movie is neither compelling or interesting to warrant it's 2 hour runtime.

We learn next to nothing about the characters they introduce us to. The world building is scattered, inconsistent, and most of the time you're stuck watching a gigantic CGI mess. What brought this group of 4 together? What are their goals? How does anyone else feel about the UTS? There are so many underdeveloped plot points, no wonder that it's hard to care about anything that's happening on the screen.

The central antagonist has the same, simple, braindead modus operandi that has been overused to death. Get rid of the filth, save only the elite. What is this? A DC movie? Marvel? He even comes complete with random transformations and changes in voice that never gets explained. His back story even feels tacked on with a short monologue, like it’s supposed to be enough. The movie just drops these minor tidbits about a character's life and expects us to go "Wow, nice character building!" and calls it a day. Imagine if you'd watched Avengers: Endgame without watching any of the previous Marvel movies. That's what this feels like. It "feels" like I'm supposed to care about these characters, but I'm missing so much context as to "why". They meet this random girl, they show us a couple scenes of them interacting, and a minute later, she's like family that's been with them since day one. I don't get it.

In the end, nothing really happens, we ultimately reset to where we were in the beginning, with some slight changes to a robot for some reason? The ultimate climax of the movie is robbed by a stupid power that is never ultimately explained and can seemingly do anything and everything without limit. Who gave this movie Infinity Stones plot armor? It's lazy.

Ultimately, this movie is a ton of sizzle and no steak. The bright colors, star actors and diversity of language gives the appearance of a grand production, but it's ultimately for nothing. Space Sweepers is just boring.

Recommendation: PASS

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