rguddu_india Reviews

Divorce Lawyer in Love (2015)

Starts average, finishes at another level

[7/10 · 18 June 2021]

Genre: Rom, Love Triangle, Office Romance, Trauma, Destiny, Legal, Parental Opposition, Mystery.

Follows the format of 'one case after another', but there is hardly any serious legal coverage in this series. The cases mostly used as stages for the lead duo to visit together.

Am glad i stuck after episode 10 when I was about to quit, because the last 3-4 episodes went upto high quality. The story started like what we call a simplistic plot and silly humour, but finished with many smart and realistic scenes. Justifies why they probably extended the series to 18 episodes instead of 16. A possible rating of 5/10 goes up to 7+/10 overall.

The female lead woman (Go ChakHi) excels, particularly when she is in leadership roles. Gives very natural expressions- never did i feel any overacting or awkward 'acting'. She managed to give sweet vibes (after the duo confessed), without losing her forte of being a strong opinionated woman. The confession in courtroom was smart and beautiful, and given it was in episode 8, there were enough romance throughout the rest of the series. The guy (So Jangu) was okay, but together their silent moments and slow conversations towards the end were exceptionally sweet, natural and mature.

The makers managed to seamlessly fit in some thought provoking debates on 'marriage vs divorce', 'karma vs destiny'. The office romance between a couple of side characters is handled extremely well too. Special marks to the second male lead (Bong MiKyu) who is funny in his own style that he has developed.

7*/10.

Defendant (2017)

unsatisfying, over-the-top villainy

[6/10 · 7 June 2021]

Everything in extreme. Villain is everywhere....he pops up anywhere and everywhere. Someone in a car trying to phone info against him and he gets the car crashed right there. Someone taking some docus against him and he bumps into her! A girl gets suspicious of her and he kills her after bedding her. Dad goes against- hit him no problem. Former aid goes against- kill him no problem. He has the jailers, the warden, the prosecutors, chiefs, some minions, all working for him. Then he may as well be the president of Korea! I saw till 9 episodes and it was frustrating to watch. I would hv liked it if my frustration was due to realistic villainy however evil it may be, rather than over-the-top writing. Right till last half hour of last episode the villain is pulling the strings and his court room conviction is uncertain. Solid evidence of doubtful investigation like a memory chip showing video is discarded in court because some1 'confessed'. Is it Somalia or Mexico, or is that how bad things are in Korea?

All in all a very amateur product honestly, despite the outer grandeur. Not to forget, the amateur portrayal of press conference. The judge pronouncing the verdict could be shown using proper legal language- gives very amateur feel otherwise.

Positive- the girl as the goodhearted public attorney was a saving grace. Acting wise, everyone was efficient, no exceptional, no bad. 5-6/10.

Beautiful Mind (2016)

Many irritants

[27 May 2021]

One thing i hate about Kdramas (or many be it's Korean culture?) is when the male actor runs and grabs the arm of the female unnecessarily. It's ridiculous when the other person is 3 meters away and a couple of loud calls would suffice to draw her attention.

Another thing to hate- unrealistic show-off by the protagonist who is supposed to be a professional like a doctor. One would think such people would be mature-sober kind.

I found both these in the 1st episode itself. Add- cartoonish villain who tells his evil plan in open, a police officer who can't detect 'it's murder' even after seeing the car hit a person after changing into reverse gear. All these within 1st 20 minutes. For a show touted as realistic medical drama, it's big letdown.

The female lead is excellent and may as well salvage this.

Wok of Love (2018)

Entertaining

[8/10 · 15 May 2021]

Story: An uptight young cook displaced from his hotel job by the conspiring CEO, sets a new restaurant. A cheerful young girl whose family is suddenly penniless, works at his restaurant along with her family. The restaurant's good hearted owner who was a gangster in the past, flirts her and later helps the duo.

Some animal cutting/boiling scenes for the kitchen which may be disturbing to some.

Lovely Chinese-kind-of flute music throughout.

Genre: food, divorce, love triangle, revenge, contest/game, sneaky romance, love without breakup, happy ending, remarriage.

Watch for the girl...so beautiful and a delight to watch. The guy is good at the start and fell short of being handsome towards the end. The second guy is good and his mannerisms are memorable.

Some silly ideas towards the end episodes like a contest deciding the owner of the hotel, silly hand fights, family's opposition without much conviction, but tolerable. The lead couple's clean open conveying of love for each other, that remained pure and unhindered till the end was exactly the type that pleases me, so a big thumbs up from me. The girl's maturity in dealing with harsh behaviour at work and family friction- rare to see in kdrama.

It had my interest right from the start and i finished it nonstop and I will definitely watch it again. A 7+/-1 from me.

Investigation Partners (2018–2019)

okay, one time watch

[5/10 · 15 May 2021]

A no-nonsense man meticulously in his job of post mortem and finds hard-to-find clues.

A newbie girl as prosecutor. Lots of gore and bloody cutting scenes (some blurred), including of bodies buried years ago, or burnt body.

Genre: medical, crime, mystery, false arrests, trauma past, apartment neighbour.

Positives: the man's cold brilliance. Educational content on finding clues and best practices of securing evidence.

Negative: Neither of the lead actors are good looking enough. Lot of unnecessary shouting, forced dialogues (to make the viewer understand some procedure). Dialogues unnaturally distributed between the people present in a scene. Too fast cuts. Wannabe English show off. The villains/culprits are far from smart..instead, somewhat kiddish or cartoonish, who suddenly confess and narrate everything.

The man mouthing 'don't write fiction' was good at start, but later was like a catchline used inconsistently.

There is scope for many more episodes, given the format of adding a new case once the previous case is solved.

One time watch. 5/10.

Emergency Couple (2014)

Fresh story, Realistic, motivating, romantic, entertaining...

[8/10 · 27 April 2021]

...and even educational if u want to learn about medical terms. Loved it!

The girl is a gem, the male is ok, but both likeable. Many predictable cheesy moments like female lead unnecessarily spending time with second male lead, but not irritating enough. The male's mother acted superb towards the end. I liked the final 4-5 episodes where it's unhindered romance galore, like two husband-wife who met years later and reenact their old love- dine, feed, relax in the countryside, babysit, talk making own baby, tease the partner sexually.

The medical surgery scenes were realistic, with a lot of blood and gore, so my mom found it disturbing. Some sexually explicit scenes like the male touching the female's breast with a stethoscope-- super funny, but noteworthy. A lot of poignant moments.

If the chemistry was better/realistic in the final episodes, i would give it 9+/10.

Genre: medical, romance, divorce, restart, redemption, love triangle, single mom, educational, student, gore.

Glorious Day (2014)

Good drama

[7/10 · 7 April 2021]

Story: A family1 consisting of a failed lady writer and her 3 unmarried daughters. A family2 of husband-wife, her parents, 2 unmarried sons, and a distant 'uncle'. Family1 get a favour to live as tenant of family2 in their adjacent house for 1 month. As they co-live, some frictions arise and some new relations build. In short the drama tells about: the woman's coping with her publisher's exit, past relation between the woman of family1 and the man of family2, inter-family unease that rises into intra-family friction, the romance between the girl2 of family1 and guy1 of family2, fierce & lasting opposition from guy's mother, the rivalry between the two brothers and later helping, the grandparents passing on their rice-cake skills to the next generation as the girl2 takes over their shop, the lonely 'uncle' taking an interest on the woman1, her ex-husband's transformation from a harasser to a diligent man, her reluctant acceptance of her daughter1's marriage to a divorced man with a petulant son, the grandmom's old-age sickness and the marriage of family2's son2 to a rich clueless but earnest girl.

Positive: excellent realistic portrayal of Korean family structure and relations, lovely backyard/lawn/balcony night romance. Lead pair are likeable, good looking, yet girl-next-door feel. First 25 or so episodes out of 44 are excellent. The love between the duo remains untarnished till the end, without cliched breakup and misunderstandings. Most of the actors gave memorable characters, e.g. The woman1, lead duo, man2, woman2, grandparents, uncle and the ex-husband.

Negative: quality of production and writing in later episodes is distinctly poorer. Many of the scenes feel like a stage play where many actors assemble in the same indoor room and consciously stand facing the camera/audience so as to be visible. A flimsy office with a few employees is used to advance some scenes. Chemistry/ease between the lead duo was not upto the mark when they have been supposed to be together for months. Some poor actors like the eldest sister, youngest sister's boyfriend.

I think i will still enjoy this show again sometime, may be watching upto 30 episodes. Rating 8/10 for first 15 episodes. Overall 6-7/10.

The Birth of the Rich (2010– )

Below average

[5/10 · 5 April 2021]

Story: Unlikely meet of a rich man and ordinary woman. The man leaves her with a necklace. Their son born later searches for his father with the necklace. As a young man he meets 3 rich oldies and a sick old man with some history between them. Among their offsprings, a daughter becomes his love interest, a son becomes his adversary, another daughter is a wavering amateur. A mystery man with some interest in the necklace's rare metal keeps following the guy. The guy works as the girl's hotel attendant, later is helped for his cancer treatment, later works as her coworker in office. All of them get involved in who is the guy's father, which is revealed finally.

Positive: Starts brilliantly, with how the parents of the lead actor meet in the past. The introduction of the guy's character from his school days as a confident person searching for his dad who he believes to be a rich man. The introduction of the girl's character as a confident proud business-woman handling a factory worker's protest. Some characters like the the hotel manager and the second girl were memorable.

Negative: too cliched and ordinary writing can be felt in most of the episodes (say from ep-04 onwards). A distinct feel of poor Hindi/Indian serials or drama. The chemistry between guy-girl was lacking, so the romance in later episodes felt awkward. The search for father and who was whose relative had gone too confusing and tiresome by the end. Many inexplicable/unrealistic plots.

Between 4-6 out of 10 should be fair.

Find Me in Your Memory (2020)

Good story, good loking cast, enjoyable, and pretty realistic

[8/10 · 22 February 2021]

Genre: romance, love, disease, trauma, memory loss-gain, stalker, crime, mystery, kidnap, damsel in distress, news media, film industry, social media, fan comments.

Story: A girl was killed by a stalker 10 years ago. Her grieving boyfriend and female friend, meet as a news anchor and a celebrity actress. Both of them have suppressed diseases- he has extraordinary ability/disease to remember every bit in his past, thus making him suffer from that pain; while she has lost parts of her memory thus living as a naive/straightforward cheerful girl. She pursues him with all honesty and he eventually loves her back, overcoming his past trauma, the moral dilemma and social scorn (of dating his dead lover's friend), her memory regain, and the revengeful acts of the stalker against the duo.

The girl absolutely rocked it: a beautiful gleaming face, a lovely female voice, lovely smile, long curly hair. So sweet and so natural in the open-hearted girl avtaar. Often effortlessly funny, close to comedian role-- a rarity for a female actor in my view. Her crying parts are good too. Hajin of 'Find me in your Dreams' is now in the league of Jiuna of 'Full House', Jandi of 'Boys Over Flowers', and Jiho of 'Because this is my first Life'.

The male lead has a great male voice (fitting a news presenter), a great smile, decent face, a decent walk, non-showoff hair, ordinary in emotional parts.

Good side characters- the news channel owner couple, the girl's sister couple, the cold hearted professor bordering on 'mad scientist'. Two stalkers were presented, not very realistically- more like cliched madness. The guy's handling of the stalking events was good. The duo's (multiple) together sessions, with open confession from both sides, were absolutely beautiful.

16 episodes. Last 2 episodes ruined it for me: unnecessary breakup, cliched 'two years after', 'fated' re-meet, change of the girl's attitude from cheerful transparent to sombre serious reserved. 2 points deduct for that. The first 13 episodes were a treat to watch/experience.

One of the best recent Kdrama in my list: My Mister, Because This is my First Life, When Amelia Blooms, Dinner Mates, Find me in Your Memory, Stranger (2017), Waikiki-1.

Some popular recent kdrama that are not that good in my view: Waikiki-2, my strange hero, Love w Flaws, Weightlifting girl.., Strong girl.., Her private life, Love alarm, Kill me heal me, Mask, Introverted Boss, What's wrong with secretary kim, Secret(2013), Suspicious Partner, Tale of 9 tailed fox.

Because This Is My First Life (2017)

Could have been an all-time great kdrama. Horrible final episodes

[7/10 · 16 January 2021]

Excellent start, build up, sweet romance. A great female lead with beauty, expression & acting, representing a sweet, well mannered, humble girl brought up with family values. A sober emotionless gentleman as the male lead who i could perfectly identify with in our society. Good side plots. Particularly impressive: friend wishing to live a typical married life, and female lead's mother talking to his son-in-law at wedding. Enough funny moments, though very intelligently done, rather than the typical forced way. Philosophical exploring of love and marriage. I thought finally a great realistic drama. Episode 9-13 were beautiful. Then shockingly/frustratingly it takes a downward turn, leaving out logic, freshness and consistency. Going for all those plots it seemed to mock earlier: an ex-gf comes, main leads don't communicate, one loves yet leaves, finally comes back 10 minutes before end of 16th episode, unnecessary English speakers utter some fake sounding lines, etc. Leaves a pretty bad taste and a feel of wasted opportunity. Certainly could have been an all-time great drama. 6 or 7 out of 10.

Chaw (2009)

Disappointing towards the end

[4/10 · 18 October 2020]

Starts well, some good funny characters introduced. Boar fear without it being seen much, works well in 1st half.

Then, having seen so many movies on lion hunt, tiger hunt, shark hunt movies, this movie's use of that pattern is hard to miss: monster attacks in a mass festival, that was allowed by an authority overriding warnings, a team of pro hunters is hired, they kill one & celebrate, but the real killer monster strikes, some retired legendary hunter takes on himself to finish the job, some traps don't work, some gunners fail to shoot in nervousness, characters tell each other their life stories around a gathering before the final showdown, etc.

So many of these ideas was used, with some humour definitely and some poor execution. Boar's unconvincing and clearly artificial look & movement was hard to reconcile with. Not enough fear/caution/naturalness towards the end seen in the hunters who enter the boar's territory, plus cliched poor decisions like not shooting, running slow with many pauses while being chased, easily escaping the boar who has trapped him a meter away.

Disgusting show of eating: a pig-head, a live fish in boiling water, bugs/larvae, bats. May be part of Korean culture but was horrible to watch. Boar's killing/killed scenes needed blood and body parts and that was fitting.

A 4-5/10 rating would be fair, +1 for the final chase on a rail line, -1 for the disgusting food shown.

Hot Fuzz (2007)

Disappointing. Surprisingly high rating on IMDB.

[4/10 · 12 January 2020]

I was deceived by the 8-10 star ratings that come up on the first dozen reviews in IMDB. Am disappointed by this surprisingly poor work.

Some good parts & laughs: first 10 mins, e.g. Angel's interaction with his gf. Inaudible utterances of the old cop and the following translations. "What he said" by some junior cop. Suggested improvement in wordings, like "police officer, not policeman, as later is sexist", "Police service, not police force, as later is aggressive", etc. Angel guessing 'narp', following 'yarp'.

Bad: too fast cuts in the scenes (sometimes i watched at 0.8x speed to be able see what the scene wanted to say), lame plot, incredibly bad/childish scenes involving detectives. Repeats of same scene again and again, like denial by local cops was overdone. Some character's reactions are way over the top to make it 'obvious' to the viewer- fit to be in an indian soap serial. Horribly inexplicable the murders, supposedly happening yet noone in the village cares? The murderer explaining their motives to the cop one by one- fit to be in a 90s cheesy Indian movie. Handler of murderer phones him immediately to detail out all his motives for the 'understanding' of the viewer. Even the interview by seniors of Angel in London office scene had poor/cartoonish elements. Just everybody shown previously as normal people on street turn out to be villainous at the end. Horrible gun shootings scene- may fit in a youtuber's first attempt at movie making. Murderer appears out of nowhere, like in slasher movies, but this murderer was standing, in costume in the open, 10 ft from the serious cop.

I am used to 4-5 extreme reviews for any movie, but that's ok because reading first 20 or so reviews usually give a fair idea of how good the movie truly is. This one remains a mystery: how come so many 8*+ review even after scrolling down 2-3 times. I would think 3 to 5 stars out of 10 is fair.

Crawl (I) (2019)

Decent attempt, with some obvious errors

[5/10 · 5 September 2019]

A mix of hurricane movie (like Twister) and crocodile horror movie (like Lake Placid. Rather, more like Lake Placid-3 or 4). Some good action and moments satisfying our horror thirst. Good enough acting by lead actress playing a swimmer and lead actor playing her dad. Poor treatment of family background by sprinkling it at odd/insensitive moments throughout the movie. Poor/lacking CGI for a mainstream movie. Hurried/excess show of crocs, showing crocs as motivated stalkers rather than as animals with their own fears and sometimes nonchalance. Unrealistic girl-croc fights bordering on comic/superhero genre. Stupid/unrealistic decisions made by the characters. Cinematic convenience of when rescue appears. Overall, I am happy to get a movie catering to my love for animal horror movies, disaster survival movies and hurricane movies. But it's disappointing that most of the errors were easily AVOIDABLE. I could think of the minor changes which could make this movie a 8/10, but now it is 5/10. For me Twister was 8/10, 'Into The Storm' 5/10, Lake Placid 7/10, 'Lake Placid Legacy' kinds are 4/10, to get an idea.

Boar (II) (2017)

Could have been a good movie without the avoidable mistakes

[4/10 · 22 December 2018]

Positives: The Australian actors, their accents and fairly natural convos between oldies at a bar, the scenery of Australian outback. Ok: The boar CGI was ok, considering the budget.

Negative: Too much vulgar language, artificially put in attempting to sound cool.

The boar close up was unrealistic, with only head moving. A boar tipping out a jeep running at speed is unrealistic.

The whole intention of the boar was unclear- it is on a human killing spree, but why? It does not eat them, leaving the torn bodies. Territorial? May be.

The boar unrealistically appears out of nowhere- 3 people cannot see the boar before it takes out a boy running towards them in open grassland. Avoidable mistake.

The people's actions are stupid and insult common intelligence. A man's jeep is tipped over by some animal, back on all 4 wheels, yet he immediately breaks his door and comes out walking on foot? At least u cud show that he tried his keys and the engine did not start, so he leaves his vehicle. Man sends away his old friend alone at night on foot after finding two kills by the boar? Natural reaction wd be to both stick together, try get back to jeep and seek help. Girl hits the boar with her jeep and immediately comes out, without arms. Gives her gun to someone else, that too apparently a stranger. That someone, whose husband, son and bro were just taken by the boar, takes forever to shoot the injured boar. Natural reaction wd be to just fire relentlessly, out of fear, relief, revenge, letting out. The girl came searching for his dad, but apparently happily returns with some other survivors. The man walks on after his belly is ripped apart by boar, girl lives to talk after her mouth is ripped by boar. All of these are highly incredulous scenes, which could be bettered with slight modifications.

A rating of 4 out of 10. A wasted opportunity to be a good 7 star movie like Rogue.

Deep Blue Sea 2 (2018 Video)

Not bad

[5/10 · 28 August 2018]

I found it surprisingly good, given the negative reviews i read and generally low expectations of quality from shark movies these days.

Positives: good slow build up of the characters at play. The back stories are revealed throughout the length of the movie intelligently. Very good acting by the man playing the mad scientist Durant, his assistant Craig, the crew Aaron and another guy. Acting of lead actress Misty was also good, or more than decent. I liked the new terror they have added: baby sharks acting as piranhas. The kill scenes were graphic, bloody and convincing.

Negatives: in couple of scenes the sharks looked fake- in the league of Sharknado films. The idea of sharks changing direction on the click of a switch was interesting, but was not explained. Using the lead scientist/actress for her glamour was made pretty obvious without any attempt at intelligent excuses created for that (unlike the famous Deep Blue Sea scene). Some decisions were stupid and hard to digest, like someone seeing a fire explosion at his place, yet not informing anyone else- bad film making. The sharks making sounds was avoidable.

Overall, i really liked this film. Has more good than bad. I think 5-6 is fair for this movie. DBS was 8/10 for me.

"The Meg" is another movie which has been getting negative reviews. I hope that one too turns out surprisingly good and entertaining, as is DBS 2.