a mediocre watch at its best & painful at its worst

How this drama went from being a dark and violent action thriller with cases that would either make you furious or leave you heartbroken in season 1 to this lame attempt at the same plot is unfortunate!

Coming from someone who, when presented with anything that is centred around vigilante justice, will devour it up, this season was a huge miss and it physically hurts me to say this.
In season 1, you could connect to the deluxe taxi team members and understand where they were coming from- each one of them had been wronged and were carrying unresolved trauma from the past, they had stories to tell and justice to get.
Even the other cases depicted were often so raw and so brutal that it sometimes got overwhelming but then that was the essence of this drama. It made you question at times what exactly was the right thing to do.

This season however had none of that. It was considerably less violent and dark and the cases- that very much had the potential to be brutal and tug at your heart strings and make you feel something- were presented in a very lacklustre manner. And what were those punishments? did you see what that guy was doing to the kids? how does taking his wealth away do anything?

The major flaw was the weaker writing this time around. Our heroes for justice had it too easy throughout the show and the villain despite having a lot more power were always one step behind. It was caricature-ish at times which I think was intended with some over the top performances but yeah didn’t work for me.

More often than not I can take my brain out and set it aside for some mindless entertainment but for that I must love the main characters, unfortunately there was no chemistry among the team members - nothing,zilch- I felt nothing for them and couldn’t be more bothered about who got hurt or even which actor played whom except for maybe kim do gi (who doesn’t like a good looking man?) There was no character development whatsoever- could very well have had machines doing their jobs!At least one of them should have had an individual arc or maybe could have introduced a new character who they end up taking under their wing.

One of the bits that annoyed me was the comedy if you could call it that- the two car guys were essentially there for some slapstick comedy to lighten the mood but boy did it not work! I would often find myself cringe at their lame attempts.

They couldn’t even make me hate the bad guys. Embarrassed to say it out loud but I was so done with the good guys always getting their way that I found myself rooting for the villain- like please for once be smart and don’t do the dumbest and most predictable shit ever but I guess they didn’t think of me as someone powerful enough to listen to and well see whose loss it was!

Also, do these writers know that it is okay to maintain an aura of secrecy around a new character and not letting the audience know about their true intentions? Make us doubt if they actually are the bad guy for once! I am so done with those characters sticking out like a sore thumb while pretending to be normal and this is also both the actor’s and director’s fault. How about introducing a new character who doesn’t scream I am a foe for once?

The product placement was still very much in your face - someone please take notes from our one dollar lawyer- but the prosecutor not being a part of this show spared me from that stick balm thing to look refreshed.
Coming to that I missed her here, not that her character wasn’t pretty bland and annoying at times but her joining the deluxe taxi team was something to look forward to and I wish they had cast someone else for that role given the original actress had prior arrangements.

They left too much unresolved for the last 2 episodes. If you’re going for a redemption arch do it sooner and not squeeze it in the last episode.I really liked the cameo in the last episode, that woman has such great screen presence that she lit up the screen and I for once wasn’t tempted to shut down my laptop.

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Definitely worth watching

A small bit of a disclaimer: I am not someone who watches a lot of movies and if you narrow down the list of the movies I have watched to the ones that fall in the sci-fi genre you would hardly find any, so needless to say I am not the best person to write a review but I couldn’t help myself!

I absolutely loved it and didn’t mind the length at all ( if it was up-to me I would want to make it even longer,lol! just to have more scenes of the members of the Victory spaceship and that child! I would be lying if I say that I didn’t find those scenes very cute and wholesome). Given that I haven’t really watched any western sci-fi movies the plot wasn’t what I was expecting; I hadn’t prepared myself for the emotional aspect of the movie but I am not complaining. It was an emotional ride with just the right amount of thriller and comedic scenes at the right time, and thankfully they didn’t just show Koreans in the space! Also, I loved Song Joongki’s acting ( I may be biased here as I have been awaiting his return to the screen for a very long time) but those emotional scenes were executed well (and I guess there wasn’t any scene that required phenomenal / extraordinary facial expressions or sth so I cannot really praise( which I just did!) or criticise his acting skills)
Just go and watch it , you will surely not regret it until and unless you are one of those real movie critics!

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This, folks, is an attempt at a feel good underdogs story and it was…well an attempt!

this is something that you put on in the background and spare a glance or two at it hoping for things to get interesting while you do something less useless. Since, I sat through 40 episodes of this I feel the urge to write a review ( or just rant ).

The good parts:
- the production. some of the frames were absolutely beautiful and I loved the colours on the screen
- the main character and her acting……partly. She neither underperformed it nor did she go over the top, her performance was just right barring the scenes with our male lead. I fell in love with jiang hu at the start of the drama- it was refreshing to see a fl like her! fell out of love somewhere along the way too.
- the show had a rather strong start and the last episode was nice

Now onto what went wrong.

-I get that the writer wanted to go for the slice of life feels and something that seems more realistic when it comes to the story, the characters and the main relationship. Romance takes more of a backseat here and I don’t have an issue with that. the issue is that it was bland, the story was awfully bland. I am supposed to be invested in the company and the people and root for them but I couldn’t get myself to really care about anything….perhaps 40 episodes were a bit too much.

- the male lead. The character was poorly written with nothing likeable about him and was incredibly one dimensional. He is supposed to be charming but neither the acting nor the writing helps the case. There is mention of past trauma but it isn’t touched upon at all, just mentioned in the passing. The actor was terrible man.
I happened to watch dream garden recently and he was so much better in that. Gong Jun still isn’t out of his wen kexing era! he tries to be cheeky ( A LOT ) but it just doesn’t work like why are you smiling all the time? and he fails at being stoic, doesn’t have much of a screen presence AND those awful, ill-fitted suits. Gao Yi looked and felt more like a lead character.

- the chemistry. through out the run of the show there were grand total of 2 moments where I felt like they had something. My girl doesn’t even try oh my god for the majority of the scenes the character looks pained to be with the ml and there is NOTHING on her face that might suggest something akin to love or hell even just physical attraction.The character clearly has different priorities so I get the unwillingness but still at least put in some effort.

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You know how something is so bad that it becomes good? This is just that.

I will be patiently waiting for season 2 now because I found season 1 enjoyable enough which I know isn’t a popular opinion.
Coming to the storyline this isn’t something that we have not seen before. The writer seemed to have taken some inspiration from previously aired dramas; yes like many people pointed out it has some striking similarities with Bulgasal : immortal souls but I was never able to get into the latter because of poor acting and slow episodes.
This, however, I ended up binge watching. What kept me hooked in the first two episodes was the dynamic between the two leads, they were fun to watch, had good chemistry. There were some unexpected comedic moments. I must admit that the episodes became boring as it progressed with the last episode being the weakest
.
Acting wise I was skeptical of both Lee Da Hee and CEW, thought it would be a bad acting fest. I was pleasantly surprised with the former although there were some scenes that could have been better had she showed more emotions but she somehow didn’t stick up like a sore thumb so thats good. What I liked about the character perhaps was that she wasn’t exactly the typical damsel in distress: yes she was in trouble all the time but she wasn’t bland and the powerless sort. Also, God bless the outfit department, some of LDH’s outfits were atrocious.

That priest was pretty annoying at first-bad writing there. He shows up out of nowhere, sticks with his noona (that was so cringe) and believes he can protect her. He fights too well for a mere human, how is he more powerful than other priests? Didn’t understand the significance of his arc with his brother either- what was the point? However, I loved his scenes with Van. Those little animated reactions during their interactions were cute.

Kim Nam Gil didn’t have much to work with, he was our wounded hero and knight in shining armor. Wanted to see some of his acting prowess- hopefully, in season 2.

I don’t know what briefing the vfx team had gotten though. If they were expecting to make those lust demons scary they failed terribly at it. Also, some of the action scenes just fell flat because of poor vfx and weren’t really choreographed well.

There haven’t been any positives in this review uptil now so you may ask why would I be watching the next season if there were so many flaws. The answer is pretty simple: I would like to watch the leads together and the potential angst that will follow. You know how something is so bad that it becomes good? This is just that.
A mediocre season that became a guilty pleasure.

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