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Anthojay
Pretentious skin surrounded by modern pressure
Chun Woohee's performance is really captivating especially in this type of psychological thriller genre. She's able to pull in every little attention to details and carry the whole heavy ambience of the movie, just like her previous work in "Vertigo", but this time even a more formidable upgrade with a blend of spicy mystery and horror in it. The cinematic effect of it is extremely eerie and scary, which works quite effectively in some of the best mental scenes ever in a korean movie, because who knows exactly what we are underneath this pretentious skin surrounded by modern pressure.Was this review helpful to you?
The romantic equation that makes your heart flutters
Beautifully crafted warm melodrama with heart fluttering soundtrack, embraced by its soothing and mellow cinematography. The main driving plotline that upholds this drama is the brilliant education politics that triggers superbly tight tension between mind war, which has set up some of the very intriguing faceoff in the drama. Then there's the romantic equation, that makes you keep solving it until you find the answers, trembling yet excited as we moving closer towards it, as the solution uncovers.Was this review helpful to you?
Heartfelt progress throughout every episode
I guess many have underestimated this drama as just a shallow romantic drama, but somehow it has the ability to tap into modern relationship problems deeply, especially during the latter half of the drama where there are serious talks about the effects and consequences of engaging in a relationship. Consideration ranges from workplace, marriage, children, parents, and family, the story involved multilayered factors from several viewpoints. Well of course some may choose to refrain from going into this path, but for those who're already in it or soon, this drama has surprisingly given most of its insights with strong reference to reality. Actors were able to leave a great impression with excellent acting, plus the well built structure of the storyline including its meteorology material, it's been a long time since there's a rom-com that could achieve such heartfelt progress throughout every episode.Was this review helpful to you?
I just need to be me.
It's ironic how a society that runs with the model of money has already decided the starting line of every young students by their ancestors even before they become an "adult". Whether they thrive through as what they called as "success", or someone who is on the another end of the spectrum, that do not know why they were always in debt, the contrast has already been planted since young age. In order to have a taste in that power, one can either run relentlessly without knowing where to end, or those who eventually stops fighting over it already knowing what is best for them. The drama cleverly uses the magician as a neutral device to tap into what their beliefs are, and he questions the consequences of both directions in a musical and magical fashion. Just like how the magician always ask, do you believe in magic? Whether if it's real or fake, it really doesn't matter as long as you're comfortable with what you're believing in and when it's able to preserve the innocence we once had at the end of the day.Was this review helpful to you?
Not even close to Penthouse
A little over soapy rather than classy, nothing too special in its cinematography department, which is quite surprising given that it's a Netflix original, it somehow just look like drama that came out from the major tv stations. The pressure point and strategies they implemented won't make you scream as the script seems unimaginative, it sadly ended up with bland characters and largely repetitive dialogues that miss the mark. The whole production quality doesn't even come close to what Penthouse has to offer.Was this review helpful to you?
Excessive musical hinders the storyline
The integration of musical elements into a wartime storyline might be a fresh take, but it could also hurt the movie cinematic wise. There's a lot of singing in this movie, like really damn a lot, up till a point that it felt like dozens of music videos stitched together. Don't get me wrong, the musical in this movie is absolutely stellar, but most of the time it hinders the storyline too much, sacrificing its narrative and causing the story of a Korean independence fighter to be the most bare-bones version ever.Was this review helpful to you?
Stylish execution with high emotions
This is some really serious deal of gritty crime and cop noir thriller with a mix of religious and inheritance mystery on top of it. The cinematography is truly brilliant, it has some of the most perfect landscape shots and rural ambience in a kdrama, acting performance is also insanely good. The storyline is extremely complicated to perform but the execution is very clean. The best part is their ending is unbelievably immersive it runs on high emotions, the effect is absolutely intense and satisfying.Was this review helpful to you?
Like an extremely solid extended director's cut movie
This is how a proper monstrous drama should look like, an absolutely much better take compared to some of the Korean "monsterflix" lately that are mostly disappointing. The storyline has a lot of clever surprises along with characters that make hell lots of sense, character motivation is crystal clear even during highly complicated face-offs. The action sequences and graphics are so powerful it's totally top class cinema, the soundtrack plays an even bigger part in progressing the suspense, it's unbelievably well tuned to its fighting scenes. It just works like an extremely solid extended director's cut movie that seriously deserves to be shown on the big screen.Was this review helpful to you?
Lacking visuals and sound
Great explanatory on the time loop concept but that's due to it having access to the original material that this drama was based on. The cinematography itself is somewhat uneventful, even the sound design felt very lacking throughout the whole drama. Fortunately the quality acting performances by the main leads were able to make the scenes feel very believable and saved the drama from becoming a failure. At least the ending is still satisfying if you're able to follow the loop and make a sense out of it.Was this review helpful to you?
Bloody juicy cult film
An extreme cult film that serves a very specific midnight thriller genre. Even though it is so bloody juicy throughout the film with blood gushing out everywhere at anytime, those bloodshed are somehow bland and tasteless because of its absurd storyline that is hardly believable . When they put in gore in literally every scene, it just defeats the purpose of realistic violence and makes everything look cartoonish, but for anyone seeking a no brainer fun slaughter fest, this movie works as it is.Was this review helpful to you?
Human greed is the root cause of destruction
Based on true events, the legal battle in the movie against a company misconduct on a widely used household product is highly intriguing, which in real life has even caused fatality and permanent damage to its users over a decade. The narrative has really good pacing and well arranged details, it comes with a serious tone and even has a hint of espionage flavor in it that gives a pleasant surprise for viewers. In the end, it's all about the greed of human beings especially those who are at the top of the food chain, and those government officials neglecting their responsibilities, at last the ones who pay the price are common people like us.Was this review helpful to you?
Gigantic and visionary
Having the main lead changed was a very huge loss to the production, yet they were able to make up for it with some extravaganza stuff that is completely out of this world. An ulimate world building of complex systems with a full blown religious war that spans across the far stretched political spectrum. All the buildups that lead to the action sequences were perfectly executed in great cinematic techniques and how it plays out with the plot is just extremely clever. It is truly a visionary production for Netflix Korea, unbelievably intense from the start to finish without a break, a complete madness that will leave everyone speechless for sure.Was this review helpful to you?
Quite artistic
The horror setting is fairly good at the start, and surprisingly very serious story driven and glad that it's not relying on excessive jump scares to force cheap horrors. It also has one of the better cinematography for a Korean indie horror film, some dark scenes were shot beautifully and it's quite artistic, but the plot development is on the weaker side and messy arrangement makes the flow a little awkward. Luckily the backstory reveal looks pretty sick to give the curse a solid pass of validation.Was this review helpful to you?
Could be more impactful
An artistic sci-fi movie that ponders about existence and subconscious, cinematography is very delicate in making those futuristic scenes look ethereal. It has high level intelligence for its setting but the story it tells doesn't seem to have the scale to match that. There is no overwhelming cinematic climax due to limitations on the character design, but what it has to offer is the wholeheartedly affection of someone important in life. It's still a beautiful film that's excellent enough to be anticipated while the untapped potential remains to be explored.Was this review helpful to you?
The best modern political kdrama ever made
The whole production value is just too mindblowing, the depth of the storyline is incredibly insane and the level of scale is unimaginable, it's leaving you speechless over and over again literally after every plot twist. This will go down as the best modern political kdrama ever made in history and it's soaring past others by a very huge leap, almost monumental for any kdrama scene. The screenplay has extremely precise execution of political strategies and intelligence battles, every single threat design is carefully handled based on logical consideration that fits seamlessly into multiple environmental factors and connections, like a perfect art of war. Acting performances are needless to say, they're best in class and definitely the strongest hold of this drama, it's like watching real politicians strive against each other in reality, a total reflection of modern politics in today's world.Was this review helpful to you?
