A great, situation-focused story
What I liked most about this season was that it felt very personal and focused on the situation at hand. Because the story was contained almost completely in the apartment building we were able to get very comfortable with our cast and location. We, as the audience, felt just as isolated from the main problem as the characters did and were able to learn about the world at the same time. It made the overall plot feel very tense and exciting!That being said, I do think this show had some pacing issues. It felt like the writers wanted 12 or even 16 episodes but were only given 10 and because of that certain pivotal moments felt a little rushed.
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A webtoon reader dream come true!
At first, when I watched the trailer to this drama, it caught me off guard since it's my first time seeing Korea taking on a thriller and horror story from a webtoon and make it into live-action. It intrigued me to watch it as it's something fresh for me. And boy was I blown away by it. Instead of getting the horror content that I was expecting, it gave me the CHARACTERS, STORY, PLOT, and FEELS. (and yes I won't give any spoilers in my reviews no worries)Story/Plot:
It started with our main character going through some things that I can say some of the young adults do go through in high school. It's not something many people talk about and starting the story with such a character is right off the bat very different from the other stories I have watched. (Take note: I didn't read the webtoon but I know of its existence.) The high tension of the story immediately starts in the first episode, it brought me along the ride as the episodes progress. The pacing of the drama is just right, there are no moments in the drama that are just fillers or unnecessary. Each moment has meaning and it adds to the story! The logic and reality of the story are alright, not out of the blue but pretty understandable.
Character:
Besides the main character development throughout the story, the other characters are so good! I ended up loving a lot of the side characters. When you have a good story, good characters, what can go wrong? I enjoyed all the scenes of the other characters, it's heartwarming to see how the characters bond together in the situations they were put in. I won't say too much about the characters because by doing so I would have to dive into spoilers :') but really they are the highlights of the story for me.
Action:
The fighting sequence really blew me away! I did not expect high-quality visual effects. What happens if you fuse Korean drama and one of the Hollywood visual effects? SWEET HOME! It's just breathtaking to see the monsters in such well-produced CGI. Hands down to the people behind this production. The fighting sequences make me on the edge of my seat every time! Really well done on this part!
Overall:
Although the genre is considered thriller and horror, I see it more as a character-driven story. There were so many heartwarming moments between the characters and it made me connect with them more. The sad and funny parts with the characters are very memorable from this drama. I love the horror but these sides of the drama really were the ones that made me got hooked on it. Some warning for those weak-hearted souls out there, there will be some deaths in this drama that made me bawled my eyes out in the end.
So if you have read this long review till the end, might as well give this a try! It's a really good watch and thank you for reading this review as well hehe xD
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Big budget kdrama with an identity crisis and terrible soundtrack
Here's the thing. The webtoon is REALLY good, so this had a lot to live up to. I thought the casting was good for what they were going for, and the actors performed really well. I was really happy with changes they made too - eg. adding the firefighter character, changing characters' personalities, etc. Naturally, the source material for the story was also good. The special effects were excellent for a kdrama.Story, cast and acting: 8.5.
However, the music/OST/soundtrack choices single-handedly ruined this for me. You could not pay me to rewatch this. I do not even understand WHY these choices were made. It was like self-sabotage. Why would you do this to an amazing drama based on a cult classic webtoon?! It was literally a guaranteed success. How did you mess this up???? Subjectively, I like the songs. Hell, I have listened to these songs myself. But objectively? The soundtrack is not at all suitable for Sweet Home. It's literal 'hypebeast' / clubbing / gaming montage music.
They repeatedly used Warriors by Imagine Dragons in almost every episode.
Fighting a terrifying monster? Warriors.
Nearly dying? Warriors.
Walking through the corridors in fear? Warriors.
Tragic death of a beloved character (that REALLY needed a sad OST)? Warriors!
Warriors, warriors, warriors. I am sick of a song I used to like now. It just wasn't suitable, but they used it to death probably because the license cost an extortionate amount. It just messed up the atmosphere and vibe of the whole show. I.e. You should be feeling sad - someone just died brutally - but you're struggling to feel anything about it because 'AS A CHILDDD you would wait! And WATCH FROM FAR AWAYYYY... !' hype League battle music is blasting in your ears during their death scene. The music choices just cheapened the whole show, which is genuinely unfortunate given how much effort was otherwise put into this. Never before have I had such respect for OST/music choices in shows and movies. I didn't realise it had such a huge effect until now. And this isn't just me - it's such a hugely common criticism on Korean and English discussion boards for this kdrama (see below, credit in brackets). WHY did they do this???!?!?!
EN examples: "Can't wait to laugh my ass off at a scene that's meant to make me sad", "Editor must be a huge league of legends fan, which is where this song should have stayed", "The song made me laugh at every scene they had such good graphics but the music f!cked the whole action scene" (-r*ddit)
KR examples: "...어울리지 않고 몰입을 떨어뜨린다..." (-데일리안), "하아... #이매진드래곤스 의 #워리어스 나올때마다 폭소터졌고 손가락 없어지는줄... 개민망." (-필쏘굿).
This drama had the potential to be terrifying and disturbing and deeply emotional but it just sort of fell flat. Like it's GOOD (bar the song choices, please stop, never do this again), but it seemed to suffer an identity crisis. The show didn't focus as much on the monsters. I'm not sure if that was to save on special effects budget or what, but it was a missed opportunity IMO and consequently led to a sort of slice-of-life vibe with too much comedy, before suddenly switching things up in the last two episodes.
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This review may contain spoilers
A Homerun (pun intended)
Story: Monster epidemic that turns our desires into literal monstrosities (both malevolent and benevolent) sweeps Korea if not the rest of the world. A group of tenants are stranded in their building with danger lurking both inside and outside. As in every good zombie/similar story, it's all about human condition with monsters (of any kind) being the commentary on humans.Acting: Impeccable. From children to seniors, everyone did a bang on job. Deaths hurt us because characters are so engaging and earned our care. It's hard to praise individuals when everyone gave it all. Also, male eye candy ahoy: Song Kang, Lee Do-hyun, Lee Jin-wook and very special mention MASSIVE SPOILER DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU Hyun'soo's transformation into winged monster/angel of death sooo hot OMG! SPOILER END
Music: I honestly don't remember. Some death metal?
Rewatch Value: High or even Mandatory. There are many things that are worth revisiting especially episodes 7 - 10 and a scene that I strongly recommend pausing and watching frame by frame to understand the twist . MASSIVE SPOILER AHEAD DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU The very last scene reveals the true identity of the Goo Monster who posses dead bodies. That's the rich student who bullied Hyung-Soo in highschool. I noticed that some fans didn't get this and only figured out that Goo possessed Sang-Wook's body but not who Goo really is. To prove that Goo is the Bully, I paused the scene showing how Goo came to be (the experiment scene) and played it frame by frame. It's the same actor who played the Bully. They deliberately keep his face in the shadows, but when you pause and study frames you'll see it's his hair and face. Also, he is the only one who knows that Hyun Soo's full name is Cha Hyun Soo. No one in the building calls him by his family name Cha, only by his given name Hyun Soo. SPOILER ENDS
Overall: After a somewhat rocky introduction, the drama picks up the steam from episode 4 and gets better and better with 7 - 10 being exceptional. It's a rollercoaster ride that will leave you emotionally drained and annoyed that you have to wait for Season 2 after THAT cliffhanger.
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Less Emotional Connections To Make
The story was fine, actors are great, amazing setting of the whole show itself, manageable visual effects but something was off about the shallow characters for me. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't connect or even care for them! Maybe it was just me but because of this drawback, I wasn't able to appreciate the good in the drama! Had to discontinue.They did touch a few sensitive subjects, a few emotional scenarios but they didn't have that 'punch in the gut' kind of effect on me. Only because I felt no sort of attachment with the characters, not even the main leads.
And then there's the messy direction halfway in the show. I had to literally play back the scenes to understand what actually happened. Some really important moments were rushed into and really damaged the vibe of the show for me.
The ost was amazing but like the majority of viewers, I too felt that it didn't always match the ongoing scene.
Much more could have been done with the wide array of pretty convincing actors but both the direction and the story didn't use them well.
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Sweet Home lacks good direction, script and pacing. This is a slow and boring show.
If you want something new, Sweet Home is one of the TV shows that might entertain you. However, if you want something new with good pacing, direction, script and edits, watch All of Us Are Dead instead.Sweet Home is dry, the plot is stale, and it lacks character and depth. It feels as though the Characters are one dimension and that the show is not driven by plot. I'm not sure how others are able to seat through this and still give this show anything above 7/10. As much as I'm a fan of the Actors and Actresses of this show, the plot was simply boring. The saving grace of this show is the uniqueness, it's not every day you would see a Korean Drama with gore and monsters.
Sweet Home has a good concept but they could have executed this way better. I hope season 2 and 3 gets the engine started.
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So, Not gonna lie, this is actually a pretty good adaption. The thing I loved the most about it is casting choices and the CGI. The cast looks exactly like the ones in the webtoon and if they didn't, they made them look similar but great make-up and while the CGI was hated by a lot of people and I can see why, I still loved it becuase literally every monster looks just like it looked in the webtoon! The CGI isn't used to make the monsters look realistic, it's used to make them look how they were in the original webtoon and props to them cuz they really did well! They are supposed to be unrealistic and sometimes funny!
Another thing that is pretty good about it is that it stays true to the original content to some extent. Yes they have changed a few important things but they still followed the original work quite well. I've seen a LOT of adaptions of my favourite original work, be it a book, webtoon, manga etc etc and most of the adaptions disappointed me but this one didn't. The changes were forgivable in my opinion.
What I did not liked though is that some characters are definitely written and shown differently to the audience than the webtoon. The webtoon goes VERY deep into the psychology of it all and although the drama does that too but it's not as deep as the webtoon and more feels like a normal zombie apocalypse thingy.
Now let's talk about the acting, it was good enough but definitely not mind-blowing. I was expecting song Kang to give me those bad boy vibes who was done wrong by society but they showed him as innocent and a victim since the beginning which took away the fun and enjoyment of it all . Seeing him grow as a person. Although again they did show some of it but the sane depth wasn't there. Song Kang's acting again was good enough. Not bad at all but definitely not super impressive and honestly I feel that about everyone here.
It's actually a good drama if you dobt compare since it has good depth in characters with grear psychological insights but still not as awesome as the webtoon.
Background music was actually good for every situation they were but nothing memorable.
Rewatch value ? Watching the whole drama was re-watching the story for me so I'm definitely not gonna re-watch it lmao
Ok, so in conclusion, if you haven't read the webtoon and enjoy gory things with psychological elements then this is definitely for you!
If you have read the webtoon then you may not enjoy it much but it's still good.
Is it scary ? If you can't watch gory things then don't watch it. Other than that its good. It's not necessarily scary but definitely a lot of blood lmao
Enjoy watching! Thanks for reading my review!
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Walking Dead Wannabe Fails
The first time I tried watching season one, I gave up after 3 eps. because the fighting against the monsters started to appear futile. Now I'm astonished to find that it was continuing to be made into two more seasons. The story is just as pointless as ever, or even more so because it's no longer setting anything up. It's just one violent action scene after another.Season 2 looks like it's a combo of The Walking Dead, Happiness and _Generic_Monster_Movie__. All the characters are just surviving so that they can fill up another season.
I was watching it and fast-forwarding through all the scenes without Kim Moo-Yeol in it. He made the viewing bearable, but just barely. Finally gave up partway through episode 6 of season 3.
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SWEET HOME
I watched it all in few days. Each episode was so exciting that I had to look at the next one. The first thing I want to say is that this drama is probably not for everyone, but if you are into horrors, gore, blood and monsters you have to watch it!The story was really interesting. I like that despite it was something between action horror mostly for me, it has also psychological meaning in all this. I appreciate it in movies and series, because I'm looking for hidden meaning behind almost everything. The topic itself (humans VS monsters) is great, again we can see here, that sometimes (or every time?) humans are the biggest monsters of all monsters. Still some scenes were a bit confusing, I would like to know more informations about how it works with the transformation. Anyway it's not just basic story about surviving, but also finding hope in dark times and life, connection between people, sacrifice, love and more, which is good to realize especially now in covid. And not gonna lie there were scenes that got me into tears.
I mean the acting was amazing, each character had unique story and you can definitely see big character development here. Song Kang is one of my favorite actors and it was nice to see him in different role type. He played Hyun Soo just perfect in my opinion, innocent and creepy at the same time. I could relate to his feelings so much through the whole series. Not just him, but all roles were handled very well, even those two little kids.
About music yeah I agree with others, that they can add some more songs than Warriors by Imagine Dragons. This one song was repeated and played most, it became a little annoying, still I think it fits the theme so well. So I didn't mind so much.
I rarely rewatch series, but after some time or with someone, I wouldn't mind at all watch it again.
CONCLUSION: If you like this genre, just go for it. I would highly recommend it, for me it was one of the best series of this year probably. In the end, I just said to myself "wow I need a second season"!
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Quite Heavy.
When it comes to Kdramas I usually don't watch these types of genre and I seriously don't know what drew me to Sweet Home but I'm so glad I watched it. I do not read Webtoons so my review would be solely based on an avid drama watcher. I went into Sweet Home with no expectations and the content of the drama seriously surprised me. It provided the right amount of story to get viewers hooked, the acting was great and some of the characters are well written and relatable. The characters were complex and we got to see a different side of everyone thus character development. I love the story it told and the metaphors embedded, it portrayed an in-depth look on human nature and battle against human's obsessive desires.Some of the characters were completely useless and added nothing to the story. The sacrifices in the show are very questionable as they chose to sacrifice the brave ones all in all I guess I can say bold writing. In the first few episodes the CGI was at all not impressive and laughable at times but it got better as time went. The music at first was good and really added to the theme of the story but they kept repeating the same song which totally ruined some of the scenes for me. I believe for a genre of such they are several other songs that can go well. The drama has it flaws there are couple plot holes and some things could have been explained better but despite all that I was deeply satisfied.
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A Sad, Violent Bop
I don't often watch survival horror/thriller/action shows like Sweet Home but when I do I know I'll always come out of it kicking and screaming and Right I Was.I'd begun reading the webtoon of Sweet Home late last year but as it was ongoing at the time, I lost my reading momentum so I decided I'll wait for the webtoon to finish updating and then I'll just binge it. Unfortunately, I have the memory of a chimpanzee and never got back to finishing it so when I heard it was getting a drama adaptation, I told myself I'd finish the webtoon first—personal rule: consume OG material before adaptations—And Then I Didn't. So. Sweet Home was postponed indefinitely until I got my sh¡t together but then I found out Netflix had it dubbed in my native language, which is always a vibe, so I powered through it in a couple hours and well, was That an experience :D
Sweet Home replicated the foundation and basic premises of the webtoon but exercised some liberties with it including the addition of a new major character (unfortunately, at the expense of an original major character, who I personally love) and also altering the characterisation and relationship dynamics of the rest of the major cast (also unfortunately at the expense of the specific nuances of the original relationships of which I enjoy). However, removed from its original source, which is understandable, Sweet Home is a thoroughly fun watch on its own with impressive cinematography and suspenseful storytelling. Though I personally prefer most of the webtoon depictions, I found myself separately enjoying some of the new additions too.
Regardless of the changes, I thought that the storytelling, acting and cinematography still aligned very nicely to express the absolute devastation of the friendships and camaraderie formed between the characters (in the show) and with such poignance that I already know I will be reeling from the effects for days to come. I particularly enjoyed the use of small symbols/anecdotes to emphasise the nuances of these relationships (i.e. Jaeheon’s soju, Sangwook’s smoking) as well as the curt and simple but pensive conversations the characters have with one another—not enough to really picture the full story but definitely enough to feel the sentiments.
I, too, hold the opinion that the cast is an excellent match for their respective characters and I've genuinely enjoyed the whole cast’s immersive and emotive performances.
Sweet Home always struck me as a Thematic sort-of horror, reinforced by the webtoon's storytelling centered around an overall philosophical conundrum about people and being (humans, alive) and society, morals, etc etc., among other issues, rather than a Scary, Gory kind-of horror, so I'm more or less hand-wavy about the lack of, uh, scare factor(?). I think the fear lay more in one's investment towards the characters and their fates than the horror visual quality of the show.
[Also, it just struck me: “psychological thriller” could also be another genre you can chuck into the bunch]
Oh! One more thing: I loved the OST; I felt that the rock music theme made everything so fun and badass to watch, and while it does affect a less severe atmosphere compared to the webtoon, I found myself not minding the watered down narration (and characterisations) all that much, especially with consideration to the time limit in proportion to the extensively fleshed-out character development for every major character in canon—and also because the lack of a deep dive was compensated by the accelerated plot (not so much fast-paced but speedy enough). However, I do agree that it is a shame Hyeonsoo's character arc was significantly dialled down, especially since he is the main narrating character.
I'm also of the opinion that the CGI was impressive! Granted, I don't hold very strong attachments to visual effects, etc.; I think they're significant to the production quality, but I'm not too fussed about it in general, so I thought Sweet Home's CGI monsters was quite well done (it was HD—I have myopia so don’t quote me on that though—and it resembled the webtoon monsters, which was personally a delight so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
All in all, it was one hell of an emotional rollercoaster and I am, once again, a victim of crying migraines. Please do give it a watch if you're looking for a fun, gritty(ish), bloody survival horror/thriller/action/suspense/whatever with a (however watered down) character focus and a bop OST and cinematography. Forming attachments to the characters /will/ come back to bite you in the ass, viewer discretion advised.
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