I honestly feel bad about rating it so low, since it had quite a few enjoyable elements and the first half was exactly what I always look for in Tomb dramas, but there were a few too many flaws that I just cannot ignore.

Starting from the things I liked.
Iron Triangle as one of the best trios ever created. A typical case of characters representing a heart, body and brain, but it never felt limiting in how they were interacting with each other. All of their scenes together were easily the best in the whole show.

Likable female characters with their own goals and ideas. We all know how limited in that aspect are Tomb dramas. Here we got a variety of women with unique personalities and perspectives.

The acting was great. I think Chen Ming Hao is my favorite Wang Pang Zi at the moment. This character is always hit or miss - I either like them, or hate them. Here, he was probably one of my favorites.

Another positive thing was proper lighting. Big props to the team for making the caves/warehouses/underwater scenes look dim, but not ridiculously dark when the viewers can’t see anything. A few more candles or flashlights as the light source is all it takes for the viewers to not question how bright some places might look. The whole production quality was great - the set designs, costumes (excluding Glasses, I just cannot deal with that outfit), camera angles - all working well to create nice pictures.

To the less enjoyable things.
First and second half of the show felt like completely different dramas. Not only did the plot seem too loosely connected, the main cast completely changed. We literally cut from the show the characters we followed at first.

While I appreciate the female characters, I am also a bit sad how all of them were put in the context of being romantic interests. No one watches the Tomb series for romance, this is really unnecessary.

Second half was painfully repetitive and failed to make me care about the plot progression and even the characters safety. I am sorry, but how many times can I watch Wuxie do exactly the same thing over and over again in more or less the same manner in a boring environment, surrounded by barely established characters?

Wuxie being sick. Oh god, too many times it felt like watching a wuxia with male lead being poisoned and coughing blood - so dramatic for no reason, because we all know he is not going to die. My issue was how they presented it as something dangerous, but it never felt really limiting. All the potential issues always showed up after he was done with whatever task he had to accomplish.

While I do believe everyone in the cast did an amazing job, I am also a bit bored with Zhu Yi Long (don’t kill me). There is not enough variety in the roles he takes and his portrayal of them. Sure, I only saw a few of his dramas, but it always feels like a similar character just put in a different context.

Overall, it was not bad, but felt too “all over the place”.

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Mindless mediocracy with great friendship.

I'm not gonna lie. There were some scenes so dumb I had to pause the episode in the middle of them and stare at the wall in my room trying to prevent the neurons leaking from my brain. The show is made with the idea of kids as the target audience. Lack of realism was not even the worst part, it’s the complete disregard of logic and continuity.

Yes, the writing of the main plot was a pile of trash. It made so little sense and it was presented in such a bad manner, I found it amusing. The villain was a poorly written joke, the twists and the character’s reactions to them were comical and the conclusion to the story was all over the place. Not to mention the last minute redemption arc for one of the bad guys.

That said, the show shined when it focused on more mundane aspects of the police academy and the growing friendship and bond between the main characters. We’ve got a variety of different characters which led to many funny and heartwarming moments when they started to open up to each other more. Learning how to lean on others and ask for help, how to trust your friends, how to communicate with people with different outlooks in life and previous experiences. That was the best part of the show.

The fair share of romance was fine. Personally, I couldn't care less about the main couple and a lot of it had to do with the performance. Thankfully, we’ve got more than enough screen time for the second couple that was far more natural and adorable. I also got a massive second lead syndrome from the female lead’s senior.

As for the performance - I have never seen a more obvious case of someone getting cast for their name and not their skill. I adore Kang Daniel, I do. He is an extremely talented performer and entertainer, but he just cannot act at all. He literally made me cry from laughing from his bad performance. His face was just white wall of emotions and the line delivery was less expressive than Alexa or Siri. He did fine with the scenes showcasing more daily stuff, but any moment that needed to tap into these more raw emotions, he failed miserably.

Others did a lot better. Granted, most characters lacked depth, so these performances were not exactly that demanding, but the cast did their best to deliver a good performance and chemistry. Especially impressed with Park Sung Joon in the last few episodes.

Production value was great, but that’s exactly what one can expect. There were a few editing mistakes and a lack of continuity between shots, but these were small details that are hard to avoid in any drama.

Overall, I had fun for both good and bad reasons. Enjoyed the friendship and characters a lot, and laughed about the poorly written plot and the whole investigation aspect of it.

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Atmosphere that carried a vague plot.

Something we often get from Japanese horror - vague plot with good atmosphere, great music and sound effects and still images inducing panic response. That’s also what we’ve got from Pulse.

By the end of the movie we are offered little to no real explanations, and most are left to the viewers interpretation. Is this a commentary about the dangers of the internet? Is this a commentary about the human need for interactions and the terrifying portrayal of loneliness? It’s up to the viewer to decide.

The characters were rather bland. I kind of stopped paying attention to who is who at some point, and it did not really take away from the watching experience. I honestly believe them as individuals was not that important plot wise.

The thing I loved about Pulse was the atmosphere and built up tension. There are no cheap jump scares and all the horror is based on the fear of the unknown, perfect choice of music and the prolonged shots of uncanny shots.

Overall, I would recommend it if you are in for a rather calm, but tense horror.

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Life so hard it feels like an endless night.

Stellar performance with a well executed story presented in three different timelines. While the show was not perfect with the execution, the strong points kept me interested enough to finish and give quite a high rating.

The Long Night has quite a number of positive aspects. Starting with a well written criminal case that does not lead to many unexplained events and plot holes. While the case was quite complex, as it connected many events throughout the years, it never felt ridiculously over the top. It was big enough it did not feel boring nor mundane, but realistic enough for me to believe it could happen in real life.

Then we have the amazing cast and the characters they portrayed. Not gonna lie, Bai Yu stole the show for me. The emotional impact his character had on me by the last episode was something I did not expect at all - especially since we know (to some extent) what kind of end he will face in episode 1. That one scene in the last episode literally made me hold my breath and I could not move a millimeter until it was over.

Jiang Yang, Chen Ming Zhang and Zhu Wei were the trio I especially enjoyed and their striving for justice and truth was both heartwarming and heartbreaking.

Another aspect that amazed me were well presented transitions between all the years and time lines. They clearly indicated what year specific scenes take place in and how they relate to the current situation. This type of plot could easily be confusing, but they managed to present it in an easy to follow manner. The transitions between two timelines with the use of voice recorded were ones that I especially enjoyed.

The issue I had with the drama was how they tried to evenly use the screen time for two timelines. As the result, for quite some time, I was not that invested in any. Logically speaking, I knew the case was extremely interesting, but I could not get myself to feel that much curiosity. For me, they should have established one (present) timeline first, and only after that slowly expanded on the past stories, but this mix and max as we progressed was a bit too much storytelling wise.

What’s more, the first few episodes led me to believe this will be a mystery driven show with unusual investigation that will have the intriguing cooperation between the police and journalist, to uncover the truth behind the murder case, that has it’s beginning years ago and involves far more people than anyone could have predicted. But shortly after it started to look like any other investigation show, and all the fun and refreshing additions were forgotten.

That said, you know how dramas usually have mediocre last episodes, when they had a good start? This ain’t that. Last 4 episodes were extremely thrilling and got me on the edge of my seat. Truth to be told, only then I started to feel the severity of what was going on and how it affected the characters. It was easier to tap into the emotional connection. The last episode was especially dark, and I had to take a few breaks while watching.

Overall, a solid watch. I feel like this is one of the rare cases in which the rewatch would actually improve the entertainment value. Knowing the whole picture would make me appreciate all the detailed connections between the cases and scenes.

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Even tho, there were a lot of elements I did not quite like about this show, overall, it was an extremely fun ride with some smart, well placed humor and amazingly written characters.

Truth to be told, Fan Xian ain’t exactly a likeable character. The more I thought about his actions, the more pretentious he seemed - to the point I was actually anticipating someone putting him in place, even if just temporarily. For someone who just wants to live a joyful life, he did not try to avoid the attention. For someone who wanted to fight the corrupt, he was too good at manipulating others and using them to his advantage.

Even tho I was not on board with him as a person, I still extremely enjoyed his character. I do believe the simping over him from other characters was a bit too much, but there is no doubt - he was that charming.

By the end of the show I had my favorites: Emperor, Ruo Ruo, Teng Zi Jing and Shen Zhong. Seeing how some of these characters are not even the mains, and add to the story for a limited period of time, it shows how much care was put into making even supporting and side characters 3 dimensional, with their own arcs and depth.

Character wise, I have only one complaint: Wan’er. It’s not that I disliked her, I was just painfully indifferent to what her story is. For the majority of the drama she was passive, playing more or less just the role of Fan Xian “kindergarten” like love interest. That said, her character was the center of one of my favorite scenes from Joy of Life so she gain few pints form me.

I’m sure I am not the only one who thinks the characters were the best part. With how well written they were, how unique and entertaining their interactions were presented, no scene felt redundant.

The story itself was truly well paced. Probably one of the best pacings from any Chinese show I have seen. The comedy bits were funny and well spread throughout the show. Joy of Life provides a few emotional scenes, but they never hit me hard - mostly because they were not set up well. It’s hard to get emotional, when literally seconds ago I was laughing on the floor coz of the over the top fighting choreography.

The fighting scenes themselves were another aspect that was either hit or miss. Some were perfect, some far from it. Overall, I liked them all, either because I was impressed or entertained.

The drama is full of plot twists, it’s hard to predict characters’ motivations and future plans. Some twists were brilliantly planned, with clues scattered throughout the plot, some came out of nowhere, being completely impossible to predict, only guess (the type I myself quite dislike).

Sadly, the ending left a lot to desire. It was just anticlimactic and infuriating to me as a viewer. More about it in the comment section under spoiler.

Overall, it was an extremely enjoyable ride that led to nowhere and doesn’t make me want to continue the journey - I am off this train. I feel like season 2 will clown me at the end too, leaving me annoyed and forced to watch last season, and I’m not up for it.

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It’s not even fun bad… It's just bad.

How they got this cast to do this movie is beyond me. The best part were the bad subtitles that kept calling Hyeri “he” and later Yoon Gyeom “sis”. There were just so many writing and directing choices I did not understand…

First of all, there is no set up for anything. They don’t tell, they don’t show. Half way through the movie you will still not truly understand the past events, current characters; motivations, who is on whose side and why. Not explicitly telling every little detail about the plot is fine, most viewers can put two and two together. Here… they told me close to nothing. I feel like I had to basically write 50% of the plot in my head, to make any sense of it. The vague idea of the plot in Monstrum is interesting, but that’s it - just a vague idea, a first draft of the plot…

I can't really comment about the acting, because the characters were so painfully one-dimensional a brick wall could play them and the result would be similar.

The comedy was also misplaced and just in poor taste. This is not a slapstick sitcom, so why are we getting fart jokes?

Overall… It’s been a while since I watched something so bad I was actually annoyed watching.

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A bit confusing characterization.

omeone who has not seen the original movie, nor was aware of the full story presented there, while the plot of this short gender swap version was easy to follow, the motivations of the characters were either confusing or shallow in presentation.

Instant love that seemed fabricated from the start, lady general who does not connect the facts and male lead who for some strange reasons trusts a demon? My brain hurts.

That said, for a movie that is basically shot in one location, it was visually quite well made. They truly used the limited space they had, so the plot never felt small nor insignificant.

The performance was good. He Chang Xi delivered the best in terms of conveying emotions, especially in the second half, while Ding Cheng Xin was able to combine the delicacy and destruction in his presentation of Xiao Wei.

If you want to watch it based on your good opinion about Wuliang and the Censored Romance tag, you might want to reconsider your motivation. Production and directing wise it’s not as strong as Wuliang (though still quite a good short movie), and the tag is at best baiting. It serves a vague ending that brings more questions than answers, and for me, who likes to overanalyze scenes and lines, even more confusion.

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Was it entertaining? Yes. Do I feel like I would miss a lot if I have not seen it? No. Do I regret watching it? No.

The biggest positive aspect - it had a great variety of characters. And yet a good majority of them annoyed me more often than not. While I understand Sina being suspicious of everyone, but her blindly accusing any person in the household of being the evil mastermind was at some point frustrating. She kept showing all her cards and not getting any closer to the truth. Like girl, use your brain.

There was quite a straightforward plot that had a nice conclusion. BUT It felt like a lot happened in the first 20 episodes, and at the same time... nothing was really happening. And then last 10 was a cluster F of plot lines coming together.

The part that at the beginning I enjoyed the most was the amazing chemistry Sina and Thi had, but even this died down a lot in the middle of the show, just to be brought back in the last few episodes in what seemed like a forced manner.

Conclusion: It was fun, but it was not amazing. I guess me and lakorns need to peacefully go our separate ways from now on.

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It was not perfect, but it was perfectly entertaining.

Personally I like my zombie horrors with a dose of humor and I am a Hero delivers. I do think I might have laughed at some not exactly humorous moments too, but that's how you roll when you've seen so many horror movies in your life.

The best aspect of this movie is the fact it has personality. Having a normal guy be the real and grow to be a hero is a dynamic journey I love to see in movies. I do believe that he was too dumb and too naive for too long, but with how the story ended, I can somehow forgive it. What's more, I appreciated how the zombies had these specific behaviors connecting them to their past lives. Big shoutout to athlete, who from zombies' perspective must have been the MVP.

On the other hand, I wish they turned Hayakari Hiromi a bit later in the movie, or let her meet Suzuki Hideo faster. We did not really get to know her that well as full human before she turned, but after the change, she was not really much of a character to follow anyway.

The acting - good. I feel like the only person who truly had to show some skills was Oizumi Yo. The other characters were a bit too flat to requite a high level of performance.

Loved the design for the zombies. The eyes going sideways was creepy and the visible mutation was a great touch. They actually looked scary. Props for all the practical effects that made the movie that much more gruesome.

The action scenes were also great. Some more, some less believable, but I appreciate no one turned into a ninja or professional fighter. They all fought with all their strength and limited skills. That said, there was one scene closer to the end that did feel a bit long and I was really close to skipping few seconds.

Overall, this was such a fun ride. A lot of blood, a lot of killing zombies.

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Trying to balance horror and drama is not always a good choice.

In this case, the drama was far more engaging than the scares. The story about a female lead learning from the beginning how to view the world would probably work better as a slice of life - at least with the scenes presented in this movie. Loved to see how she still needs to assist herself with other senses, because she doesn't know how to fully depend on her eyesight.

Even the drama related to the cause of the nightmare reality she needs to face was great. Diving deeper and in more detail in these stories would be amazing.

And the horror? Mediocre at best. They did not deliver the scares, nor the true suspense.

Acting itself was good. My favorite performance must be Yut Lai So as Ying Ying. Adorable actress and heartbreaking tale.

For the production, you can feel it's 2002 movie based on the special effects. What’s more? They thought they were clever with the braille credits, but nope, it was dumb

Overall, neither the story nor the horror was that well written and presented. While I was not bored, I was not that interested either.

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My brain is dead, but at least I had fun?

I get people loving it because it was entertaining, but damn this was extremely poorly written. Too many plot points were simply ridiculous and beyond unrealistic and too many things were just vaguely explained. Some scene progressions were questionable at best, distasteful at worst. One of the best examples - the way they switched from showing physical abuse to a silly rap battle made me so uncomfortable. Or when the witness starts with “she almost made me blind”, but they end the statement on “she asked me to buy her sanitary pads” as if that was the worst thing he had to deal with - is this a joke? Social satire? What is going on?

I think the biggest flaw of the drama was Cha Woo In. She was stagnant throughout the whole show, and her character development happens before the story starts. She is presented as a basically flawless person - smart, strong, righteous, caring, determined. Anything she had to learn she already did, anything she had to improve she already did.

On the other hand, we’ve got some great development for the other characters, including many supporting ones. Stories that focused on admitting to your wrong doings, facing the consequences and learning from them. Lessons that show kindness can change a person, even if we think they can never improve. Surprisingly a lot of depth considering the over the top scenario.

The highlight of the drama? Everything Noh Tae Nam related. I would love to see a drama focused on him as the main character. This could be some great character study.

Production value was the standard high quality we get from tvN - nothing stood out either on the positive or negative side. The soundtrack was great, especially the opening song - Ha Hyun Woo has simply magical vocals.

Overall, it was fun, but painful for my brain.

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While the first and second half of the movie did not exactly fit in themes, both had quite good ways to create suspense and scare the audience - be it with visuals or the story itself.

Personally I enjoyed the first half far more - the mystery of all the supernatural events, the small details in the background that you need to pay attention to. The directing truly made me focus on what was happening on screen, since I did not want to miss any one of the bizarre moments - all thanks to some small detailed images.

And then the story started to get explained and for me it lost a bit of its charm. The scares shifted from unexplained supernatural to human’s evil deeds - it made me more uncomfortable than scared. There is value in exploring such themes, but it was not something I was looking for in this specific title.

The acting was decent. Nothing too outstanding, but good enough not to get distracting. Koki did a good job with the duality of her performance.

Overall, kept my interest till the end, even if the second half was slightly disappointing.

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Two worlds that maybe should not collide.

Opening with rather dark themes got me excited for some teen dark investigation thriller, just to switch to fluffy slice of life in remaining episodes - it did not click well for me.

The story of our (technically) main duo barely existed except for the first and last episode. For the four episodes we followed stories of their classmates and I could not stop myself from thinking how insignificant they are compared to what was introduced in episode 1.

Here’s the thing - the stories were nice. Various situations present many issues teens might have to deal with as they mature. These were good takes and I did enjoy watching them, but my mind just kept coming back to Sappukei - her story became a distraction for me.

All that said, the drama has an amazing energy and vibe (don’t ask me to explain what it means, I can’t). Even though some of the presented issues seem like small problems, when you think about them a little bit more, they can be easily applied to a larger scale and become relatable no matter your age, experiences and surroundings.

The acting was good. Yamada Anna did a phenomenal job! She aced the role of someone being strongly emotionally affected, but trying to keep it all together and push forward, hiding how hurt, sad, scared, but also angry they truly are.

Overall, a nice show that does not quite well blend the stories. Different plots and themes did not fit together and created a bit of disconnect.

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How to quickly describe this drama? A fun soft makjang - technically there are a lot of makjang like plots, but they are not overdramatized in presentation. A well executed take on questionable and toxic decision making, when people are so hungry for power, respect, love, admiration, control (you name it).

Let’s start with the fact this is not really a “strong female leads being badass” type of a show. All free leads are emotionally broken in one way or another, selfish, egocentric and cunning. None was worth rooting for and that’s exactly what made the drama a fun watch - you could see them messing with each other's lives, laugh about it and not feel many conflicting emotions.

Character wise, both Go Mo Ran and Bae Ok Sun were fascinating. Completely misguided in their actions, created an avalanche of devastating situations that only made them both feel more frustrated, sad, angry. On the other hand, Woo Hyun was simply poorly written, and the performance by Kim Ha Neul did not help either. Lack of development, ambiguous morals, questionable motivation - this character more or less served nothing.

Production and directing wise, it was fine until it was not. Last two episodes are a pacing nightmare sprinkled with confusing editing. Sadly, the director and production team did not know how to deal with the cut of two episodes, making it impossible to deliver a proper closure that did not feel rushed and out of the blue.

Overall, not a bad watch.

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20th Century Girl was going strong as a light, fluff and full on cliche teen romance with cute characters, fun interaction and a bit of 90’ nostalgia, until the writers decided to be “ambitious” and give it a random, unfitting and poorly executed ending to make the movie “more memorable”. And I’m here questioning why? I get it, as a writer you don’t want to start your career with a cute, but not memorable rom-com, but what we’ve got here is not the way to go.

What went well? Most of the characters are likable, even if they lacked depth. Bora was your typical energetic and bubbly girl, Woon Ho was a perfect first love material with his warm demeanor, and Hyun Jin was the most fun and entertaining of the group. Sadly, the writer did Kim Yeon Doo dirty presenting her in rather unflattering light - clueless about the situation she was in, not getting a hint about the relations people around her have, defined by her circumstances and the illness - little to no info about her as a person.

Surprisingly, I adored all the piling misunderstandings. All of them presented in a light and heartwarming way, showing the mistakes most of us made when we were teens facing our first love.

What’s more - 20th Century Girl is simply beautiful. The use of light and shadows gave me goosebumps more than once. I am a sucker for good dim aesthetics.

So what went wrong? For a movie that is 2 hours long, we truly did not know much about the characters. Halfway through the movie I started to question, how there is still an hour to go and why are we not exploring any of the circumstances the characters are in?

The acting was also not mind blowing. Maybe I expected too much from this cast, but with a plot so simple and full of well known cliches, the performances are what carry it. Here, while everyone did a great job, none of the portrayals of the characters was truly unforgettable. My biggest issues were the more emotional scenes - they did not resonate at all. Maybe because Kim Yoo Jung tried to tap deep into the overly emotional teen, but her crying was more annoying and less moving than I would like.

By now, everyone knows the ending is just disappointing. I honestly don’t have an issue with the idea the writer had for it, but the execution was simply bad - no set up, no explanation, no message to tie it all together, no nothing.

Overall, it’s a decent movie, bringing back many memories of my teen romances and for that I am grateful. It’s not exactly memorable, nor innovative, nor a simple feel good watch. Tries to stand out in the sea of teen rom-coms with the ending, but fails to truly deliver a cohesive narrative that leads to this conclusion.

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