hollynottheberry
This review may contain spoilers
If I have to fly to China to find out the true ending of this show I'll do it
After watching 'The Untamed,' this really was the next logical step in my pursuit for similar shows with similar themes of found family, moral ambiguity and fun characters.I'm happy to say I found what I was looking for in Word of Honor!
While 'the Untamed' generally seemed to lack in the female character department, Word of Honor does a bit of a better job writing female characters that are pivotal to the plot and not just cannon fodder or fuel for the male characters vengeance.
That being said... I'm pretty sure like all of them die anyway.
To be fair though I'm pretty sure nearly every major character in this 'dies' or is, at the very least, MIA.
Gu Xiang really is a favourite of mine just because she seems very unique to the genre as a character. We don't normally get 'fun' female characters. Especially in historical settings... But Gu Xiang is SO fun! She's a very capable young woman that can beat the hell out of anyone but is also very emotionally vulnerable due to the circumstances of her childhood and I think that's a nice change from the 'tough lady, no cry' or 'weak lady, yes cry' character tropes that seem to be prevalent in, well, every genre. I think her relationships with the other characters are great too because they all seem to adore her in different ways. Who can blame them really she's the best. She deserved so much better than getting murdered on her wedding day like HELLO. SIR. JUSTICE FOR GU XIANG 2021.
Not to mention the Romeo and Juliet thing the two main characters have going on with one another. Wen Kexing fakes his own death. Zhou Zishu chooses to avenge him but has to slowly kill himself in the process. Wen Kexing comes back to life and kills himself to save Zhou Zishu. I hate it here. Can the two of you pretty please stop trying to die for each other and just, I don't know, talk. Please.
Anyway, the ending for this show was awful. It didn't wrap up anything and from what I've heard it really wasn't supposed to be finished like this. I have to assume that's the case or I'll go insane. I'm considering reading the novel it's based on for my own mental health. That being said I loved it all the way up to episode 34. So that's why I gave it a good score.
Was this review helpful to you?
Squid Game Review
Squid Game is a good show. No surprise there. It was the talk of the town a few months ago but has basically died off by the time I’m writing this. Everything that I wanted to say about this show, I’m sure has been said before. I would, however, love to reiterate how good the final product turned out to be.There are a lot of ‘win or die’ death game stories out there. ‘Battle Royale’ and ‘The Hunger Games’ are two that come to mind. However, what makes Squid Game that much more interesting is the illusion of choice. The people playing this game are in debt to the extent that they are willing to take their chances dying over it. It’s a horrific statement on the effects of late-stage capitalism and how the rich regard the poor as nothing more than pawns in a game.
Ironically, a lot of rich people seemed to have missed the point entirely. Countless celebrities and influencers are dressing up in tracksuits and breaking dalgona as if they wouldn’t be the leering old men in masks sitting and watching if this were real life. A similar thing happened with the Korean film ‘Parasite’ a few years back but due to the increased popularity of Squid Game, it seems more prevalent now.
It really begs the question, ‘how out of touch do you really have to be to not understand that you are the problem?’
Was this review helpful to you?
