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Anthojay
There's no fairytale love in this world
It's rarely a romance movie that can be low-key touching, yet without overdoing the cringey stuffs. The plot direction is unexpectedly brilliant and clean, it stands out as an alternate romance viewpoint and provided some great insights on modern relationships. As its literal title suggests, "Romance Without Love", there's no fairytale love story whatsoever, but rather how to survive the harsh reality of this society, and well maybe on its path, there's something that could eventually make individuals get along, in a catastrophic way.Was this review helpful to you?
No one will be able to make a difference
Screened as the closing film in 2022 Cannes, the director aims to expose the weakness of this gruesome capitalist system that strips off every little hope in the youths and basically makes them a robot everyday earning pennies. It all started from a forced internship program as a school curricular, exploitation on cheap labor yet doing demanding and unforgiving task. It's extremely sad to to watch it as we're all basically going through the same thing everyday, and no one will be able to make a difference as it is deemed as a reality for everyone to survive.Was this review helpful to you?
There should be ways to make things more fabulous
The whole drama looks like a hot trendy fashion piece with all the sheen and glimmer, but its context is hardly effective and that's a major disappointment for a Netflix originals. It clearly had every substance it needed to dive deeper into the fashion design industry backgrounds, yet the direction of its narrative is quite uneventful, not to say the fillers are a lot for just an eight episode drama. Even though the ending romance is surely an expected one, there should be ways to make things more fabulous given that the character design actually had plenty of potential in it.Was this review helpful to you?
The finest level of Korean cinema
No one would have expected another flight action movie that could give 'Emergency Declaration' a run for its money, and yet this one has done the impossible of Korean cinema which surpasses it in both technical aspects and even more so in its storytelling. The script is so well written and the plot design is having pin point accuracy, every single emotion is precisely placed, the political sentiment from both sides were also well resonated. Action sequences are terrifying enough and the final sequence is simply the best thing you could ever have in a Korean movie. The vintage setup is also visually stunning, everyone's acting is also ridiculously immersive, it is seriously a phenomenal Korean production at its finest level of commitment.Was this review helpful to you?
"No one's living a fairy-tale life in this world"
A drama that tells really good stories about all the broken souls of adolescent and the unleash of atrocity at young age. Humans could be born that way in their nature, or it could be induced by various societal issues, though the latter part of the drama highlighted more on the selfishness of irresponsible adults. The drama also poses serious questions on the judicial system and the effectiveness of the law and order in its juvenile act. This is why the drama works brilliantly as it reflects a highly detailed sad and torn reality beyond fixing.Was this review helpful to you?
Potential fully Unlocked
This is the most frightening and most tragic Korean crime thriller ever released since the movie "Midnight" that came out in 2021, but this villain is wielding a freaking smartphone as an invincible weapon instead of a traditional axe. First off the cinematography and soundtrack is really futuristic, almost like a high tech dystopian world which corrupts digitally. The main innovation of this movie will be its storyline, the headlining villain is skillfully designed as a tech mastermind, Im Siwan's performance here is absolutely mind boggling as he went berserk while hunting for his prey with technology. As if that wasn't insane enough, the ending reveals something much bigger that is ultimately mind blowing and everything turns into maximum monstrosity for every character in the movie.Was this review helpful to you?
Miraculously sugary and realistically acidic!
The movie started off really well with excitement that's addicting, and the pacing follows tightly as the focus of the story shifted chronologically. It may be using a more comical approach at the beginning, but the realism for the second half of the movie is extremely true to life and bizarre to watch. Then when everything's coming to an end, the ultimate reveal catches everyone off guard, by presenting a groundbreaking, mindblowing and earth-shattering closing sequence. The actors are simply superb!Was this review helpful to you?
All style without substances
Incredible cinematography and immersive foreshadowing with over the top sound effects. It boasts two timelines for the plot but weirdly the storytelling of the past timeline did so much better it made the main one felt like subplot, because when they were back to the main course it somehow loses traction quickly, not to mention the absolutely lack of logical reasoning and very murky motivation of the characters. The vision of designing a badass female villain and that deep trauma they're trying to achieve simply doesn't work here, it came out all style without substances, and this story really isn't drama worthy at all.Was this review helpful to you?
Extremely touching and tear-jerking
This movie is unexpectedly great in storytelling, the transition of the plot is so smooth near to a level of perfection, and it's a cute and heartwarming companion for this cold winter season. A lot of realization of life lessons has been implemented even though the story is simple, but this is exactly what makes it special, it is extremely touching and tear-jerking, which made me cried many many times in the theater. When money and fame is not everything in life, but the love and care in human bonding is what gives our life meaning, just couldn't help but to agree that this is what really is all about in the fulfillment of life.Was this review helpful to you?
Revolver with misfired bullets
An extremely classy looking loot revenge crime thriller that was made up of 100% pure melodrama without any action sequence. Despite its stylish appearance and full of dark conspiracy threats, the storyline never really takes off into anything worthy, it didn't had enough pressure or stakes to make it intimidating, and the side characters are mostly useless for the story. At the end the mission seems easily fulfilled without shock ending or huge fights, after all the extended buildups it turns out to just be an underdeveloped arthouse film that only feels like a revolver with misfired bullets.Was this review helpful to you?
The best competition kshow of all time
Definitely worth the hype for all it has to offer, an ultimate journey of food porn topped with extremely classy cinematography and fiery soundtrack all cooked in an unimaginable scale. The thrill and suspense of the matches are so flavorful, it is truly engaging to watch. This is really hands down the best competition kshow of all time, so well made and a huge feast well served for the eyes.Was this review helpful to you?
Gigantic suspense through skies and clouds
The scale of this movie is so gigantic you wouldn't be able to imagine how they were able to build a story development in such an impressive way. The suspense just keeps on rising like climbing through skies and clouds, accompanied by best of class soundtrack that heightens every stakes. The airborne action scenes are of course groundbreaking, but what's more surprising is the depth of its story is so powerful, it's equipped with a lot of factors on a global level, especially in the latter half of the movie it puts human principles into test, spanning across every possible behaviors when they're pushed to their limits. Given its constructive ending, even how ugly humanity is sometimes, they're suggesting a glimpse of hope that we all deserve during a catastrophic situation we faced everyday.Was this review helpful to you?
DOOM OUT OF SERVICE
The drama started with brilliant storytelling and superb setup ONLY for the first two pilot episodes, but after all of that the pace went straight down and struggle to get itself back on track again. It's actually surprisingly confusing how they were able to push great quality from the start but messed it up right away, like a real contender beaten up and dislocated back into its usual kdrama cliche again. Well at least their cinematography is sweet enough to be an eye candy with some added calmness as a bonus.Was this review helpful to you?
Home is no longer sweet
Extremely inconsistent tone for its episodes that led the storyline direction to nowhere. The action sequence in the first three episodes is absolutely impressive, it's cinematic and immersive but that's all about it. The episodes ahead are of really questionable decisions, the whole mood shifted out of sudden with a bunch of newly added characters that look detached and don't provide much to drive the storyline. Things got stagnant and the monster craze wore out pretty quickly, it felt like they were trying to reserve the bigger part for the next season, but hype dies down and home is no longer sweet.Was this review helpful to you?
Weirdly off tone
A cool premise that is supposed to be thought provoking but messed up so hard it doesn't know where it's heading to. They're trying a mystery blend of mystical and crime thrillers together but don't go along too well mainly due to its poor choice of plot design, and it also abruptly turn into some kind of odd detective drama with weak plot twists making the whole movie weirdly off tone, but at least cinematography is not bad.Was this review helpful to you?
