Sakarya
USA
I've watched The Treacherous twice now and I loved it even more the second time. The cinematography is really great and the acting is really well done too. If you're into saeguk dramas, you'll love certain aspects of this like the inclusion of pansori by the narrator as well as some of the character, the traditional sword dancing, and of course the ever present court politics.
The King was the most interesting character, mostly because this is based off true history. My understanding and knowledge of Korean history is mainly from what I've watched in dramas (lol) so I'm not sure how much artistic license they took with the portrayal of this tryant king, but MAN was he out of his goddamn mind! It was insane! But that's what makes this movie so wild and enjoyable--there are almost no limits to the insanity...its raunchy and violent at times, but that's supposed to be the point. The film explores greed, power, lust, revenge all very dark and entrancing themes that really draw you in. The camera work really helps to add!
Honestly, the rating is probably so low because you have viewers who are used to watched sappy, romcom movies and dramas and this is definitely no where near that sort of story. If you're looking for something gritty, explicit, exciting, sexy, and just insane you will not regret watching!
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There are so many good elements to the movie which is why I'm confused how it all came together so...poorly ?? It tackles, gentrification, corruption, money laundering, greed, ambition, and lust which generally are all themes and plot points that I enjoy but every time I felt the story was actually going somewhere or making some sort of point, it never pulled through and just flopped. However, there were some dialogues that were....really good? But always felt out of place honestly. Like the film was making points but when those important commentaries on society were being made, it always felt random and like those scenes never really flowed into the story progression naturally.
As for the explicit scenes, I admittedly love the way Korean actors deliver sex scenes because they are always so raw and sensual and I think the first one definitely was, but the second sex scene left me feeling skeezy after watching it, something that rarely happens. I get that was probably the point of it, but I think it was really the camerawork of that scene that really took it over the top. After that, the third sex scene, especially the context of it, felt really cheap once again and honestly made me uncomfortable which is disappointing because I love a good sex scene.
Speaking of the camerawork, I feel like there was no set style to the movie? There were attempts to be artsy but they were mostly randomly placed and just....not well done. Kind of cheap feeling.
Overall, I would not recommend this movie, wouldn't say there's much to get from it. Only reason I give it a 5 and not a 3 or 4 is because the social commentaries were good and are important, especially in today's world, but I wish the overall story and direction was better.
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Scarlet Innocence is a racy korean movie about a Professor who is sent to a small town after being suspended from his post at a university following claims of sexual harassment. He meets Deokee, an innocent and naive 18 year old girl who lives with her mute mother, looking for love and excitement in her boring little town that seems to be made up of an aging population. While the story line has a few unexpected twists, no event was appalling enough to really evoke strong feelings of sympathy towards the characters. I did not get angry with them, I did not feel sad with them, I was not happy with them. While the storyline had several poorly explained occurrences, some that seemed down right impossible, I think if there were stronger actors in the movie with better chemistry, this would have been more enjoyable to watch and receive a higher score from me. I mainly watched because it had some racy scenes which I like, especially in Korean cinema because they are usually well choreographed, but the sex scenes in this movie were just boring to watch and barely arousing. I didn't expect much after I saw the IMDB rating of 5.9, but I was still disappointed. TL;DR I wouldn't recommend watching even if you're bored. Unless you're REALLY bored and you're in the mood for a sub-par revenge story line.
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The story is as the blurb above says, and it isn't anything groundbreaking or particularly interesting. I wasn't expecting there to be a comedic tone, so that threw me off a bit (especially since I just watched The Concubine right before so I was hoping for something with a similar tone), but nonetheless this wasn't a complete waste of time. While parts of the storyline was predictable, the ending wasn't what I forsaw and the foreshadowing was definitely misleading (purposefully probably). The somewhat plot twist ending is why I bumped the score from a 4.5 to a 5 for the overall rating.
To wrap this up, if you're looking for a lighthearted erotic saeguk, this is definitely for you. If you're looking for a movie with a strong storyline, I wouldn't choose this one today.
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Where do I even being with how horrible of a let down this once? The plot is nothing grand or fresh, but it definitely had potential. about half way in, I'd already come up with about 7 different possible storylines for where the movie could go and let me tell where, none of them were even close to how it actually panned out. And that's not in a good way.
You know what? This movie did well in having such predictable and corny plot twists, it became a plot twist in itself!
Either way, this was the corniest, most painful Korean movie I feel I've watched ever. What the hell was that ending? I really cannot believe how much of a copy cat it was of certain plot points in classic American movie. On that note, this story read like an amalgamation of overvalued action/suspense movies that somehow remain popular within the culture.
Do yourself a favor and do not spend your time watching this insipid "movie," I really thought i choose a good one but boy was I dead wrong
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This is a crime solving story where there are 5 cases featured throughout the story with one big underlying "final boss" that the main characters are getting closer to identifying. There aren't many action or thriller moments but the suspense is great. There are a lot of flashbacks (there should be a category for rating the quality of flashbacks haha. side note: what's with the popularity of flashbacks these days? they're honestly so annoying to watch) but they're pretty well done and you don't feel like you're watching the same scenes replay over and over again throughout the entire drama.
Characters were pretty good! It was a great display of corruptions vs virtue and I think these traits were well written into the character. Lee Jae Han was the STAR of the story; you can't help but fall in love with him. He's so valiant and virtuous, storming towards justice yet stumbling through romantic situations. While this character is loveable, it is very overdone. That would be my one comment about this drama; it didn't feel "new," but rather you were watching a story and characters that you're familiar with play out in an expected but definitely interesting way. While parts feel a bit TOO clean cut, theres still that sense of you don't know who will live, what will change, and who will die.
Continuing off that, while the story isn't new, there ARE twists that are unexpected (but nothing too outlandish or surprising). I cried episode 5 which I didn't expect to happen so quickly.
TL;DR I'm a kdrama watcher in their eariy 20's, so if you're bored by over-the-top romantic comedies and looking for something more serious (and a story that follows a line and doesnt just implode on itself) then I would highly recommend!
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