Worth Every Bit of Your Time

Thoroughly entertainmening variety show. Laugh out loud funny and exciting with many twists and turns and your favorite celebrity to root for. Addictive with never a dull moment.

Lee Seungi, Jo Bo-ah, Na Rae, Ji Won, Kai and Heechul spend 6 days on a luxury island where your dreams can come true but heartbreak may be waiting just around the corner. Each day the contestants compete to win money that they use for necessities and items that may help them win future games, all while forming alliances...and breaking them. One day you might be rooting for one celebrity, the next day for another, but before this sweet ride comes to an end you will have chosen your one and only and will be on the edge of your seat rooting for your favorite to be the winner.

The island is beautiful, like a real life fairytale. You'll never want to leave. I didn't know they had such beautiful islands in South Korea. This show is a treat for all the senses. Can't wait for Season 2!

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How Did I Ever Sleep On Mask Girl??? A Straight 10 out of 10!!!

I avoided Mask Girl like the plague. A grown woman wearing a mask and dancing online? Count me out. Then I saw an online review and learned that my girl, NaNa, was in it so I thought I would check it out. Here's the thing with K-dramas. They can start out excellent, start to hiccup during the middle and fizzle out toward the end. Not Mask Girl. It was compelling from beginning to end. Never a false note. Every actor played their role to perfection. I even forgot that they were acting or what I had seen them in before, I was that drawn into the story. I streamed this in one day. I'm so glad all the eps were available to stream at one time.

I won't give anything away about the plot. I will say that there are no cheap plot devices here, no forced cliffhangers and no sharks to jump. Just super clean writing from beginning to end. Every actor shined. They portrayed the human condition to perfection. Not once did I have to suspend disbelief. Not once did "that can't happen" pull me out of the story. Not once did I think something didn't make sense. No scenes felt like useless filler.

There's nothing cute about Masked Girl (although there is dark humor), there's no formulaic romances or any sweet, pretty boys to swoon over but once you watched the first episode you'll be hooked. Amazing story, excellent actors, tight plot, no dangling ends here, there and everywhere. What more could you ask? I was wondering what the future of K-drama would be and the future is here.

You owe it to yourself to watch Mask Girl. You won't be disappointed.

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Ordinary People/Present Day Allegory

This movie reminds me of Parasite and the constant battle of the haves and have nots. It is easy to view this movie in its apocalyptic setting of a massive and devasting earthquake in a city as congested as Seoul, yet the true story here is the way people treat each other when any resource is at stake. It doesn't take a catastrophic disaster for that to happen--just everyday human greed and inhumanity. We see that now and we have seen it in the past and will see it in the future in every war and in every conflict, great and small.

The greatest disaster to ever befall mankind will always be ourselves. This movie will leave you thinking about it long after the credits roll and maybe change who you are. At least, I hope it will. We are all ordinary people though, so it probably won't.

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Heartbreakingly Beautiful

I was reluctant to watch this drama because I thought it would be like Hello Teacher which just seemed to get increasingly more annoying with each new episode. BIG is an entirely different entity. This is a younger man/older woman drama that hits all the right notes. Every moment draws you in. Gong Yoo captures the essence of an in-love teen effortlessly. Disbelief is suspended. His pairing with Lee Min Jung is flawless. Funny and emotionally intense without going for the worn-out rom-com cliches, BIG is a story that stays with you long after the last episode and it is a story you will want to revisit.

Soundtrack, production values, casting, nothing was spared. Every part of this drama was crafted with care. Every moment shines.

I can't recommend this drama highly enough.

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IF YOU'RE THINKING OF WATCHING THIS, DO.

This drama hits hard. It doesn't pull any punches. It is true to human nature and it is true to the nature of evil. People want certain endings to evil, but evil is irrespective of our expectations. Evil must be overcome and that is all there is to it. This drama is well worth your time. There will be some moments when you can't believe that the characters are behaving so stupidly, but that, again, is life. People make stupid decisions and when they could turn the tide by making a wise decision, they don't and evil wins another battle. All in all, this is one of the best dramas I've watched. I cared about the characters, I was invested in the plot, it tugged at my heart. This drama is not formulaic, so prepare to be shocked. But if you want something fresh, this is it.

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Willie Wonka Run Amok

Oh that beloved Willie Wonka, inviting kids on a great adventure in a colorful, magical playland with the promise of a wonderful lifetime prize! And if terrible things happen to the other kids, does that stop the fun? Does everyone insist they be allowed to leave immediately? Do the parents resort to violence to save their children from a possibly terrible fate? Why no! There's a prize to be won and the terrible fate is only possible, not certain. Besides it's the other guy who's most likely to lose.

And thus, Hwang Dong Hyuk pays homage to a treasured children's tale and turns it into a gory story about beleaguered, debt-ridden adults in Nightmare Joseon who receive a golden ticket (actually a business card, because, you know, adults) to play in a game that could forever change their lives. Like the kids at the Chocolate Factory, the Squid Game contestants sign a contract with murky fine print and the fun begins. It doesn't take long, however, for the players to stop playing against the house and start playing against (and preying on) each other. After all, the rich and powerful can never be rich and powerful enough to allow the unwashed masses play against them indefinitely. By sheer numbers alone, the unwashed would eventually become the conquerors. In order for the rich to continue to win, they have to ensure that the masses turn on each other. And the masses do. They always do. Even in children's games.

Seong Gi Hoon is a ne'er-do-well chaffeur from a small town who has had a hard time at life. A failed marriage and failed business ventures have left him a middle-aged, debt-ridden, deadbeat dad who has no qualms about stealing money from his hardworking and sick, elderly mother for a day of betting on the horses. When his luck at the racetrack goes pear-shaped and he learns that his mother needs surgery, it is only with the most minimal modicum of shame that he demands that his remarried ex-wife give him the money he needs. His ex-wife's new husband acquiesces with one small caveat: Gi Hoon can have the money only if he agrees to stay away from his family (including Gi Hoon's 10-year old daughter). Drawing the line at losing access to his child, Gi Hoon refuses the money then meets a mysterious stranger in the subway who invites him to join the Squid Game.

The other contestants (both friends and foes) in the Squid Game have sad and sorry stories similar to Gi Hoon: an old man dying of a brain tumor, small-time loser gangsters, embezzlers, fraudsters, desperate immigrants and pickpocket defectors from North Korea. Whenever one of the contestants dies from the rigors of the game, they are placed in beribboned coffins that look oddly reminiscent of the last-minute gift from an arcade claw machine that Gi Hoon gets for his daughter's tenth birthday (the present inside the gift box is a nice little foreshadowing touch as well). Although the brutality of these games hearken to the Hunger Games and Stephen King's The Long Walk, these contestants are here totally of their own free will (as are the contestants in another dystopian/art-imitates-life classic, "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?") and all of them can stop the games and leave at any time if the majority of the contestants vote to do so.

One of the flaws of this story is that the contestants have nothing more than the masked host's word that the winner will actually receive the cash prize. Unlike with Willie Wonka (and other dystopian tales)--where the media and the public were aware that a major prize was involved so that there would be some accountability--the contestants of the Squid Game are whisked away to a private and secret location and don't even know who their host is. Even the gun-toting Oompa Loompas at the funhouse are masked. The contestants don't even know if the money they are shown in a giant piggy bank is real money, or if the stacks of cash are only blank sheets of paper with real legal tender only on the outside. They are willing to put their lives on the line simply on the Squid Game's host's word that they could win a life-changing prize.

Another flaw is the incredible stupidity of some of the players, even in a game where they have bet their lives. In real life, people can make some incredibly poor choices, but some of the choices the contestants of Squid Game make are beyond the pale. Trusting your opponent when it is clear it's his life against yours, annoucing your game strategy to all and sundry, being fine with killing a whole bunch of people one day, hesitant to kill a solitary person the next. Some of the players obviously have a code, it's just really difficult from game to game to ascertain what that code is. There are no heroes in this extended voluntary death match, which is why it is so strange that the screenwriter is so determined to make it appear that there is one.

The imagery in this series is impressive: the bright, primary colors, the children's playground, the baggy costumes of the guards that evoke blindly obedient Oompah Loompas, the maze of staircases the contestants tread to each new game. Behind the colorful and child-like facade the brutality of the games is revealed and the hardships began. The contestants are given adequate food at the start of the games, but with each subsequent game the food becomes less substantial. The area where they take their rest literally shifts beneath their feet and becomes dangerous and hostile. Bit by bit, the contestants are stripped of provision for their basic needs, peace and security and eventually their humanity.

There are traces of Snow Piercer and Battle Royale in Squid Game as well. Westerners, rich Americans in particular, are portrayed as effeminate, obnoxious, sex-obsessed VIPs who bet on the games and desire to make Asian men their bitches. The acting abilites of the men who portray these VIPs is terrible (as is the stilting dialogue) and I am not sure if they couldn't secure better casting for these roles or if they wanted to portray Westerners as incapable of competent acting as well. Nevertheless, the message of contempt for the West is not subtle.

The eventual winner of the Squid Game becomes disillusioned with money and the workings of the world after his victory and in possible foreshadowing, adopts a hairstyle and hair color strongly reminiscent of Batman's violent counter-cultural revolutionist, The Joker. He learns more about the game as he prepares to take an important journey and once again, the Squid Game changes his life. In subsequent sequels, will the victor find out that like Willie Wonka, the master of the Squid Game was manipulating his life all along? Or, as in Snowpiercer, will he outsmart, outplay and outlast long enough to view the Squid Game as a lesser evil for the good of society and be chosen as the new master of the game? Will elements of another dystopian tale, The Watchmen, factor into future sequels? After all, as today's billionaires show us daily with their ability to circumvent laws and achieve what only the gross natural product of whole countries could heretofore do, money is the new superpower and without it, the rest of us are just desparate contestants in a never-ending, Everlasting Gob-stopper of a Squid Game.

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Gone With The Wind Joseon Style

This drama has Gone With The Wind written all over it. That was obvious by the second episode. Lee Jang Hyun is the rakish Rhett Butler, Yoo Gil Chae is the willful and determined Scarlett O'Hara, Nam Yeon Jun is the wavering Ashley Wilkes and Kyung Eun Ae is the trusting and loyal Melanie Wilkes. I'm 6 episodes in so I wonder if they'll do anything to make the story a bit more original. I hope so.

As always Namkoong Min is excellent. I just wish the dialogue was worthy of him. The character is a bit too loquacious for a mysterious man. The dream sequence in episode 1 is one of the most beautifully shot pieces of footage I have ever seen.

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