Comedy thriller? yes!

Rarely can a writer successful combine comedy with mystery thriller. The genres simply don't mix well. Often, such titles suffer from Cerberus effect: they start funny, but when they turn serious halfway through, the entire setting built on comedic premises falls apart.

Fortunately, Behind Your Touch (should be touch your behind....) avoids this pitfall. While it does get more serious later, the genre transition is very fluid, and it never completely divorces itself from its comedic roots.
The funny first episodes help us bond with the characters and introduce us to the setting, so then when the serial killing starts we can actually care about people who are killed while never being quite certain who to trust and who might be the culprit.

And what a masterfully written mystery it is! Until the very final episodes, I wasn't certain who dunnit. Watching this with MDL on week by week basis was quite an experience. I pity people who will watch this drama after it already finished airing, they will miss on all the brainstorming and speculah that kept us going all this time!
But of course, they should still watch it. This is legit my favorite k-drama of 2023. I didn't expect much, in fact, I didn't even anticipate this title until it suddenly aired on netflix, and I was very, very pleasantly surprised.

For people who say that premise of touching butt to see memories is creepy: relax, it's not done in sexual way, and she does it through clothes and she just touches their buttcheeks without fingering deeper or whatever you people imagine. There is no sexual abuse or anything! Give it a chance and see for yourselves!

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Nonsense

+pretty cool fight scenes
+nice aesthetic that reminds me of mass effect
+interesting, tho surface level exploration of ideas like ai, human replacement and dystopia

-the antagonist behavior was nonsense. after he learned he's a robot, he had no motivation to fight the mc: in fact, he should have joined forces with them
-the ending was nonesense too. supposedly the planet is ruined by suddenly there are forests everywhere? and were is the robot supposed to go alone for spare parts?
-thematically, first the movie makes a point that robots are not the same beings as the humans whose brain was transferred. yet seo hyun goes out of her way to give robot "a chance to live for herself", what's the point, that's not her mother, her mother is in coma.
-several characters behave in erratic and idiotic way, makes you wonder if everyone except the mc is replaced by synthetics already. perhaps that was intentional, but it didn't make it any less annoying to watch.

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good thriller, unnecessary social commentary

smartphone bad, mkay?
except most people don't spend their entire lives on smartphones like female lead did. the worst thing that could happen to most of us would be leaking our bank account and losing our savings, and that's only if we're using a bank app on the phone.

But social commentary aside, the movie is pretty good. The direction and cinematography is amazing and the feel is what you'd expect of the dark thriller/horror. Tension is almost always high, the pace is fast, and the music and color palette is appropriately dark.

That being said, predicting what's gonna happen next got a bit easy at the end of the movie, and it's a bit of a letdown we didn't learn more about the killer: the guy was very charismatic and frankly speaking I rooted for him more than the detective or fl. Oh well, guess this leaves an option of making a headcanon that he's the mc of strangers from hell several years later or something.

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Wasted potential, annoying mc, preachy tone

The reviews and average ratings on this site are way too high. This show is a waste of great production values, direction, music, and amazing acting. The story just doesn't live up to whatever it tried to be or could have been.

The first couple of eps are amazing, and then it goes downhill. Forcing myself to watch final episodes was a chore.
Let's meet the characters:

Sim Eun Seok, also known as Judge Sim. Judge Judy it is not. She hates underaged criminals, and that's 99% of her personality. She doesn't need to eat or sleep, and almost never gets tired in her pursuit of totally not personally motivated revenge against all and any such offenders. In her self-righteous crusade, she doesn't hesitate to do illegal things like conducting her own investigations, trespassing, and even blackmail, because these vile criminals just need to be punished. In the end, she is always proven right and always has her way.

Cha Tae Joo, is an empathetic judge who disagrees with Sim's takes. What could be a great character who might serve as a rival or antagonist to her ways, is nothing more than a useless extra beta male. Seriously, he's a pussy. Every episode it's the same story: he disagrees with something Sim says or does on empathetic grounds, then she calls him an idiot and a dumbass and other insults, he just takes and eventually apologizes and agrees with her like a puppy. He is nothing more than her yes man, and his only purpose in the story is to do her chores.

Kang Won Jung is their boss. He's a veteran judge with anger issues. He has ambitions to get into politics, and now you should figure out how it's going to end. Until that point, his role in the story is lashing out at Sim, then being proven wrong by Sim, rinse and repeat.

Na Geun Hee, also known as judge Na, is also Sim's boss. She's cold and has no personality beyond that. Her idea is to close the juvenile cases as soon as possible because there are just too many of them. Eventually, just like Cha and Kang she agrees that Sim was right about everything and her ways were wrong.

Juvenile Criminals, although composed of various different characters, should be treated as a character on their own. Because they share a collective consciousness, a nearly identical psychological profile. They make funny psycho faces, laugh at inappropriate moments, have no remorse, and are utterly unredeemable. Just as judge Sim described them. Who would have thought that she'd be right after all?

The Victims. Just like the criminals, they are a copy pasta of the same person. Always innocent, always scarred for life, always crying and begging judge Sim to take revenge on the young criminals in their name. Which she does with vengeful satisfaction.


And that's the gist of the show. You can predict what's gonna happen every single episode, and if you sprinkle it with melodrama, you get Juvenile Justice: a mary sue's crusade to prove the author's ideology right.

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Gyeongseong cringer

So, what do you expect going into this title?

Do you expect a huge, godzilla like monster with giant tentacles capable of leveling Seoul...ah, my bad, Gyeongseong....to the ground?
Too bad, you won't get that. The creature is maybe 3 meter tall humanoid with retractable tentacles, it looks like a naked gorilla from afar and acts about the same.

Do you expect lotsa action scenes? You got quite a lot in the middle, but they are constantly broken up by long ass dialogs (even in the middle of shootout), over and over again. Made me scream in frustration at certain point. Guess talking is free action where one has this level of plot armor tho....

Oh yes, plot armor. Our heroes defeating Japanese soldiers dozens on 1 in melee. Literally dodging bullets. Recovering from almost every injury like it's nothing and one person even came back from the dead. There is no tension because you know they are gonna be fine. There is no point to waste viewers time with dozens of minutes of lengthy goodbyes because they will be back later during the same episode.

Do you expect japanese being total villains and a lot of broken japanese like in most historical k-dramas of the period? Do you expect to be told and shown that japanese have inferiority complex to koreans and everything they have is thanks to joseon? You're gonna get a lot of that!

Do you expect FL and ML to fall in love? You will have that too. But it's one of the most watered down romances I've seen. There is like no chemistry. The romance scenes in the middle of urgent events kill all sense of urgency. And FL can't act, her reaction to everything is staring with her mouth slightly open.

Do you expect, netflix production and all, a nonsensical open ending that maybe leaves place for s2 if the title gets popular enough? Granted, you'll have that!

So depending on what you like and what are your expectations, you can either love or hate this title. For me it's the latter, I had to force myself to finish, the final episodes were especially atrocious with deus ex machina and unnecessary scenes to pad the time. So, 4.5/10 for fairly good camera work, acting and occasional good plot points that were drowned in a sea of mediocrity and time wasting.

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Stupid but fun

Sigh, where do I start....

This is the dumbest zombie drama ever. It makes you wonder how tf did these people survive for so long with such subpar IQ. I guess the answer is looney tunes and plot armor, just like in this show.

-You know you're an extra if it takes 5 seconds for you to turn into zombie, while main characters start turning only when they noticed they were bitten, and then 10 minutes(I counted) of slow magical girl transformation sequence with melodramatic monologue and sad music.

-I wish they didn't show how incompetent police and military were. I mean, they have to be incompetent for what is baiscally an outbreak of rabies to spread at all, but fuck, I wish they left it up to our imagination. I mean, for example, the police kept using riot gear to fight zombies a whole 24 hours after the outbreak started, where they already knew what they are dealing with. They didn't use guns at all, they didn't even unlock their armory(yes, few eps later onjo's dad had to break into locked armory to get a gun....only to lose it without firing it even once not long after that)

-But special order of stupidity goes to cheongsan's mom, nothing can beat that, this cringe will haunt me for years to come

-First person was infected by zombie hamster. So cross species infection is possible, and infected hamsters attack humans. However, we never saw infected animals again, and it didn't seem human zombies hunted animals, either. Did the writers forget? Personally I'd be more worried about outbreak of zombie rats, or zombie ants than zombie humans.

-One moment a single zombie is a threat, the other the main characters take on multiple zombies at once, and wrestle them without problem. It's obvious that whenever someone gets bitten or not depends on plot armor and plot convenience alone

-The protags are dumb as a brick, but don't worry, they will have enough time for high school drama and teary good byes even when surrounded by zombies. the zombies just wait until the melodrama is over, like in ep11 when they waited for onjo

-Namra realized she's ignored by zombies, took her almost 2 episodes and 2 deaths to capitalize on it

-onjo was bitten by infected person in first episode, it was never brought up again, the writers forgot

-the zombies don't just bite anything. like in first episode, in that iconic poster scene in cafeteria where a zombie got on top of onjo to make it appear like he is threatening her sexually rather than carnivoriously. He could have bitten her in the leg, but no, he had to get on top of her and aim for her face. this happens over and over again. But no worries, zombies have no qualms biting extras in the ankles and turning them immediately

-My favorite trope, zombie-human hybrids, was executed quite well all things considered

-Bullied people both become villains, and they are portrayed as guilty of their own predicament when they refuse help in the beginning, then take revenge on those who didn't help them. Victim blaming, much?

-One of the few positive portrayals of fat people in Korean dramas. applause.

-These high schoolers are just build differently. They can survive two days without water without showing signs of dehydration and then just hydrate with raindrops. They also take quite an impossible beating, but always rise up without bruises or broken bones.

-The actors who played Nam-ra, Gwi-nam and the fat guy were good. The other young actors were not so good.

-The detective guy was a dumbass, should have went to military and tell them about magic laptop having all the answers rather than trying to be a hero and retrieve it himself

-A student gave birth herself in a toilet, and then just cleaned herself up and left without any further complications.

-God, the gore was good in this one. And the faus-teengers looked great in gore stained uniforms.

-The action scenes were exciting, and almost made me forget how stupid the plot is

-The military gave up on rescuing students out of fear of them being half-zombies, but then kept accepting other refugees from the infected city like it's nothing, and welcomed the said students with open arms when they came to the military themselves

-Everyone knew about zombies, called the infected zombies, and even mentioned "train to busan" by name. Yet, in episode 12 they still didn't figure out they neat to aim for the head. Except for the bully, he figured it out immediately and kept one-hit-killing zombies by stabbing them once in the neck with a knife with insane strength and precision.

-Teenage drama in the weirdest places

-The archery club wasn't redpileld about anything going on after they joined the main group, they must have been hella confused with gwinam, halfzombies and all of that, but just rolled with it.

-The scientist guy just stood up calmly after being bitten, but it was never addressed why it was so.

And so on, and so forth. I am tired.
The show is shit. But if you like guro and schoolgirls, you will like it.

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Trainwreck

After watching episode 18, I'm on the verge of dropping this shitshow. The last few episodes were just pure torment.

What started as a fairly light-hearted and occasionally funny parody of noir/action movies, turned into full-blown soap opera. But it just can't be enjoyed, not even ironically.

5 minutes of FL running into mc's embrace in slow motion, camera shooting from every possible angle. Then nothing happens.
5 minutes of FL waving goodbye to mc on airport, slow motion, camera from every angle possible. He comes back 5 minutes later.

Mc is in trouble at the end of episode, no matter how bad it is, don't worry. He will get out of it at the beginning of next episode in 11 minutes(like in the death of Noh newspaper guy) or 4 minutes(like when he was surrounded by interpol). I was counting time.

How did he survive being surrounded by interpol and aimed at from all sides with rifles? He just took out pistol and threatened them. They conceded and let him go.
How did he survive being framed by the police for crime he didn't commit? He just defeated a bunch of guys with firearms with martial arts. Then mercifully let the policemen go.
How did he survive being captured by Italian mafia, on his knees, with a gun pointed to his head? Suddenly a swarm of pigeons arrived and attacked the bad guys, then vincenzo got up and kicked their asses with martial arts.

In one episode he just went straight to the mansion of the bad guys, beat up like 20 security guys with his bare fists, killed a guy, and then threatened the bad guys not to tell the police about it else...! And they just listened. While making more and more ridiculous plans to take down Vincenzo, all of which failed of course. Mostly due to his plot armor.

In another episode, he set a bomb to public meeting, exploded a guy, and told all the VIPs which included a mayor and high ranking police officer to eat the deals they signed with Babel Industries, then let them out, threatening to kill them all if they tell the police about what happened in basically broad daylight. And they just listened.


Now then, based on all this you may think that Vincenzo is some kind of over the top fun time parody. But it isn't. All these scenes were supposed to be serious and emotional. But how can they be if the main characters have titanium plot armor, basically playing on cheats? You start feeling bad for the villains.

All the villains were well acted and well written. Which can't be said about gary stu Vincenzo with his botox-filled plastic face that can't show any emotions other than gentle smirk, and his worthless yes-(wo)man sidekick FL who might have as well been removed from the story 4 episodes in and nothing would have changed.

This show supposedly had 18million$ budget? Waste of money. Waste of good actors. Waste of good ost. And all because they couldn't look over the script and realize how utterly ridiculous and not in a good way all of this is. And maybe they should have hired some Italian teacher too, because the Italian in the show is just awful.

Also, the glorification of vigilante "justice" is sickening, he even kills his own subordinates if they did something wrong in the past, then cheers and has fun with his friends like it's nothing. But he won't kill himself, possibly because his plot armor bullet deflection field would prevent that.

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What was the point of this?

The point of this kinda special episode seemed to be fleshing out the character of newly introduced villain by the name of Ashin.
And it failed spectacularly at it.

Rather than giving her character depth, and making her into a multidimensional character, 90 minutes were wasted on just showing that she's cruel and insane and literally wants to destroy the world then kill herself.

But even that was done poorly.

If they took the "slow descent into insanity and despair" thing, and did it right, I could possibly like or even sympathize with Ashin even if I disagree with her endgame. But the movie failed to make me empathize or even care about her at all. Because instead of going the psychologically realistic route, the directors/writers/dunnowhoistoblame decided to go for cheap shock value instead.

Am I really supposed to believe that kid resurrected a whole village of dead people, including her family, then kept them chained as undead in a shack that no one found over all these years, while hunting, working, having sex, and otherwise living the life of huntress/spy in a castle-town as if nothing happened?
The entire twist of this movie seems to be "haha you thought she broke when she found her father but surprise she was always crazy". And somehow, with being crazy, came hypercompetency that allowed her to destroy not one, but two settlements without being stopped or interrupted by anyone. Because you know. Psychos are superhumans immune to stress or hardship, amirite?

No other character than her is relevant. The nameless commander seemed to have the most character depth or complexity in the movie, but it doesn't matter cause he was just an extra and will never appear again(for obvious reasons....).

What does it spell for kingdom season 3? Our heroes will have to face an utterly insane and one-dimensional villain who could have been so much more if the writers were more competent. I'd prefer even the bitch queen and her suicidal maids to that.

As for production values, they were quite good. The costumes, music, weapons, scenery etc. were good. The acting was good too(except for whoever played the young Ashin, her crying was bad). The CGI used for animals was pretty obvious tho, the animals in normal Kingdom looked more real, but here it seems even pigs were computer-generated.

That being said, tiger chase scene and Mongolian throat singing are few good things I'm gonna remember this movie for. Definitely won't rewatch it, there is no point. Just like there wasn't much point in producing this. The writers NEED to step up their game, I liked Kingdom and I hope they won't ruin it by writing such "villains" and "tragic stories" again.

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It tried

It tried to be artsy and unique. It also tried to have some kind of message.

It succeeded at the former, and failed at the latter as most people including myself have no idea what the drama wanted to say, and all the "interpretations" I read so far feel like a stretch or projection. Since it was adapted from webtoon chances are the author was just making shit up as they went.

Each episode tells a different a story focused on different character. This, combined with constant time skips makes it hard to get attached to anyone and doesn't really motivate to watch the next episodes.

Some observations:
-Iphones were only invented in 2007, android smartphones in 2008. I find it unlikely that people in 2008 would own modern style smartphones.
-Also, these kinda streamers/youtubers/influencers who get money for dancing live on streaming sites in real time and would chat with their audience or whatever wasn't a thing until 2010's. Was 2008 so long ago that people no longer remember was 2008 was actually like?
-Recovery after plastic surgery doesn't take so fast, and the timeline of her pregnancy is very sus too.
-Police and special forces not shooting as soon as armed person pointed a gun, instead giving warnings until she shot is not how police works. It's laughable.
-Unconscious person wakening up underwater, not drowning and shooting her gun there? likely story
-Shotguns have quite a lot of penetration so shielding another person with your own body gets you both killed

Other then all this nonesense, the acting was great (especially from Yeom Hyeran, what a talented actress) and occasional black comedy parts were genuinely funny. The cinematography and camerawork were amazing too.

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what story?

there is no story here, it feels like some weird slice of life that tries to pretend to be something more

ok, pros
+medical part well done
+inner hospital politics well done, at least according to my mother, who is a doctor
+the acting from Cho Seung Woo and his character, Gu Sung Hyo, was awesome
+some other actors did quite well too
+the soundtrack was sometimes great, sometimes too in your face, sometimes too absent, but overall did its job

cons
-no story, countless side plots that don't account to anything
-LDW and LKH both outside their element, their acting was off and unconvincing
-not to mention the story of both brothers was awfully cringe, stretched out, and felt like it came from a different drama
-awful romance for main lead, too
-no tension, the antagonist conglomerate can't even threaten anyone properly and the the main villain has charisma of angry chihuahua
-preachy and moralizing tone

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very good

I was rather skeptical before watching a movie from 2013 (my experience with older korean dramas has been so-so) and the title sounds cheesy as well(at least in english language). Fortunately, I was proven wrong.

This is a great thriller in vein of "The Call" and "Forgotten". Expect dark and gory scenes, complex psychology and lotsa plot twists. I think too many actually; the final plot twist was really not needed and came out of nowhere. This didn't really spoil the "journey" of getting there, but the ending could have been better.

There are also several plot holes, mostly related to FLs past and behaviors.
The acting also could have been better, while the performance of main characters was very good(especially Uhm Ki Joon, he's so different from his roles in later dramas here!), the side characters were overacted.

For these reasons, I can't rate this drama more than 8/10 overall. Which is still a very good rating and I recommend it.

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Good drama, bad portrayal of autism

The cinematography and acting are great. The stories are interesting, tho sometimes it tried too hard to make me feel and failed at it.

But the portrayal of autism is not so great. Geo-ru doesn't feel like a person, he feels like a mascot. He's utterly static in his character, doesn't develop at all through the story, other than getting over the death of his father. He can only talk in a totally robotic chanting voice 24/7(that's not how flat affect works), lightly bang his head against the wall when stressed(that's not how meltdowns look, they are usually more violent and dangerous for everyone involved) and keep talking about fishes when under pressure(special interests are just interests people on spectrum pursue with passion, they aren't tantrum-esque coping mechanism for real-life stress).

All the while he is unconditionally supported by just about everyone in the story, his father, his mother, his (not) gf, his uncle, the trash guy, his father's co-workers, the prosecutor lady, the people at the aquarium, the lawyer.....everyone is super patient and understanding to him, and is way too eager to run to his rescue if he is but in slightest danger of anything. Even his kidnapper was nice to him.
This idealized sugar sweet life is not what most people who are autistic live.

Examples of some situations that could have given him character development but where unexplored by the writers:

-When they go to clean up crime scene, Na-mu says she's scared. Geo-ru says the murder happened two weeks ago, and there is no one here, so there is no reason for her to be scared. Here Na-mu could have said something among the lines "Even though there is no reason, I am still afraid, don't invalidate my feelings" and then they could have discussed it. Geo-ru could have tried to understand that people can feel emotional states even if there is no logical basis for them, and learn something from it. Alas, Na-mu is his devoted 100% supporter, and didn't say anything.

-When Geo-ru sees some guys smoking in the toilet, he throws a tantrum and tells them its forbidden and threatens them and so on. In return, they bully him. Shortly afterwards, the uncles runs to his help, and everything ends up "fine". Except it doesn't. Here Geo-ru could have had a reflection, maybe reach some kind of epiphany, that not everyone follows or respects same rules as him. That maybe next time he shouldn't act like that towards strangers. But alas, he thinks nothing.

-In one of the flashbacks, his father tells him that the key to understanding other people is putting themselves in their own shoes. No shit, genius. But that's the thing with autism. People on spectrum can't do it, even if they try, even if they know in theory what they should do. When autistic person puts themselves in shoes of someone else, they overwrite the person in question with their own "self". In other words, "I wouldn't do it, so this person won't do it!", "I wouldn't believe it, so this person won't believe it!", "I wouldn't say it, so this person won't say it!". This is called impaired cognitive empathy and is one of the key characteristics of the autism spectrum disorder, one that causes most problems with social functioning in a neurotypical world where people take such skills for granted.
If Geo-ru was a well written autist, he would say something like "I try, but fail!". He would have argued against his father, instead of obediently nodding his head like a puppy and agreeing to everything, as if it solved anything.

There is also inconsistency with how his autism works. It works when the plot needs it, and shuts down when the plot doesn't focus on it. One example is Geo-ru getting a meltdown while driving, possibly from overstimulation. Autistic people are very sensitive to sounds and light, so it kinda makes sense why he is discouraged from doing it, and quite an achievement he even has a driving license in the first place. But in the last episode, he goes to a loud af underground MMA ring, straight into a huge croud of screaming people, flashing neons and squeezes his way through said crowd. Then proceeds to analyze the situation calmly and comes up with a solution to the challenge ahead. Excuse me, what?

In another example, Geo-ru fails at understanding people and reading the mood. Except for that one time when Sang-gu and social worker were arguing about the deceased couple, and Sang-gu says something insensitive. Awkward silence follows, and eventually Sang-gu leaves. Only then does Geo-ru resume conversation. How did Geo-ru notice that? It would be much more in character if he completely failed to read the mood, and kept talking about the job without noticing the tense exchange between the other two.

And how was his nonverbalism cured? At the age of ~6 or so, his parents took him to Aquarium, and he suddenly started talking fluently looking at fish, even tho he had never ever spoken before in his life. Excuse me, what? Never mind the neurological causes of nonverbal expression in autism, a person who never spoke before would not be able to speak so well on their first try. They'd need practice. Their vocal cords wouldn't be used to making sounds, and they'd have low control over pitch and volumne, among other things.

So yeah. Quite good, wholesome slice of life series. Not that sad tbh. And with not so great portrayal of ASD. For a better portrayal of this misunderstood and misrepresented disorder, I recommend Taiwanese drama Victim's Game.

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A silly movie that takes itself way too seriously

This movie did everything wrong. For example:

-Canons shoot at wall once, it's enough to crumble it. WRONG! It takes many days of bombarding a single section of wall to collapse it. The movie had such an opportunity to portray what it is like to be under constant bombardment, and didn't take it.
-A single breach is portrayed as a big deal. WRONG! A single breach is a bottleneck that's disastrous for the attacker more than the defender.
-No one is fighting or marching in any sort of formation, ever. Soldiers march in a loose group of rifles, crossbowmen, spearmen and swordsmen.
-Even when cavalry charges at them, the rifles stay at front, and at no point are replaced by pikemen/spearmen. Could it be that koreans were so stupid that they didn't know pike and shoot formations in 1630's? Is this what this movie is saying?
-Somehow, everyone hears the officer shouting orders in the middle of the battle.
-Armor is like paper.
-Most footsoldiers are armed with swords, not polearms.
-They send the blacksmith on a suicidal mission. Why the blacksmith? The movie also implies he was the only blacksmith the fortress had.
-Little is shown from the perspective of common soldiers. It's just constant back and forth between the king and his one-dimensional advisors. Also, very funny how the advisors can echo the words their representative said in unison. Did they practice for it?
-The movie shows from the very beginning that the plan to defend that fortress was always a VERY BAD IDEA. It's underlined at every possible moment, to the point it's silly. It makes everyone who decided to defend despite such overwhelming odds look like a suicidal imbecile.
-Thus, when they finally surrender, the scene of king sloooowly prostrating himself before the Khan is not sad nor tragic nor melodramatic. It's just silly. It was the obvious outcome. And if it wasn't supposed to be obvious, the movie made no effort in portraying that, we weren't given any clue, any number, any ray of hope that maybe the idea to defend wasn't so bad after all.
-At the end of the movie, the conservative proponent of defence says "things will change for the better only when we all pass, and king passes, and kingdom passes, and all old things pass away....". Yeee, just drop feudalism and install democracy already. That's totally what a noble in 17th-century korea would have said.

And probably more, but whatever. It's a bad movie, it lacks historical authenticity, and fails to makes us care about the conflict portrayed. You cheer for the antagonists, but probably because you don't see them enough to witness them doing dumb and illogical things like the main characters do.

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I once wandered aimlessly, on the dark night road.....

It is exactly what the synopsis says, but more. Go in blind.

Expect gory action, good cinematography and acting. But also surprising amount of psychological depth and many things left for interpretation.

How do people react to possibility of their own demise? Some cry, some laugh, some are calm, some chose death willingly, some fight to survive to the end.....people don't want to die, and faced with inevitable, they try to give their existence and demise some meaning. Knowing the reason why, or passing away thinking they did something good, trying to find inner peace.....Trying to secure salvation in the afterlife, or making sure they will leave a legacy in the mortal world.

In the end it's just various flavors of cope, because the end result is the same. But the movie doesn't judge which cope is better, it doesn't tell us the audience that "oh this death was pathetic" or "oh this death was awesome". The narrative is non-judgmental, perhaps it expects us the audience to do the judgement?

Also, on a less philosophical note, the mc prayed to Guan Yu, which for me as a european fan of three kingdoms is hilarious. I heard about cult of guan yu in china, but this is the first time I have actually seen it. Do you think if he prayed to Cao Cao or Lu Bu instead things would have ended up differently?

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Mr Bean finds some money...

Park Dong Ha is a loser.

He isn't a bad guy, he's just quite fucking stupid.

In fact, he is so stupid, his wife wants to divorce him because of that. On top of that, he "invested" money meant for the treatment of his terminally ill son to give a bribe in return for professorship, which terribly backfired, and he lost the former and didn't get the later. It's only a matter of time until his wife finds out and his life will get even worse(he might even get scolded or spanked, oh the horror!)....
Fortunately, fate smiled upon him. On the way back home, he found a car with two dead men inside and lotsa money. LOTSA.

So what does our genius of intellect do? He takes all of it. Then he dumps their car in a nearby woods, and buries the bodies next to his own house.
A perfect crime! What could go wrong? Oh wait, why is a phone ringing from under the ground...?

.....and thus the tragicomedy begins. Our genius of intellect is going to get involved in multiple plots and schemes, trying to navigate reality not unlike Mr. Bean trying to park a car, and providing a nice source of entertainment for us cynical people.

This is superposed with very chill western-like music, a pretty cool plot about inner mafia conflicts, and a corrupt cop investigation. As well as, uh, a rather tragic story of his "model" family kinda falling apart.
All these plots tie together rather nicely, and I am rather impressed by how the writer managed them all.

The style of the drama is noir. That is bleak colors, with lotsa smoking, people talking in hushed voices, and nihilistically soothing atmosphere.
Everyone's acting is on spot, especially Park Hee Soon's who once again plays a gangster(he was brilliant both in My Name and here!) and Park Ji Yeon whose asmr like voice is my new favorite in dramaland.

Overall hard recommend, just don't expect something like empowering story of an average guy climbing up mafia ranks or something. See it for what it is.

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