Human Disqualification (2021)

Nem sei se tenho palavras pra descrever a montanha de sentimentos que este drama me fez sentir...

Não pensei que fosse gostar tanto, porque sabia que era um drama focado em relacionamentos, na vida, e achei que pudesse ficar massante em algum momento, como My Mister ficou. Mas não, o texto aqui é tão bem feito, tão inspirador, tão reflexivo, que você se vê completamente tragado e envolvido pelos sentimentos de todos os personagens, pela melancolia, os dramas, o crescimento, o amor.
A história tem tanta delicadeza e profundidade, que é impossível não sentir o que eles sentem, mesmo através de gestos, olhares ou pequenos detalhes das cenas.

As atuações são lindas, e a forma como os protagonistas se apoiam e se desenvolvem ao longo do drama é perfeito.

Masterpiece.

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I swear people will give anything that’s sad and flashy a high rating

I feel like I’m reading The Emperor’s New Clothes whenever I read glowing reviews for this drama. Oh, the director is a famous movie director who doesn’t typically make those silly dramas for the plebs! It must be good!
Yes the leads are tremendous actors. But their characters and the story they’re in are crap.
I finally gave up after episode 7, when I realized the intrigue suggested early on wasn’t actually producing anything of interest. I never for one second thought anything would happen in that motel, but it was nothing to the point of providing no real development either.
And I know from reading recaps of later episodes that still 11 episodes in people weren’t clear on what exactly happened with the FL.

There were some comments on Dramabeans about episodes and they sum up issues with this drama perfectly. For example:

“ I don't mind slow pace but I don't like 10 minutes of decent moments between the leads and 50 minutes of random tedious secondary characters. If the plot is only about BJ and KJ becoming friends there is not much development, it's been 7 eps and they don't even really like each other.
What is the plot? Get two sad, mildly interesting people and have them become sort of friends while having a ton of boring filler characters annoy them?”

And also this:

“That leads to one more reason this drama has become questionable, after this week, the eps are seeming more like sadness porn than any intimate construction about a relationship between two troubled people. This is what ep 1 promised, but instead we get about 50 min per episode of repetitive boring secondary characters in random sad moments. We don't need more of the MIL being selfish, the husband trying to be nice but distant at the same time, the ex-girlfriend being sorry for herself, the girl that tags along showing interest in KJ and ignoring Just while Just basically ignores everything but her. Those are the same scenes being replayed over and over but not adding anything to the plot.”

The show was a meandering, pointless mess. It is certainly not on the level of My Mister, which truly is a masterpiece.

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I forced myself to watch almost 7 episodes, which greatly tested my will power

I regret to say that I dropped this in the middle of the 7th episode. I just couldn't stand it any more. The only reasons why I made it this far are that I love Jeon Do Yeon, who I consider Korea's greatest actress, I liked Ryu Joon Yeol in the few things I've seen him in, and I greatly admire Hur Jin Ho, who I think is one of Korea's greatest film directors. However, directing movies for an arthouse/festival audience decades ago and directing a TV drama (his first I believe) are two totally different things that require different skills. His early movies were very tasteful and restrained, included very little dialogue and verbiage, very little if any music, and were almost underacted. This drama was almost the opposite, in that it overwhelmed you with unnecessary voiceovers and dialogue, non-stop sappy music (I'm sorry, I'm not a Jeff Buckley fan - I greatly prefer his dad Tim, and the instrumental background music was even worse), and tons of crying and overacting. The only thing that this drama has in common with Hur's early movies that I loved are the very slow pace. So this makes me suspect that Hur either has changed as an artist or has tried to change his style to adapt to the different pressures of a TV drama. Also, I'm probably lacking in compassion and empathy, but I just can't stand being around people who mope all the time and feel sorry for themselves, either in real life or in fiction. Of course, I've been through lots of hardship myself, but I hate wallowing in my misery and crying for sympathy. I just try to fix my problems as quickly as I can move on and not dwell on the past. This is certainly not the first Kdrama I've seen that had too much trauma and characters stuck in depressive, self-destructive ruts for my taste and it won't be the last.

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This Was Everything.

I've just finished watching Lost about 5 minutes ago. I don't know whether to smile or break down in tears.

What a fantastically made show. Absolutely heartbreaking but liberating all in one.

Both lead actors had fantastic characters, nothing was overdone and I felt every emotion that they were trying to put across. There is so much pain and longing throughout the episodes but when I say I could barely breathe at the beginning of episode 15- I am not kidding. Absolutely amazing.

This show is a slow burn. You won't find a typical romance here but what you do get is heartbreakingly beautiful. I loved it.

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My mister fans where you at? Not everyone's cup of tea

Hands down one of the best KDRAMAS of 2021. Up there with youth of may.
This is very similar to my mister equally brilliant. The first episode had me in tears n I never cry. I shed not a single drop of tear while watching my mister so you can understand. But the first episode had me an emotional reck. The dialogue writing is Oscar worthy. That being said it is not everyone's cup of tea. This series is realistic n doesnot shy way from showing how hard life can be or is. So it leaves you feeling real depressed even more if you can relate to the characters emotional pain. So if you can really pick urself up after watching all 16 episode of it I will say WATCH IT ITS GOING TO BE A MASTERPIECE. but if you can't take the depressing feeling it leaves you with at the end of each episode I would say you rather not see it. I am gonna see it all the way through bcoz it would be a shame to skip such a masterpiece for the love of content. But NO REWATCHING... AT LEAST NOT FOR ME.

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Watching some of the scenes itself we can relate it well with our lives .There are many people in the world who may become successful or lost their ways in the middle of the journey of life.
This drama begins by showing a man who lives a life that he owns in his own way, even though he feel empty inside he doesn't want to show it out. Simultaneously, there is a woman who live completely in sorrow. Her job, her married life ,the feelings a father have for his sad child all makes her life feel stupid.
About the cinematography ,the cast is good especially Ryu Joon Yeol ,his new appearance is so awesome. The music is so relaxing and to mention the ost hallelujah song goes well with the situation. I felt this drama awesome and hoping to be the same in the upcoming episodes.

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Exceptional slice of life!

Loving this so far and cannot wait to see more! It starts slow and mellow and sinks into you like a bit of snow melting into the ground. Lovingly. I do not know how a series about two very sad people can be so soothing. I am glad they have met and life keeps nudging them toward each other. The enigmatic leads are people who life has hurt badly, they are tired of people and of the endless tomorrows. The series starts with the male lead learning about his friends suicide. They hold his funeral and say goodbye in their own way. There was such dignity and poignancy to the entire episode. The relationship between the female lead and her father has equal poignancy and dignity. Life has a way of making the smallest saddest thing so very beautiful and painful in their beauty. This series brings these small sad moments to us and helps us see their painful beauty.

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"I have neither happiness nor unhappiness"

A frail happiness and joy are as dangerous as sadness itself. Unhappiness. There are all kinds of unhappy people in this world. I suppose it would be no exaggeration to say that the world is composed entirely of unhappy people. However here, the characters unhappiness stemmed entirely from their own vices, and they had no way of fighting anybody.

From first episode I can see the characters are not pure, and innocent. Their depression and oppression of time, has not forced them to become beast but they are not their best version either. They don’t convey that they have been wronged by people rather they record with devastating honesty, their every transgression of a human conduct which they can not fathom. Broken, scattered and unhealed in their lives, they are who they are from the beast that holds them.

The lead characters, Boo Jung and Kang Jae, are at the peak of their breakdown. Boo Jung is rather simple character, surrounded by the misery of her failures, failures to uphold the happiness that has made her weak. She wishes unhappiness for others, while dwelling in one herself. Do Yeon, was an excellent choice for this role, cannot imagine someone else in this role. Her tenacity and versatility lie in the comfort zone she has been showing us for past decades. And I for one never got bored seeing her in melancholy roles so often.

Joo Yeol, people will curse me perhaps, because I haven’t seen him in anything, not even - Reply series. But I have known him though his social media, and his activism. Dashing and looks of those you perhaps see in Milan and Paris walk shows, he is extremely remarkable to leave an impression of his presence. He sure did with this performance, even though it is just first episode. The business his character does in series, is the one I am not shocked at all, I would have imagined him nothing less but this kind of arc suits his character. Perhaps it is to show that how meaningless and directionless he is that when spreading joy of lust and happiness for someone else, he is completely empty inside when he is alone.

Virtue and vice are concepts invented by human beings, words for morality which human beings arbitrarily devise. Through such mirror, our leads see each other. Their interaction at this point is minimal. One who is not capable of love from a loss she is suffering, is going to receive from a vacuum of person who distributes it without even realizing he is being emptied.

The world, after all, is still a place of bottomless horror. It is by no means a place of childlike simplicity where everything could be settled by a simple then-and-there decision.

No such happiness exist that can liberate you from the unhappiness you are feeling. “Life for all its anguish is ours it belongs to no other.”

I didn’t realize I what I was watching, and one scene had me confused, maybe it was easy to understand for others, but I am dumb enough to rewind it too many times to understand what the conversation was about. A scene where, Boo Jung comes to clean some actress home, and Kang Jae was explaining how he was caught seeing by his client’s boyfriend’s wife going her home. It was overlapping with Boo Jung scenes, and I had a hard time realizing, that they were separate occasions. Dialogues and scenes misleading sometimes, giving us a true sense of foreseeable picture of what is coming our ways for future episodes.

When you are hurt by the world so much, you began to see the demons within humans. So, without hiding it through trickery, you start to work to express it. I hope those demons and that are still leashed inside them, do not get exhumed, rather their memories and the humanity they have lost – finds them in a better place. Because “Everything passes.”

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