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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I once wandered aimlessly, on the dark night road.....

It is exactly what the synopsis says, but more. Go in blind.

Expect gory action, good cinematography and acting. But also surprising amount of psychological depth and many things left for interpretation.

How do people react to possibility of their own demise? Some cry, some laugh, some are calm, some chose death willingly, some fight to survive to the end.....people don't want to die, and faced with inevitable, they try to give their existence and demise some meaning. Knowing the reason why, or passing away thinking they did something good, trying to find inner peace.....Trying to secure salvation in the afterlife, or making sure they will leave a legacy in the mortal world.

In the end it's just various flavors of cope, because the end result is the same. But the movie doesn't judge which cope is better, it doesn't tell us the audience that "oh this death was pathetic" or "oh this death was awesome". The narrative is non-judgmental, perhaps it expects us the audience to do the judgement?

Also, on a less philosophical note, the mc prayed to Guan Yu, which for me as a european fan of three kingdoms is hilarious. I heard about cult of guan yu in china, but this is the first time I have actually seen it. Do you think if he prayed to Cao Cao or Lu Bu instead things would have ended up differently?

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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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Trainwreck

The solution to trolley problem, according to this drama, is a trainwreck.
Don't chose between few and many, just pile them up on top of each other and sabotage the wheels too so the trolley falls over too after running over everyone else.
And true to that notion, the final episodes are absolute trash.

Not that the first 3/4 or so were so great, either. It was an extremely slow melodrama, with awfully dumb and naive FL who was not at all sympathetic even tho the story did everything to paint her as such. Truly the slowest story progression I've ever seen. And if only the plot reveals were worth it! But no, it jumped from one lackluster reveal to another, in between constant flashbacks to shit we've already seen and prolonged scenes like FL taking a whole minute to decide to answer a phone call or not EACH AND EVERY TIME.

But the absolute garbage the story turned in the end is second to none.
The morals are very sus too ,"sympathize with rapist if he committed suicide" and "tell on your own family if they broke the law" aren't things I can agree with.

Not even superb acting from almost everyone involved, especially Park Hee Soon and Kim Mu Yeol, could save this one. The camera work, scenery and soundtrack were wasted too (not that the ost is that strong anyway, it had like one memorable melody it kept overusing). Don't let anyone fool you by saying this is a mature drama for mature people, it's trash. It's also not makjang, it's not a thriller, nor is it similar to some other titles MDL recommends below, it's no Misty.

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Gyeongseong cringer

So, what do you expect going into this title?

Do you expect a huge, godzilla like monster with giant tentacles capable of leveling Seoul...ah, my bad, Gyeongseong....to the ground?
Too bad, you won't get that. The creature is maybe 3 meter tall humanoid with retractable tentacles, it looks like a naked gorilla from afar and acts about the same.

Do you expect lotsa action scenes? You got quite a lot in the middle, but they are constantly broken up by long ass dialogs (even in the middle of shootout), over and over again. Made me scream in frustration at certain point. Guess talking is free action where one has this level of plot armor tho....

Oh yes, plot armor. Our heroes defeating Japanese soldiers dozens on 1 in melee. Literally dodging bullets. Recovering from almost every injury like it's nothing and one person even came back from the dead. There is no tension because you know they are gonna be fine. There is no point to waste viewers time with dozens of minutes of lengthy goodbyes because they will be back later during the same episode.

Do you expect japanese being total villains and a lot of broken japanese like in most historical k-dramas of the period? Do you expect to be told and shown that japanese have inferiority complex to koreans and everything they have is thanks to joseon? You're gonna get a lot of that!

Do you expect FL and ML to fall in love? You will have that too. But it's one of the most watered down romances I've seen. There is like no chemistry. The romance scenes in the middle of urgent events kill all sense of urgency. And FL can't act, her reaction to everything is staring with her mouth slightly open.

Do you expect, netflix production and all, a nonsensical open ending that maybe leaves place for s2 if the title gets popular enough? Granted, you'll have that!

So depending on what you like and what are your expectations, you can either love or hate this title. For me it's the latter, I had to force myself to finish, the final episodes were especially atrocious with deus ex machina and unnecessary scenes to pad the time. So, 4.5/10 for fairly good camera work, acting and occasional good plot points that were drowned in a sea of mediocrity and time wasting.

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Bad

This randomly appeared in my netflix suggestions today. The movie is totally new, it has no reviews, only one comment, and almost no genres and tags defined. So, I was pretty much going in blind.

The story begins with a body of a woman being found. Then it follows two storylines: that of a troubled detective with suicidal thoughts and her incompetent sidekick, and of ex boyfriend and sister of murdered woman. Both sides are working independently at first to find the killer, but eventually their paths cross and they start working together.

Doesn't sound particularly original, right?
However, merely being unoriginal isn't this movie's greatest vice. After all, if you're a fan of detective noir and thrillers, you might enjoy it even if you've seen something like this many times before. But....

-Every character is a dumbass, making baffling, irrational and suicidal choices over and over again. Also, they have severe communication issues.
-The police is incompetent.
-In reality, the story wouldn't even happen. Fl, who tried to commit suicide with a police gun in the beginning of the movie, would have been involuntarily locked in mental hospital, not assigned a murder case.
-The acting from everyone except the main leads is bad, to the point that some scenes that were meant to be serious look like a parody.
-The representation of Thai people is bad, they are all short, brown and ugly. For a movie that's trying to put them in a sympathetic light, it isn't working.
-What could have been a good soundtrack is masked by constant screaming. You don't know how to build drama? Make them SCREAM.
-The pace is slow, the narrative is trying to use vague flashbacks and prolonged slow slice of life scenes to give these characters more depth then they actually have.

Overall I don't recommend it, there are many better thrillers out there.

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Big Mouse

MDL be like:

-Get a drama with dumb writing, black and white characters, overpowered gary stu protag who has titanium plot armor, and an ending where all bad guys are punished regardless of their crimes and ml and fl live happy ever after: FUCKING MASTERPIECE SLAY GIRL!!!!!11

-Get a drama with clever writing, multidimensional characters, where protagonist struggles all the time to get what they want, and the ending is unhappy or bittersweet: REEEEEEEeeeeee *hellish screeching*

It so happens that Big Mouth (should be Big Mouse) is in this second category, and this explains any complaint or bad review you might have read of it. Really it's just MDL idiocy, the drama is great.

The only faults I could find are:
-The last episode felt rushed
-The ML can't act and was clearly chosen just for his looks. But it actually works in his favor here, somewhat, considering what kinda character he plays.

Extra credit to all the humorous and unintentionally humorous scenes that you might not expect from this kind of story and to acting of Yang Kyung Won who just dominated every scene he appeared in.

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The curse of humanity

Go Hyeran is a larger then life character. She has iron will, and unfathomable ambition. She's smart, confident, powerful. She never bends nor retreats, but when faced with adversity, with ruthless efficiency she pushes onward. She doesn't just hang from the rope, she climbs it.

All of that to create a just society where truth prevails and wrongdoers are punished. This is a single goal she devoted her life to, due to a traumatic event in high school that set her on that noble, tho self destructive path.

Unfortunately, Go Hyeran is still human. For all her strength and passion, she is burdened by curse of humanity. That curse made her involuntarily develop feelings to two, arguably three men in her life. She knew it's a weakness, she didn't want this to happen. She knew it will cause her trouble, that people guided by feelings rather then rationality make mistakes and bring misery to their own lives and lives of others, but it still happened.

There are all kinda people in these show. Cowardly people, weak people, jealous people, petty people. As long as Hyeran opposes them, sees them as enemies, she can defeat them, even turn them into allies circumstance eventually. But developing feelings for someone weak and undeserving is nothing short of tragedy, and brings tragedy and pain to her life and life of others.

That tragedy is the main plot of Misty, a character focused melodrama with elements of thriller and mystery. The who dunnit and how dunnit isn't as important here as why dunnit. As various people's ambitions and feelings clash, sparks fly and turn into raging inferno that swallows everything and everyone.

This is not a story with a happy ending. Yet what a story it is. I can not not recommend it to anyone and everyone who still happens to suffer from having a semblance of heart, and wanting their heartstrings to be cruelly pulled over and over again.

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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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It tried

It tried to be artsy and unique. It also tried to have some kind of message.

It succeeded at the former, and failed at the latter as most people including myself have no idea what the drama wanted to say, and all the "interpretations" I read so far feel like a stretch or projection. Since it was adapted from webtoon chances are the author was just making shit up as they went.

Each episode tells a different a story focused on different character. This, combined with constant time skips makes it hard to get attached to anyone and doesn't really motivate to watch the next episodes.

Some observations:
-Iphones were only invented in 2007, android smartphones in 2008. I find it unlikely that people in 2008 would own modern style smartphones.
-Also, these kinda streamers/youtubers/influencers who get money for dancing live on streaming sites in real time and would chat with their audience or whatever wasn't a thing until 2010's. Was 2008 so long ago that people no longer remember was 2008 was actually like?
-Recovery after plastic surgery doesn't take so fast, and the timeline of her pregnancy is very sus too.
-Police and special forces not shooting as soon as armed person pointed a gun, instead giving warnings until she shot is not how police works. It's laughable.
-Unconscious person wakening up underwater, not drowning and shooting her gun there? likely story
-Shotguns have quite a lot of penetration so shielding another person with your own body gets you both killed

Other then all this nonesense, the acting was great (especially from Yeom Hyeran, what a talented actress) and occasional black comedy parts were genuinely funny. The cinematography and camerawork were amazing too.

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Comedy thriller? yes!

Rarely can a writer successful combine comedy with mystery thriller. The genres simply don't mix well. Often, such titles suffer from Cerberus effect: they start funny, but when they turn serious halfway through, the entire setting built on comedic premises falls apart.

Fortunately, Behind Your Touch (should be touch your behind....) avoids this pitfall. While it does get more serious later, the genre transition is very fluid, and it never completely divorces itself from its comedic roots.
The funny first episodes help us bond with the characters and introduce us to the setting, so then when the serial killing starts we can actually care about people who are killed while never being quite certain who to trust and who might be the culprit.

And what a masterfully written mystery it is! Until the very final episodes, I wasn't certain who dunnit. Watching this with MDL on week by week basis was quite an experience. I pity people who will watch this drama after it already finished airing, they will miss on all the brainstorming and speculah that kept us going all this time!
But of course, they should still watch it. This is legit my favorite k-drama of 2023. I didn't expect much, in fact, I didn't even anticipate this title until it suddenly aired on netflix, and I was very, very pleasantly surprised.

For people who say that premise of touching butt to see memories is creepy: relax, it's not done in sexual way, and she does it through clothes and she just touches their buttcheeks without fingering deeper or whatever you people imagine. There is no sexual abuse or anything! Give it a chance and see for yourselves!

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Unoriginal, annoying MC

First couple of episodes were rather strong.
Then it devolved into unoriginality. All tropes of the genre are here.

Bad guys turning on each other. Bad guys using bigger crime to cover smaller one. Mc pushed into corner by bad guys, it backfires. Mcs never compromising on their ideals, winning through deus ex machina. Ex husband saves the day. Hidden recording ex machina. Hiding evidence for own crimes instead of destroying it, it backfires. Bad guys can kill everyone except the mcs. Threatening wealthy officials always works (when it's done by good guys, bad guys need to bribe them). Good guys win and take responsibility for smallest crimes, bad guys are ruined, justice wins blah blah.

All of that is rather digestible, if you like this kinda storylines. But the character of the mc, Hawng Do Hee, is insufferable. Her motivation makes no sense, she was doing dirty work for corp for a decade, yet sudden suicide of one of the workers sents her rebelling and crying her eyes out. Then eventually winning through a combination of plot convenience, deus ex machina and plot induced stupidity (she's quite dull, although narrative paints her as brilliant).
And gosh, she cries a lot. When she isn't being cocky or laughing like an old witch, she's either crying on on the verge of crying.

She also look 20 years older then her character is supposed to be, really funny when matriarch of chaebol calls her an adoptive daughter when they look the same age.

If this was the story about a corrupt fixer fixing rich people's fuck up, it would have been better. If this was a story about Oh Kyong Sook's inspiring rise to power from activist, it would have been better(her character was far more likeable). But with narrative focusing on Hwang Do Hee so hard, I found it really hard to enjoy this one.

On the side note, all villains were well acted and decently written, so it was a shame to see them lose. Especially Kim Se Byeok as Eun Chae Ryung(the inheritor daughter of chaebol) and Seo Yi Sook as Son Yong Shim (the matriarch).

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Idiocy

What a feast! Let's see....

-A magic melee stun gun more potent then any taser ever dreamt to be, you can touch anyone through thick jacket for a couple of seconds, it makes bzz sound and they drop down lmao
-Miracle telescopic baton that can one shot guys
-If you think mc taking 10 guys alone in the first episode is over the top, wait until you see two male leads taking 30 guys armed with baseball bats a couple of episodes later!
-Car chase where smaller car somehow topples a bigger van, and then they get out of the car and run towards the other car with heavy load of gold, while the other car is just calmly waiting there instead of driving up and picking them up.
-Police is nowhere while all of that happens
-Nobody uses guns, not even gangsters
-Similarly, nobody uses katanas, machetes or other melee weapon available on the market. A rare character is smart enough to use a kitchen knife, but of course kitchen knife is useless against the power of boxing.
-The thugs use these shitty hollow aluminum bats instead of normal wooden ones or wooden kendo swords. Of course when they hit our characters it makes a bonk noise and nothing happens, our heroes are too high level for this shit. But of course if they pick up a hollow aluminum baseball bat, the thugs are screwed!
-Useless ML with his useless crying mother, really, entire story wouldn't have happened if she read what she signs.
-Useless FL who's trying to be smart but forgot she's an idiot.
-Pretty cool second ML who has no stakes in any of that and I have no idea why he's hanging out with these losers.
-Antagonist casino plan is fucking idiotic but in a universe where taking loans on stolen ID cards of homeless people is a viable scheme it might just work.
-People get beaten and cut pretty deep in the face but are perfectly fine the next day, no nerves or anything damaged.

Even though I'm only 4 episodes in I can see it's a proper shitpost of a drama, can't wait for what dumb shit will happen in the second half.

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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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