... Because a drama educating adolescens on love and loneliness in high school, can't score higher.
7/10 is not a bad rating and I did not dislike this drama. Honestly it was very entertaining to watch and it was very well made. The actors did an incredible job despite being so young and I have great respect for them, since they pulled off the "Mature" tag without making it seem trashy or unrealistic.
Before watching this drama you should prepare for:
sexual scenes (Underwear, over the bra touching, covered up sex scenes, making out, and other mature content.)
A lot of inside dialogue
Lesbian love
High schoolers making countless mistakes and being generally butter brained.
The feels.
This drama will not make you cry but since it is a Jdrama, don't expect things to go the way you want them. This is basically a drama showing how people grow with time and experience. YOU WILL FEEL FRUSTRATION
It was very well made, so if you have nothing against the things listed above, I think you should take your time to watch this. It will be a nice memory and each episode is only about 23 minutes long. Nothing to lose and it will surely be an experience.
ENJOY!
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- A female character with very little personality, bravery and cowardice, intelligence and stupidity and the superpower of visualizing very faint sounds.
- A male lead who strongly respects the law but curses, threatens, yells and physically hurts people a lot.
- A "psychopath" murderer with a very superficial diagnose and very adventurous symptoms.
- Corrupt people with power and informative side characters with somewhat of a spark.
This drama contains a lot of blurred gore and insane deaths. There will be blood and what they claim are "smashed heads", a lot of fighting scenes, stabbing, shooting and punching. There is no romance, and chances of crying are low. Medium if you're sensitive.
Not very bingeable. I got tired of it easily when some episodes felt dragged out and predictable.
Some scenes were very powerful and dark and really made it hard for me to sleep. They had some very creepy elements and the director did a good job sparking discomfort in the viewer. I liked the concept that every episode had a new, smaller case, that lead the main characters closer to the person they were trying to catch. Although some scenes were very unrealistic and this drama contains a ton of mistakes, some cases were very exciting to watch and kept me at the edge of my seat.
I have to say though, this is not the best crime drama I've ever seen. Most of the time, I was annoyed with the characters, disappointed with the twists, and calling plot holes. I can't praise the actors too much either. The only person I think did an amazing job, would be Kim Jae wook. He played his role perfectly until the end.
If you want a daring crime drama without romance, but don't care too much about details. I guess this drama is for you.
ENJOY!!
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Because if you make the rules, you can break them!
So we all know that there are two kinds of logic in this world; Real world logic and Drama world logic.When it comes to Drama world logic, you just accept it and move on but if a drama contradicts it's own logic then I'm done!
There were so many reasons I dropped this drama.
It had so much potential to be an inspiring drama about the Hwarang boys struggling and dealing with their problem. Growing, making friends, they could even have added a death of a beloved character to tugg at our hearts a little bit and in that case, it would have been totally fine to add a bit of romance but NO.
This drama contains 90% triangle love drama, 6% recapping romantic moments. 3% fighting and 1% problem solving. Not to mention that the female lead is so pathetic, there wont be an episode where they don't show a 5-minute front angle of her walking and crying...
So because the writers based most of the characters off of a real life royal family and they used the true bone ranking system to create conflict, you'd think they couldn't go wrong.... until they add fictional characters and create relationships and events that never happened while still trying to follow some of the original story. There is nothing wrong with that but if you're going to add some spice, do it right! This just ended up giving the show a lot of contradiction, odd relationships and lose ends.
(Apparently, it's okay to marry your brother if you're royal but not if you're poor.)
To me, some "emotional scenes" turned me off completely. They had so many opportunities to really rip my heart apart by adding some real brutality and feeling into it. I have a specific scene in mind and I'm thinking that they could at least spend some time on this scene to make it believable... This scene got a little over 1 minute screen time... Go Ah Ra got 10 minutes screen time for walking and crying...
Oh well... If you love triangle love dramas with a lot of romance and crying and pushing and pulling and recaps after recaps of scenes that don't really move the story forward then this is PERFECT for you! Don't hesitate to watch it! As a bonus, you get a bit of plot on the side. It's weak... not very well worked out... not very logical... and it doesn't really start until episode 16.... BUT there is one heartbreaking death scene in the first episode so maybe I should give this show 10/10
ENJOY!
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We have the clumsy and naive high school female lead.
The arrogant and unpleasant but secretly thoughtful male lead.
The understanding and supportive best friend.
The male model variety squad and of course that girl who just ruins it for everyone.
Paying some extra respect to actor Kang Dong Ho for turning into a real high school girl the moment the director said action, made me question if the creators had really found a way to switch bodies. Park Ji Yeon also did a great job playing a man, but the young woman in her came out at times which kind of broke the spell for me.
Although being supporters, the other cast members did a great job in giving life to their characters as well. Considering that the males had to do quite some daring acting, they all seemed comfortable and natural while doing it.
Being of a lower budget and having a shorter than average run time, this drama did feel a bit unrealistic at times. Although the unrealistic depiction of a models life can be forgiven, I'm not sure the scene where the main leads switch their bodies back, can. This is a fiction but theres still such a thing as taking it too far which was a big mistake on the writers side. Therefore, this drama gets kind of a childish stamp.
So if you like cute and conservative romance and is comfortable or enjoy skinship and close interaction between good looking men, then you might like this drama. It's light and bingable and is the perfect medicine if you're having a bad day.
ENJOY!
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This review may contain spoilers
I wouldn't recommend this drama to anyone
The writers of this drama didn't do the least bit of research on anything. To not waste your time, here is a list of my opinions.CONCLUSION
- Occasional cool/funny/well made scenes.
- Good cinematography
- Meh music
- Meh dialogue
- More meh editing
- More meh characters
- Really bad writing
- No realism.
PROS.
- A handful of scenes were seriously funny, grotesquely gorgeous and surprisingly creative.
- Sometimes the music was very impactful.
- The cinematography was great.
CONS
- They wrote a drama about lawyers fighting corrupt bussiness men in Korea but there is only a total of ONE trial and nothing is done through the law. If Korea didn't have the obnoxious rule to call someone by their occupation rather than their name, I would've forgotten that this drama had lawyers in it at all.
- The writers did not do any trial research before hand so the trial scene is just a mess and a complete joke.
Characters speak however and whenever they want. Illegal evidence is accepted. Input from spectators are affecting the case, and it's not even done to make things seem corrupt, it's done to make the characters seem "Mafioso" and intelligent. Which it didn't.
- This is not a "clever" law drama.
The writers are trying to convince us that Vincenzo is a genius lawyer with a mafia related background who outsmarts his enemies but non of his plans are actually clever. He's basically just kidnapping people, torturing them for confessions and then spreading illegally acquired information to the police without ever being questioned or held accountable. No trials, no case, just plot holes and plot armour.
- The main villain is a diagnosed psychopath but has a more dramatic emotional range than myself.
Once again, the writers didn't research psychopathy so they wrote a character who is extremely emotionally driven and then called him a psychopath cause he murders people. Even though he murders people out of pleasure. (For those who don't know, psychopaths don't have the ability to feel most emotions and would never kill out of pleasure cause they can't feel it. They don't feel pleasure, attraction, enjoyment or fear of consequences, to name a few.)
- The characters are inconsistent or too consistent.
They seem intelligent at times but then they strugle with simpler problems. There is no character development. All the characters have about 1 personality trait each. Characters suddenly gain new talents to fit the plot sometimes.
- The comedy was misplaced too often.
Trying to lighten the mood or make things funny at the wrong time happened so frequently in this drama that the characters started to look dumb. Executions of important missions were looking sloppy and the characters were looking unreliable and out of character.
- Too many episode for their own good.
Giving Vincenzo 20 episodes was a mistake. The writers could barely make the series last 16 without repeating the same type of conflicts over and over again.
- Actions without consequence.
Ex: The big bad got shot in the ear. He has a tear in his ear lobe that looks like someone accidentally pulled his earring out and he didn't become deaf. Showing us once again that the writing team didn't even do research on what type of damage a bullet to the ear makes.
- Plot holes.
Lots of them. Sometimes very important details that I was curious to hear about were brushed over and never mentioned again
- Some of the editing is really bad.
Sometimes they miss the mark completely by placing events or scenes in a bad order. Like for example, revealing the big bad of the story and then having another unimportant scene take up the last 2 min of the episode before it ends. Killing the impact of the reveal and leaving a bad aftertaste.
- The music either changed multiple times during one scene or didnt match the scene at all, at times.
- Vincenzo speaking in a horrible Italian accent to prove he lived in Italy and the Big Bad constantly reminding us that he studied in America by mixing Korean and english in every episode was very cringy and got old really fast.
The ending scene of episode 19 is the dumbest thing I've seen in a long time. The beginning scene of episode 20 made me drop the drama.
If you want a similar but better drama I would recommend "Your Honour".
P.s Might continue to edit this review as I couldnt remember everything I wanted to write.
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.... because I have never experience frustration like this, ever before.
I don't even know where to start, to be honest.......
+ Positives
- Negatives
= Summary
~ I recommend this to...
Let's get this death over with
+++++++ POSITIVES +++++++++
+ The acting was good. I think the whole cast did a good job portraying their roles even though their characters weren't that well made to begin with.
+ The relationships between the characters are amazing. Some supporting characters had a beautiful romance bloom from innocent caring and that's a kind of purity you don't see often in modern day dramas.
+ There were definitely some funny moments in this drama that made me chuckle or smile or sometimes laugh out loud. The comments and the way the characters are interacting with each others, was at times, very entertaining and gave them a very special bond.
+ The story took turns that some other dramas avoid because of the great risk that the audience disapproves. In my opinion, risky moves like killing off characters or confusing the hearth is a good way to capture the audience and make them feel something.
----------------- NEGATIVES -------------------------
- All the characters have a character development except for the, dense, ignorant, clumsy, slow, innocent, annoying, female lead. She doesn't do anything except make things harder for everyone else in this drama and she was the one who needed the development the most. I think the writers got too stuck in victimizing here, there was no space left to make her human.
- The story does not follow it's original so this version has enough plot holes to make cheese with holes in it, feel ashamed of itself.
- The story builds up way too much into something that doesn't even climax. I was severely disappointed with the twists and obstacles that were constantly introduced. I have to admit that some twists were really sweet and really good but for the majority of the time it was dog noise.
- Some of the dialogue didn't make sense.
- The CG was worse than some, early 2000 Japanese horror films, I've seen
- The focus was in the wrong place most of the time. The way the creators proceeded the story made it seem like things were only happening to support their romance, instead of their romance being something that bloomed from the incidents. A bit like those high school movies where something completely illogical happens just to make the main couple share a room and create tension. This drama would have been a lot better if the romance was a part of the story and not the center of it.
- The romance in itself was a never ending tug-of-war which is the result of having it in the spotlight. When you want to focus on something but there isn't enough content, it ends up repeating itself.
okay, enough!
========== SUMMARY ============
For the most part, I was disappointed watching this. Even though it did really well with character interactions and relationships, not to mention the great chemistry provided by the actors, the writers failed at their most crucial points. The plot. Even though this is based on a novel, I think the writers took the opportunity to free style a bit, which was a huge mistake on their part. Their desire for wanting more than they could achieve, resulted in major plot holes and a lot of build up without climax.
~~~~~~~~~ I RECOMMEND THIS TO ~~~~~~~~~~~
People who like romance no matter the quality of the story. Even if this is more of a spicy romance with some action, tragedy and blood, the main focus here is love and it comes in all sorts of varieties. If you're easily scared; there will be some blood but this should not be considered a horror drama. If you've ever seen a bad horror movie and made it through, you'll be fine watching this.
ENJOY!!
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it contains your typical female lead who wants to befriends with everybody and never hates or gets mad at anyone. The two "handsome" boys (who, of course, are idol actors) fighting over the female lead. Jealous mean girls. Meat head bullies with a sad past. Crazy side characters. Class clichés. Accidents and intendidents. Cheesy romance stuff that will make you puke if you've lost your virginity and last but not least; limited skinship.
The romance here is safe for children of all ages and this is because the female lead was 14 and the male lead was 23 when they shot this drama. They share one kiss and then the skinship is limited to one hug every 8 episode.
The soundtrack was really annoying. They fit in like 4 different song in a minutes to set the mood which was a big mistake because it only gave me a headache. You don't always need a song to fit the mood. Silence is the strongest weapon.
Instead of having a strong plot and keeping to it for 12 - 16 episodes, this drama has the base line "Angel loves human" and then changes the plot from one common drama to another, to keep it interesting. In the beginning it reminded me of "You who came from the stars" and other fantasy/romance dramas. Then it changed into School 2015 and other friendship and bullying centered youth dramas. Stepping over to a lighter and slightly more psycho version of School 2013s bromance before it escalates to a very unusual Romeo and Juliet and then finally dies out in a typical fantasy/romance ending with a touch of amnesia.
ENJOY!
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- A lot of violence, blood and graphic, disturbing scenes. If you are a sensitive viewer, discretion is adviced.
- This movie does not have any romance or comedy in it. It is purely action
- It's slightly fast paced but it didn't bother me personally. The actors were amazing, the scripting was good and the effects and stunts were really well made.
- The story is heartbreaking, crazy, clever and corrupt.
- High chance of crying
- Over imaginative use of technology but I will let it slide for now.
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*House wife ready female lead
*Innocent and illogical male lead
*Sadistic brother
*Evil because of love cousin
*Love guru dog master, shop keeper
*No skin ship
*A lot of awkward scenes
*Innocence
*The attempt to a love triangle
*Misunderstandings
*Miscommunication
With a stern focus on romance, the main characters meet, fall in love at first sight then confess their feelings to begin a relationship, making this movie about the hardships of dating. These aren't really hardships as much as they are misunderstandings and miscommunication though, leading to some very unnecessary and dragged out conflict. With a few extra supporting characters thrown in there, to both wreck and fix their relationship, the journey continues, frustratingly.
In my opinion,
the characters had little to no personalities which prevented them from being relatable and the fast pace made their love seem so shallow that their feelings were hard to believe. The acting was a bit on the beginner side, which is very common in this type of genre but I can't say the script was of any help since the dialogue and the screen writing, over all, could have been better.
This type of relationship is actually pretty uncommon in Japan. The newer generations have become more daring and forward as well as less conservative when it comes to dating and skin ship which makes this movie feel a bit irrelevant and clueless about it's country's youth current stand point. This is actually a pretty big deal breaker for me, lowering the enjoyment quality by quite a bit.
BUT
If you like awkward romance movies with very little skin ship and miscommunication based misunderstandings but don't care much about characters personalities or developments then
ENJOY!!
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This review may contain spoilers
My overall rating of this movie is 2/10 and I'll explain why. Let's start with the story.
There is nothing wrong with it...
It's a pretty creative base to an alien action movie and if executed well it could have turned into "Movie of the year". It had a lot of potential but sadly this movie did not live up to it.
The Characters, (Beware of spoiler - ish comments!)
This is a war movie so obviously, people/monsters from both sides are going to die. But don't worry, you're not gonna feel sad watching them get brutally ripped apart because you're gonna have only a few seconds with each character. What happens is; They briefly tell you why they are criminals and then for the rest of the movie, you get to watch them die without knowing their full names, their background stories, their dreams, who their loved ones were or how they got into this mess in the first place. Out of 7 or 8 forgettable main characters (Can't be bothered to remember how many they were), you only get a half-butted background story for 2 of them. Not to mention that at the end they try to make you think they were best buds, even though some characters barely had any screen time together.
The Make-up and the CGI
Okay, so a lot of people gave this movie some really big thumbs up but as I understood it, all they could say was good about this movie, was the CGI...
I have to admit that the CGI was better than most Japanese action movies. It actually gave me some hope for the upcoming Live action adaptions of FMA and Joe's Bizarre adventures (Even though they picked Yamaken to play a macho man when he has a typical ikemen face...). The make- up was not too bad either. I don't know how to feel about people being half morphed into insects but they were very creative while trying to make it work and it looked pretty okay.
The music
No comments. Not memorable.
Actors.
I don't know what to say. All of a sudden Yamapi starts speaking English then a Japanese terrorist starts speaking random English, both for no reason at all... I guess the acting was okay, though. Not much to talk about since they did not get much screen time and the script was a mess. Well... The whole movie was a mess so if the actors couldn't show their best performance, it wasn't their fault.
To sum it all up
The story was good. It had a lot of potential but because everything was so rushed it couldn't live up to my expectations. Had they divided this one movie into 3 movies and added more detail it would have been more interesting. The characters were hollow so I could not emotionally connect with any of them and the actors did not have so much space to act so their general performance was bearable. The visual effects were better than expected but the music was not memorable at all.
In the end, it was barely entertaining enough to keep me watching so I give this movie an overall 2/10
I do not plan to watch any upcoming movies.
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...because it's fan service with a running time.
With experience in watching Kdramas and Jdramas, you learn when to expect a well made, deep plot and good acting, and you can quickly see when it's purely girly fan service. For those who did not figure it out yet; This is girly fan service.
Ways to spot this is for example the cheesy title that implies incest. The super pink and girly cover. The fact that it's a reverse harem. And lastly, it is based on a romance manga. This combination is how you know it's a low budget drama.
I can understand why it's low budget though because this is just a prequel to a movie coming up at the end of June.
Before watching this prequel or the movie i suggest you abandon you expectations of:
a plot, good acting, deep message, good soundtrack, good filming, good script or a red thread. It's just a cute girl in a reverse harem with a lot of ikemen playing 18 years old.
All my guilty pleasure friends.....
...ENJOY!!
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Five, twenty minute long episodes with super relaxed, funny and smooth characters being nerdy, bromantic and weird while they attend a cheesy high school where all the girls stalk handsome guys. Don't let that scare you away though, as cheesy as that sounds, those girls don't take up much of the screen. Instead they spent the running time on short stories of people falling in love and epic friendships.
Boys love is totally allowed
ENJOY
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...because there is never a good enough excuse for using amnesia more than once...
This is by far one of the worst dramas I have ever seen. Not because the plot is average but because the execution is laughable.
So who doesn't like a good Kdrama with some drama and a twist, but when every episode is nothing but drama and plot twists, you kind of lose the thread. You know... that red thread that keeps everything together? I'm still looking for it in this drama... it's not there!!
There were so many things that didn't make sense to me and I feel like the writers had no clue what direction they wanted the show to take so they just did EVERYTHING. If a decision was made, they would change it a few minutes later just to change it back again and then lastly go with the second thing after all. So much back and forth for no reason. so many twists on twists I thought I was going insane.
I should have dropped it on the first episode. You can really see how bad it is when they add completely useless scenes that have absolutely nothing to do with anything, without any dialogue or mood set.
There was no character development or growth, what so ever and I was always surprised by the new things they added to the show, when convenient, that would disappear just as fast or would turn out to be a big part of the story. Which is crazy cause they never left any clues or anything.
I have one good comment about this show: Nice soundtrack!
I have one question about this show (actually, I have a million questions but..) : How much of the budget went from writing to bottle tears?
and lastly.... This is impossible to binge so don't even try
ENJOY!!!
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- The perfect amount of romance where you can see the characters fall for each other a little bit in every episode. This is NOT a "from hate to love" type of romance which I found so refreshing.
- The characters were well developed and had really good back stories which will break our hearts and slowly glue them back together. With lovable personalities they showed great chemistry in all sorts of relationships.
- A lot of justice will be served. Regardless of the social status, Kang Ho will roast the damn out of every single person in the room and leave with a mic drop. Prepare to feel empowered and excited.
- The plot was very interesting and very original. It wasn't too predictable and kept me curious with a variety of different events and plot devices.
- There will be some violence and blood but not too much.
- Theres a medium chance of tears.
- Epic acting and Yoon Shi Yoon syndrome.
- With some solid points and clever questions, the writers highlight the flaws and corruption of news stations and law practitioners in Korea.
This is one of the best dramas I have ever seen and it's going into my "loved" list for a future re-watch. I can honestly say I feel empty now that it has ended and I will miss the impatient waiting for the next episode. I recommend that everyone tries to watch it and spread their love because this is a real candidate for best drama of the year.
ENJOY!!!
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......because she cried all the frikkin time....
The basic plot is kind of original but honestly super weird and it made me really uncomfortable but the execution lacked any originality. You will see the female lead who is kind of "unique" and cheerful with her two side kick best friends, the bad boy who needs friends and the broken male lead.
As usual with Japanese dramas or movies, when life gets tough, the female lead cries.... a lot... all the time.
The couple didn't have any chemistry so their on screen time was just really awkward while some scenes were just really uncalled for and didn't make sense at all.
I recommend this movie to Kamenashi Kazuya fan girls cause he is dressed as a cop. To everyone else I'd recommend you find ANY OTHER shoujo with a higher quality story and execution.
ENJOY!
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