50FiftillidideeBrain
2D ▪︎ 3D ▪︎ A Stud in Any Dimension °6.7° °good°
Would love with an AI be real or artificial? Would it feel… hollow?
Like many shows about tech, MHL opens with a company's demonstration of its breakthrough technology. Go Yoo “Jin” is on the stage behind a glass panel, in front of the investors, discussing the latest developments with a man next to her. Jin dramatically reveals that the man who she's been talking to /is/ the latest tech. He's a hologram. The hi-tech glass panels are what enable the audience to see him. Even though next to him on the same side of the glass, Jin can see him because her spectacles are made of the same material.
Not even 10 minutes in we got an exciting car chase. An ominously black SUV follows Jin as she leaves the demo. Holo takes over operation of the self-driving car with precision maneuvering and eludes the threat, but Jin's safety is only temporary. The pursuers crash her vehicle, and Jin attempts to flee on foot. As they're closing in on her, she slips the glasses into the bag of a woman passing by, per Holo's direction. He had pre-screened the crowd and picked the woman out specifically. That's how we meet Yeon.
‘They're so interesting looking…’ When Yeon finds the exotic eyewear she tries them on (would most people do that? Don't think so…) A strange man appears in her bedroom! She freaks out. But he's gone. Hmmm. He was there when she was wearing the glasses. Plucking up the courage to try again she tentatively slides them on. There he is again! These glasses are cursed! Jin decides she'll toss them. The phone rings. It's him. Then he's appearing on her TV, yammering on about how he's an Ai and he's here to help her. She's going to have to give him a listen.
Listening is about all she can do. Jin is face blind. Every person she meets looks blurry. She can't make out facial details at all. When she was still in school and her classmates found out, they played cruel tricks on her. Now, she'll let people think she's ignoring them out of rudeness than admit the truth, so she is widely misunderstood. Holo can help her face the world with a smile and the ability to call out to everybody by name, because he can tell her who they are. He speaks directly into her ear. He doesn't have to tell her that her crush, Mr Yoon, is already taken, though. She and her glasses see that painfully enough in the alley next to the restaurant where the company dinner is taking place.
MHL is a 2020 release that is rated 85 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 12 60-minute episodes - it ends just in time and maintains its quality control. The backdrop is an ongoing police investigation as well as a hostile takeover by another company. Holo is based on an actual human being, Go Nan Do/NDo. Yoon Hyun Min (True to Love) plays him & Holo. I loved this actor in Tunnel-8.1. He looks completely different here. I think it's the hair. When he shows up, Yeon can't tell the difference between him and Holo as long as she doesn't try to touch him. There's a big difference, though. Holo is trying to /help/ her with her office crush, while NDo is prone to exclaiming things like: “Romantic love is one of the many lies perpetrated by mankind… The problem is that humans have always been flawed. Therefore the outcome is always failure.” He's better than a tank of laughing gas, that one.
Go Sung Hee (King Maker: The Change of Destiny, Gaus Electronics) is our FL, Han So ”Yeon”. She was perfectly cast. She is still gorgeous in her glasses and she has that brainy quality that makes her a good match for NDo. Yeon is spending lots of time with Holo. She talks to him about life, love, lying, and living. She's also undoing all of NDo's programming, too. What she doesn't know is that NDo is watching /everything/. He's using her as a beta tester. An UNPAID one!
Holo's #1 directive is to make his owner happy. There's an accident and it looks like Yeon is about to get electrocuted? Not if Holo causes a /citywide blackout/, she won't! The police get involved in this ‘hacker crime’. As Holo's developer, NDo almost hits the kill switch after that. He opts instead to move to the apartment next door to Yeon. This way, he can study what is going on with his life's work more closely.
Choi Yeo Jin (On the Way to the Airport, P1H: The Beginning of a New World) plays Go Yoo Jin, NDo's sister. She is adorable with her round freckled face and wavy hair. Her look is fresh and unique - she even has a TAN (gasp!). Kcountry is usually so pasty pale. I really liked her in this series. My current favorite actor, Lee Jung Eun (Oh My Ghost-10, Our Blues-8.5, Parasite-9, and dozens of other things) plays So Yeon's mother. She gets a crying scene late in the show. Ain't nobody better. Not in the wide world. Hwang Chan Sung (True to Love, What's Wrong with Secretary Kim-6.8) is Baek Chan Sung, Vice-president of Magic Mirror. Everything about him says "Debonaire” in MHL. In ep1, he seems perfectly charming. As the show goes on it starts appearing that he might not be such an angel. If he is a bad guy, I still don't want to believe it because there's something appealing about the actor. That's a pretty good skill. The directors are Lee Sang Yeob (Familiar Wife-8.5, Yumi's Cells, Shopping King Louie), & Yoon Jong Ho (Lovely Runner, Flower of Evil-8.9). Screenwriter Ryu Yong Jae of Parasyte: The Grey collaborated with writers Kim Hwan Chae & Choi Sung Joon on this project, Money Heist: Korea & Psychopath Diary.
Yeon falls for Holo - /she thinks/. She slowly starts to realize that a relationship minus physical contact is less-than fulfilling. In the meantime, NDO's past is a mystery and his motivations are even more perplexing. Is he obsessed with Holo or is it Yeon that has captivated his interest?
Despite its positives, MHL is too loosely put together to be a top-tier production. It's good, and I wouldn't call it a waste of time to watch it once, but techies and analytical types may not appreciate it much. Compared to the other Kdramas I've seen, it's middling. They should have done better building up the attraction between them and the romance, in general - especially on her end. It's not bad, but it could have been better. The romance does pick up alittle in ep11. Ep12 is very nice.
They should have done better building up the attraction between them and the romance, in general - especially on her end. It's not bad, but it could have been better. The romance does pick up alittle in ep11.
Everything and anything might get humanized in a film, from insects, to candlesticks. The constant attempts to humanize AI is borderline unsettling. I've heard we have a loneliness epidemic in the USA. Many people try to fill that loneliness with tech and that is sad. Tech is great as long as it doesn't get in the way of human relationships. To make connections with others we must escape the prison of ourselves, and tech promotes the opposite. It's always a matter of moderation. Then it becomes a matter of health.
There's sloppiness that's indicative of lazy writing. Ep10 is unpleasant and a tad cheesy. A guy gets beat up horribly in one scene, and then has no signs of injuries in the next scene, which is just a couple hours later on the timeline. The corporate espionage story seems overly outlandish, but I'll have to admit I know nothing about that stuff. The police come in with an arrest warrant and also move to destroy property on the spot, which would only happen in an arena saturated in corruption or authoritarianism. IRL, it would probably take years to get to the point where intellectual property is destroyed. We can allow for them to compress the timeline, I suppose. Real life is always crazier; it just seems that it would have taken minimal effort and insight to make the show better.
MHL has its moments, though. The music is good, particularly the song, You Are the Only One. They feature respectable action in several scenes. The contrast between machine nature and human nature provides limitless fodder for laughs. Yeon has trouble sleeping so Holo counts sheep for her. Nobody told him to stop so he soon gets to over 12,000. They missed more logic V emotions humor than they nailed, though.
MHL will appeal more to romance junkies than any other type of viewers. Anyone who requires logical explanations and a tight script will be subject to small frustrations. Even romance junkies won't get enormous satisfaction. They tried to plug into the romance and thriller genre but got their wires crossed, slightly. Still, it's operational.
〰IMHO〰
RATINGS
Directing 6.7
Writing 6.5
Acting 7.7
Romance 6
Flutters 5
Art 6
Sound & music 7
Ending 7.5
My personal EQ score - 4.5
LEVELS
Warmth 5
Action/ Excitement 5
Laughs 2.5
Tears 3
Fright 3
Tension/Anxiety 2.5
Gore 4
Thought provocation 4
Snores 1
Re-watch? This one's in the good-to-pass-the-time category, but I may never pass this way again….
Age 14+
PG-13 language, some.violence and alittle blood
Rated TV-14: Parents Strongly Cautioned.
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ I would say to watch these shows first:
Modern Day -
Crazy Love-7.8,
A Witch's Love 7.8,
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Her Private Life 8,
Touch your heart 8.2,
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
Oh My Ghost 10,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Love Struck in the City 7.3,
Be Melodramatic-8.7,
Hospital Playlist 9,
Misaeng-9.1,
My Liberation Diary-8.9,
Call It Love-8.4,
My Mister 9.5,
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9,
Mine-8
Action/Crime/Sci-fi -
K2 8,
Private Lives 8.1,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Sisyphus 8,
Why Her?-8,
When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Tunnel 8.5,
Signal 8.6,
Blood Free-8.5,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9
Romance junkies only -
My Secret Romance-7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks),
Boys Over Flowers-8 ~ melodrama to the max,
The Bride of Habaek-7,
Heirs-7.3,
Something in them Rain-9,
C: Well-Intended Love-7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine,
When I Fly Towards You-7.8,
Wait, My Youth-8.4,
A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5,
Find Yourself-8.9, Hidden Love-7.8
Like many shows about tech, MHL opens with a company's demonstration of its breakthrough technology. Go Yoo “Jin” is on the stage behind a glass panel, in front of the investors, discussing the latest developments with a man next to her. Jin dramatically reveals that the man who she's been talking to /is/ the latest tech. He's a hologram. The hi-tech glass panels are what enable the audience to see him. Even though next to him on the same side of the glass, Jin can see him because her spectacles are made of the same material.
Not even 10 minutes in we got an exciting car chase. An ominously black SUV follows Jin as she leaves the demo. Holo takes over operation of the self-driving car with precision maneuvering and eludes the threat, but Jin's safety is only temporary. The pursuers crash her vehicle, and Jin attempts to flee on foot. As they're closing in on her, she slips the glasses into the bag of a woman passing by, per Holo's direction. He had pre-screened the crowd and picked the woman out specifically. That's how we meet Yeon.
‘They're so interesting looking…’ When Yeon finds the exotic eyewear she tries them on (would most people do that? Don't think so…) A strange man appears in her bedroom! She freaks out. But he's gone. Hmmm. He was there when she was wearing the glasses. Plucking up the courage to try again she tentatively slides them on. There he is again! These glasses are cursed! Jin decides she'll toss them. The phone rings. It's him. Then he's appearing on her TV, yammering on about how he's an Ai and he's here to help her. She's going to have to give him a listen.
Listening is about all she can do. Jin is face blind. Every person she meets looks blurry. She can't make out facial details at all. When she was still in school and her classmates found out, they played cruel tricks on her. Now, she'll let people think she's ignoring them out of rudeness than admit the truth, so she is widely misunderstood. Holo can help her face the world with a smile and the ability to call out to everybody by name, because he can tell her who they are. He speaks directly into her ear. He doesn't have to tell her that her crush, Mr Yoon, is already taken, though. She and her glasses see that painfully enough in the alley next to the restaurant where the company dinner is taking place.
MHL is a 2020 release that is rated 85 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 12 60-minute episodes - it ends just in time and maintains its quality control. The backdrop is an ongoing police investigation as well as a hostile takeover by another company. Holo is based on an actual human being, Go Nan Do/NDo. Yoon Hyun Min (True to Love) plays him & Holo. I loved this actor in Tunnel-8.1. He looks completely different here. I think it's the hair. When he shows up, Yeon can't tell the difference between him and Holo as long as she doesn't try to touch him. There's a big difference, though. Holo is trying to /help/ her with her office crush, while NDo is prone to exclaiming things like: “Romantic love is one of the many lies perpetrated by mankind… The problem is that humans have always been flawed. Therefore the outcome is always failure.” He's better than a tank of laughing gas, that one.
Go Sung Hee (King Maker: The Change of Destiny, Gaus Electronics) is our FL, Han So ”Yeon”. She was perfectly cast. She is still gorgeous in her glasses and she has that brainy quality that makes her a good match for NDo. Yeon is spending lots of time with Holo. She talks to him about life, love, lying, and living. She's also undoing all of NDo's programming, too. What she doesn't know is that NDo is watching /everything/. He's using her as a beta tester. An UNPAID one!
Holo's #1 directive is to make his owner happy. There's an accident and it looks like Yeon is about to get electrocuted? Not if Holo causes a /citywide blackout/, she won't! The police get involved in this ‘hacker crime’. As Holo's developer, NDo almost hits the kill switch after that. He opts instead to move to the apartment next door to Yeon. This way, he can study what is going on with his life's work more closely.
Choi Yeo Jin (On the Way to the Airport, P1H: The Beginning of a New World) plays Go Yoo Jin, NDo's sister. She is adorable with her round freckled face and wavy hair. Her look is fresh and unique - she even has a TAN (gasp!). Kcountry is usually so pasty pale. I really liked her in this series. My current favorite actor, Lee Jung Eun (Oh My Ghost-10, Our Blues-8.5, Parasite-9, and dozens of other things) plays So Yeon's mother. She gets a crying scene late in the show. Ain't nobody better. Not in the wide world. Hwang Chan Sung (True to Love, What's Wrong with Secretary Kim-6.8) is Baek Chan Sung, Vice-president of Magic Mirror. Everything about him says "Debonaire” in MHL. In ep1, he seems perfectly charming. As the show goes on it starts appearing that he might not be such an angel. If he is a bad guy, I still don't want to believe it because there's something appealing about the actor. That's a pretty good skill. The directors are Lee Sang Yeob (Familiar Wife-8.5, Yumi's Cells, Shopping King Louie), & Yoon Jong Ho (Lovely Runner, Flower of Evil-8.9). Screenwriter Ryu Yong Jae of Parasyte: The Grey collaborated with writers Kim Hwan Chae & Choi Sung Joon on this project, Money Heist: Korea & Psychopath Diary.
Yeon falls for Holo - /she thinks/. She slowly starts to realize that a relationship minus physical contact is less-than fulfilling. In the meantime, NDO's past is a mystery and his motivations are even more perplexing. Is he obsessed with Holo or is it Yeon that has captivated his interest?
Despite its positives, MHL is too loosely put together to be a top-tier production. It's good, and I wouldn't call it a waste of time to watch it once, but techies and analytical types may not appreciate it much. Compared to the other Kdramas I've seen, it's middling. They should have done better building up the attraction between them and the romance, in general - especially on her end. It's not bad, but it could have been better. The romance does pick up alittle in ep11. Ep12 is very nice.
They should have done better building up the attraction between them and the romance, in general - especially on her end. It's not bad, but it could have been better. The romance does pick up alittle in ep11.
Everything and anything might get humanized in a film, from insects, to candlesticks. The constant attempts to humanize AI is borderline unsettling. I've heard we have a loneliness epidemic in the USA. Many people try to fill that loneliness with tech and that is sad. Tech is great as long as it doesn't get in the way of human relationships. To make connections with others we must escape the prison of ourselves, and tech promotes the opposite. It's always a matter of moderation. Then it becomes a matter of health.
There's sloppiness that's indicative of lazy writing. Ep10 is unpleasant and a tad cheesy. A guy gets beat up horribly in one scene, and then has no signs of injuries in the next scene, which is just a couple hours later on the timeline. The corporate espionage story seems overly outlandish, but I'll have to admit I know nothing about that stuff. The police come in with an arrest warrant and also move to destroy property on the spot, which would only happen in an arena saturated in corruption or authoritarianism. IRL, it would probably take years to get to the point where intellectual property is destroyed. We can allow for them to compress the timeline, I suppose. Real life is always crazier; it just seems that it would have taken minimal effort and insight to make the show better.
MHL has its moments, though. The music is good, particularly the song, You Are the Only One. They feature respectable action in several scenes. The contrast between machine nature and human nature provides limitless fodder for laughs. Yeon has trouble sleeping so Holo counts sheep for her. Nobody told him to stop so he soon gets to over 12,000. They missed more logic V emotions humor than they nailed, though.
MHL will appeal more to romance junkies than any other type of viewers. Anyone who requires logical explanations and a tight script will be subject to small frustrations. Even romance junkies won't get enormous satisfaction. They tried to plug into the romance and thriller genre but got their wires crossed, slightly. Still, it's operational.
〰IMHO〰
RATINGS
Directing 6.7
Writing 6.5
Acting 7.7
Romance 6
Flutters 5
Art 6
Sound & music 7
Ending 7.5
My personal EQ score - 4.5
LEVELS
Warmth 5
Action/ Excitement 5
Laughs 2.5
Tears 3
Fright 3
Tension/Anxiety 2.5
Gore 4
Thought provocation 4
Snores 1
Re-watch? This one's in the good-to-pass-the-time category, but I may never pass this way again….
Age 14+
PG-13 language, some.violence and alittle blood
Rated TV-14: Parents Strongly Cautioned.
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ I would say to watch these shows first:
Modern Day -
Crazy Love-7.8,
A Witch's Love 7.8,
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Her Private Life 8,
Touch your heart 8.2,
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
Oh My Ghost 10,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Love Struck in the City 7.3,
Be Melodramatic-8.7,
Hospital Playlist 9,
Misaeng-9.1,
My Liberation Diary-8.9,
Call It Love-8.4,
My Mister 9.5,
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9,
Mine-8
Action/Crime/Sci-fi -
K2 8,
Private Lives 8.1,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Sisyphus 8,
Why Her?-8,
When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Tunnel 8.5,
Signal 8.6,
Blood Free-8.5,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9
Romance junkies only -
My Secret Romance-7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks),
Boys Over Flowers-8 ~ melodrama to the max,
The Bride of Habaek-7,
Heirs-7.3,
Something in them Rain-9,
C: Well-Intended Love-7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine,
When I Fly Towards You-7.8,
Wait, My Youth-8.4,
A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5,
Find Yourself-8.9, Hidden Love-7.8
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