Mostly boring and uneventful with few crack scenes that made me somehow finish it.

The plot is literally people “swimming” to the island after their boat flipped. Them talking and fearing a shark. That’s it. Sounds boring? It was.

Truly the best parts were the awful CGI and questionable editing and soundtrack. One song got me so confused I was sure my laptop broke, because it sounded as if some nasty ghost just kept stopping and playing the video. And then the english rap OVER dialogue. Who mutes dialogue to play the song and put the subs for said dialogue? And how they just clear cut the song and put on the dialogue sound halfway through the sentence… oof.

That said, putting aside the CGI, it was actually a decent looking movie - that’s it for the good parts. The characters were empty, both personality and brain wise.

Don’t watch it even if you have literally nothing else to watch.

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Karma is a b*tch, but I guess she is just.

Haunted Car
It’s more unnerving and uncomfortable than scary, especially with the close ups of the taxi driver’s face. It kind of tries to deliver a morality lesson and I would not even say they do a bad job, especially for a short story like this. It’s just a really basic one, nothing that will truly inspire you - we all heard it at least a few times in our lives.

Reborn
Really strong mystery/investigation ghost story. I like how the past is presented and the main character does a great job leading the story. It has an actually interesting plot with great performances and spooky atmosphere.

The Book of Truth
Probably the most complex plot wise, dealing with many elements that kind of fit nice together? Not gonna lie, I struggled to focus during the first half of this story, nothing truly grabbed my attention. It got better as they explained everything, but the not engaging beginning was a letdown.

Overall, all 3 stories dealt with topics of karma, afterlife, past life and all that spiritual stuff. All had more or less the same conclusion and message. Out of the 3, 2nd story - Reborn, was for sure the best.

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It’s hard to find a balance between too much and too little, and I feel like they sadly went too far into too little territory for the majority of the movie.

It had quite a strong first and last quarter, but the middle part left much to desire. It mostly felt draggy and confusing and not in the “I’m excited to see what will happen next and what it all means” type of way.

The lore is great, imaginative and presented in an interesting visual way, especially at the end. I just wish the storytelling was a little bit more tight. Suicide Forest Village did not create that tense atmosphere that would make me anticipate what’s to come. I was mostly passively watching, not exactly connecting to anything on screen, but not really being bored.

I think the biggest part in the downfall of the movie for me were the characters. If you have an interesting set of protagonists, even a slow paced film will be interesting. This bunch of young adults had little to offer in any aspect.

Without going into spoilers and being as vague as possible, I did enjoy quite a bit the design for everything that happened in the Suicide Forest Village.

Overall, not a bad movie and if you watched all the better titles, this is a good pick. but it’s not something you will remember after a month.

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This was… well, I cannot say fun, since I had to pause it quite a few times from getting annoyed, but interesting? I knew mosquitos' flying sound can be frustrating, but not this level of infuriating.

The movie might be short and does not really present any plot, but it’s a good watch nonetheless. It’s weirdly tense for a short about mosquitoes and for some strange reason, it works.

The main character might take some drastic measures by the end, but honest? Can’t blame him. I was moving away from the laptop and being close to muting the tab because of the sound.

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This is one of the weirdest love stories I have ever seen…

And this is not a compliment. But I also cannot truly say it’s a bad thing. There is so much wrong with this romance, I could not stop laughing when I finished the movie.

Alice: Boy From Wonderland is quite an experience. First 50 minutes are a true snoozefest. Everything is confusing, but not in a good and interesting way, but more of a “nothing holds my attention”. I became so indifferent to what was happening on screen it was actually hard to follow the plot, because I could not force myself to pay much attention.

Then around half way through stuff starts to happen, and slowly (AND I MEAN SLOWLY) we start to get some puzzle pieces to get the full picture. And then the whole explanation happened and my brain just gave up. Plow wise, I feel like the answer to the majority of the question, but characters’ motivation wise, I am painfully confused.

I’m honestly not sure how I am supposed to feel about romance. The more explanations I’ve got, the more confused I’ve got. Am I supposed to ship it? Can I do it? I finished the movie and went “What now? You cannot leave me with conflicting emotions like that”...

It also had some weird genre mix ups. Especially with the presentation of the female shaman. I was supposed to both treat her seriously, as she knew the key to fixing the mystery and the nightmares, but also she had quite a few comedic moments that did not fit the mood of the movie at all.

Performance wise - decent. Honestly speaking, probably the weakest performance I have seen from Jung So Min. Hong Jong Hyun is not exactly known to be a good actor so that sums up his performance.

Production wise, at times it felt like it was made out of stock content, edited on a free software. Especially during the opening scene.

Overall… Once you start it, you have to finish it. I don’t know if it’s worth the watch, but that ending and explanation of the plot needs to be seen and experienced in its whole confusing glory.

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This being the 5th Whispering Corridors movie I have seen, I can confidently say, the storytelling in this “franchise” does not work for me. It always feels disjointed and at times extremely confusing with random flashbacks.

A Blood Pledge also has the weakest plot and motivations of the characters. I always felt like some of the Whispering Corridors movies at least try to tackle some more serious issues, but here the focus was on a random girl feeling insecure about the most unimportant issue, while the other characters truly have to deal with serious life problems.

Sure, the plot might have been a way to show how privileged the other girl was, and how blinded by her lack of real life experience she was, but it never felt this way.

The acting was one of the weakest from all Whispering Corridors movies. I guess Oh Yeon Seo did the best job, but even she was barely passable.

Overall, I honestly finished it only so I can move on to the newest installment.

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While the twists were interesting, the idea behind the movie is not quite clear. Who was the true instigator of all the bad events? How did they even happen? How was the supernatural element present? There were many questions that I feel like got confusing answers.

While the story itself was quite interesting, presenting some twists I did not see coming at all, and making me question which characters are involved and who is the bad guy, I wished they gave us a little bit more detail.

It was a fun and interesting watch, the performances were good, characters; motivation was vague at best, ridiculous at worst. The overall reasoning of the events happening did not have that much reason in it.

Overall, I don’t regret watching, but it’s not exactly something I would go around recommending.

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Horror elements that ruined the movie.

This would be such a good thriller mystery, but the extremely cheap horror ruined it. Samara meets Sadako and the killing hair. The effects and the ghost design were so bad I honestly wanted to skip all their scenes.

That said, the story itself was quite compelling. The writer was able to form a close connection of the tragic story for the female lead and the main victim of the events from the past. The story had quite a few layers and the pacing of showing them one by one was rather well executed.

It’s for sure more of an investigation than a horror though. Majority of the movie is just the detective work and solving the murder cases happening.

Arang, by the end of the runtime, presents a good, unexpected twist (tho if it was that unexpected I am not sure, since I might have just not paid that much attention to figure out the plot for myself).

The acting was great - given for such a cast.

Overall, someone should make a cut version of this movie, removing all the cheap on budget Ring moments.

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Kingdom’s older brother with cheeky Hyun Bin.

Quite an enjoyable tale. One that you know the ending of from the beginning, but you still enjoy the journey itself. Nothing too deep, too complex - nothing that requires much brain power. Perfect for a fun evening.

Since I saw Kingdom first, this zombie in a historical setting did not feel as groundbreaking as it actually was. Giving credit where credit is due, even though I was personally spoiled with this fun mix of genres with Kingdom.

Except for that refreshing mix though, the movie does not really serve any innovative ideas. Stereotypical characters following the arcs we all are familiar with from other stories. It’s not exactly a bad thing - the movie is obviously made as an entertaining historical action flick and it delivers in that aspect perfectly.

The thing I had complicated feelings about was the villain and especially the moment that led to their downfall - it was both anticlimactic, leaving me with “that’s it?” feeling, but also surprisingly fitting based on how he was built from the start. Quite some time before the movie finishes we know, he won’t win - no matter what. Keeping him in the story was, from that moment, quite pointless.

I enjoyed most performances, but the one that caught my attention the most was Han Ji Eun - great emotional delivery, both when she was in the spotlight, but also during the action scenes, where she was more of a background.

While I don’t really remember the majority of the soundtrack, the instrumental that played during the big finale was amazing and perfectly fitting the scene and the great fighting choreographies.

Overall, I had fun. Could have been slightly shorter, could do with a better villain.

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Painful lack of direction and vision.

Here’s the thing - I actually enjoyed it quite a bit at the beginning, up till they introduced the last group of characters. And that last group completely ruined the experience for me. I just did not understand what this movie wanted to be.

It tried to be a fun action, survival, drama, dumb blockbuster… and it ended up being nothing truly worth watching. The emotional scenes were flat and unearned, the action was decent, but the car chase scenes were laughable with full CGI cars, one whole side plot was useless and brought exactly nothing to the story except getting my brain boil from the stupidity.

I truly wanted to like it. I waited long enough to be able to separate it from Train to Busan, and see it as a stand alone movie. Sadly, it’s an awful sequel, and mediocre at best stand alone.

The movie lacked focus - too many characters, too many groups with their own individual motivations, too many plots to make it a well written and presented story. The more they added, the worse it got.

Some scenery shots were beautiful, some had such a strong game quality because of the editing and CGI, it ruined the scenes. Even the zombies were worse than in the Train to Busan. One would think they would improve over the years… It’s not like the special effects industry got worse in the 4 years gap between the two titles.

The acting was good, but the characters were so boring and had close to zero personality, it was not exactly a hard job to deliver a decent performance. Kids did the best. Loved their scenes the most.

Overall, skippable. All the driving in the dark got me thinking I'm watching the Fast & Furious Zombie edition. The movie ended and I went - that’s it? It lacked the impact - be it action and entertainment or emotional delivery like the first movie had.

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Sometimes stalkers are cute ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Love Mate has a strong old school rom-com vibe, leaning into exaggerated set ups, and one either likes it or not. Both Haram and Lee Jun were the extremes in their behavior. The introduction of the characters made both seem rather unreasonable and unprofessional in the best and most entertaining way possible.

Lee Jun tried to use his workplace and project he was working on to vent his annoyance, anger and trauma related to love - not really caring if the project makes sense. Ha Ram went full on stalker mode, always taking 5 steps too far in how he was approaching Lee Jun. Both frustrating, but so entertaining if you accept the over exaggerated set up as a stylistic choice - this drama does not try to be a realistic and relatable slice of life.

The chemistry was one of the best aspects, especially after the initial clash dies down. I do think Lee Jun’s change of mindset came a bit out of nowhere, but at the same time, it’s not exactly completely unrealistic - some people make fast decisions and switch their behavior accordingly.

While I enjoyed laughing about the characters’ antics and push and pull dynamics, I wish the writer did a better job with presenting the conflicts. What we’ve got was one internal and one external conflict happening one after the other. What would work better (especially since these conflicts were actually connected) is making them happen at the same time. It would make the external conflict feel less rushed and the whole context the characters were in more complex.

The acting was mostly good. Loved Cho Hyun Min’s performance - really natural facial expressions. Random thought, but I also loved how he said 완전 twice in the show. At the same time, while Cho Han Gyeol did a better job in comparison to many other kbl actors, he did not stand out with his skills next to Hyun Min. Some emotional scenes felt flat and forced.

Production value was nice - nothing too outstanding, but also nothing so bad it would be distracting. There were a few scenes in which I liked the composition.

Overall, a fun drama, probably better as a binge watch.

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Low key uncomfortable.

When the dudes are flirting in some questionable moments and situations, it’s impossible to even care about the romance, which was sadly the biggest part of the plot.

I think the whole story lacks depth and details to create a more realistic picture of the events - it’s simply a juvenile presentation. There are no answers for the most basic questions the writer should ask themselves while writing a story. Did Kawin’s mom and her sister not contact each other for over a month before Kawin went to Thailand? How come they were not informed about what happened? Who paid the bills in the house? The set up was just ridiculous.

Then we have the issue of the romance, that made me feel a bit uncomfortable because a lot of the flirting and make out sessions had weird timing. Every time there was some romantic progression, all I could think about it - it’s not the right time for it.

The saddest part was the fact the family was actually the best part of the show and they were sidelined by the couple and their mediocre romance. What opened as a wholesome family comedy, became a weird mix of drama, slice of life and romance with cringey “spicy” scenes. Why?

If only good acting saved this show, but we did not even get that. During the wholesome daily and comedy bits everyone did great, but every attempt to deliver anything more emotional was flat and unconvincing. They just did not tap into whatever the characters were supposed to be going through.

The editing and directing was also a bit questionable. The progression between specific scenes was not smooth, and I had to check a few times if I played the right part of the right episode.

Overall, you can skip it.

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Philosophical flick with questionable details.

Jung_E is great as a starter for some interesting conversations, but it does not really dive too deep into the topics itself. What could have been a great movie that ends on a question mark, became a bit too mindless and random closer to the end, trying to give a “reasonable” ending that lacks reason.

What worked? It opened the door for many interesting topics to be explored and reflected on - what is free will, can you put a price on it, what makes us human. What I appreciated the most, even though it was not the focus part of the plot, was the conversation about human rights, and how much does it cost to have them - since, even though on less “dramatic” and smaller scale, it’s a sad reality we live in right now.

The acting - amazing. I wanted to hug Jung Yi, slap Sang Hoon and both hug and slap Seo Hyun. Kang Soo Yeon did an amazing job at showing all the strong, but concealed emotions the character felt. Kim Hyun Joo’s performance was simply raw and I loved every second of it - well, every second the character actually showed emotions.

Jung_E was also a visual feast. I am one to always complain about CGI, but here they truly ace it. The robots looked greeted, the CGI created environments were amazing, the blend of special and practical effects was perfect.

All the scenes that focused on the morality of the whole scenario were wonderful. Every time they focused more on the philosophical and psychological aspect of it - great, and I wish the movie kept that going till the end. But no, we need some brainless fighting scenes at the end, because they had to flex special effects. Last 20 minutes truly made so little sense the movie went from 9 to 7.5.

Then we have Kim Sang Hoon and how painfully underdeveloped and underused he was. This character had such a potential to present so much depth. The set up was perfect, the potential emotional reaction could have been great, the dilemma he could have felt. What did the writer do? Said “screw it and put it in the trash” as they delivered some of the most random development for this character, that they tried to justify with one line of dialogue…

I also wish they explored some of the rules a little bit more. They gave a few lines and hints how the world works, but I wanted more to make it more believable. Some small details just don’t make much sense to me, the longer I think about them.

That said, it was still a truly enjoyable watch. First hour I was just glued to the screen. I am a bit biased, because I love the topics concerning free will, ethics and morality. It was a rather slow paced, character focused story that tackled a few too many issues while also trying to entertain people with the unnecessary action.

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How did this movie happen?

This is literally the quality of writing we get from poorly done high school PSAs. The movie was confusing from start to finished, and not because of the complex plot, rather because of the unnatural, dumb decisions that characters were making.

I start with the good, because there was literally only one good thing about this movie - Lee Hak Joo’s acting A+, acting the role, 10/10 would recommend.

To the bad. Let’s start with the female lead. Even the most dumb person who always dies first in horror movies is smarter than her. And as much as I know Kang Ye Won is a lovely person, her acting here classifies as tragic. This was the worst performance I have seen in any Korean production.

Then we have the most ridiculous and random plot twists dropped left and right closer to the end, which made the movie even less realistic. I could barely take it seriously from the start, but this just made it a whole new level of clownery.

Overall, god bless Lee Hak Joo and his acting, but I would recommend everyone to stay away from this movie.

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Found family trope, but with real family…

Or rather reconnecting with your family while learning how to move forward - that’s what the drama is about.

To be honest, it was not easy for me to make up my mind about the show. Did I enjoy it? Yes. Was I excited to watch every episode? Not really. That’s the thing with a slice of life dramas - you either connect to the characters and enjoy the ride, or feel like a third wheel in a relationship. This time I felt more like a third wheel.

Here’s the thing though, the drama is good, really good. I guess it just was not for me. Kishibe Mitsuru felt like a plot device to motivate other characters and deliver some truly meaningful lines, while himself staying stagnant. I understand that it fits the theme, but I like my main characters to feel more like the main characters…

The aspect of the show I truly loved was the relationship between Akiba Koji, who also was my favorite character, and Akiba Harumi. The progression was shown in such a delicate and minimalistic way, but when comparing their interactions in first and last episodes, the progress is clear. One line here, one interaction there, but the end result made me cry.

Another thing I appreciated about the show was how mundane it was. Normal people with painfully normal issues and somehow it was refreshing. There is nothing worse than a show trying to seem relatable, but also adding stories 0.00001% of viewers could truly relate to. Here I could understand the struggles of all the characters, either because I faced them myself at some point of my life, or I saw people around me try to deal with similar situations.

The acting was obviously great. Ikuta Toma did a fantastic job with this role. He was truly subtle with some of the emotions, but they were still easily visible and understood.

Production wise, it’s kept in a rather simple style. Simplicity did fit this type of story rather well and both the writing and directing created a cohesive picture.

Overall, even though I did not fall in love with this drama, I would still recommend it. I can clearly see why people love it, and I’m a bit sad I was not able to connect to it as much as others did. It delivers some great life lessons supported by strong dialogues and moving lines.

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