Reviews

Bad plot!

Crafting a true-to-life female protagonist involves avoiding stereotypes. Strength should be portrayed authentically, including vulnerability and growth. A diverse background adds depth, and navigating everyday challenges contributes to a nuanced narrative. Emphasizing the protagonist's support system showcases interconnectedness, challenging the notion of solitary strength. Instead of portraying her as "useless" in simple problems, highlight growth, learning, and adaptability. Real strength lies in resilience and overcoming challenges, fostering a relatable and authentic character.

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"Tired? Too bad!"

Billy Chong teamed up with Simon Yuen in a thinly disguised Drunken Master/Snake in the Eagle's Shadow copy though lacking the drinking. This time the chosen styles were Shadow Eagle's Claw vs the Double Phoenix Eyes! No secret books or lists, just good old-fashioned revenge for a father's murder.

His name was Ah Wen, they killed his father, and they would have several years to prepare to die! Ah Wen knew no kung fu and agreed to work at a dubious kung fu school in exchange for being taught. This male Cinderella never had time to learn kung fu because he was relegated to the never-ending chores in the kitchen. Luckily for him, Chang King Sang, the cook, was secretly a kung fu master who was in hiding from a gang of bad guys. After many “hilarious” encounters, Chang agrees to train Ah Wen. Ah Wen is confronted by the baddies, beaten and questioned, and let loose so that there could be another training montage.

Crystal Fist aka Jade Claw had a paper and worn thin plot. The humor was just as gaunt despite repeated tries to emulate Jackie Chan’s early movies. The strength of the film lie in the training montages and the fights. Three Yuens-Corey, Brandy, and Shun Yi along with Chin Yuet Sang choreographed the fights. The comic relief baddies played by Addy Sung and Brandy Yuen had a cool trick move when they teamed up. Some of the fights and training montages were better than others. The finale when Billy brought his fists to a sword fight was creative. Billy Chong only made around ten kung fu movies in the Golden Age but I always enjoy watching him fight. He was quick and agile and never kept his shirt on for long. Where the movie faltered was in the villain department. Chu Tit Wo was not a formidable or memorable bad guy. Chan’s movies in the same vein had charismatic and high kicking Hwang Jang Lee to bring a proper menace for the good guy to be pitted against. Simon Yuen wore the same scruffy wig and basically played the same character as he did in the other two movies. The wig helped camouflage the stuntman for the more complex and acrobatic moves. I don’t usually compare movies, but when moviemakers go out of their way to copy someone else, it’s going to happen.

Billy Chong brought his mischievous smile and quick moves to play against Simon Yuen’s wise, playful, gray wigged master. Even if his character was a retread from other films, I’m happy after 300+ movies of often being relegated to playing bit parts that the Yuen patriarch finally had a signature role to call his own before his untimely passing one year after this movie came out. Crystal Fist wasn’t a great or even classic kung fu flick but it did have entertaining moments.

2 Jan 2024

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Taeseong.. sculpted like a dream... everything else a nightmare

I am a bit exaggerating ofc. Nightmare is more extreme than this show was. This show was no curves or extremes. Blant and blah.

Story is non existent. Acting was also mediocre.
Two brothers from different mothers fell in love. There is a hitch. But so mild that I was left in meh mode throughout.

But props to little emotion evoked by the adopted son. I felt that little inner child that wanted to satisfy the adoptive mother. It hurt a bit. Also fluffy and supportive friends were cute, also the friend with good English. I notice you, okay?

Also, the first lead, the real son, Taeseong. What in the sometimes Yibo - sometimes Win-win combination was that?? God bless, all I gotta say.. his looks got better and better from episode to episode.. cleansing my eyes and keeping my attention until the very end. Many things were cringe but kissing scenes were not. To be expected from older actors but I was expecting nothing really.

Very uncontroversial, low stakes and unmemorable watch.

However it is just fine, you will not feel particularly disappointed, going back to beginning of my review. Is it worth it cos of the super handsome lead? It is 8eps but for me -- Not really.

That is it! Let's move on... although Taeseong.

Enjoy your day!
And thanks for reading.

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waste of time, i feel bad for other contestant for not having enough screen time and theres gwanhee having all the screen time in every episode which i had to skipped 40 mins all for him? hes not even funny anymore, WORST SEASON!!!!
waste of time, i feel bad for other contestant for not having enough screen time and theres gwanhee having all the screen time in every episode which i had to skipped 40 mins all for him? hes not even funny anymore, WORST SEASON!!!!
waste of time, i feel bad for other contestant for not having enough screen time and theres gwanhee having all the screen time in every episode which i had to skipped 40 mins all for him? hes not even funny anymore, WORST SEASON!!!!
waste of time, i feel bad for other contestant for not having enough screen time and theres gwanhee having all the screen time in every episode which i had to skipped 40 mins all for him? hes not even funny anymore, WORST SEASON!!!!
waste of time, i feel bad for other contestant for not having enough screen time and theres gwanhee having all the screen time in every episode which i had to skipped 40 mins all for him? hes not even funny anymore, WORST SEASON!!!!
waste of time, i feel bad for other contestant for not having enough screen time and theres gwanhee having all the screen time in every episode which i had to skipped 40 mins all for him? hes not even funny anymore, WORST SEASON!!!!

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Technology or time travel?

The story and plot is quite good. It started off really well and interested me a lot personally.
The suspense they created in first few episodes continued to intigrue till the end. It was fun predicting things, trying to solve mysteries. I don't know how much I would rate it in a whole bunch of mystery sci-fi thrillers, but compared to currently airing dramas, this one got me interested the most.
The ost is really cool, I mean, okay, it's just way too good. The character sketch of fl was something, I liked a lot. First time seeing Liu Haocun, and her acting was amazing. I never expected her to do so well. Her expressions of confusion, panic happiness all of them were done well.
The last few episodes seemed a little bit boring to me, but ofc, that doesn't stand much infront of the intigrue the first 25 episodes gave us.
It's a mixture of:
-suspense
-mystery
-thriller
-sci-fi
-romance.
Do check it out! Gave it a rewatch value of 7.5 because, the drama is really good, but I dont think it offers me enough to want to watch it yet again right now. But yeah, if you are maybe bored with none of your type dramas airing, then you can go for a rewatch maybe.

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There was potential, but it didn't get there...

Honestly, this was my first KBL. Maybe I just don't know the formula, but this drama was so... I don't even know. The pace of the show was so jarring. I get they were trying to tell a whole story in 15ish minutes within 8 episodes, but it was just fast. I found myself laughing in situations that weren't supposed to be funny simply because it was progressing so fast it was unnatural. Individually the characters were fine, but together they felt super stiff and forced. Overall, the pacing of the story just prevented me from being totally invested. I really wanted to like it, especially with the good reviews, but it just wasn't for me.

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Pretty good and intriguing for a binge watch

Story : The story was intresting andsomething you would look forwad to. Starting was done well, the development was good but there are times you would think things doesn't make sense cause it doesn't
Cast : the main cast was good , but acting of many supporting characters was poor.
Moral : I did like the whole how media and internet is toxic and how we , us as the users have so much impact on somebody's life and it was handled pretty well , we could see the intention since the beginning,
The things that I dont like about this series is the acting by some casts feels off sometimes, and this show kind of feels edgy and I couldn't emotionally connect with it, like there would be some emotional scene and i would be like whatever.The development of some characters didn't make sense like they were only driven by one objective .

Overall , it is pretty good and i would like to recommend it to everyone who is interested in little bit of suspense and it's short too so you can watch it in 1 or 2 sitting. But its nothing too crazy so have less expectations while watching it.

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Could Have Been So Much Better

The series begins interestingly enough. Even with a worn-out theme of a withdrawn boy who has an unrequired love for his best friend, it was charming for a while. Their friendship seemed sincere and intense. Guy (Ping Krittanun) is a lonely, reserved, socially isolated young man. He is the classic ‘wallflower’ that no one pays much attention to. However, who suddenly pops into his life is Wahl (Winner Nichakoon), a rather outgoing, socially adept, yet surprisingly caring young man his same age. But strangely is possessive of Guy. Over the years Wahl becomes his only friend outside of some gaming acquaintances he meets online. While Wahl has had a steady girlfriend, Guy still pines over Wahl wishing for something to happen between them but knowing that nothing will. Yet always feeling as if there is a deep connection between them.

Read the complete article here-

https://the-bl-xpress.com/2024/01/03/my-dear-gangster-oppa-series-review-ep-1-to-8/#more-14455

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Big disappointment

I tried very hard to enjoy this Drama, sadly it didn’t really work out.

I wasn’t a fan of the main plot/topic to begin with but I decided to give it a chance since I really enjoyed Jasper Liu in this. While my original moral concerns didn’t turn out to be the biggest issue, there were some other huge issues that honestly just made this kind of a drag to watch.

The interactions between people in this Drama are incredibly inappropriate in too many instances. It makes it very hard to sincerely ship anyone when boundaries are constantly being crossed and contested. I excuse a lot of no-go behaviour in entertainment, but there where definitely some lines crossed here, generally the entire relationship between the two main leads seemed a bit one sided…

Another reviewer has mentioned that the plot is also incredibly repetitive and sadly I have to agree. It’s pretty much the exact same template over and over until it ends. There was a bit of a change towards the end but too little too late.

All in all I just kept watching hoping to get some kind of a rewarding feeling or sense of accomplishment in the end (and for some Jasper Liu facial expressions) but I am sad to say I was left unsatisfied and pretty disappointed.

The general idea of the story wasn’t too bad, it wasn’t executed very well. The soundtrack was a banger though.

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mildly disappointed, but did enjoy

I went into this movie knowing absolutely nothing about it and to be honest, it was very lovely and simple- if only the writing had been as good as the overall set up was.

The first half of the movie was brilliant- childhood friends, a dubious friendship-toeing the line of romance and a less conventional ending when the female lead marries someone else- all established to the audience within the first fifty minutes or so. The humour slapped, I loved the characters and their dynamic, but after the first hour everything goes very quickly downhill.

I feel that although that at the end of the movie the overall message was "we experienced good times and that all that matters" it wasn't really developed upon and carried through the movie. I felt a huge disconnect with the characters on screen, especially Xu Yi and Gao Xiaonan, the movie very rarely disclosed any of their thoughts and I honestly felt that there was very little growth in the characters. Xu Yi mainly just narrated what had happened during the years as opposed to really reflecting on what he felt or understood from those moments. Like him settling for Xiao Yuan, or his move from entertainment news to documentary- which clearly had a huge impact on his identity and his self worth.

This problem of lacking a main central message also carried through to the way Xu Yi and Xiaonan's relationship developed. I feel like the movie could have been better if you could see a clear progression their friendship develop and grow until it tipped onto the edge of romance followed by a big blow up where everything ends. Instead, a romantic relationship between the male and female lead was consistently implied from the outset to the end, which to me, further muddied the arc.

However my biggest ick of the movie was the scene where Xu Yi and Xiaonan have their second big disagreement when Xu Yi walks in on Xiaonan and her ex boyfriend. The scene to me felt like should have been the climax of the movie, but because this cycle of almost being together as friends or more or anything and then splitting apart and being too scared to say anything about their emotions had happened literally so many times it just didn't feel significant at all. It just felt like another tangle in the knot of plot-points. Furthermore, the fact that this blow-up (like many of the other unfortunate events in this movie) was caused by a misunderstanding is just utterly bewildering to me. Xu Yi's behaviour here was also so out of character, up until now he seemed to be very open with his emotions and his avoidant behaviour made no sense to me- it honestly just felt like a piece of lazy writing- the only reason why this argument even occurred was simply because the people writing it decided it would.

In short, the movie was a lovely and fun watch but ultimately I was left wanting more substance. The ending to me was very abrupt and underdeveloped- Xu Yi's acceptance of Xiaonan marrying someone else was hardly explored. I also wish the overall plot was a little more streamlined and we were given in depth insight into the development of the character's thoughts and feelings- such as more reflective voice-overs from Xu Yi, who despite being presented as the main character from the start felt as alien as the more major side characters. Maybe more time spent on exploring the characters and less on repetitive plot points would have done the movie some good.

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Love, Mystery, and Redemption: Derailment's Intriguing Plot and Character Growth Shine

Derailment is such a interesting drama that kept me hooked with every episode, and now I feel so sad after finishing it. The ML and SL were absolute eye-candy to start off with, like QL was a red flag to start off with but then progressed into a green flag idk. Watching the character development of JXY from an arrogant person with a sense of superiority to a genuine person who works hard was very worthwhile. I also enjoyed the aspect of how romance was rather a side focus, with mystery/thriller which made it very exciting. By unravelling all the mysteries as to what exactly happened to the FL, and who is behind it all with limited clues, while meeting many people to form her the support system JXY never had, easily gives this drama a 9/10. I didn't feel like this drama dragged or that any of the arcs were unnecessary, and I feel like this was quite well put together. The only minor issue I had was with the expression of emotion and relatability in the actors, I feel like some scenes came short of what they were supposed to make the audience feel. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Derailment and rate it a 9/10!

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DONT WASTE TIME

I couldn’t finish it there 50 episodes of crap it didn’t get to the point and felt like a different story every episode and was soooooiooooo slow I didn’t know what to do I’ve never gotten so bored I dropped a drama so that’s a big deal so please don’t waste your time I think I wasted like 32 hours of my time and decided no stop i don’t like it it’s so boring why am I wasting my time I kinda liked the plot and I think it could have been good. If it wasn’t so slow I don’t know what else to say cos I need 500 words but yeah I don’t know who reads to the end of a 500 word review but if you did and felt like you wasted a bit of time you should and this drama will waste even more so don’t bother

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