This show is actually a tutorial on how to squander potential.

Alchemy of Souls starts off massively intriguing with a sprawling new world being introduced to us, the production design is amazing, and the CGI is certainly good enough. Visually, great. All those soul-shifting concepts are brought in, as well as the factions, characters and many dynamics are introduced to us early on too, and it looks soooo interesting and full of potential.

But then… nothing much really happens. The show shifts to comedy slapstick and relegates most of that incredible lore to the background. There is intrigue (and political intrigue), but it doesn't really lead anywhere for most of the runtime. Characters have arcs… until they don't.

But the worst offender of this is, by far, the absolutely outrageous treatment of the female lead.

We are introduced to Naksu as being a badass (and a REAL badass at that, a rare sight!) assassin wanting revenge. Then we watch her go from strong female lead to meek pushover, and never recover. What a shame.

Now this isn't to say that this is an entirely negative experience, because it isn't. Let's list a few positives:

Amazing production design and cinematography
Compelling character setups
Interesting lore and world-building
Nice and colorful CGI
The action is actually good (when it happens)

So basically, great everything outside the main storyline and characters, which bring down the show a lot because… well, it's important!! The pacing was all over the place, oftentimes meandering without aim.

Somehow the best actor in this was the actress playing the queen. Amazing performance in the penultimate episode.

The male lead is the only character in this show with a fully-realized personal arc.

I read in an article that they were still writing and filming this as it was being broadcasted. It even got delayed mid-season because of that. Kdrama writers really need to stop writing as they go, and instead write the full story before filming begins (taking a page out of western shows and leaving room only for minor corrections). How can your story make sense if it's not even fully plotted? It's obvious here that many narrative threads were made up as they went along.

So, in all, I guess if you wanna watch a show only for the male characters, you might not care that the female ones are done dirty, and that's fine, you do you. But I don't. I was disappointed at the amazing potential this show had, only to… fail to live up to it, especially concerning the FL.

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Big step down

Everything went wrong with part 2, even the addition of the legendary Ha Ji-won can't salvage this.

It's a shame because it seems like the crew are really passionate about kdramas and it looks like a dream project of theirs, but so many problems crept in. The lead in season 2 becomes a charisma black hole for no reason, she's everything but likable in every way, big step down from season 1 where she was at least likable. Now she's just angsty and annoying and everyone acts like she's so cool and kind where she's the exact opposite. Massive lead actress issue here.

Many characters become caricatures of themselves as well, their best actor (Ha Ji-won) has got nothing interesting to do, the central romance falls flat, and while the story is mildly interesting, we're just jumping from place to place without much logic.

I feel like the introduction in the first episodes of vampires and weretigers to the story is pretty much the exact worse direction they could have taken the story at this point. Writers really need to look back at season 1 to see what worked, because this one just wasn't good.

And finally, the ending is awful and resolves nothing. Not recommended. If you do watch this, stop after part 1.

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Uneven but the earlier episodes are incredible

So if this was set in America she 100% would have been shot in the first episode at the police station. Roll credits!

Here is a simple fact about this series: Most if not all of the good and hilarious stuff happens in the early episodes! Comical, quirky, unpredictable, and with romantic undertones, right up my alley. Jun Ji-hyun is so adorable, it's her at her highest levels of cutesy buffoonery and dorkiness.

After a number of episodes though, her character loses a lot of agency and it just goes back to average quality.

Quite unfortunate as the writing quality plummets pretty hard in the last episodes, it's like nothing makes sense anymore. This really should have ended after around 14 episodes, not 20.

Would I recommend this show? Yes, at the very least the early episodes are a strong recommend from me. I will absolutely rewatch those at some point. The rest, not so sure. The highs are really high, but the lows are quite low. This show goes from like a 10/10 in the beginning to a 6/10 at best for me by the end.

The OST stood out to me as never being annoying but actually varied and great. Male lead Lee Min Ho was also refreshingly quite younger than his love interest.

So basically this confirms that even when she's thrown in a cheesy drama filled with redundant flashbacks that overstay their welcome, and writing that takes a nose dive in quality in the back half, Jun Ji-hyun really can do no wrong. We don't talk about Blood: the Last Vampire.

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Dark comedy (sprinkled with action) at its finest

Was this movie made for me or something?

It's a dark comedy, utterly cynical movie about 2 deadly jaded assassin girls—that look anything but—living a boring but strange life in-between jobs that culminates in an utterly awesome final fight the likes of which you rarely see due to a functional choice of choreography I very much approve of.
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Stunts - 80/100 | Everything contained in the paragraph above is why I loved this movie. The rest is gravy.

Narrative - 80/100 | If you think you wanna watch a movie where 2 bored assassins do literally nothing except an occasional murder (and waste time in-between), then you'll probably enjoy this. Otherwise, you'll probably dislike this. I enjoyed it because their lack of purpose in life was a sight to see and Mahiro was strangely captivating as a character. Also because of the recurring funny little gags with the objects falling out of place, I've always loved those kinds of small visual gags. I don't know, it came together nicely for me.

Fight Choreography - 90/100 | The final fight is choreographed to look real instead of looking choreographed, an odd contradiction that works when done properly. Action choreographer Kensuke Sonomura will be one to watch for sure.

Enjoyment - 90/100 | Needed more fights. Needed better sound mixing for the guns in the 3rd act. More of this please. Thank you.

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So I would give this series massive points… for effort.

A Disney+ superhero kdrama that's getting a lot of buzz right now. Alright, is it any good then?

It has some interesting ideas, and some pretty neat action beats, but it's disjointed. Too many characters. They try to give a complex backstory to each of them and so it becomes quite bloated due to that.
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Stunts - 70/100 | Like I said above, points for effort. I like that they were really trying here. A bit frustrating to watch the action in this because some of the action is really inspired, but other parts aren't. Lots of CGI. Some of it good, some of it bad.

Narrative - 61/100 | The first half of this show was great to be honest. Really interesting. In the second half though, it stumbles and loses its way by going in a sort of Anthology-lite direction and it loses all narrative momentum.

Fight Choreography - 75/100 | Earlier episodes that weren't so CGI-heavy were the best. Overall it's quite violent.

Enjoyment - 63/100 | You'd think all the episodes focusing on introducing various characters would culminate into something great when all the separate plot points merged, however it simply doesn't. The last episodes felt a bit cheap, forced, and nonsensical. Some individual episodes were great though, like the one focusing on the resilient dad played by Ryu Seung Ryong.

And the ones focusing on Han Hyo-joo, who is simply amazing in this. Same for Zo In-sung playing her husband. Their chemistry is off the charts.

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A letdown

Alchemy of Souls Season 2 suffers massively from bad, contrived writing and a ridiculously pathetic FL that was done dirty. Strangely enough, I don't think the actress switch is the main reason for this. Rather, it's the writing behind her character.

Naksu/Mu-deok/Bu-yeon is the most shamelessly shafted character I've ever seen. We are told—and I forget how many dozens of times we are told this—just how powerful her divine powers are and she does… pretty much nothing of significance! I can understand why Naksu doesn't want to become a warrior again, Jin Mu made her this way, so she rejects that part of herself and it's understandable. But the problem here is that it's actually Naksu's fierce nature that has been lost. Plus, all her powers, her agency, AND her personality have been taken away from her, leaving only a weak, empty shell behind. You don't need to fight with a sword to be a badass, but you certainly need to do… something! This new Naksu character is expressionless and featureless and is the complete opposite of the original Naksu, which makes zero sense as they're supposed to be the same person, amnesia or not. Mu-deok's playful and contentious character is also nowhere to be seen for some reason. In short, Naksu goes from hero… to zero.

The Queen was just baffling too: you can't make me believe that after 10 years of torture and torment she conveniently 'forgot' who was behind her misery, I just can't. Horrible writing. In fact, all the female characters in this show, and especially so this season, are horrendously written and exist only to either be subservient to the male characters, look pretty and be rescued, or just mope around and wait to be impregnated because… they're women I guess? Only men can accomplish anything in this fictional world it would seem, and women cower behind them at every opportunity, which is doubly ironic considering Alchemy of Souls was written by women. I know kdramas aren't exactly a bastion of gender equality, and I can generally tolerate it, but in 2023 this is just frankly embarrassing. Not even a single moment of any single one of those women standing up for themselves. Pathetic. Feels like this was written decades ago.

The male lead was quite nice though, I liked him. It's not his fault that this show is misogynistic crap, he really tried his hardest. He even attempted to propel his co-star to the forefront whenever the opportunity presented itself, to no avail due to the subpar writing. I liked how powerful he was and yet he remained relatable and fun to watch at all times, because he had depth to him. Definitely one redeeming quality of this show was the male lead, and he shines again here in the second season.

Also, the action was, again, well filmed and interesting. I liked the OST too.

There is an incredibly compelling and moving story about power, greed, all-conquering love, and taking control of your life beneath all this bloated nonsense, which is what is so frustrating to me. I wanted this to be good so much.

I'm actually hoping for a remake one day. It certainly would deserve one. This time around… let's not do Naksu dirty, shall we?

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Secondary leads tanked the show for me

This show is simple.

- When it's focusing on the leads, it's pretty good.
- When the secondary leads are on screen, which is way too often, it is absolutely miserable.

They are insufferable and their relationship is toxic. I think the secondary male lead played by Hwang Chan Sung (who isn't actually a bad actor from what I could see here, he was simply dealt poor material) is one of my least favorite characters of all-time simply due to how abusive he was and how much screen time was devoted to him. Horrible. So much angst! And we are somehow meant to root for him which makes it worse. Truly a crash course on "How Not To Write A Character".

And then, near the end, the show commits the worst sin of them all: gaslighting not just the characters, but the viewers, into thinking that something wrong was something right via emotional manipulation and bullshit retconning. Garbage writing.

Literally the only positive thing about this show is that the main romance worked well, for the most part.

Lastly, I think it's funny how Choi Soo-young is superstar-level pretty (she's actually in kpop group Girls Generation) and yet we're supposed to believe everybody's like "eh, she's kind of average"?

Ah but you see, nobody notices… except for the male lead, of course! Lmao

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A bit of a frustrating watch but it has a brilliant concept

So this is sometimes incredibly dumb. Outrageously so.

But it has a brilliant concept.

The biggest problem with this show is that the protagonist is… a fool. In the opening scenes, he loses all his money but it's his fault for investing in such an obvious scam. He loses his apartment because he lost all his money which was his fault. He loses his girlfriend for being literally too dumb to know and/or remember who her brother was after 7 (seven!!) years of dating. Who confuses the brother of their girlfriend with a potential lover after 7 years of relationship?

Only a fool.

Basically, we're meant to root for him because of the bad things happening to him, but he's not a down-on-his-luck guy, he's just an incredibly dense guy. Even when Death tells him how stuff works he catches on later than most would. She literally tells him that he is a dumbfuck. How are we supposed to root for him? Rofl.

Maybe it's just me who has a hard time rooting for idiots.

However, it's still entertaining to watch his progress, and he does have great character development.
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Stunts - 68/100

Narrative - 77/100 | It's a shame because this started out mostly great, like amazing even, the main character notwithstanding. What's most frustrating is that a majority of the glaring issues in this show are easy, minor fixes to the script. But they end up hurting the whole thing quite badly.

Fight Choreography - 68/100 | Decently brutal.

Enjoyment - 68/100 | I can see an alternate reality in which this show is a masterpiece and everybody (including me) would be raving about it. Sadly, it is not, at least to me. Too many lost opportunities. It was always at least mildly interesting though.

The school episode was particularly gripping. Leagues ahead of the others. Loved it, the student actor was amazing.

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South Korea's Charlie's Angels

Okay don’t go in expecting a masterpiece, this is basically South Korea’s Charlies’ Angels… if they had yo-yo’s and stressball grenades. And if it was set in the 19th century. And starring a real-life kpop diva.

But for what it’s worth, I enjoyed this. It’s cheesy as hell but when you have 3 charming girls like this kicking ass flying on wires and swinging metal yo-yo’s around the place while delivering heavy-handed dialogue, I’m in awe as to how exactly a movie like this got made.
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Stunts - 58/100 | Lots of cutting around to hide the CGI and stunts of average quality.

Narrative - 65/100 | Okay I may be getting a little generous on this one. But I didn’t mind the cheesy storyline so yeah. 65 it is. I liked the gender-reversed situation at play here, with the rescue operation.

Fight Choreography - 64/100 | They’re using yo-yo’s to seriously hurt people. And swinging around like Spider-Man.

Enjoyment - 74/100 | I think this movie establishes really well that the lead Ha Ji-won is incredibly photogenic, that much is certain.

It was an energetic and fun movie with lots of silly moments and a trio who are basically the three female musketeers and I liked it. The main theme, which starts every time the three girls get into a fight, is also exactly as corny as you would imagine from the poster.

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Fun concept

I like concept shows/movies like this. This one's hilariously and terribly awkward throughout. The leads were good, and also the main character's sister provided some great laughs.

I wish the male lead had a bit more spine. He has great values and is a great guy in general (a refreshing change from toxic male leads) but he comes out as a weakling, unfortunately. A bit more "punch" would have been welcomed.

Also, Han Ji-su is not really a nice person, I think. The real "catch" here is actually the main character's sister if you ask me (well, for anyone but the main character, obviously)! She shines through as early as the first episode.

If you're up for some light-hearted awkward slow-burn romance fun this does the job, but it does stall sometimes. I wish the show had shown a bit more the "celebrity life" part of Han Ji-su's life, it's like they went all-in for the first episode then promptly forgot all about that part. But that first episode is really, really good.

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Must watch for body swap fans, the rest not so much

Aside from the few episodes dealing with the body swap, which are amazing and hilarious by the way, this show is really nothing special once it goes back to painfully average melodramatic romantic comedy stuff you've seen countless times before.

But you've got a few episodes in there of Ha Ji-won playing an incredibly arrogant man in a woman's body and well, I don't regret checking it out. Also male lead Hyun Bin was excellent even though his character was a bit toxic.

Overall, it was kinda mediocre. You even had scenes changing colors midway through. That production quality!

Also a contender for worst action directing of all-time, the chase sequence in the first episode was truly nauseating (luckily it's about the only action sequence in the whole season so… not a big problem ultimately).

I think the most hilarious part was Ha Ji-Won being handed the script to Sector 7, a dreadful movie (in my opinion) she played in right after. But she looks cool in it wearing a tank-top, so I guess there's that.

Now I need to find more of this kind of stuff because I'd watch a whole show of just these body swap shenanigans. Any recommendations?

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Not very faithful to the manga, but great adaptation nonetheless

In a world where Squid Game is comfortably Netflix's most popular show of all-time by far, and everybody in the whole world has seen it or at least heard of it, it's a bit surprising that Liar Game hasn't caught up at least a little bit, especially since Squid Game's creator has openly said that Liar Game was a direct inspiration for it (along with Battle Royale, unsurprisingly).

Probably because it's a pain in the ass to find in the West?

Liar Game is basically like a reverse Squid Game. While the latter is filled to the brim with violence used for shock value, in this one, violence is… forbidden!

Where Squid Game is raw and almost animalistic, Liar Game is reflexive, psychological, methodical. Lots of characters thinking, staring. Lots of dialogue. Lots of double-crossing. Suspenseful music everywhere.

And, contrary to Squid Game, Liar Game actually spends a vast majority of its runtime during the actual games, not showing us weird filler for about half the runtime. I think they could have cut even more of the stuff outside of the games, like the Japanese adaptation did. Doesn't mean it's better though, more on that in reviews for the Japanese adaptation coming up soon-ish (still watching)

Anyway, I guess if these things are about anything, then both Liar Game (through greed) and Squid Game (through both greed and survival) aim to show the ugly side of human nature when faced with difficult choices under immense pressure.

Overall I'd say they are roughly the same quality, but I enjoyed this one more because it's thoughtful instead of shocking, and hella entertaining. Definitely one of the most purely entertaining Korean shows I've watched, even though it's not the best (that would be Kingdom... for now). Also the leads were more charismatic here.

The original manga is leagues ahead of both though. It's actually one of my favorite manga ever. Even nonreaders of the manga could tell where they are deviating… rule of thumb: when it's bad and not making any sense (so basically, mostly everything that happens outside of the LIAR GAME tournament), they're probably deviating!

Now, I'm not sure why they had to change some of the actual games, especially the very first one, that was entirely unnecessary and many of those changes (but not all) introduce some logic problems. And by the final episode they changed so much it was basically a shadow of its former self. But the rest was great!

This show promises two things by the name alone and gives them plenty: lies, and high stakes games.

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A step-down from the first but still good!

A step-down from the first despite all the elements that made the first one great still being present. Just hugely less interesting in general. Still good however.
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Stunts - 75/100

Narrative - 63/100 | I said the first one had no real narrative but this one goes one step further. The girls are mainly just talking and arguing, because this time they're forbidden from killing. So not much happens. So it ends up just being boring because we know they can't kill, which is what gave the first movie a delightfully unpredictable inclination. The duo of guys are also the worst assassins I've ever seen. At least a dozen times they had the perfect opportunity to kill and yet… didn't. They were mildly funny though.

Fight Choreography - 87/100 | There are longer fights, which is what I wished for after watching the first, but while they're still great, they're not quite as great.

Enjoyment - 66/100 | Gotta love the mascot fight and a couple visual gags, this is when this movie reminds us of why we're watching it. But the first one had a lot more of those moments.

I will watch the third installment when it comes out but will be readjusting my expectations. In any case it's gonna be worth it for the action alone. Like this one!

Main Fighters: Saori Izawa, Joey Iwanaga

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The secondary characters are the only reason you'd wanna watch this.

Between the batshit insane, unhinged female villain (the actress ruined her voice for weeks after shooting due to excessive screaming), the somewhat comic relief yet murderer husband, and other interesting side characters, there are a few decent servings to choose from.

It's a shame that the main leads aren't interesting though. They're not really the main draw and are rather boring.

Normally when the hysteria ramps up near the end of kdramas it bothers me but in this one it's quite funny because of ramped up dramatic irony. So it becomes a lot more watchable. It's a convoluted mess of betrayals and backstabbings and plotting and it's fun enough.

I would say this falls under the "Soft Revenge" genre. It's a revenge story but not that intense, and with a big focus on romance too. And the hijinks of some side characters.

What's with the insane product placement though? It's so funny with the characters saying uplifting marketing crap in-between two serious scenes. Comedy gold.

Yeah, not great, but certainly watchable and contrary to many kdramas, full of surprises until the very end. Song Ha-yoon is certainly the highlight.

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Had huge potential, is only decent

First episode was mostly boring. But then the plot got going and I got into it. So this showed lots of promise as it was always entertaining.

I generally dislike when the adult characters know each other from childhood, and sadly it is no different here. The weakest point of this drama.

The male lead had not much of an active role in the overall plot. Like maybe he could have helped in the shadows more.

The female lead reminds me a bit of Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation. Lovely, bubbly, almost a caricature, but fun to watch and to root for because beneath the goofy surface there is a genuine character. Until… there isn't.

This series, in its quest to subvert expectations, forgot that when characters have no dreams, no aspirations, no motivations, we cease to root for them. It's a mortal sin committed by this series. I recognize that it was all in the name of good writing, but it doesn't make for a great story. And it sadly is what happens to the main character played by Nana. She has no motivation whatsoever by the end (the show just… forgot about the reason why she entered the race in the first place: to get $50 000), and it never gets resolved. And it never gets replaced. She has literally no reason to do anything by the end except prop up other characters.

The lead character doesn't get her cake, and doesn't eat it either. Reverse uno! Except it's a terrible one. She got in as a public servant only to get an easy $50k, but then as the series progresses, she keeps working for no money because she believes in the work she's doing, instead of caring only about money. But then, she… gives up and leaves public office. With no plan. She didn't get her money either.

Because of this, what we get is a garbage ending amounting to a bunch of nothing where any and all side characters get a better ending than the freaking main character of the show.

The wasted potential here is huge as this could have genuinely been awesome in the hands of someone who didn't just promptly forget about the main character's motivations halfway through, because the writing was genuinely good for most of the episodes.

Oh well. There goes nothing. What's funny though is that it was still a decent watch.

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