I wanted to like this show. I tried to like this show. But after I finished each of the 1st 3 episodes, I was like "eh" and had no burning desire to continue to the next one. Ultimately, it's just not a well-written show. Bruce is "clueless innocent" who always gets in danger and then is always saved by some deus ex machina. Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh is given a stereotypical Asian "tiger mom" character and ever her skills can't get past that. And then the writers drop in side plots that they promptly ignore. If you're going to make a big issue of Bruce needing to get money to pay for his college tuition (as they do), then you can't just suddenly forget that you made that an issue (as they also do).
Then again, Brad Falchuk is a co-creator of this show and, before this, he's best known for co-creating shows like Glee, American Horror Story, and Screen Queens with Ryan Murphy. I don't like any of those shows, so maybe Brad Falchuk's involvement here should have been a red flag for me from the start.
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The tuition plot is resolved though. Not in a very substantial fashion or anything, but it doesn't just disappear ignored.
It was so difficult to watch this after maybe 40%. And it never got anywhere.
Review by chillikun
Yet Another Melodramatic Sageuk that fails to make sense with non-sensical plot and misunderstandings
This drama is full of action. It also provides you comedy scenes that makes you burst into loud out laugh. Sometimes, you will find it boring in the middle of the drama. But, don't give up. Just follow the stream and you will get the intense actions.
The concept of male cross-dressing is a refreshing thing in a drama and the first half of the drama was light hearted and humorous because of it but the second half took a turn and turned into the typical historical drama with the same old tried plot.
However, I thought this drama would be an epic drama with actions, assassinations, and betrayals. I thought the main character would be a zero to hero figure. Everything is so smooth, nothing wrong with the plot. It's enjoyable that makes you can't wait for the next episode. But, here's the main worst point of this drama:
- The story and the plot is nothing special.
- The writing has up and down, The Lines and the way character evolved is not exactly brilliant.
- It's seems copy paste from the earlier melodrama of the past (yes, It has melodrama element in it) with has rom com touch in earlier episode and make it more approachable to audience who hate melodrama.
But it's the performances of the ensemble cast that make me stay, along with the Director who at times brilliant executed the ambiance and create the chemistry. The chemistry between the cast also makes this drama enjoyable to watch (The power of the chemistry, heck not only the OTP. )
There is some compelling narrative going on that makes me stay in the third act, but alas I think the writers is not interested to unfold it better.
The ending was laughable and without much substance to be honest. Without spoiling I'll say that I don't understand how could they live happily with a dark cloud over their heads that can rain down at any time and wash away their peace.
It looks like the plot is skipped so much. Everything jumped to when the main character is back from dying to save his beloved girl without getting hurt or attacked by the enemy's soldiers. Then the conflicts are ended here. He and all his beloved ones live on a separated island peacefully, while the main conflict (throne stuff) is abandoned. When his enemies lost him and the soldiers, they didn't try to chase them as well. The story tells us the enemies choose the thone and the kingdom while the main character and protagonists choose the peaceful life on the separated island.loading replies
@chillikun Spoiler tags and such.
They're useful.
Review by chillikun
Intrigued, Frustrated and Disappointed
these were the emotions I carried while watching TWY. It was a show of great promise squandered for married couples romance.
I like Slow Burns , I like Time Travel and I love Thriller when executed well ; TWY is none of them while trying to be everything i like.If you don't mind having numerous questions and suspicions unanswered until the final 2-3 episodes of a show, then you will love this. It has a steamy romance, several conflicts, a semi-confusing case of fraud, time travel (obviously), all mixed so that you're left in a whirlwind of confusion.
PLOT
The drama focuses more on the mysteries of the future, on the bad guy in the office and on trying to figure out how to change one's fate. The drama starts kind of odd, with the guy meeting with the girl, and saving her from an accident. We then discover slowly his secret and her past. Sure, they get married very quickly, so if you're looking for a slow built romance, maybe this one isn't for you.
I wouldn't say that I was ever left on edge with this drama--there were no major cliff hangers that left me wanting more at the end of an episode, which may be a crucial fault as this drama was made to draw you in with its twists and turns in the plot. I will say that I was more often left confused than intrigued. I was really a fan of the first quarter of the drama, while I was bustling with questions they kept the plot line fairly light, due to the budding romance, and I wasn't too confused as to where the writers were trying to go with the show.
However, about halfway through the writers began to focus more on how the show was going to conclude and building up the drama to the finale and that's where things began to fall apart and really drag for me. It felt like the lead couple was constantly fighting, making up, and fighting again .... since the writers were trying to keep the audience in the dark about the backstory the only thing holding this drama together was the romance.
When there were things revealed, it was done in a confusing fashion and left you even more in the dark then before--don't get me wrong if it's done in the right way then this is great for viewers, however I didn't feel that way about this plot line. The couple episodes leading up to the finale are where things start to pick up again and I felt that the writers got things back on track and made the story interesting and entertaining again and finally, almost all but one or two questions I had were answered by the final episode .
CAST
Lee Je Hoon and Shin Min Ah...I have so much confusion with this coupling. I was completely on board with them for the first few episodes and was shocked at how well they seemed to be hitting it off together. But then things got pretty steamy between the two and pretty much made me cringe. There were literally some scenes where I just couldn't watch because it was painfully embarrassing. Granted it may have just been the overtly cheesy lines and the constant flip-flopping (fighting then making up) that made me not enjoy the two more.
Lee Je Hoon .. I am one of those people that still didn't watch Signal (saving it up for when i am about to give up on Kdramas) ... was a little disappointing ; it must be his character; I think he did a fairly well job at displaying all the proper conviction and emotions during his scenes and did Yoon So Joon's character justice.
Shin Min Ah...one of the prettiest faces ... there's just something about her that I'm unsure about or dislike or something, but I can't quite put my finger on it. As an actress she has so much room for improvement. I could not ever get on board with her crying scenes and there were so many of them! They were terrible, completely outrageous. At some points I was convinced she was laughing until they showed her face. I will say that there were times when she played her role convincingly, but because of those crying scenes I have to say I'm just not a fan.
Baek Hyun Jin played an unusual villain; one that I'm not too sure I liked. His character while a little mental, simply was played out all too reserved in my opinion. It felt to me like the character was stifled and wasn't at it's fullest potential--I really love the actors that are able to perfectly depict the psychotic tendencies of a villain rather than, in this case, just escalated frustrations. He is one of the reasons I rate this show 2 point slower ; the writers failed him or he failed the writers I am so confused ....
Remaining cast need no credit the performed average and were written so stupid that you can omit them from the thoughts!!
VERDICT
I overall, really enjoyed the soundtrack for this drama and I would never consider re-watching this show, the romance was too cheesy and plot is messed up and foremost the characters are too predictable that you wanna punch them .
The editing team that did a fantastic job of ensuring viewers weren't confused with when So Joon was in the future. I really appreciated the differential filters and the wide vs. full screen. At least I was never left wondering when it was the future and when it was the present!
Throughout the drama, you'll constantly hear the phrases: "Don't tell me!" Or "I can't tell you (God knows why!)" In places where just telling could've saved every damn thing!
You'll understand what I'm talking about if you decided to ignore my warning and watch anyway. You would need to conviction to finish this show but no convincing to start ; its one of those shows that seems like it has different writers or cast for 2/3 of the show.loading replies
@chillikun I agree with 80% of what you wrote, but honestly I found episodes 14-16 absolutely dreadful to get through. Mostly – like you said – because stupidity and keeping secrets prevented the main characters from acting like members of an at least halfway evolved species.
I also really hate all the filler side characters nobody cares for being shoved into the last episode to waste time, as well as "one of ML/FL is gone for 2-3 years because why not" plots.
(Also, the time lines and 'fate' and ending make no sense to me.)
Now that I'm on the fourth show of this kind that I really wanted to like (K2, Healer and Black), but the writing prevented it AGAIN, I'm slowly at a loss for words.
Rugal is my fourth K-drama thriller in a row with glaring plot issues.Some shows like Healer and Black clearly run out of budget or time and have to rush the ending in a messy (& stupid) way.
Other shows like K2 and this just never really have a plot structure to begin with, despite a great premise. Every episode, some evil (or evil-seeming) person does something evil and has to be stopped, or some other challenge is to be overcome. The overall character relations are rather static, with most players looking to take a stab at one of their targets, but this rarely happening in a meaningful way.
After about half of Rugal, it even turns into what feels like endless filler episodes, one more ridiculous in plot than the next. The primary villain of the show is pretty much Chaotic Evil, truly over the top in his atrocities, and most other characters have the chance to end him, and spare us the last ~10 hours. Yet they all somehow help him, or even rescue him, and as a result we viewers must endure.The acting is passable, but most supporting characters are underused and rarely get to shine convincingly.
The music is not that far behind K2's in excitement, but is used in comically unexciting situations.
There's a lot of action, yet it's sadly often sprinkled in to cover for the lack of anything else. Random fight scenes with an infinite legion of goons are all too common.If a plausible plot is not among your requirements, you don't mind violence, and sci-fi tech plus hero vs horde fights sound good, Rugal is likely worth a watch. The same goes if you just really enjoy the kind of villain who could eat up any weaker character.
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Spoilers from here on.
Starting from the very beginning, several characters end up killed, except not actually killed. They resurface perhaps mostly dead, perhaps alive and well. Sometimes they're remote controlled monsters, but with a bit of good will they can be healed. One has part of his head sucked out, but then he's fully intact later on. It gets so bad that it's actually more surprising when a named character truly stays dead.
Sometimes the antagonist can create incredibly potent living weapons, other times they're just failures of ruthless human experiments. Rules of physics may or may not apply depending on the scene, the current week's horoscope, or who is supposed to look cool at any given moment. There's occasional Wuxia moves, fighters' motions can make robot noises irrespective of them having any biomechanical body parts, and for a police force without the license to kill, Rugal engages in a lot of neck-breaking.
His living weapons may be zombies, or have the same abilities as Rugal members.
The plot twists are built for shock value, but usually lack all logic. This includes absurd and implausible suicides.
Supposedly, the Big Bad has an incredibly long-winded plan for world domination, but the film crew obviously never know what it actually is, and so it fizzles away in favour of an obsession with winning the protagonist to his side.
Speaking about said main character, he is given an absurd amount of leeway, he turns into the most magically powerful one of the four Power Rangers for no reason, and everybody else is constantly enchanted by him for no reason. He's not even the team leader, but in every group shot walks ahead of the team taking point, and otherwise takes the center of attention. Because he's the team leader, Strong Man Tae-Woong also gets to remain relevant throughout the show, while Mi-Na and Gwang-Chul fade away into complete obscurity. To really drive home that they have no meaningful roles, they're given injuries to recuperate from for the finale.
While his artificial eyes 'whisper' to him after a few weeks/months of use, taking control of his actions and eventually subduing his will with pain, he happily murders a bunch of people, some unarmed in cold blood, but nobody really cares. The AI chip gets replaced with a fresh, untrained one, meaning it only buys time – yet even in the "several years later" epilogue that either never became a problem again or is handwaved away by having another character assist him.
Rugal starts as a somewhat simplistic yet entertaining show, before going all-out Dumb & Dumber. Sad.
Disney didnt bother giving his any rational thinking other than “how can we possibly engage every possible demographic out there with the cheapest means possible” so I see no reason why I should grace it with a review by reviewing the notes I took while watching. So here are the raw notes and comments copied and pasted, sorry for the horrible editing but that would force me into having to use more time on this, time Id rather use to shoot myself in the face with a shotgun:
[spoiler]Shoots door button to close the door cause certainly that wouldnt break it and make it not function.... not even gonna ask how they got out again with a seemingly broken door button
monster breaking ice and swallowing a little speeder but the ship somehow landed just fine
beskar steel just a new and retarded disney invention ofc, surprised they didnt call it “valerian steel” lol
shot in widescreen to subliminally give anyone with less than 10 brain cells available calling themselves an old star wars fan “dat old star wars movies feelin”
“understatement of the millenium”more disney wannabe-funny bs just like in the shitty new movies...
ridiculous cgi lightning when the monster is prodded
that the mandalorians never take off their helmets is also pure bs just now invented by disney so they can set apart new age kidtard fans from old boomers, like the earlier “beskar steel” insert
cheap carbon freezing effects/cgi, but good that they included it for some more old fans service
empire credits apparently isnt good enough but “calamari flan” or whatever the f he said is apparently quote “fine” even though its half of what he wanted... a true mandalorian wouldve taken all of both credit types
“do you want the chit or not” either a retarded way of saying chip, once again so the new age kidtards can get more immersed based on cheap means, or a disney cop out to get to say “shit” even though its kinda for kids, sounds retarded anyway
(java's pet) alien looking at another one of the same species being fried for some reason looks like a cheapass doll and has cheapass dolly movement... oh wait thats ofc so that the disney execs can “activate” old star wars fans subliminally just like the retarded decision to shoot in widescreen
female mandalorian but as a smith ofc just in case we arent feeling her “toughness”... cause the “woke” demographic needs some coverage too
mini-mandalorian in flashbacks ofc seriously looks like little Jango Fett from episode II, cause more subliminal bs
heavy brute monster (blurrg) somehow sneaks up on him from the front while hes using monocular even though hes a “pro mandalorian”... guess theyre super light, oh wait no theyre heavy af, guess it must be some elf magic going on then lol. Also tranq darts give off electric shock for some reason, ofc with the same cheap cgi. monocular only have the color blue for some reason...
our pro anti-hero will apparently need to ride a blurrg cause “the way is impossible to pass without a blurrg... guess they forgot that its star wars and they have tons of “cool” technological equipment not to mention he has a f ship.... but lets go with the having to learn to ride a blurrg thingy cause why the f not right? Alot more entertaining, doesnt matter if its 100% retarded logically speaking
“this is a female, the males are all eaten during mating”, yupp we heard right, a bigass creature somehow survived evolution even though it seems to “do evolution completely backwards”... classic retard-universe-expansion a la disney, too bad they didnt shit out some retarded explanation as to what these bigass creatures subsist on on this lifeless rock planet. Why am I even surprised its retarded execs/writers with jack shit knowledge about ecology and biology (or anything else for that sake) that came up with it... probably the same retards that gave all the same retarded explanations on the different lifeforms in the game that recently came out, jedi order somethingsomething (also horrible too ofc)
I wonder how this ugnaught is able to see anything with those super concave goggles...
lets just forget that the terrain was “impossible to pass without a blurrg” when we are showing them traveling, by not showing any impassable terrain at all, lets just show them jumping over some gaps that the mandalorian easily couldve done himself
oh a bounty droid, which our mandalorian hates for some reason even though it seems to be doing wonders when it comes to disposing thugs, I smell a hk-47 ripoff... que the witty remarks and cold robot attitude probably poorly executed just like everything else (EDIT: I was wrong about this)
blasters dont have the associated “pew pew” sound cause that wasnt cool and tough enough so they had to put on some bass for that extra “umpf” feelin even though they now almost dont sound anything like a blaster have done for all the years star wars have existed
“up top” and the doid shoots straight up to presents us with a falling thug, I wonder where this thug was standing in the first place if the droid shot straight up, guess he was hovering in the air...
less than 10 seconds later the droid initiates self destruct because “it appears we are trapped”... guess he cant just try shooting his way out and if that fails he initiates the self destruct because disney needs some more pointless drama... but because the mandalorian tells him not to then ofc he just throws his “manufacturers protocol” right out the window, more disney logic
lasers hitting stone walls leaves no temperature change marks or singing... guess that wouldve been too much for the amateurs over at the cgi department to accomplish
mandalorian stands on the heavy blaster for 10 seconds shooting everyone around him even though he was taking cover until just then because everyone knows that if someone stands on a heavy gun no one else can suddenly neither shoot at him let alone hit him...
“that blaster hit looks nasty you ok?” yet not a single mark on the droid, IG11 as hes called, but the mandalorian still looks closer at that missing mark to really show us that its nasty even though its non existent
10$ says “the life form present” is a woman, oh wait its ofc the only possible thing that could engage us viewers even more than romantic tension: a cute little “yoda” ofcofc, cause disney's already invested millions into just the marketing (instead of the actual show) so it would be embarrassing if as much as just one critique out there said something bad ,or worse, gave this absolute shitshow anything less than 10/10. so naturally everyone needs to have their fan service organ stroked hard af... OMGOMG I CANT WAIT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT, KAWAIIII... geez what a true absolute f shitshow of a fan service mashup, can someone shoot me in the face, I beg you! Byebye star wars :( EDIT: this is where I wrote [/.spoiler] but apparently trakt cant be bothered to follow proper coding (I never wrote it after the first section indicating everything is a spoiler alert... GJ TRAKT!
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Example: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mandalorian_iron?oldid=7376983 (of how Disney didn't invent it now for this show)
