what story?

there is no story here, it feels like some weird slice of life that tries to pretend to be something more

ok, pros
+medical part well done
+inner hospital politics well done, at least according to my mother, who is a doctor
+the acting from Cho Seung Woo and his character, Gu Sung Hyo, was awesome
+some other actors did quite well too
+the soundtrack was sometimes great, sometimes too in your face, sometimes too absent, but overall did its job

cons
-no story, countless side plots that don't account to anything
-LDW and LKH both outside their element, their acting was off and unconvincing
-not to mention the story of both brothers was awfully cringe, stretched out, and felt like it came from a different drama
-awful romance for main lead, too
-no tension, the antagonist conglomerate can't even threaten anyone properly and the the main villain has charisma of angry chihuahua
-preachy and moralizing tone

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Mr Bean finds some money...

Park Dong Ha is a loser.

He isn't a bad guy, he's just quite fucking stupid.

In fact, he is so stupid, his wife wants to divorce him because of that. On top of that, he "invested" money meant for the treatment of his terminally ill son to give a bribe in return for professorship, which terribly backfired, and he lost the former and didn't get the later. It's only a matter of time until his wife finds out and his life will get even worse(he might even get scolded or spanked, oh the horror!)....
Fortunately, fate smiled upon him. On the way back home, he found a car with two dead men inside and lotsa money. LOTSA.

So what does our genius of intellect do? He takes all of it. Then he dumps their car in a nearby woods, and buries the bodies next to his own house.
A perfect crime! What could go wrong? Oh wait, why is a phone ringing from under the ground...?

.....and thus the tragicomedy begins. Our genius of intellect is going to get involved in multiple plots and schemes, trying to navigate reality not unlike Mr. Bean trying to park a car, and providing a nice source of entertainment for us cynical people.

This is superposed with very chill western-like music, a pretty cool plot about inner mafia conflicts, and a corrupt cop investigation. As well as, uh, a rather tragic story of his "model" family kinda falling apart.
All these plots tie together rather nicely, and I am rather impressed by how the writer managed them all.

The style of the drama is noir. That is bleak colors, with lotsa smoking, people talking in hushed voices, and nihilistically soothing atmosphere.
Everyone's acting is on spot, especially Park Hee Soon's who once again plays a gangster(he was brilliant both in My Name and here!) and Park Ji Yeon whose asmr like voice is my new favorite in dramaland.

Overall hard recommend, just don't expect something like empowering story of an average guy climbing up mafia ranks or something. See it for what it is.

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The cycle of hate

First of all, I think the synopsis here and on many other sites is misleading. Just read the first paragraph, and ignore the second one.

This is a melodrama thriller inspired(at least in premise) by Wuthering Heights. However, it's so much more than english adultery classic.

Rather than love and social status, the main theme of this drama is how hate prolongs hate. It's a revenge drama. But unlike many other revenge dramas, you are not supposed to "root" for anyone in particular. This story portrays humans as they are: multidimensional and complex. Everyone has some good and bad sides to them, and some reason for doing what they've done. However, in course of pursuing their desires and ambitions, they often end up unknowingly hurting others.

The abuser often isn't even aware that what they've done hurt someone else, but the victim remembers their entire life.

Now, what is the victim supposed to do? The answer is, to move on and live on. An old saying says that a person who pursues revenge should dig 2 graves, one for their target and one for themselves.
But this drama proves that saying wrong: a person pursuing revenge should dig a whole cemetery because countless innocents will get entangled in their retribution. Someone is someone's parent, child, friend, or benefactor...if you hurt that person, you will hurt those who like them and depend on them. And more grudges will be generated, and now you will find yourself a victim of someone's wrath.....

Yet, it's not easy to forgive. After all, neither forgiveness nor retribution can heal wounds, only time and an individual's conscious effort can. But it's easier to scratch these wounds open and cause them to others.....finding solace in mutual pain.

Before watching "reflection of you" I was told two things. That this drama has a happy ending, and that this drama has a unique ending. I can agree with the latter, but not the former. The ending is tragic and divided the fans. But it did fit thematically.

The strongest character is definitely Goo Haewon, and the people who watched this show either think she was a victim and did nuffin wrong, or she was a total psycho and did everything wrong. Personally, I think she did some things wrong but that didn't stop me from rooting for her and adoring her onscreen presence.

Technicalities:

The acting was spectacular, especially from the main cast. Except for Kim Jae Young, his acting was as plastic as his face, but in this case it was actually fitting considering the character he had to play.

However, the strongest part is the scenery and costumes. The color schemes of whatever Jung Heejoo or Goo Haewon are wearing at the moment represent their mood and mental states. I can't recall the last time I've seen a drama that would put attention to such detail, most of the time the characters are wearing whatever they look good in or one and the same outfit the whole story long.

The music was good and did a great job setting the mood most of the time, tho certain insert songs were a little overused.

Overall: hard recommend and more people need to watch this underrated drama.

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I looked for copper, I found gold

Disclaimer: I never played Detention game, which this series is an adaptation/sequel of and to.

At its heart, it's a drama/tragedy/romance. If you are expecting a spooky horror, it's not it. The scary moments are very few, and quite amateurish. But where the true horror lies is in exposing what assholes humans can be to each other.

The story follows two timelines.

First is the one in 1960's, where the action of the game takes place. There some students and teachers organize an illegal book club, and get violently persecuted in return.
The second timeline, where we're gonna spend most of the series, is in 1990's, and follows a schizophrenic transfer student who hopes that writing poetry will bring her broken family back together. Over the course of that, she gets possessed by a ghost from the past, and enters a risque romance with her teacher.

Both timelines are intervened with flashbacks and parallels.

This is not a particularly light or optimistic story. It's a romance, but a toxic and tragic one, not what most people associate with that genre.

The direction, scenography, and actors did their job well. This is especially true for Huang Guan Zhi, who did a great job of playing an awkward but well-meaning teen. Considering that this show was his debut, I think this actor has great talent.

Shoutout to the ending song too, it was one of the rare moments when I didn't skip credits just so I could listen to it.

Note: Netflix version of the show is using wade-giles instead of pinyn for eng sub transcription of Chinese names. For what reason, I dunno, but it made watching it a bit confusing.

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Good supernatural mystery

Pretty cool supernatural thriller. Not really a horror, I didn't find it scary, even when it tried to make me feel afraid.....but maybe that's just me.

The main issue are the main characters having communication issues. Too many times they phone someone, say they have crucial info, then hang up and say "will call you later", of course they never call later and they are punished for that.

Also, when the recipient isn't picking up....do none of them know that phones have "text message" function? They could just write all the important info there instead of having to TALK.
For this reason, the story feels like it was set or written in the early 2000's, not 2018. Also, why do none of the police people carry guns?

And the characters charge into danger way too eagerly. For the main trio it's somewhat justified, as they are all described as hot-headed, and they aren't even main offenders. The main offenders are various side characters, like Kang Gil Young's mother in the first episode. Like she went into a house even tho the guy who opened the door had literal blood on his hands, and didn't call reinforcements until she found dead bodies inside? Like what? And this pattern of suicidal stupidity will repeat multiple times. Fortunately, the story has enough decency to punish these idiots for that each and every time.

The various mysteries presented in the story were pretty good. The writer did an overall very good job at setting the clues and red herrings, and I'm ashamed to admit, in the end, I was tricked too! So well done, well done. The actors delivered their roles spectacularly too, and the camera play and scenery were on point.

Last but not least, I will never forget the name of PARK....ILL...DOOOOOO considering how many times it was screamed in this series.

Warning: The show features lengthy "previously" sections at the beginning of each episode. You know, where they narrate what happened until now. And it's the longest "previously" I've ever seen, in one episode it lasted for whole 10 minutes! Just skip, or enjoy if you like this kinda stuff.

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Psychological slice of life

I went in expecting a dark crime thriller.

I did kinda get it, but not really.

Simply speaking, the "whodunit" isn't the main focus here. The culprit is revealed very early, and then the story is stuck in a situation where the audience knows, the main characters know, the side characters don't know and misunderstandings, paranoia, and tragedies follow.

The main appeal of this series is watching these people destroy themselves, and observe their personal tragedies over the span of 20 years. Here I have to commend the actor playing Lee Dong-sik, he did a spectacular job playing a conflicted and disillusioned cop who was done dirty by life and society. He was an extremely likable and sympathetic character, which unfortunately can't be said about some other characters, including the other male lead. Han Joo-won, for the most of the story, is busy being self-righteous jerk who can only see what's in front of him and jumps to conclusions way too quickly.
However, unlike in some other works of fiction, this is not meant to be because he is a surrogate for a clueless viewer. His attitude is certainly meant to be a fault of his-as by the time the audience already knows the killer, he still kept grasping at straws and making a mess. I felt like maybe the authors were making fun of typical crime drama protag here, but the parody was neither particularly funny nor compelling.

The villains(other than the killer, that character was pretty cool all things considered) were also a miss. These people were very one-dimensional, and felt a bit like they came from Saturday cartoon(is that still a thing?) than a serious psychological drama. Including their various character gimmicks that were a bit silly, especially that horrible broken russian, really I can speak Russian so it was just really really bad. The drama admits that the character in question can't really speak Russian well, so his russian is supposed to be bad, but that doesn't make it any less jarring.

The pacing is slow af, so that's a thing too. Not what I'd normally expect from this kinda series. I had to kinda force myself to watch some episodes, even tho the payoffs were usually worth it.

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Dropped the ball, still good tho

The first season was spectacular. Easily 10/10 from me. The intrigue, the ost, the acting, and production values were all top-notch. These things carried on. The second season is still very good. But it suffers from some serious issues that were absent from its predecessor, such as:


-Extremely fast pace. Things happen way too quickly, like tl;dr from one plot point to another without proper buildup.
-Diabolous and Deus ex machina galore; characters making stupid or overly competent decisions for the sake of pushing plot forward; especially in final two episodes where it was like wut just turn off your brain and don't try to predict what happens next
-The protagonists made two 'merciful' and illogical decisions regarding sparing people that, fortunately, this fiction has enough decency to show terribly backfire. Still, it was incredibly frustrating.
-When you have zombies pilled up below impenetrable city walls, you can just shoot them from above. Surely you have more arrows, blackpowder, and other weapons than there are zombies?
-Armor is not paper, please stop showing blades cutting through armor like that. Also, bows are not guns. Especially medieval bows. You can't just draw it and hold it drawn for a prolonged period of time without tearing your tendons.

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Confusing mess

Great production values but.....

Spoiled by characters doing stupid things, getting scared of nothing, not communicating properly and running in circles for most of the movie. This applies not only to "good guys" but also to "bad guys", the entire plot makes little sense when considered from bad guys perspective as well. Clearly the focus here was to throw plot twists at the audience without much logic binding them together.

The movie is also sacrilegious. It felt like the author tried to mindlessly throw random references to buddhism, christianity and other religions without much knowledge or depth in them. Example: in the final scene where the antagonist revealed himself looking like oni from japanese mythology, with stigmata on his hands (suggesting he's a christian saint) and calling himself a devil while making photos with old style camera I couldn't help but laugh.

There were many other moments in the series that were supposed to be scary but ended up laughable (like the "zombie" fight scene, seriously, wtf was that? Bunch of armed guys can't deal with a limping dude trying to bite them?).

Ultimately this title is more confusing then scary. What made me keep watching is desire to solve the underlying mystery behind it all, only to have a messed up ending that provided more questions then answers. I've read some theories online and all of them feel stretched and not at all convincing, also the director apparently admitted in some interview he made the movie confusing on purpose.

"The Wailing" fails as both horror and mystery, but thanks to good cinematography and direction it succeeds at giving some one time thrills.

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Ahistorical and convoluted

Combine "samurai warriors" with "basilisk kouga ninpou chou" and you will get this cursed, ahistorical abomination of the movie which only saving grace are obviously high production values, direction and acting.

All wasted on trash "story" portraying historical characters as exaggerated caricatures straight out of samurai warriros so if you played that you know what to expect (mitsunari obsessed with justice, sakon being a cynical war veteran with scars on his face, etc. ), ninja with superhuman abilities who seem like they came from a shounen manga, and all kinda events that simply speaking never happened....starting with the beginning scene where hideyoshi met mitsunari as a child in a temple, which is just an apocryphal rumor, and in reality he first met mitsunari when he was already 18. Or the scene where Kiyomasa Kato wanted to kill Mitsunari, but the latter found refuge in Ieyasu's mansion, portrayed many times as a stage in samurai warriors and completely untrue to history as Ieyasu didn't have any mansion there and likely no assassination attempt even happened there.

This movie is shilling Mitsunari side, and they overdid it hard. I dislike how they portrayed Tokugawa Ieyasu as a complete villain, while writing Mitsunari as a saint. Even his mistakes were because of his good nature.

For example, in the movie he wasn't caught by peasants while trying to run away from the battle. Noo, he was cared for by them and then refused to leave even when the villagers advised him to when Tokugawa troops approached, because he feared the villagers will be executed for helping him and he would rather die then fail to repay his debt to the villagers. Of course, there is zero historical evidence for that, it's just one of many examples of the author wanting to paint Mitsunari as a kind hearted idiot rather than a cowardly villain.

There were also sus moments of technical nature: teppo firing twice in one scene, flat wooden shield stopping a teppo shot, blind yoshitsugu fighting with a spear, crossbows in sekigahara, ashigaru training with swords and shields, and sus amounts of swords on battlefield that should be dominated by spears.

That being said, could be worse: armors weren't paper here, and they actually had to aim for openings in armors to kill their enemies. Overall, individual fight scenes were well done. The group fight scenes weren't so bad either: soldiers actually fought in formations, although chaotically. The blood looked good, and the weapons and armors looked real.

The music is fine but nothing special. The entire romance between Mitsunari and fictional ninja girl was pretty much non existent, so the genre romance is misapplied to this movie.

As many other people said, to understand what is going on here you need to know of the events portrayed in the movie, as well as who is who, as the movie itself haphazardly jumps from one scene to another without explaining what is happening and why. And as I said before, because of various historical inaccuracies and "alternate" interpretations on these historical events, I wouldn't recommend this movie to people who want to learn japanese history.

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Hard to rate

I thought a long time what to rate it. I actually wanted to rate it 7, but then I looked at other dramas I rated a 7 and thought this doesn't deserve that rating. There are just too many flaws. Such as:

-The story has too many logical inconsitencies and makes no sense, neither time travel mechanics wise, nor characters and their motivations, nor various plot twists make sense when put together. It was clearly a story that focused on generating dramatic situations rather then being clever or well written.

-Dropped plot points that were never explained like the bald assasin from the future or why was the antagonist allowed to see the future since childhood, why did child ml know the future too etc.

-Too many over the top action scenes like FL falling down the stairway and shooting mid flight.

-Some of the ML McGyver's like shooting cola capable of knocking out soldiers (or killing them, not sure which) are implausbile too, starting from the very first airplane scene

-The antagonists are incompetent. Even considering their motives revealed in later episodes, they still do stupid shit they shouldn't have done like surrounding protagonists in a tight circle and aiming at them with guns (friendly fire guaranteed)

-The post apocalyptic future is radiocative so every time traveler is contained, but actually they don't suffer any consequence and look and live healthy. Also FL and her father walk in gas masks outside, but actually they don't need them and are fine without them too. guess the masks are just for fashion.

-The character of FL is annoying, childish, withholds information from ML for no reason and is quite dumb. Still she grew on me eventually, but she's not some cool FL like she could have been if she was written better. Also her saying to the other guy multiple times she didn't kill anyone when she killed at least several dozen people in the future is laughable.

-music was sometimes unfitting and weird

there are some good things tho, such as:

-very good color palette for most scenes, and very good direction and cinematography

-good acting from most people, esepcially from ml and the antagonist

-these two are also the most interesting characters

-the plot prioritizes drama over logic, but it does drama (and melodrama) well

also, this drama is different from many others in the sense that it starts bad and gets better in second half (and also more confusing). it took me several episodes to get invested in this story, but once I was I actually enjoyed watching it

so. I think 6.5 is a fair rating.

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rip gg

The strongest points of this series are the scenery, costumes and classical music and songs used as soundtrack. It's all just beautiful.

The second strongest is the acting from FL, which was just amazing. You could feel her emotions in every little movement.

The mid point is the story. I know it was based on real life events, but I can't help but think that the main characters (especially the guy) could have avoided all of that if they made better, smarter choices along the way. However, once they arrived at certain point, I understand why they would prefer to rest rather then struggle and suffer more.

And the low point is the ML's acting which was wooden and completely failed to capture the emotional complexity of his character. I think he was cast for his face alone.

It is worth noting that I could immediately tell which characters are korean and which are japanese even before their nationalities were stated from the way they spoke japanese. Koreans kinda chained the words together like in korean language, while japanese made proper pauses between syllabes and words. I appreciate this detail.

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Rollercoaster

+Fast pace, no fillers
+Every episode has something unpredictable happen
+Memorable and likable cast of characters
+Good acting from mains, especially the ML
+Humor mixed with serious moments
+Good soundtrack

-Soundtrack is occasionally too loud and in your face
-Some of the overacting and dramatic camerawork fails and gets cringe instead
-The overall cartoonish style of characters talking to themselves, punching walls and being overexpressive might not be for everyone

It is, however, fine with me and I enjoyed Tengoku to Jigoku a lot.

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Amazing cast, story, message

This drama is hard to describe in just one or two words, it mixes a lot of genres(soap opera, satire, melodrama, mystery). So I'll just list what it has to offer:
-A cast of colorful, dysfunctional, and likeable characters
-A satiric yet so true view on society, not just rich people
-A melodramatic story with lords and servants set in modern times
-A peacock
-Women changing dresses several times during episodes, always looking stunning
-Great acting and production value
-Sad and tense moments mixed with comic relief
-A good mystery that keeps you guessing
-LGBT representation and feminist message

If you like these things watch it and have fun like I did!

My favorite character was actually Min-su, partly for her clever personality, partly for amazing job from the actress who can make soo many facial expressions, some comic, some tragic, but you could always guess what she's thinking about and it was so great! I love that actress tbh(Park Sung-Yun).

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Thriller and comedy? Yes!

If you've ever wondered how is it possible to combine two genres that seem to be complete opposite, and do it well, watch Glitch.

This shows has everything.....cool mystery, plot twists, tense moments...combined with fun adventures feel, occasional slapstick and tongue in cheek self awareness. The sismance is real too!
I should probably say more about the plot...but actually, it's probably best to go in blind! Just.....expect the unexpected, and roll with it!

Also, great performance from Hong Yeo Been, who once again proved what a versatile and talented actress she is. If you got used to her in Vincenzo, prefer to get mindlbown because her acting is TOTALLY different here! Also, in my opinion, she looks much better with shorter hair and not too much makeup on.

My only complaint is that music is....really nothing special. It kinda is there, and fits its purpose; lotsa chill and offbeat tracks; but it's nothing really great or memorable.

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I was told it was great.

And surprise, it turned out to be great.

It's hard to say what this drama is about without spoiling the plot. So instead of talking in detail about a spectacular, might-blowing story that made me cry on several occasions(I don't usually get emotionally invested in fiction), I'll talk a bit about the form, without spoiling the content like I usually do in reviews.

And the form is, of course, amazingly done too. This drama has some of the best cinematography I've seen in Korean dramas so far. The music, acting and pacing all combine to deliver an outstanding series.

Though speaking of acting....I'll be frank, I don't like Kim Hye Soo. I know she has many fans, but I seriously dislike her plastic face that can only play with overly large eyes and slight tilts of mouth. This made it somewhat annoying to watch the series at certain moments, considering how much screentime her character has. The fact that her character wasn't particularly likable(though she was written like that on purpose, so it's not a fault of the drama) adds the fuel to the fire.

But I digress. Both male leads were great, and the villains were actually hateable. Yes, I usually sympathize with villains in dramas. Usually, they do something bad, then get severely punished by protags, and if they happen to have some sad backstory, it usually makes me empathize with them even further. The only thing that usually makes me root for protags, and not sympathize with the antagonists, is when the antagonists are shallow/overly black/saturday morning cartoon caricatures. But then that means what I really hate is bad writing, not the characters.

But in Signal, we have some villains that are psychologically deep, complexly written, with multilayered motivations behind their actions, yet....at no point does the show make me sympathize with most of them or stop rooting for the main characters.

I also liked how the ending sequences showed the previews for the next episode....by showing scenes that would only happen many episodes later, or not happen exactly as they were shown at all. This added to the entire time travel and chronology confusion feel of the show, by playing with the viewer on meta-level. Well done!

In the end, some things weren't explained. But perhaps they weren't meant to be explained. Thematically, the show is about not giving up hope when fighting for justice, and putting down those who feel beyond law and punishment and making a mockery of police and innocents. It's also about cause-and-effect, and how we might not always get what we want. These themes are executed to a satisfying conclusion, and that's what matters the most.

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