Time travel done right

This is not your ordinary K-drama.

I'll tell you what it's also not. The Atypical Family is not a tiresome rom-com that shambles zombie-like into a melodrama morass by episode 8. Instead it rather delicately shifts through various shades of crime caper and dark comedy with clever little twists before it hits the romance that it promises to be. It's self-aware and addresses obvious tropes with almost fourth-wall, existential humour. It manages to use time travel coherently and does not insult the viewer with unnecessary time gaps and pointless makjang.

The casting was very good at all levels and the actors delivered. I thought that the marriage fraud gang were the best of the bunch. Choi Kwang-rok was unrecognizable in a good way. Kim Su-hyun wore both the fat suit and the several iterations of her character with remarkable style. I did not find the leads truly exceptional but they were good enough and played off each other well. All of them were helped by the fact that the writers took good care of the characters and allowed them to develop their own stories so nobody was acting in a void.

The Atypical Family does many things very, very well. Above all, it does not outstay its welcome and doesn't try to scrape four more episodes off the cutting room floor.

This is what it feels like when a show's producers and writers respect their work and their audience. For that, this tough audience will rate it a solid 9/10 and will recommend it to pretty much anyone with time on their hands.

Read More

A little less than I hoped for

The production and the acting get full marks. The leads are at the top of their game but they don't have to carry the whole show since the rest of the cast are also pulling their weight. It's very competently directed and obviously not cheaply made. The music fits well and provides an excellent background for the emotionally intense scenes.

I don't expect every afterlife drama to be a "May I Help You?" but I was hoping for at least a "Mystic Pop-Up Bar." I did not get it here. I feel like the script was not ambitious enough and the plot got stretched too thinly towards the end. I feel that the makjang missed the spot as often as it hit it. And it suffers from one of my pet peeves, which is the leads constantly running off into danger alone *after* they find out that they're stronger together.

Midnight Studio is well made and bingeworthy but it's not exceptional. It's missing that certain je ne sais quoi of originality that would set it apart from the crowd. Still, you would not be wasting your time watching it.

Read More

Fluffy and thoughtful

Fluffy and thoughtful... and that is exactly how I like my J-dramas. It strays outside the romantic comedy box quite often but does not suffer for it.

I liked the casting and thought that the characters were well designed and very believable. Each was credibly played by their actor. There are no extras. Every character is permitted to have their independent story and say their personal piece.

I had not seen Hirose Alice in anything before and was a bit surprised to see that her background was in modelling and not the stage. She's much more than just a pretty face with a big grin and the directing made her look very good. Her performance was confident and her expressions were right on. Her motion and personality could fill the screen. As a lead she impressed me and I'll certainly watch her again.

If you like underdog stories, noona romances, or college ensembles I highly recommend this series.

Read More

A drama with no clear identity or purpose

The story was an indecisive plot about a bunch of high school friends being indecisive until, ten years after graduation, their pent-up emotions force them to half-heartedly act. I'm not sure what the message was. And, while I like the ensemble style, I am not persuaded that those five people really knew each other like inseparable high school buddies should so I felt that the backstory had some really thin spots.

I'd have been content if it had lived up to the potential of being a light drama about the healing power of love and baseball. Instead it spends too much time in slice-of-life melodrama territory before it decides to blindside us with random resolutions while leaving us hanging on the main plotlines until the last second. And I got a case of SLS for Miyabe-san. Whoever tried so hard to make her character look creepy and pathetic: You failed and I don't like you!

It was competently acted but I think the directors failed to use the leads' strengths as physical actors who can fill the screen with motion. All that static, tight cinematography did not let them show their best.

I wouldn't watch it again and can't say that I really recommend it. Even for fans of the leads you're not missing out if you skip it.

Read More

Mercifully short

This is a reject from the "I watched it so you don't have to department." It's "This is so bad you gotta see it" material.

The script lurches forward randomly trying to condense a bad 16-episode rom-com into 40 minutes of airtime. I could not figure out if there was a love triangle that tripped my gaydar or if it was straight up BL with some random chick thrown in to confuse things. Based on the last episode I think it's trying to be heterosexual.

The acting is only charitably described as such. "David Shin" has one acting credit. It should remain that way for all eternity. The other two were far from that bad but they won't be passing my auditions any time soon.

The music was taken from a tape of insurance company hold music that one of the producers probably stole from their day job.

Bottom line: I gave it one point for being mercifully short. You should absolutely watch it and prank your friends into watching it, too.

Read More

More than the sum of its parts

In the footsteps and in the spirit of the late filmmaker Chi Po-lin, A Thousand Goodnights weaves the story of a people into the story of a land. As expected and as required, the cinematography makes the island of Taiwan the true star and that is what you should really come to see.

Did you come for romance? While individual characters come close and their hearts meet, romance is not the point. The romance is with the land and with the notion of home. People love and live within that context. This is more about reconciliation, about healing both the land and the people.

The story begins with a travelogue that becomes more charming every episode. Each destination raises questions and the determination of the leads to answer all of them and find closure is beautifully portrayed. The way in which the characters grow together is natural and organic and reminds us that love does not need to have fireworks. I was not terribly fond of the Yilan arc from ep 14 to 18, which had much family melodrama, but the story recovers and I had no regrets about watching it in the end.

The casting was, as far as I can tell, careless and not done by expert hands. The acting was very uneven and by far the weakest part of the series. I only really loved Yao Ai-ning and Yang Jie-mei in their parts, and the old veteran Chen Bo-zheng was acting circles around the whole lot of them. I really, really did not even want to look at Lu Bei-an's character. My biggest problem, though, was that I could never bring myself to like the lead even though I liked the character's design. I don't like her looks, I don't like her acting, and something was so weird about her elocution that it sounded off even to someone like me who is not at all intimate with spoken Mandarin.

I don't usually make separate mention of the music but this one contained a rather interesting mix of both soaring and intimate documentary music with songs about romance and longing mixed in. Just when you think you're getting tired of the piano in the background it does something to make you forget that it's there.

I felt that this series was created by artists who wanted nothing more than to pay tribute to a master of the arts and to tell me what they love about their people and the country they live in. So yes, I'm scoring some of its individual components lower but in the end it's about how much I liked it and I am also rating the work for the vision and the heart that went into it.

Read More

Perhaps the greatest work of one of the greatest masters

I do understand that this work is on MDL more for completeness than for its fanbase, which is why it's rated lower than Divorce Attorney Shin. It should still be given the respect it deserves.

The basic plot of Ran is similar to King Lear: one ruler, three heirs, tragedy ensues. It's set in approximately 16th century Japan.

For me this is a film with no flaws. Kurosawa-sensei had a huge vision and a tremendous eye for detail.

The casting was perfect. The acting was inspired. The sets and costumes were nothing short of spectacular. The battle scenes were sweeping and raw. The intrigue was both credible and unbelievably well executed.

The truth is that I don't have enough superlatives to describe Ran. "Epic" doesn't even begin to cover it. But so many prominent critics have studied it that my opinion serves only to introduce viewers who may not know about it.

If nothing else, watching this film is an art history lesson. I first watched it as a teenager and it opened my eyes to what cinema as an art can do.

Read More

This belongs on your list of police dramas to watch

Cops and teamwork, always a winner, right? Pretty close in this case. The good cops are pretty damn pure and the dirty cops are as "Signal"-level filthy as can be. If that's how you like them, "Crash" is indeed a winner. The only thing that really detracts from the experience of watching it is Disney's 14 minutes of farkin' ads per episode.

The story is fairly standard but well put together. I liked the traffic setting, which placed the action outside and on the road a lot. The character writing is not wholly original but damn well made. It really has everything you expect from a Korean police drama. The pace is fast but the plot does not leave the characters behind. In fact the development of the storyline and that of the characters are unusually well balanced. If anything suffered, it was the car transmissions that were asked to do impossible things in reverse. I'll have to ding it a bit for wrapping lines up a bit too early and leaving the final episode hanging around like an awkward epilogue. But with everything else packed pretty tight into 11 episodes they did leave their options open to use it as a segue into a second run.

The casting was near perfect, heroes and villains alike, with one notable large fly in the milk. UNPOPULAR OPINION: Lee Min-ki still can't act his way out of a wet paper bag. This show was an opportunity to shine for many of the male actors as Heo-Seong-tae and Ha Seong-kwang were perfect fits for their roles. Hyo Ji-won and Kang Go-doong played one of the most perfect ever pairs of despicable, overprivileged little turds. On the other side, Kwak Seon-yeong looked like she was having the time of her life in her role. Overall (except for That One Guy who has no idea what "fun" looks like) everyone looked like they were having *fun* acting in this show.

I'll recommend "Crash" to anyone who digs a cop show where the good guys are Good, the bad guys are Bad, and the car chases are wild and absurd.

Read More

Meandering and light but not awful

It's a chameleon of a show. It begins with fart jokes and shocking truths. It morphs into a low-key romance. Eventually the light comedy dissipates in favour of a standard healing drama. The character interactions are good and the backstories are robust, but the situations are not terribly credible and the main relationship looks like more of a background story than a stand-out plotline.

On the cast and acting side I though that it was generally good but both leads were the weakest link. In a show that should have been filled with both laughter and vexation you'd look to the actors' eyes for the key expressions. These two looked like they'd just come off a botox treatment so neither joy nor mortification successfully crossed their faces. Apart from Joo Jong-hyuk, who did very well as the SML, I though that the best performances came from the people who were not seasoned drama actors, those characters being Director Yeon, I-na, and the kid.

Also on the upside, nobody gets stabbed. I find it weird that I have to mention it but that's the K-drama world for you.

Waste of time? No, not really even if I did not rate it highly myself. It's more in the line of "Love is for Suckers" than "My Lovely Liar" so you'll get some mileage out of it if you're looking for light viewing and light romance and are content with a 7/10 show.

Read More

Good enough but not as hot as the original

It's a show about honest realtors without qualifying who exactly they're talking about. Despite the fact that Nagase is now more honest than he was on the first season and remains the nominal "Honest Realtor," in reality he has been surpassed by his sidekick. I feel like Tsukishita is the real star of season 2. The character with the most heart and the caring personality is not only skilfully acted but has now been endowed with the grit and knowledge that she lacked in the original series.

I like that there is still zero romance surrounding Tsukishita. That lets her character grow without diversions and distractions. Nagase isn't so lucky. The weird relationship sideplot with Emamoto only got weirder. And the rest of the cast didn't improve. The whole Minerva cast was shallow and vindictive for reasons that still make no sense. I had hopes for Hanasawa-san but her progress was mixed. And Kamiki must have been rescued from the villain reject dumpster behind Disney studios. All of them are too easily let off the hook as far as I'm concerned.

I think that this show survives and thrives on the guest characters more than it does on the main ones. Until episode 9, that is. Episode 10 is a hot mess that pulls a multi-year project out of thin air for the real estate drama but mostly sets up annoying cliff hangers for a third season. Maybe in season 3 the Tokage character will find his place. So far he seems to exist for the sole purpose of making Millennials sound like boomers when they talk about Gen Z.

Season 2 is a step down from the original series but still stands up alright by itself. If you liked the original you should watch it.

Read More

The Com runs out long before the Rom

I thought I'd found something entertaining and amusing. Something that might actually be a rom com. I made it as far as episode 8 before I figured out that this script was going nowhere interesting and that I was not invested in any of the characters. Halfway through I thought I could make it work if I treated it as a farce so I tried to enjoy it as such. It devolved into a pointless, ordinary drama. This was not what I was promised. It was less about hijinks and more of a joke at the expense of my time.

Maybe I could have made it until the end but I really hated what they did to the FL. I liked Jeon Jong Seo a lot in the beginning. I love that she has that touch of RBF to make her look like a woman you'd regret messing with. But then her character went from hustling underdog to being hated by everyone as she was tossed around by a pair of rich kids. It doesn't matter whether their intentions are romantic or not. She comes out of it looking like some chaebol plaything from a past that we'd like to forget.

Dropped and pass.

Read More

A trip to the sperm bank

Let's call things by their name. This is not a romantic comedy. It's barely a romantic drama. The Netflix publicity poster that has three men following a woman like she's a bitch in heat is misleading. It's even less funny than that. There are no hijinks and no hilarious misunderstandings. The supporting cast is led by a mother who pays lip service to supporting her daughter while she channels every social prejudice.

It's nothing more or less than an infertility melodrama. If that's what you were looking for, stay. Otherwise I cannot recommend it.

There are three men involved. One man looks like he lives in eternal sorrow and puts on a happy mask. One man looks like he's having a sad, incestuous fantasy. And one child doesn't even know why he's part of the conversation as we watch another woman pursue him for most of the series. It's not even a love square with three men urgently looking to deposit their seed. It's a meat market with a selection of goods about as appetizing as a Soviet supermarket shelf. In the end she buys whatever's available on any shelf and it's half a pound of ersatz mortadella.

Jang Na-ra did her reputation no harm in this role. She was given little to work with and made it look like a lot. The male leads were given crappy stories and struggled to rise above them. Park Byung-eun demonstrated his uncanny skill for looking pathetic in a role that wasn't good enough for him. The supporting roles were generic and bereft of standouts.

As another reviewer correctly said, I felt catfished.

Read More

Queen of Tropes

Let's start by saying that I'm not a sworn enemy of tropes. Euripides and Shakespeare used them all the time to good effect in similarly dramatic works. QoT *almost* uses a million of them to good effect. The problem is that they wore out by episode 12. After that you have to get to the bottom of the barrel to keep the bad guys getting badder and the good guys, um, gooder. By the end, in which all just deserts are served and loose ends are tied up, the tropes are about as appetizing as a bar rag at 3 am.

As others have said this show is carried by the acting. The leads' performance is nothing short of spectacular. I can find no fault in the acting, production, or directing, all of which maximized the middling potential of the overambitious script that they were given. I've spent enough time on sets to recognize the brilliant work of the crew in scenery, lighting, outdoor settings, everything. And I couldn't get enough of Berlin.

This is not my usual style of show. I didn't even like CLOY. But it caught my attention. The only thing that held back QoT's binge potential for me was that it was emotionally INTENSE. I rarely watch anything twice but understand why others would want to do so. For all these reasons I rate it highly.

Read More

Largely pointless

Is this a political drama dressed as a rom com? A farce about adultery? A romantic drama about pachinko and politics? Maybe I could accept any of those answers but the truth is that this series has no identity or purpose.

I don't know if it went wrong with the casting or with the script first. In the end my problem was that two thirds of the way through the series I still had found not one likable character. Every single character was too self-absorbed and irresponsible to root for or even take interest in. I felt like I was looking at people aimlessly lying, cheating, or bullying their way through life. Was the funny part supposed to be the revelation that people can't keep it in their pants?

Perhaps the show is a great, cynical ode to the lack of self control but as a comedy it leaves me cold.

Read More