The lure of a sexy roommate.

Roommates of Poongduck 304 (Or what I will just be calling P304 from here on out) is not perfection, but that is okay. It is okay because it is still solid and delightful, in its own right. This is to say nothing here is breaking any boundaries, or offering up something more than has been given a million times over, but the recipe delivered is like a home-cooked meal from ma, and just as comforting.

Korea, in terms of BL production, is fighting for the #1 spot with Japan, seeming to be its only competitor in creating noteworthy series, for 2022. I say this, because it is November and we are reaching the close of the year. Very soon Top BL lists will abound and I will say P304 will likely not make it on many lists or possibly any at all. Yet, that doesn't mean it was a failure. With Taiwan a desert this year, a country that normally throws out some shining top-tier stories, the Philippines, which the past two years has invested heavily in the BL market, all but fallen off a cliff, and China (which has been operating as Bromance productions and not full BL's for years) making even these type stories illegal with new laws, there has been less international competition for any noteworthy releases except in the sheer volume churned out by Thailand. And well Thailand, which still produces the largest quantity as it always has for the genre, seems unable to move outside the wheel-house, paint-by-numbers, generic retelling of the same high school/college repetitiveness with overly dramatic nonsensical stories that are already littered heavily in BL fandom. That is, "KinnPorsche" (A true let-down, mess of a series that is probably my #1 Disappointment of the Year) and "Not Me" (the ONLY Thai BL series that I will recommend or that will make it on my top list) were the largest successful offerings from Thailand that tried to bring something new to the fold. Instead we just got a multitude of series that can't truly be distinguished from what was generated years previous or even each other in any meaningful way.

But, if Thailand has been disappointing because of lack of creativity, why does P304 get a pass for being comforting?

That my friends, is simply talent. The two main leads of P304 (Rich conglomerate son Ji Ho Joon played by Kim Ji Woong and happy hard-working Seo Jae Yoon played by Yoon Seo Bin) are actors and not just young, cheap-to-pay, pretty faces found in oh so many BL's (especially Thai productions). Both of these leads gave us a former BL together with "Kissable Lips" a truly horrendous endeavor (With one of my lowest scores) early in 2022 and that BL, which again is a dumpster fire, had only the positives of the two leads showing promise and chemistry. I will say I am delighted that we got a second outing with them in a demonstrably better written, produced, and enjoyable product. (Showing just how much story-simple or not- matters).

Kim Ji Woong is stellar and dashing in his many suits, longing confused looks, and playful smiles. He also brings the gusto in his kissing and passion to his frustrations. While he still has to deal with some less than great dialogue, he walks smoothly through the show with few missteps or stumbles.

Yoon Seo Bin is wonderfully naive with soft sweet smiles in his role. His character is by far more one note than his counterpart, but he manages to make the viewer like him. He also brings some great LGBTQ+ realness to the story as he faces down his own shame for wanting men, and his feelings of helplessness when enamored with a straight man that uses his shame and attraction against him for his own needs. Something that is all too common in gay/straight male relationships.

Also of note, this is not a tale of college/high-schoolers but actual adults with the settings being apartment houses and office spaces-not classrooms, courtyards, and hallways. We can still count on two hands the number of BL's that forge their way into the "real-world" and even the bulk of those are sequel series to their college/youth first seasons, so it is-sadly-always refreshing to see a setting that moves beyond uniformed age boundaries. Something that, again if comparing why I give P304 props versus my Thai BL criticism above, not done by Edit: THE BULK: of Thai BL this year. (Even half of "KinnPorsche" cast were college students and also the strong "Not Me" was still college based as well.)

The production of P304 is, at best, mid-tier with costs cut as much as possible. It manages to still create a decent world for these characters and a believable environment of work/life. The supporting characters are also, for the most part, strong in their deliveries with none of them hogging too much screen time. The casting of the series helps alleviate the short comings of the budget and story.

As for the story it is simply an enemies to lovers trope fest. It is a BL fan favorite, and truly really just a romantic story favorite world wide. This makes the show easily appealing. While the set-up is cute, a boss living as his employee's tenant, it isn't even the first time we have seen it. "Be Loved In House" from Taiwan did this same story set-up last year. This casts a long stale shadow over the whole affair, and creates mostly expected scenes, issues, and outcomes. As mentioned, some of the dialogue gets clunky at times, though this might just be the English translation that causes this affect, for the most part the simple premise works and is, as is my overall rating of the series, solid.

However, it is the small risks, like the above example of the straight guy using the gay guys feelings for gain, that add some needed oomph to the story. Also our "straight" male lead Kim Ji Woong, may be a selfish playboy by stock archetype, but the series makes him quite an open minded softy, with a kind playfulness from the start. He isn't as harsh, mean spirited, emotionless or as ruthless as many times these characters are portrayed from the get-go. Because of this, the sudden, "until they have their change of heart" that happens mostly unbelievably, and many times at a pace that causes whiplash, in a lot of tales with this set-up doesn't happen here. Kim Ji Woong's change is slow and steady with a large portion of credibility with how his character is given and the story unfolds.

With that, there is still a large character USA backstory exposition dump in the final episode that was lazy writing, and a missed opportunity to create some taunt emotional drama through abandonment issues if shown earlier instead, and given yet another layer to the character while we watched. The relationship between the leads also jumps into overdrive and causes a loss of believably once truths are told, and the show pulls them apart suddenly to make the audience question if they can get back together, in what is some poor plotting and pacing.

Still in the end, P304 was one of my more enjoyed series of 2022 and a highlight during the time it aired. I keep finding myself turning off more and more shows, the early shine of BL's going dull as the same stories keep showing up on screen. I have a multitude that I have "put on hold" which a lot of times means they never get finished, and P304 was not one of them. I enjoyed it, even while seeing it for all its short comings.

7.0 = B-, 3 1/2-Stars. Flawed and imperfect, but still worthy of a watch.

Leggi di Più

The Story of a Nice guy betrayed by almost everyone he meets.

Feel-good, warm, easy watch, light-hearted on and on the adjectives are espoused in the comments section and while there is definitely levity to be found here, as well romance and friendly hugs, you need to be prepared for a lot of not so "light" fare in order to earn it.

Suicide (Its SK Drama how could there not be) is a running theme. Corporate corruption, of course we have to have some villains, and multiple evil CEOs (One of which beats their own son with a golf club, tells him to kill himself, and then has him thrown out on the curb, because he can't walk.) Characters are ruined to actual homelessness and imprisoned falsely for attempted murder. And for half the main running time the plot centers around a single grandmother whose grandson is in a coma as she runs her small Ox Tail Soup business being targeted by the main big bad corporation to try and drive her out of business.

So, this wasn't a relaxing watch by any means.

However, the Male Lead Kang Soo (Played boyishly and bright eyed by Go Kyung Pyo) is one of the most refreshing, kind, gentle, nice, warm, and caring characters I have had the fun to watch in a very long while. This isn't an anti-hero, or deeply flawed individual story. No, it is the story of a hero in the truest sense of the word. He is a young man with a horrific backstory who has persevered with deep moral convictions that he holds to steadfastly. When he even opens up the Strongest Deliveryman food service in the second half of the series, its motto is "Be Nice" and you know that he really means it.

Our Female lead Dan Ah (Chae Soo Bin) is a rough and tumble beautiful tomboy who has had her own share of troubles. Unlike our ML she goes in the opposite direction, vowing to look out only for herself, remain disconnected from all, and save up enough money to get out of the hell that is South Korea. Nice and warm are not part of her vocabulary, at least at the start.

In the beginning each our leads blossom relationships with other characters, bringing in our second ML (Kim Seon Ho in a role switch compared to his fame) Jin Gyu and second FL Ji Yoon (Go Won Hee playing as cute and naive as she can). Both of these leads come from deep pockets of money and are the polar opposites of Kang Soo and Dan Ah.

Kim Seon Ho's portrayal of a truly nasty individual with very low self worth and even lower moral scruples is as shockingly believable and well acted as any of his heart warming characters. If you came to watch this to get your KSH fix, maybe look elsewhere because he is a pretty nasty character that causes a lot of issues. My stomach knotted up watching him snake his way through the first half of the story. Of course, his character is very quickly launched on a path of redemption, but there will be plenty of bumps along this road.

The first 7 episodes are taunt with drama, betrayal, character development, and wrist wringing story-lines. But after episode 7, where the story decides to let characters off the hook (In what is a troubling Kdrama trend) and resolve crimes and plot points in a matter of minutes (Thumbs Down Boo) it begins to slow and switch gears. Through to episode 10, there is still gas in the tank and there are some punches yet thrown. But after episode 10 it just sort of meanders around for a bit as it develops romances, somewhat awkwardly, and sets everything in place for the ultimate ending conflicts and showdowns.

As everyone becomes more desperate towards the end, our evil corporation decides to play illegal and dirty to get what they want. While doing so, characters who you thought were steadfast friends and loyalists betray our ML and the company he has built, which was done to save them from the start. It is rough road that will ultimately prove effective at tearing down our nice guy.

You realize the point of the show is to prove being a good person will prevail even though the world views niceness as a weakness. This will warm your innards to no end and is a wonderful message to get across, but it comes with some caveats. You do honestly see the flaws in this idea as well. Many of the trials and tribulations could have been averted with a bit of resolve, while still not betraying the core values on display. One of the largest problems of the series is how it easily forgives those that transgress against our hero. Only he bares the brunt and weight of wrongs. Everyone else gets a pass. Near the end a great betrayal by a close friend (Which grows as the friend hires more drivers siphoning even more from our ML failing business) is instantly forgiven and forgotten the moment the friend shows back up. Not only is this unsatisfying to watch, it makes you wonder what was the point of the story line while also painting the ML as quite the doormat and push over.

In the end you will be both satisfied and disappointed. The series leaves us on a high note with a bright optimistic future likely for those involved. But it is strangely unsatisfying. You will not get closure to any of the side characters. The relationships built between some characters seems to have not endured, and well, for me, none of the romances ever seemed to truly take flight. They were enjoyable enough to watch, but nothing to write home about, which is ultimately how I felt about the whole series. Happy I watched it, was enjoyable enough as I went through it, but nothing is honestly that memorable. 7.0/B-/ 3 1/2-Stars.

Leggi di Più

Average to its core, True Beauty aims more for Kpop fandom than following its own early magic.

In the beginning....

Is becoming a true curse of my Kdrama journey. The first translated words of the Bible, are famous for their ubiquitous and straight forward approach to storytelling, yet over and over again are becoming a warning, that many times what starts strong has nowhere left to go.

It rings true yet again with True Beauty. At its start there is a certain magic to this take on the age old "ugly duckling" story. The female lead (Moon Ga Young) is cute and winning with a decent set of comic chops. Liking her is shockingly easy. When the male lead shows up (Cha Eun Woo) he is very dreamy and grade A South Korean boy beef, even though his character is locked behind the now oh so boring trope of cold stand-off aloof guy. He comes in as a hero, saving our FL from attempted suicide. (Korea is 4th in the world for suicide and their Kdramas have now made it a blase everyday plot occurrence, its chilling to watch as a westerner. This is a show directed towards a younger crowd and yet here it is. They must laugh at how upset the west was over 13 Reason Why) But once the actual saving is done, he retreats into being a standoffish jerk.

Why girls love this type of character, and why Asian dramas are obsessed with using this trope, is beyond me. I genuinely don't understand why anyone would want these guys except for their superficial beauty. The pretty asshole, is what gets you a pretty shitty real world life. Yet here, Che Eun Woo's Su Ho is quickly given enough backstory and home-drama to warrant his angst and keep him from being maligned into dirt-bag territory. In truth, his warmth is very much on display from the get go.

When the second male lead (Hwang In Yeop) shows up in episode 2, the rivalry between the two is fun to watch. They actually bring out charisma in each other, and both are at their best when the show is focusing on their frenemy bromance. But, of course this isn't why we are watching and thus the meaty scenes are far and few between.

Our FL's family has a larger role in the story and is a mixed bag. The older sister and father of the bunch are fun and delightful characters to watch and spend time with. The older sister arguably one of the best characters in the drama with her reverse gendered role love story a true treat. However the mother, and younger brother are as toxic as they come. The mother, arguably the worst villain of the show. If you want a step by step guide on how NOT to be a mother, watch this drama. The younger brother is just a ridiculous human being and not realistic, but has a somewhat redeemable story arc.

As for the rest of the cast, they are mostly the student population that surrounds our FL and her two rivaling MLs. Most of these characters are throw away, with a few exceptions. The most important, and one who ends up with some heavy lifting storytelling, is Park Yoo Na's Kang Soo Jin. You will love and hate her, I promise. Though almost all of the cast has a tragic home-life, hers is arguably the worst.

For the first few episodes to halfway through the series you will find yourself having a great time as you meet these characters and discover the world of the story. Again, there is an electricity, a spark, some type of magic that will keep you hitting play.

But then, the newness wears off, the story turns on its autopilot, and the mundane sets in. It is just another ugly duckling tale. Our main heroine quickly changes her face, but not her personality, and thus she just keeps repeating the same mistakes over and over again. The same situations arise over and over again. And like all ugly duckling tales, she just can't believe the male lead likes HER! HER of all people!!!

And one begins to yawn while watching.

By the end, the whole subplot KPOP suicide (yep someone does actually make the fateful jump with a 2nd suicide plot-line) story takes center stage. The romance (which stalls for multiple episodes straight) takes a back seat as the ML family drama and bromance come to a boil. The love triangle, (Though I am tired of this term as it is inaccurate. A true love triangle would mean one of the boys falls for the other boy who falls for the girl who falls for the original boy. Three points interlocked in a triangle wanting what they can't have. This is just a love line or plane with three points. The girl at the center with a boy on each side. But whatever, everyone keeps calling them triangles) is really a non-starter. The second male lead is never given a chance at any point at ever being a true option for our FL. She never once looks at him with any resemblance of wanting. It kinda just dissolves. And just when everything seems to be resolved, you find you still have 4 episodes left, and BAM!!! Enter outside plot devices to reek havoc.

This, is where everything just falls apart. The second warning side and curse of my K Drama journey. THE TIME JUMP!

Listing all the dramas that take this approach would be fruitless. Most being only one season with the creators diluting and stretching the story as much as they can to fill the episode count needed. The stories in play want to, or need to, move beyond the constructs of their premise. To solve this, and not need a whole new season worth of content, the powers that be just throw in a time jump. Is it needed? Of course not. Does it add anything to the story? Nope. It is just tacked on additional episodes because they hadn't meet their slotted quota, and also establish a false sense of closure to the story. Everything ends up in the same place after the jump as it was before. You as a viewer just find yourself repeating the same plot points in a shorter time-span to get back to where you already were.

By the time the show is done, there is a feeling of relief. You can now find something better to watch. It wasn't bad, it had some life lessons, there was drama, and by God are there some hunky leads, but whatever magic lured you in the beginning had fully dissipated. Ultimately you found yourself finishing it just because you'd already come this far! Oh well, we will try again with the next show!

6.5 C+, 3 1/4th star just above average outing. Not mad I watched it, but would never really recommend others to sit through it either.

Leggi di Più

The META layered in "Extraordinary You" continously impresses and keeps it afloat.

I will not lie, I didn't have the foggiest of clues what I was in for when I pressed play. I did not know a single actor that made the main cast. I had not seen a commercial and thus was fully reliant on the MDL description, which we all know how that can be, cough cough. And the main reason I was giving it a try was I was having some side effects from my Covid vaccine shot and wanted to watch something sweet, easy, and fun as I dealt with fatigue, headaches, and general under-the-weather-ness.

I was lead here from the recommendations area under "True Beauty", and while I have mixed feelings on that drama (You can read my review of it as well) it was generally a show that fit the easy bill I just described. Thus I took my second shot of the day and gave this a chance.

Now a little about me, I am a bit of a fan of META works. I like the idea of deconstructing the constructs of a media's design. I feel it says a lot about us, as the audience, in what the world has come to expect, want, and generally accept as entertainment or art. It says a lot about art itself and how we manufacture it, mass supply it, and the shallowness that most works have become in being a product for consumption over something of true intrinsic value. I also like that META works also many times reveal the flaws of their own designs, the flaws of the genres of their creation, and the true gulf of distance that exists between media and the real world or characters versus people.

However, many META works end up succumbing to their own genres archetypes, become judgemental of the works they or critiquing, or end up just simply not entertaining and instead get lost inside their own deconstruction. You can have excellent works such as Stranger than Fiction, fun enough jaunts like The Man Who Defied the World of BL, or horrible monstrosities like Why R U. So its always a mixed bag on what you are going to get.

Extraordinary You surprised, and though I wouldn't put it in the ethos of Adaptation or Stranger than Fiction. It is very much on the stronger side of the genre, especially poignant considering it hides itself in the school yard female manga romance Kpop fiction genre. It had, honestly, a lot working against it. Does it pull everything off, no it doesn't, but it succeeds much much more than it fails.

Our main heroine Dan Ho, (Kim Hye Yoon) is an awesome character that looses her way. In one of my main gripes that keep this from being the best of the best, is that her character becomes sidelined in her own story. At the start she is energetic, driven, strong, funny, and determined. She awakens others from "the matrix" of their existence, brings characters from the obscure background of the comic world to the forefront and gives them identities and names, and is determined to take control of her own story. However, somewhere in the middle of this, she becomes a damsel accepting of her fated death at the hands of a heart defect, whose survival hinges on the actions of the two men in love with her.

How did that happen?

Our two Male leads Ha Ru (Rowoon) and Baek Gyung (Lee Jae Wook) are nothing if not polar opposites of each other as they try to be the leading man to our self realized lady. Ha Ru is a beautiful nothing who has no point to existing other than to fill the frame of a scene or an empty desk in a classroom. While Gyung is an arrogant 'it boy" who is one of a triumvirate in the school known as A3 ( I believe a tongue and cheek reference to Boys Over Flowers or Thailand's soon to be released remake F4, I haven't seen either.) a wealthy ruling all male elite team. He is also the predetermined fiancee of our heroine.

Early on this set-up is more than winning. Dan Ho scoffs at the ridiculousness of the school hierarchy, she quickly sees the toxicity of her betrothed and the relationship shes forced to endure, and curses the heavens, I mean writer, for the set-up of her heart condition. Change must happen, even if it takes every last bit of strength she has in her.

When the blond dyed Dried Squid Fairy (Lee Tae Ri) enters the fray as he flags our Heroine as a fellow self-realized character, the story's true META begins to take hold. He enlightens our lead, in what is a short but funny repeating gag when most who gain their ego's think themself the protagonist, that she is only an extra in this comic. She is there, to be nothing more than figure for use to ensure the main couple find eternal love. We begin to see how high school romances are designed. We get the bullies, the villains, the heartthrobs, the nobody's and the tragically expendable. We learn how each role is meant to interact, the basic arch they will all take, and the beats that are formulaic paint-by-numbers of what makes these cliched romances that are churned out non-stop, especially by Korea.

The story spends ample time here and always comes back to visit these tropes again, one of the greatest strngths is how it deconstructs the comics main Cinderella heroine and has her come to terms with the truths of her own character, throughout its runtime. But the real glory comes with how Extraordinary You begins to manipulate this META and the players of it. We learn rules that govern this world even when the players or not on a drawn panel or in the "shadow" versus on "stage." As more awaken we see characters confused that they are even the same when they are controlling themselves "shadow" as when they are controlled by the story "on stage." While other's personalities completely transform as if two different people. Some like their stories and want them to continue, while others, like our heroine, will give their last dying breath to change their fated path.

We begin to get emotional scars as we watch characters forced to do and say things against their will because the writer wants it so. We watch as hardship after hardship are placed upon extras by "the writer" to the point of cruelty just for the sake of the stories drama or to ensure the main couple fall into each others arms. And finally, as our core team learns a way of tricking the story to change what is happening "on stage" we learn the punishment for such interference as others are put in harms way or forced to do the stages biding instead. Ultimately characters become erased, redrawn, and the stories path becomes unknown.

If you came here just for the romance, you likely will not leave as happy as I did. It isn't that the romance isn't fun, lovely, or even beautiful, it is. It isn't that the romance doesn't drive the entire tale, it does. It is just, that the romance doesn't shine brighter than the interesting world around it. Watching these characters trying to beat their own creator (if you don't get God references by this point I don't know what to tell you.), trying to make their own choices and walk their own paths (a look at Societies conformity, expected societal roles and behaviors) and come to terms with the fact that this isn't their first story together (Yep, I'm spoiling that bomb to let you know reincarnation, karma, fate or Buddhist ideas get treated here as well) becomes far more exciting to me than the simple "we love each other and will endure it all" story. The tapestry that gets woven here is quite intricate and continuously ropes in more ideas to explore.

Just as the romance begins to get stale, someone or something is changed. You think someone is evil, then good, then no evil. Some you think are good you then are sure are evil, and then become neither. You get to venture into and entire world set into Joseon times, and see the tropey vying for the throne story that exists there. While a few characters do end up being pretty pointless, and you trying to understand where they will eventually fall was fruitless, spending time with at least one of them was always a joy anyway. And when the story starts to close in on itself, and the writer starts wrapping up all the characters and places, making them disappear into the abyss of story-less-ness (The Nothing from The Never Ending Story comes to mind), at least one actually made me choke up a bit as they go off into the unknown.

In the end it is bittersweet, beautiful, poignant, and annoying all in one my friends. It soars high and also hits turbulence. The big bad gets off Scott-free and easy, in what again goats my anger and continues to be a running problem I find in Kdramas. This story even deconstructs how romances have the audience, shippers, and friends rooting for, forgiving, and overlooking toxic characters, behavior and situations just for the sake of story and romance. It shows us how when characters subjected to these relationships are given free will they immediately try and get away as no sane individual would really want this now matter how hot, rich, or popular the men might be even though these stories keep telling us otherwise. Yet, then the show ultimately forgives these same characters at the drop of a hat with no ramifications.

Again, this isn't a perfect journey and thus not getting a perfect score. But it is much better than it I thought it would be, and by far one of the strongest stories I have yet to come across in Kdrama even if it falls victim to some of the tropes it highlights and lives in the candy coated world of high school made for teenage girls and their Kpop boy fantasies. For a high school romance it is exceptional, for an adult romance its okay, and for a critical META analysis of the world it exists, its pretty damn strong with a nice dose of unexpected originality. 9.0/A/4 1/2-Stars. Definitely one of the best of its genre.

Leggi di Più

Is it a curse or just tragic love willing itself into happiness?

Destined with You begins intriguing, fun, cute, and a bit mysterious. It draws you in and a gives you a great cast. The directing has some great cinematography and approaches to scenes. The comedy is on-point and the chemistry of the 3 main leads is explosive.

However, it couldn't keep this going. The middle dragged, the plot became repetitive, and the characters became stale.

Our ML kept being thrown in a grey area of being a good man, a selfish egotistical elitist, and a philanderer. In some scenes you loved him, others you were annoyed, and some repulsed. Rowoon does a great job in his portrayal but the plot will not let us simply like him nor hate him. So you keep waiting for the truth of it all to unfold so you can choose a side. To do this the plot shows you what he does and his actions only to an episode or 2 later, completely reconstruct the events with new or more information. Thus, over and over again he comes off as a pretty terrible guy only to be told no wait there was a reason for his actions or this happened and you didn't know, or sometimes just simply forgive him he's not perfect. But the sheer amount of times we are forced to go through this cycle over and over again becomes grating and exhausting.

Our FL is a mouse who isn't a mouse. Carefree, fun loving, off beat, cute, funny and lonely, you love her. But again, the plot needs to make her a damsel, thus when anything important transpires, or true slights happen against her, she becomes a mouse who can't speak, fend for herself, think logically, and spends half of her screen time apologizing and taking blame with her head hung low. Again, this happens so much over and over again that she literally apologizes at least once to every other character on screen, even just there for 1 episode characters, let alone multiple times to main roles. And again, it becomes exhausting to watch.

When the end finally puts the stakes on high, with lives in the balance, we finally get the truths of the hundred of years past that lead us here, but it comes off as flimsy as the paper used to cover the windows and doors of the Joseon era. You can poke holes in it to no end, and though when you first watch it you are drawn in, by the time the episode ends you start to think, huh what? And since I watched this while airing, by the time the following week showed up, I expected more because the mess that was given didn't make all that came before it work or worth it. Logically, how did one of the cast survive to have a lineage of wealth and power considering the events that transpired? Also, was the love of the main leads in the past that impressive? Especially considering that for us to be here in the now of today, our ML went on to marry and father lineage and live a life of privileged, ultimately doing what had been asked of him before all the tragedy.

I like that ultimately it doesn't let you know if the spells in the show or real or not. While reincarnation is used as solid truth, all the mythos around spells and books comes down to the viewer, and also the characters in the show. Was this just tortured souls haunted by their past lives coming back together to try and find love? Or is it a curse that has persisted for hundreds of years and will now meet fruition? Even our shaman in the show keeps getting things wrong. Some argue that the spells and curses are real in the comments, while I side that they were not, too many holes exist in both the past and present of the story to say they were real. People die from believed curses, that are claimed to have never been cast. People are and aren't affected by the main curse at random. The spells we watch cast seem to have had no effect, except one. BUT IF THAT ONE SPELL WAS REAL, then do we really have a story of love at all? Especially when thinking about the credit scene of the end.

The last scene of the show, as title cards fly and we say goodbye to everyone, is a blaring question mark, especially if the box from the beginning that sparked the entire series can only be opened by its true owner, which was the law that had been given. With all the holes that already exist in the plot, why does it end with such a large one? Because here someone seems to have access to what was inside the fateful vessel, when everything else told us, they should not. You also are left to question what does this say about this character and what was their ultimate goal in the story?

Remember in a dying breath one of our character's asks, "Did you fool me, where you only here for the spell book?"

That is up to you to decide, and if the spells are real, then this isn't a story of love at all.

7.0 = B-, 3 1/2-Stars. Flawed and imperfect, but still worthy of a watch.

Leggi di Più

Tempted's (The Great Seducer) only temptation is the cast roster, and they should be ashamed.

Tempted (The Great Seducer) has no intention of dealing with anything of substance from the 1782 French novel "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" though it based on this very writing. All it does is take the simple base concept of the novel, male and female wealthy, beautiful, young, bored 20 somethings who want to control each other as much as screw each other decide to play a game to take down a "good" girl. Mostly everything else contained in the novel is left to die and instead we get all the tropes and story contrivances that plague kdramas. The story's kdramification is damning of the genre as a whole. Instead of giving the audience something new, or being faithful to a great work, or letting the audience decide if they like a different type of story, it seems the writers job was to specifically fit the work into the nice neat little box of kdramas and thus rape the soul of the original material while creating something broken, simplistic, repetitive, and basic. Never has the 1999 Teen film adaption of the work "Cruel Intentions" shined so brightly in comparison.

Early on, the series begins to lay groundwork for a backstory that forgives or excuses the horrible nature of our leads. Now we have comatose and dead mothers with abusive cold hearted fathers that disown and degrade their sons. For our female lead, she is psychologically unstable and suicidal with a father that brought shame upon her family and a mother who is driven by lust to be part of the wealthy elite. These parental figures end up getting entire plot lines, back stories, and central roles to the story. They are sleeping with each other, cheating on each other, backstabbing each other, and doing illegal deeds for success. So our three main protagonists are caught up in the horrors of their families. Brought up with poor role models. And lacked the love of households with two parents. Thus anything they do should be forgiven, it is not their fault. Hello Kdrama time warped mentality and story lines.

Our main protagonist Kwon Shi Hyun played by Woo Do Hwan is an echo of Vicomte de Valmont from the novel and merely a shadow of the 1999 Cruel Intention's Sebastien. Valmont, and to a lesser extend the films Sebastien, really are horrible human beings when you meet them. They use their looks, money, and status for everything. They seduce, are extremely sexual in nature, and destroy women around them of all ages. Valmont is a rapist, and while Cruel Intentions keeps Sebastien from crossing that line into nonredeemable territory, he still does extremely questionable activities with his and other peoples bodies. Woo Do Hwan is as sexy as they come, but not once does he make the screen smolder like Ryan Phillipe. He isn't allowed.

Shi Hyun is a puppy who seduces with only stares and tugging on specific pieces of clothing. Never once does he use his body, or anyone else's, for anything and in fact it becomes a running gag that our female lead wants to corrupt him to which he calls her an animal. As the series even tries to recreate some of the now iconic scenes from the 1999 film, like the pool scene where Ryan Phillipe is skinny dipping using his abs to every advantage and ultimately revealing his nether regions to our female lead causing her to falter in front of him and blush. Here that same scene is a wimpy non-effective version. Still in the swimming pool, and trying to have the same effect, but its just lustful looks at our female lead with Shi Hyuyn fully clothed and wet. It is like eating soggy noodles. Boring as it comes and nothing of the flare brought by the novel or the film. Do Hwan, I suppose, does what he can here, but everything comes off blase. Hello Kdrama purification.

Woo Do Hwan has shown he can act, and when he is forced to be emotional towards the end you can see his craft on display. However, at possibly the fault of the director, the lackluster female lead, or just how the story is told, Do Hwan even stumbles at times here. Scenes go awkward. At times he looks wooden and uncomfortable. There is even a lack of genuineness in his performance. In all, while he shows he has capabilities, this role and series is a very strong mark against him and tarnished my respect for him a bit. That he read this script and thought it a project he wanted to be a part saddens me. Maybe he was just unaware of what work this was based, but it seems he didn't take the time to research it either.

As mentioned, our female lead doesn't help matters. Eun Tae Hee is played by Joy and I did not find out she was a Kpop star until I was finished watching. So my dislike for her in this role has nothing to do with her icon status. Madame de Tourvel is the original character she is based, and that character is a MARRIED woman that is religious, pious, kind, forgiving, loyal, beloved and pure. As she gets lured into Valmont's game she fights against it. She holds on to her laurels and keeps him at bay forcing him to work harder for her than any woman previous and thus causing him to actually get to know her and in the process fall in love. Cruel Intentions updates this character as in a relationship, still part of the Christian league, but now world wise and strong willed who calls Sebastien on his games and manipulation and gives him back as much attitude as he serves. Still she holds him off for the bulk of the films run.

But Tae Hee is in love with Shi Hyun by the 3rd episode. She does not have a single character trait from the previous incarnations except that she is forgiving. She claims she doesn't believe in love once in the entire series run instead of being married or in a relationship or religious or steadfastly moral. Then ten minutes later, after spending the day with a man she promised to not even have contact with, goes weak at the knees while street lights illuminate when he asks if she has feelings for him. It is utterly ridiculous and a full assassination of the intended point of this character existing in the story. Again hello kdramaficiation where the female lead falls for the asshole guy just because, with no reason, and with neck breaking speed. He almost hit her with his car, blamed her for it, and then leaves her in the street. He made out with her friends mother at a club. He has said and done some very questionable things straight to her face and she has watched him be cruel to others. But, there she is, not believing in love, but almost fainting in his presence under moonlight by only the 3rd episode. Its infuriating to behold.

It doesn't help that Joy plays the character very one note keeping the audience at a distance and not allowing us to really feel or see this from her side. When she gets angry she pouts with the same expression every time no matter the severity. When she wants to be cute she wines and stomps her foot like a 3 year old. When she's happy she smiles. She is simply dry in her role. It isn't a failure, she isn't horrible, but she also isn't up to task either. There is something missing as if you are watching someone act as programmed without having the actual true spark of life. It becomes worse when she is in scenes with our three main leads (Do Hwan, Min Jae, and Ga Young) as they are much more effective as actors in their roles. Her performance just withers and pales in comparison.

Ga Young's portrayal of Soo Ji is nearly perfect for how it is written. Unfortunately how she is written is horrible. Marquise de Merteuil is the original and she is a force to be reckoned. She is ruthless in every aspect and is designed, in all honesty, as an unforgiving villain. Her strength comes from her beauty, how she controls men's sexuality, and commands the undying respect of the elite around her. Yes her and Valmont are male and female versions of each other. However, she still garners the respect of society. Valmont does not. He is allowed his conquests and horrific actions, and is still a part of this noble world because society is misogynistic and he is still a nobleman. However, Mereuil is revered by the people, respected, and followed while she does these incredibly horrific things in secret and thus controls everyone around her like stupid puppets. Sarah Michelle Gellar's performance in Cruel Intentions as Katherine Merteuil kept most of this character in-tact be it a teen version or not. Even those that didn't like the film, critics who panned it, couldn't help but call out the devilish delight that was Gellar's performance.

Ga Young seems up to the task, there are moments where she digs in deep and really allows the vileness to flow, but the story, just like Shi Hyung (Valmont), holds her back. She must be a victim. She must have redemption. She must be weak. Here men are in love with her and feel they need to protect her. There is always fear that she will succumb to her emotions. She is not revered by the world around her, but is always alone. The most poor of any of the wealthy elites, she is even looked down upon. Again, this is a "fuck you" to the novel as this is the exact opposite of who this character is. Hello kdrama making women weak, fragile, and in need of love and protection.

Then there is Kim Min Jae and his Lee Se Joo, a character that doesn't exist anywhere else. A character that could be argued is an amalgamation of multiple characters from both the 1999 film and even more from the novel. A character that is honestly the worst of the bunch. He just sits by watching everything delighting himself as a spectator and egging the others on in their dastardly ways. He is the one truly in love with Soo Ji thus relieving the story of the pressures of Shi Hyun having mixed emotions. He's the one that will do the final dastardly deed, because doing so by our other two would completely keep the audience from being able to forgive them. It also makes his character have purpose (because until then he has none). Finally it allows the story to introduce a triumvirate with a love triangle where there wasn't one. Hello Kdrama tropes!!!

Kim Min Jae is the strongest actor here, or at least, he falters the least at pulling off his character. However, that might be because his character is designed to fulfill the kdrama portions of the story that in any other adaptation doesn't exist. Thus, he is playing at material that is commonly handled in kdramas comparatively to the other characters. Se Joo is very problematic. He is constantly oscillating in having hurt feelings, wanting Soo Ji, being a friend to Shi Hyun, kind at times toTae Hee, being a decent guy, and being a monster. His personality and motivations switch as the plot needs them to picking up random plot points, that go even against themselves, in order to make the story work. Ultimately, he is not truly a character but a plot device designed as Gossip Girl's Chuck Bass. He gets a little bit of trauma, a little bit of backstory, a little bit of action, a little bit meat, and a little bit of kindness. His true purpose is to water down the heinousness and sexual tension of our Soo Ji and Shi Hyun main leads by carrying the burden of committing some of their crimes while creating a protective sheathe never leaving them alone in a room at night. He helps make them not so bad to set up the ultimate ending of the series.

Instead of Soo Ji and Shi Hyun betting over sex or a night between them, its marriage to keep their parents from getting together. Instead of them setting up the stupid simple side character Park Hye Jung (Cecile in both the novel and movie version) played by Oh Ha Nee they decide to befriend her. In the book and movie, Shi Hyun character should have taken Hye Jung's virginity while Soo Ji seduced her sweet tutor lover and demoralized her. But, that would have Shi Hyun character actually be sexual, and put him wanting to be with Soo Ji and willing to sexually destroy Hye Jung while also simultaneously trying to woo and seduce our female lead Tae Hee. That is just too much for this kdrama to handle or expect their audience to accept. It also would show how truly vile these characters are,and how unforgivable their deeds. So instead, here comes kdrama purification and simpleness to wipe all of this away and instead make them all friends.

This is also to ensure that Lee Ki Young (Played by Lee Jae Kyoon) becomes our true villain in the end instead of any of our core characters. He is not even met in the book but just talked about as the man that broke Marquise de Merteuil or Katherine (Soo Ji's) heart. He has left the world all the characters are in for somewhere far with his new lover. But here, in this drama, he becomes an entire character that rises to be the worst of worst. Again, his whole point a plot device to make our leads more empathetic. See they aren't so bad, they could be Ki Young. Hi plotted audience manipulation.

When the plot gets to its big moment, the moment that galvanizes the watcher and readers it comes off tame and lackluster. Shi Hyun's public humiliation of Tae Hee is a short simple affair. While Do Hwan's ability to set his eyes with hatred and assholery is nothing new, (His boringly long list of ultra masculine and evil characters should make this second nature at this point). His words, though hurtful and cruel, are very soft considering the impact the scene is supposed to have, and the damage he is meant to cause. Like Tae Hee, it didn't make me hate him. But that is the point here. The story never lets you hate him, the plot and writers do everything in their power to make sure he can come back from anything he does.

No, they are going to save the biggest reveal for the penultimate episode and have it delivered by a completely made up character Se Joo with no true stakes in the whole affair. It does make this character out to be the worst of them all. In the end its the kdrama made-up love triangle that hurts Tae Hee the most and finally gives the series anything that acts like a deathblow to her relationship with Shi Hyun. While the scene is very effective and cruel, Min Jae showing the monster that hides inside him, it sucks away what little is left in the meaning of the relationships as they were originally designed between anyone else.

All the kdrama created story lines take control near the end overpowering and subduing the original story and premise of the show. Tae Hee's hit and run mystery that may have been done by Shi Hyun's dead mother on the very night she dies because she is trying to get to Tae Hee's mother who was having an affair with Shi Hyun's father while Joo Si's mother coveted the spot as the powerful wife and revealed secrets that caused the whole tragic story to begin in the first place becomes the most important story line. Seriously, this is what breaks them apart. It is so absurd and soapish and completely void of any depth or artistic integrity it becomes one of the final stab wounds of this series having anything worthy of giving praise. At least it fits the atrocious violin music that swells as if the world has come-to-an-end at the break of every episode.

All the depth, deconstruction of religion, exploration of morals, thoughts on class status, decay of wealth, psychology of sex, examples of misogynistic double standards, and politics of genders are diluted and scrubbed clean from the story so we can watch yet another tale of conglomerate succession and backhanded corrupt government dealings. (Yes this kdrama trope is forced on us yet again here as well, for some reason.)

When we reach the end, every single character that mattered gets their forever after. In what is the ultimate moment of Kdramafication. This tragic tale of horrible people doing horrible things and destroying multiple peoples lives all get off clean and clear. Everyone, before the credits role, becomes deserving of love and forgiveness. Everyone will have a happy ending. Not even the 1999 teen focused Cruel Intentions was this dirty, the evil characters in the end paid the price there too, just as they all did in the novel. But not here, oh no sir, not here.

While Woo Do Hwan never speaks of that rape filled almost softcore porn film "Let's Go To Rose Motel" from 2013 when he was in his early 20s, and when he showed ample amount of skin himself, I would consider Tempted much more a blight on his resume. At least Rose Motel took chances, went against Kdramafication, and tried to be its own story. Yes it failed too and is very bad, but it was an honest failure and not a large production network-backed empty shell creation pretending to be a great romance. It didn't lure teenage girls into falling for toxic broken men and admire the abuse they deal out. It didn't exemplify passive wet blanket female archetypes that forgive every transgression done against them by the man they love and ultimately stand by his side forever. It didn't paint over grotesque characters with false happy endings.

People say grade it for what it is and not for what it is not. As a kdrama teen romance it is confusing, long winded, overly dramatic, cheap, trope filled affair with few redeeming qualities. It will NOT replace anyone's favorite drama or likely even make it to their top 10 lists. As an adaptation of a 200 year old western novel, it is an utter monstrosity and failure that should hardly be mentioned in the same breath let alone be allowed to claim it as source material. It is a completely different tale in every way that just plagiarizes the central crux of that novels plot.

3.0/F/ 1 1/2-Stars. A complete failure and a blight on everyone involved careers. If you don't want to read the novel or sit through a period piece, watch the teenagers of the 1999 Cruel Intentions instead. It just had its 20th anniversary and is still decades ahead of this Kdrama trope trapped horrendous mess, there are even gay characters there. The horror!

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An ensemble drama trapped inside an office romance, SWNK is filled with heart but lacks focus.

There is a lot to love about She Would Never Know. So much to love that at times I found myself frustrated that I had to see its glaring flaws. I wanted to give this a glowing review. I wanted to give this a score in the 9's. With some of the content and story lines found here, I wanted this to be an exemplary show and benchmark for Romance in the Kdrama world. This is honestly a story about how we all hate ourselves and how love fights to save us. It holds many lenses to society from family pressures, homophobia, divorce, ageism, success, to of course social strata and wealth. But to do this it employs a roster of characters that work outside of the main plot, and thus causes the story to constantly lose focus on its characters and main drive.

SWNK sells itself as an office romance, and even its poster plasters two sets of couples photo-shopped into this setting. In the beginning this is what the show delivers. You meet our female lead Song Ah (Won Jin Ah) a career driven, kind but hard, character who has garnered the respect of everyone that surrounds her, and her 1st year trainee Hyun Seung (Rowoon) a dashingly charismatic and handsome bright eyed follower. She is oblivious to his lovelorn stares and he is hopelessly lost in a secret love that consumes his every movement and thought.

Enter a third face from the poster, Jae Shin (Lee Hyun Wook) the BM (Business Manager? Never told to us through subtitles) or Head manager of the team they all work. He is revered as the greatest manager of the entire company, his team the strongest performers, and is best friends to the grandson of the conglomerate family that owns all their livelihoods. In the first episode our towering main male lead Hyun Seung discovers that his secret crush (FL Song Ah) is secretly having a relationship with Jae Shin, and his heart breaks.

But, his broken heart turns to anger when, by the episode's end, he discovers, through his sister's bridal shop, that BM Jae Shin is actually engaged to be married in a few months time to the granddaughter of the company they work for, (Our 4th face from the poster Hyo Joo (Lee Joo Bin)). And this is were our introduction to this world ends, and so does the first episode.

Everything seems inline with the MDL description, the poster matches this story delivered, and we come to love and hate the characters easily in the first go.

But then we get to the second episode and people are confessing hidden feelings already, the secret love affairs are laid bare to those involved, and almost the entire set-up from the first episode is resolved. What does remain is finished up by the third episode and what, you thought, was another love triangle you were going to have to sit through, is torn apart with our main lead Song Ah, building as much respect from you as a viewer, as she commands from those around her in the drama. She is broken behind closed doors, but steady and decisive in public to those that both confess their love for her, and those that confess their lies to her.

Within the first 1/3 of the series every character is on a different path and the push and pull of romances becomes peaceful. BM Jae Shin is completely severed from our main leads, and yet we keep spending time with him. We get his whole backstory, flashbacks and all, we meet his family, we learn everything as to why he is the way he is and how his life managed to get to this point, and you begin to wonder, Why?

Why am I still learning about him? Why does his character even matter at this point? Why am I spending so much time with him? You then realize you are spending just as much time with Hyun Seung's sisters and their lives. You are having entire stories of them making friends, falling in love, and working on rocky marriages. You are spending time with the grandson and director of the company, on his journey to find love, and discover the truths of his friendships. You are having an entire story in another town focused on the mother of our female lead, that seems just weird to have its own locations, extras, and characters.

And that is when you, or at least me, realized you have to switch gears. As much as the first episode set it up as a romance, as much as the poster and cast list claim this, and as much time that we do spend with out 2 main leads trying to fall in love and be in a relationship, this is NOT A ROMANCE.

This is an ensemble drama about these characters and the trials of their lives and their loves. It is a very different beast, than what it is trying to squeeze itself into. People want romances, they sell well and have a large audience, and so this story packages itself as such to garner views. But it really wants to explore many types of love, loss, and stages of life from many viewpoints and different characters.

When you switch to this mindset, you realize you want our main couple to get less screen-time. It isn't that you dislike them, I loved them, and it isn't that their romance isn't worth watching, it very much is, but it is that all these other characters and stories have a lot to say, some of them much much more to say, and the characters are just as interesting. If the drama is going to bring them up and have us deal with them anyway, then why not dig in and give us some real depth because they are worth it.

Of note, one of the strongest subplots revolves around one of Hyun Seung's sisters and her failing marriage. There was a sense of dread with this story line, as South Korea's open homophobia is well documented, and this single story could have made me really hate this drama. But it end up shining here, a beacon of what Kdrama's could give us, and yes, it brought tears to my eyes.

Unfortunately the series does cave-in to the whole Kdrama time jump for the last episodes which are set three years after the rest of the series. If you have read any of my other reviews, you will know my strong feelings on this now very over-used plot device. Here the series handles it a little better than most, BUT it still is an unneeded venture. All the characters are in the story lines they were in before the jump, something unrealistic considering some of the plots in play as its been 3 years of stale-mate. It does work more for the main 2 leads and their tale, but they were at a certain point before the jump, and well basically spend the last 2 episodes trying to get back to that same point.

Maybe if the story would have been told better over the time frame such as half set in 1 timeline, and the second half in the other. Or if there were three divisions of time. The start of it all, the middle and Europe, and then the end and each given equal weight. I actually would have enjoyed more of the reversal in roles we got at the end, and would have enjoyed watching the characters fight against themselves, but as it was delivered, it is just superfluous and dead weight.

Thus, in the end, the series doesn't fully work. It can't decide what it wants to be. A love story of two people and just stick to them and their tale while trimming all the fat around them to bare necessity. Or if it wants to be an ensemble drama which would require trimming the main couple and giving a bit more to the side stories. It doesn't trust itself enough to write their tale in the here and now and not need to give us tropes and plot devices that viewers have come to expect and rely on. And it leaves some subplots and side characters unfinished. Did Song Ah discover why the mascara was drying out? Did anyone find out why Jae Shin was asking for stock reports no one wanted? Are Hyun Seung's parents alive and how wealthy is his family? Did the chef come to simply break up the marriage and is evil? What happened to the other manager and his plot and backhanded dealing? Will he continue to work at the company with what Hyun Seuyng knows about him now that their families are intertwined? The list goes on.

But what it does deliver is fantastic. The acting strong. The characters painted with detail. Rowoon, shows that if he truly wants to dedicate himself to the craft of acting he could really end up something special. And many of the stories you do get to experience are worth their screen time. As such, I can't give it the marks of 8 and 9s that I want. Yes, personally I loved what was here. But I also can't be blind to what it lacked and what didn't work. 7.5/B/3 3/4-stars. It shows its flaws but remains strong and will likely be enjoyed.

Leggi di Più

Salty and Sweet but Ultimately Empty Calories.

HS the Movie is easily digestible without challenging either the cast or the viewer in any way.
Entertaining...sure, Cute...yes, Watchable..
Ya betcha....

But is it going to be remembered, does it end with any resonance, and does it accomplish anything at all that hasn't been done a million times over (BL or Not), or even better does it accomplish anything or move beyond the Hello Stranger Series that came before it....

That is a strong no.

Ultimately the story is simply a rewind of the series with a more satisfying final moment.

While the production is a step up from the series, and overall strong, the directing still has stilted moments. Instances where the actors and action are unnatural, as if you can imagine the director shouting action and the scene beginning instead of it being organic as if this and these people are a world that exists even if we aren't watching . While it is sparse and sprinkled through the running time, the fact that some scenes and transitions work so well makes these moments the more glaring.

The story is the weakest point of the film. It is a workhorse trying to tell what is happening currently and what happened over the time the series ended until now. While this back and forth narrative isn't a bad storytelling choice, it's execution is subpar. When the past rears its head, it is normally in significant interactions of "now" where the characters are sharing intimate moments. This destroys the ability for the viewer to watch these characters breathe in their current state and kills any butterfly, heart stuttering, they must be together inducing moments. Even worse, the past scenes are clunky and long winded freezing the present, crashing in with exposition filled drama that needed to be whittled down so we could get back to the current story as soon as possible.

This leads to really odd sudden changes to characters and jumps in plot. Abruptly people want to part ways, suddenly emotions are overwhelming, and with neck breaking speed tables turn, and before you know it someone is standing in front of the entire cast teary eyed monologue-ing their entire story and feelings. Thus, the issues these characters are trying to overcome are made insignificant, remain underdeveloped, and resolve just because the plot wills it so.

At its best, the film is an easy romp when one just wants to see an overall attractive cast play at the beach and play at love while staying in a good mood without the need to think.

At its worst, it is masturbatory tale of its own series leaving the viewer, and cast, in the same exact spot that we all were a year ago. A love story that is trite, candy coated, simple, with characters that can't be developed beyond the will they or won't they world they seem forever trapped.

For 4 bucks American, it's perfectly serviceable and easily one of the highest Pinoy BL productions around...I don't feel shorted in any way.

But, I will say it left me craving it's closest competitor Gameboys Season 2. I'm anxious to see if that story is capable of moving beyond it's predecessor now that the computer screens are left behind.

Leggi di Più

A decent entry into the survival game genre while simultaneously fordging nowhere new.

Gory, violent, vulgar, and graphic Squid Game doesn't, as they say, pull any punches. This works in the show's favor as a strong juxtaposition to the candy coated, pastel painted, childlike game world it takes place. And well, that is kinda the whole point. Bookending itself with the very childhood Korean game it is named after "Squid Game," the beginning has it played by children and the ending played by adults. Honestly, the violence exists in both iterations, showing that childhood isn't truly that innocent, and adults are not the different from children.

This idea of "adult children" runs through the entirety of the viewing experience. Our main protagonist Seong Gi Hoon / "No. 456" played by Lee Jung Jae, a middle aged man living with his mother, comes off as a bratty teenager in the first 30 seconds we meet him as he whines about money while stuffing his face with food his mother made him before she heads off for a day of back breaking work. He lives a life of laziness, selfishness, and failures. Being a dead beat father, who claims he loves his daughter, but then does nothing to support or raise her, he instead spends his time stealing from his mother and gambling. Under tremendous amounts of debt to bookies and loan sharks, his debtors finally place a ticking clock to pay up or "pay with his body."

When the mysterious salesman shows up in all his bravado and gets Jung Jae to participate in a game on a subway platform, the audience can see the trap being set with each passing moment. As Jung Jae continuously loses and takes bodily harm as payment for that losing, he maniacally keeps going again and again until he gets that one win. And thus, the mentality of what is to come is shown.

Most of the premier episode deals with just Jung Jae story, and spends a lot of time setting up his place in the world. It isn't until the end of this episode when we get our first game and have glimpses at the other main players we will follow. Is this time well spent, I can't decide. His story does not garner sympathy or paint him as a good person. When he enters the first arena, I particularly didn't care if he lived or died, and well that is a problem. Antiheroes are huge right now, and Jung Jae is most definitely a character that falls in this category. But, unlike Vincenzo, The Devil Judge, or Taxi Driver, he isn't likable. What makes him not-heroic is not "grey morality" it is simply being a bad low life human being. He isn't a criminal, but the story has not shown him to be someone you want to root for either.

Other characters are more clear cut with the exception of Cho Sang Woo / "No. 218" played by Park Hae Soo. He is a foil to our main lead. Raised in the same neighborhood, and a childhood friend and rival, Sang Woo's life has been almost the opposite of Jung Jae. Coming from a single family stall saleswoman mother household, he educated himself, worked hard, and got himself into the most prestigious university in Korea. To most in the old neighborhood Sang Woo has gone on to be a successful businessman and the golden child of the low income world they all live. Well, at least that is the story his mother and everyone back home knows. In a quick backstory drop by our masked game-masters, it seems he has actually spent his time becoming a white collar criminal who is hiding from the police and 6 billion won worth of multiple financial crimes.

The rest of our main rag tag team of "good guys" is filled with a variety of the disenfranchised. Characters that are truly at a larger disadvantage in life than our two already described main male leads. Kang Sae Byeok / "No. 067" is the hardened female North Korea defector who has become a thief to survive in South Korea while trying to make a home for her younger brother. She is a very stock creation to pull at the trope of a soft hearted criminal. Luckily Jung Ho Yeon plays her perfectly balanced in ruthlessness and stoicism versus tenderness and vulnerability, which will likely have you rooting for her more than most if not all the others.

Ali Abdul / "No. 199" is our illegal immigrant from Pakistan with a heart of gold. The physically strongest of the bunch is also the most cuddly, kind, and naive. Anupam Tripathi plays him with such wide eyed youthful trust that you will want everyone involved to sacrifice themselves for his survival. And lastly, Oh Young Soo as Oh Il Nam / "No. 001" finishes our team as an elderly man who is on deaths door with a brain tumor and fighting off the beginning stages of dementia.

To say that we will lose some of these characters along the way is a given. While I won't go into when, how, or why, just suffice it to say that the only character with plot armor is our ML (Remember the whole 1st episode is dedicated to him) and of course one other player, the antagonist evil player, Jang Deok Soo / "No. 101". Both are given equal protection to make sure the push and pull between their characters remains until we reach the end. Heo Sung Tae plays the character with ease as at this point if you have seen any Korean dramas you will know how incredibly type cast he has become.

The first game Red Light/Green Light, shows everyone involved of what they have become a part. With an oversized head spinning porcelain doll that counts in a girls childish voice with everyone inside a painted arena-looking like a sandbox on a sunny day-as masked guards in pink suits stand idly with machine guns, the almost 50's Americana design (aesthetics used in video games such as Fallout) are clearly painted.

In the first episode more than half of nearly 500 players are mowed down with gunfire, in what is easily the highest body count of the show. It affects the remaining player-base so much that the survivors demand to be released, setting up a voting that is in the rules of the game. If more than 50% of the players want to quit, then they will all be freed. BUT, before the voting begins the reward for staying and competing is revealed. 100 million won per player dead. Meaning the pot, in the end, will be around 45 billion. If they choose to quit, then the money will be sent to the families of the deceased each getting the 100 million that was put in the pot. This, to say the least, changes the game, and the mind of many who were only moments before begging to go free.

Now here is were the show, I think, makes its greatest fault. That is, in a nail biting vote that comes down to a single player difference, the group is freed and all go back to their lives, but under the condition that if more than 50% want to return the games will recommence. Of course since all this takes place in the first and second episode, it is not a spoiler or remotely unclear that all the players will return. Well at least 187 out of the 201 freed will return.

While the show is trying to make a social statement between the real world and the game, it is hazy in how it draws this comparison. The idea is that these people are so destitute, forgotten, at wits end, and put upon by an unfair society, that ultimately playing in a game to the death for money is not so bad, or at least equally appealing as to living their actual lives. That is, the world itself is a game (Or rat-race) and the only way out of it is death, so why not take that chance at becoming a billionaire by playing an actual game with your life.

Unfortunately, this only holds up if you are morally bankrupt already. Yes, life is hard, it sucks a lot of the time, and there are disadvantages and advantages to it based on simply where you are born, with what color skin, looks, and wealth. However, each person has the choice of what they do with their life and who they choose to become. Look at our main two leads mothers. These are women, that as far as we know, have raised their sons mostly alone. Without wealth or privilege, they have created homes for themselves and opened businesses, and had families. Was it hard, yes. Do we wish their lives were better, of course. But these women show their strength of will and character and do not take shortcuts and thus have created something for themselves as small as it might be.

We can talk about the cop Hwang Jun Ho, played by heartthrob Wi Ha Joon, and how he become a police officer versus his missing brother ( who as far as we know is likely amongst the dead that played in the first game), while raised in the same house, the same family, with the same advantages but ended up in VERY different t places. A persons character, morality, and code matters and it isn't simply the world and society is bad. It is flawed and broken, and needs social change, of course, but this show doesn't show how to accomplish that change. It wants to show what depraved people will do to each other.

Outside of our Pakistani Ali, whose life takes a truly fateful turn in these few days of release as his intentions of leaving Korea and going home are destroyed while being preyed upon by a Korean businessman who uses him as a virtual slave because of his illegal status, everyone who returns to the game returns of their freewill knowing what lies in wait, what they will be forced to do and be a part of, and most importantly with a plan to win. These players that in the beginning where being selfish children and looking for easy money but found themselves in heinous game of mass killing and demanded freedom now become as equally complicit and active agents in the slaughter.

As a viewer, it made me no longer care if any of them lived or died. They are there because they choose to be. They are there because they want the prize. They are there because they are no better than those who devised the arena in which they play. Thus, it is a story of bad people playing with and killing bad people for a huge pot of blood money. And well, that made the show fairly depressing to get through, and gave me very little in the way of wanting to root for a winner antihero or not. If they simply had not done this, not made it where these characters actively choose to return, as a viewer I could have gotten behind and rooted for people I really didn't like, and forgive them for acts they transgress. But that is based on the idea, they were unknowing forced into a bad situation and must do what they can to survive and get out of it. Every character could have been written the same way they are, and I would have rooted for some of them regardless of their faults. In the end, as it was done, I held them responsible for their own deaths and the deaths they cause.

Episode seven is a divisive one that uses homosexuality as the benchmark of the truly depraved and the ultimate bad guy amongst an arena of bad people. Its South Korean entertainment, what can you expect from a homophobic country? It also continues the South Korean trend of using low grade actors whenever a westerner needs to be on screen and paints white wealthy westerners as sexual deviants and the lowest of the low. Whatever, just like The Devil Judges flaw of using the west as homosexuals in a salute to homophobia when sentencing a sexual predator, Squid Game just follows in line.

The aforementioned cop Jun Ho, finally has something to do in this episode, but his entire character seems misplaced and unneeded. How his story unfolds, and where it ends, makes him a character that lives fully in subplot story lines that never lead to any fruition or tie into the main plot of the series. Why did we meet him and spend time with him? What did we learn from his snooping? How did his character impact anything about the story? While his last scene seems to leave some open ended storytelling on the fate of the Squid Game operation, and the fate of himself. The time jump in the last episode of the series seems to answer all the open ended questions that left dangled. And that is, we didn't ever need him as a character.

By the end of the series, there are some twists that MOST will see coming long before they are revealed, and the ending itself is odd and weirdly uncathartic. Maybe that is the point, life isn't cathartic. Crap happens, and then we go on. This was in the end just a "slice of life" etc. As a viewer, you don't buy it, and while it hints there may be a sequel, you wonder if there is a point to it. Very few if any of the cast can return. So it will basically be all new characters to meet if we go for round two. And seeing the games again, will be very "Hunger Games" number 2, a not as fun go around of the first time. As for the games themselves, we learn very little. Who were all the men in masks? Why are they playing their role? The few that are unmasked are shown to be young and basically psychotic. What do they get out of and how did they get roped into being masked game masters? How do they move through the ranks and get either a lowly circle, gun blazing triangle, or master square ranking?

The main black masked man, is he just evil? After he does what he does and the little we learn about him, his character is basically a walking problem. Being a winner of the games, who chooses to live in virtual poverty in the real world even though a billionaire, but comes back to this world to run, design, and watch others die in games, seems to suggest yeah, he is just a bad guy. He is a confusing mess of a character, and we didn't even spend much time with him unmasked for all these issues to arise. Is season two going to be basically about him? Is that why we have the limousine scene between the winner of these games and him in the end?

Why did Squid Games become so successful? I can't answer this for you. Like the masked game masters that are just there because, this show is the greatest Netflix success, just because it is. While the acting is better in Squid Games, Netflix's Alice in Boarderlands is much stronger in individual game designs for the players, and in dissecting morality and the condition of the human animal when placed into a survivalist world. You also clearly have characters you can and want to root for, even if they are morally dubious. While its premise isn't as grounded and believable as Squid Game's, Alice does create a world that is even more terrifying and allows your imagination to run amok on how it is all happening. Yet Alice, though getting a season 2, has gone mostly unnoticed by the world at large.

Squid Game is worth a watch, provided you can handle the material. It is a solid entry in survival storytelling and creates a generally unique aesthetic to tell its tale. It is very strongly acted, and the Korean Drama plague of caricature side characters or characters written just to be comic relief are mostly if not fully absent. The directing, while straight forward, does keep the story moving and refrains from allowing the actors to have soap boxes, overly dramatic melodrama scenes, or annoyingly cloying moments. The production shines, and is generally in all regards a very top notch experience.

But, do not go into this with unrealistic expectations or with the belief you are going to travel unknown roads. You have seen everything here before, The Purge, Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Alice in Boarderlands etc are just a few from the modern age that travels where this series goes. It does it with more gore than the kid friendly versions but is on par with Alice or The Purge in that department. There are unneeded subplots, unneeded side characters, and a lot of questions that never get answers. In short, it isn't perfect, or mind-blowing. But it is good. 3.5 Stars (7) overall B. Better than the bulk of content Netflix has to offer, but forgettable and in the end not a must see.

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The cutest and lightest Joseon Piece I've yet seen. When it isn't dealing with the throne it shines.

I keep giving Joseon pieces a shot. It seems they are a right of passage or actors aren't taken seriously unless they have been in at least one. There isn't a single star I have come to like or follow that doesn't have one of these history tales on their resume. So, I keep watching these weird hatted (I mean why are they mesh, they neither protect from the rain or sun, why are we wearing them?) medieval stories that unfortunately tend to all be carbon copies of each other where everyone is vying for the throne.

I have asked in comments if there are any Joseon stories that do not deal with Kings, Princes, succession, and cementing power through Queens marriage, to deaf ears (Err Eyes). This seems to be the only reason to ever write one of these things. There is always at least one, sometimes warring, politicians that are part of the court which always somehow have more power than the kings themselves and are always evil. There more often than not is a son of one of these politicians who is morally ambiguous, who "hates" their corrupt evil father but likewise does nothing to stop their dastardly deeds even while knowing how awful they are, at least until we reach the climax. There is always a forbidden love. The list goes on and on.

Rookie Historian is no different. All of the plot points above are found here as well. The constant recycling and repackaging of Korea's Joseon entertainment is alive and well yet again. However, I will say this time round, the actual tag of comedy can be proudly proclaimed, as there are actually many funny bits throughout the entirety of its run. There are characters and stories that remain light, cute, and fun for almost the entire duration. Their is a soft happiness to the entire production and though the story always has to dig into tragedy and ultimately a large dramatic finish, this time round it refrains from becoming totally horrific.

This time the "fresh" take on the story is by angling from the view of Historians, those that walk and skulk silently in the rooms of the palace writing everything they see to create a written record and truthful history that no one is allowed to read, except other historians apparently. This angle is narrowed when it focuses on the sudden reintroduction of women historians who haven't been used in centuries. Their job is to follow the everyday lives of the royals in their bedrooms and homes instead of the political meetings and public events like the men historians. Thus, the story injects a fresh shot of female empowerment and equality.

Our lead actress Shin Se Kyung plays Goo Hae Ryung, a headstrong, forward thinking, noble woman, with a somewhat mysterious past. Se Kyun is strong in the role overall. She brings both softness and strength to the character, as well as beauty. However, the character seems to not hold the resilience and grit the story early on claims our heroine has. As the tale progresses she gives in to the pressures around her for a stint, especially when it comes to her love. She begins to be the whole tortured female with an empty face, tears behind closed doors, suffer in silence publicly female character that is so commonly written. While she will ultimately spring to action for the end, there will be a whole section of episodes where you will just roll your eyes at her and feel like she just gave up. I suppose the plot needed this to happen at the expense of her character.

Then there is our male lead Cha Eun Woo who plays Prince Do Won. No one can argue that Eun Woo isn't beautiful. He is. Maybe he is a great performer and singer, I do not follow Kpop. But, I can say he isn't sturdy or balanced yet as an actor. It isn't that he is straight bad as an actor, there are moments here where he pulls off some good work. When it is time to be cute, playful, flirtatious, and smitten he does well enough. It is endearing and fun to watch. Him and his female lead have a cute chemistry, not screen blazing, but good enough. Even in the end when things take a more serious turn and Eun Woo is asked to pull off some more dramatic and tearful moments, he actually comes to shine and be very strong here. However, all the rest of the time, while he is acting jealous, contemplative, arrogant, suspicious, mischievous, and the story is having him as a moving part between the power struggle of the others in play that he becomes awkward, stiff, unnatural, and well shows he is acting. His facial expressions are not varied, but a constant repeat. He looks constipated a lot, or just simply blank. His smiles seem disingenuous. The delivery is just simply off. It doesn't ruin the show, but it does show his weakness compared to everyone else on screen. He is the weakest link here.

Our other male lead Park Ki Woong as Prince Yi jin is the powerhouse. You enjoy him when he appears and are drawn into his wide smiles or unwavering stares. His manliness smoulders and his acting is intense and well delivered. While I was dismayed by the ultimate path this characters takes, getting there was a treat to watch and yes Ki Woong's turn here in this role has made me a fan. Park Ji Hyun also appears as our second female lead Song Sa Hee, and as always does a great job as a morally questionable character who does everything in her own interest. She is detached and a lonely wolf, a character that she should feel right at home in by this point.

Lee Ji Hoon is also a lead as Officer Min, the second in command of the Historians and the morally ambiguous son of the "big bad" I mentioned at the begging. He is the male version of Ji Hyun's Sa Hee here. Detached and stoic he holds steadfast to the rules and doctrine of the Historians to a fault, letting the rules of his work, that historians document but do not take part in nor change the outcome of events not matter how horrible, corrupt, or atrocious the events might be, excuse his inaction regarding his father and those around him he knows are perpetrated wrongs against the crown and Joseon itself. I found it hard to like his character, there is too much he allows to happen, too much he could have stopped or helped with and he just doesn't. He knows there are historians being spies, and he allows it. He documents his father controlling the crown and watches the secret meetings in his family home, and tells no one. He is at fault in the backstory of his wife that you will come to learn, again because of his father. The whole Korean idea that children accept their parents as monsters just because they are their parents is not something I stomach well, yet it is a prevailing plotline in a large swatch of Kdrama (Joseon or not). While of course he is also a noble character who at times goes-to-the-mat for others in the show and if rules are broken ( I found it weird what rules he would not allow to bend or break considering what other stuff he lets slide). He also starts to realize his faults and issues when faced with our female lead who refuses, most-of-the-time to sit idle. Thus, he is put on a redemptive arch.

When the story is playing with its characters it is a great watch. When the story is dealing with medical backstory, or the writing and censorship story line it is engrossing. When it brings up social issues, injustices, equal rights, and takes on the unwillingness for society to change or allow anything different to grow Rookie Historian shines. When it is playful and cute and letting our leads fall for each other it is heartwarming and charming. When it wants to be funny, for the most part (some parts do fall flat or become old and repetitive), it is.

But ultimately all this originality, interesting concepts and explorations, and light hearted enjoyment caves in to the prevailing King/Prince/Throne/Power Grab story that can be found in EVERY JOSEON TALE FROM HERE TO THE MOON. This repetitive, stale, boring, and paint-by-numbers plotting that has not a single moment of originality or surprise ends up the main focus for the end and everything else is trimmed away. Oh well.

I had more fun with this than the last 5 or so Joseon tales combined so it was a surprise for me. While I wish someone would just lay the succession storyline to rest, I wasn't dismayed to have sat through this as I was for other Joseon pieces that claim to be comedies like "Flower Crew" for example. Rookie Historian is ,for the most part, a wining fun watch.

7.5/B/3 3/4-Stars. Shows its flaws but remains strong, likely to be enjoyed.

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A Korean Version of the stateside show "Younger."

Are there changes? Yes!

Some of those changes are strengths versus the original. Some things don't change that probably should have. And some changes do not work so well.

Here our female lead has secretly been divorced for over a year. She is destitute, living in her abandoned home, that has fallen to ruin and is set to be demolished, yes in only a years time, shrug. She sneaks into her best friends house (Our Male Lead) for food and showers while he is at work, and secretly has hired herself to be his housekeeper for some steady income. Her daughter is off at boarding school and draining what little resources our FL has, since her husband has up and disappeared with another woman and left her to raise their daughter on her own. Though, our protagonist is a college educated, certificate wielding, and award wining Copy Editor, not a single company will give her an opportunity because she has been a housewife for the past seven years and is nearing forty. Too old, too educated, and too experienced for entry level work, yet biased against for leaving the work force for a home life and believed too long gone to understand the copy world of today and its markets she is refused substantial middle and management positions. As a wrecking ball finally makes her homeless, our FL is forced into erasing her credentials and past and pretend to be nothing more than a middle-aged high school graduate to land the most basic contract work entry-level gofer position possible. Hey it gives her money, and its at a publishing house, her life's love.

Sounds familiar yes?

While "Younger," as its name suggests, has the FL not only pose as an inexperienced beginner, it ALSO makes her pretend to be in her early 20's as an almost 40 year old. Far fetched, yeah, but the show mostly makes it work. Here, RIABB, recognizes it is unneeded and unrealistic and forgoes this while still covering all the ageist issues in full.

Other changes include taking the Lesbian Life Long Best Friend and the CEO of the Publishing house Love Interest and morphing them together into a single character that is our Chief Editor Male Lead. (Note the Lesbian still gets 2 cameos as a High-end Fashion store owner who used to date our ML. It is important that the show at least nods to this character and also normalizes her Lesbianism by the ML considering South Korea's openly known homophobia.)

By the show doing this character adjoining, it creates a lifetime best friends to lovers story, which is a fan favorite trope amongst Romance lovers. The show knows its audience. It also works well, and allows there to be a lot of screen time with the two leads together in cohabitation, as just like in "Younger," our FL is forced to live with her best friend.

The college student daughter is made mostly irrelevant as a Philippines boarding school living middle-schooler. This is one of those changes I can't get behind. The daughter is used in the beginning to show the financial strapped situation our FL is in, but once she gets the job, the daughter is all but forgotten. The fact that this woman is a mother is left to die on the vine. In fact, that there even is a daughter at all becomes superfluous. It would have been better to have just cut the never met child from the script and made the husband even more of a monster as in he wouldn't let her work as a woman, mother or not. Why not, it would have worked for the purpose of the story just as well and saved us from the odd dangling fruit that is this mostly forgotten daughter in the Philippines.

Our younger hip Brooklyn tattoo artist love interest (Yes the Triangle Lives!) changes into a younger, most sought-after, book cover artist and his beautiful dog. We can not forget this dog guys, its just not gunna happen. The character is tied to the story better and ends up with some secret backstory that deals directly with the publishing house and our ML. This change works well and is perfectly serviceable.

Yes, even the "frenemy" lady boss exists in both incarnations as CEO Go. Here she is displayed more powerfully and much sexier than in "Younger," but as a character I am still not impressed. The dynamic between our FL and CEO Go is exactly the same and I really wish they would have changed this up. Do we really need this to be how we address sisterhood in the workplace? Are we supposed to decide CEO Go really is a good person in the end? Should women expect this relationship, and be okay with this dynamic? Is there really nothing better out there? These questions could create a whole topic of conversation and arguments, but let's just say that for the purpose of the show, this relationship is one of the more complex on display even with its little screen time.

Overall, the show mostly functions as promised. Around episode eight it unfortunately devolves into a generic everyone falls-in-love romance with the entire cast pairing off. (THE ENTIRE CAST!) But, around episode 13 it pulls itself back into the better and stronger original story-lines that were laid at the beginning of the series and follows them through the last 3 episodes. However, because we leave the main story for so long, and because the show tries so hard to be just a typical love story for all, the ending does come on flat. The triumphs don't feel as triumphant as they should. The lows, aren't as low as we went in the beginning of the series, and characters become simply puppets serving the plot and attempting to make us feel warm on the inside as everyone finds happiness in the arms of someone else.

Is it worth your time, I'd say so. It was stronger than a lot of the Kdrama romances I have been sitting through. Is it amazing, perfect, OMG you MUST watch this, best love story ever, you will never be the same, add any other hyperbole or adulation that are carelessly thrown about on peer review sites? No, it is not.

RIABB has warmth, and a message, strong acting, and a great production. It moves steadily and smoothly though its tale without rushing. It is filled with superficial cuteness, and all the typical swooning beats and moments you've come to expect from these types of shows. Yet, it has a unique base story that keeps it apart from the pack. I gave it a 7, 3 1/2 Stars, B grade. Better than average and a solid watch but not great or a must see.

I do want to note, that I did also open a conversation on the MDL discussion board for RIABB about the ML of this drama. There are things that angered me, and issues that I am seeing repeated in Kdrama romances when it comes to the MLs in general. While, by the end RIABB's ML does grow and learn, and ultimately try to be a better man, the first 6 episodes find him doing some very questionable (Not sexual) things when it comes to our FL. It was hard for me to move past these plot points when it comes to ML's character as a noble human being and just put a really large blight on him from my point-of-view. I find him morally questionable, and if this was real life, I would very much be against him. Even if he is smart, handsome, rich, and successful, with a generally amicable personality, and over-all good natured, what he allows to happen and lets his company stand for in the beginning of the series and what he is NOT willing do to for our FL or stand up for what was right, really bothered me and I was unable to let it go. If you want to go a bit more in-depth or offer your own opinion on the matter, look for the discussion above the comments section for RIABB.

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