Over the last few months, I’ve been watching a lot more television instead of burning every single evening playing League of Legends. I still enjoy the game, but I’m not going to pretend like my interest in the game is nearly what it was a year or three ago; it’s kind of like how my baseball mania peaked and tempered back down a happy medium, to where I wanted to pursue other interests instead of letting myself get so completely absorbed in it. I don’t follow professional play anymore, and I don’t even bother reading patch notes, and have gotten blindsided by some new in-game mechanics here and there, but I just don’t care.
I could easily write more about why I’ve grown distant to the game, but that would be long enough to be another post for another time.
Television, has kind of filled the space in my free time that was so fervently accounted for by playing League. Every now and then, I feel like I’m falling behind the ever-growing libraries of content being produced at a breakneck pace, and sometimes I just want to sit back and watch something and not be so interactively vested in my entertainment. Sometimes it’s just nice to have stories told to you, without having to exert any more effort than pulling the tab on my recliner to sit back and enjoy television on my projection screen.
Needless to say, I’ve watched quite a few things, and since I feel like I’m in a position where I feel like writing, but don’t really feel like I have anything to write about that isn’t somewhat related to current societal events, and frankly I get conscious about how often I write about sports and wrestling, so I may take a break from those topics, so it boils down to writing a little bit about some of the things I’ve been watching throughout the last few months.
Bad Guys (Netflix) – The only reason I started watching this show was that during that particular episode of choice paralysis, I stumbled across the thumbnail for this show, and in the two seconds of trying to judge a book by its cover before you quickly scroll before the preview auto-plays, I saw that Ma Dong-Seok was in this show. And since he is everyone’s hyung, mine and all of yours, I decided to give this show a flier.
It’s a fairly weak plot about an unhinged but effective police detective, being given the authorization to assemble a team to catch a serial killer terrorizing Seoul, so he recruits a gangster (hyung), a hitman and an accused genius serial killer with the idea that it takes killers to catch killers. The pacing of the show is pretty quick and lacks a lot of the fluff that Korean dramas tend to instill in their stories, and there’s even a respectable plot device revealed at the end that showed a surprising amount of foresight from the Korean show runners.
Overall, as far as K-Dramas go, Bad Guys goes pretty quickly, doesn’t require a tremendous amount of thought involved while watching, and wasn’t bad. It’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but as far as watchability for those not accustomed to Korean television, this one is probably an easy one to try out.
Dark (Netflix) – I was interested in this show, because it was drawing a lot of comparisons to the acclaimed Stranger Things, but made in Germany. But I’ll be perfectly honest, I tend to prefer to go into shows completely blind, without knowing much beyond synopses, but in the case of Dark, I think it would help everyone going into it, to maybe look a little bit into what the show is kind of about. Otherwise, you leave yourself vulnerable to being in the dark about Dark’s slow developing plot, and abandon ship when it takes 2.75 episodes to really begin to be given some ideas about what’s going on.
Seriously, I threw in the towel on Dark halfway through the third episode. Shit was happening, but there were still no hints or clues to what was going on, and I was getting bored being kept in the dark so long. It wasn’t until I actually started reading some spoilers on the internet in an attempt to get some closure on the story I had started, did I read a very interesting concept that re-kindled everything, and made me think “hmm, that’s actually kind of interesting,” prompting me to cease reading any further, and then go back to start watching again.
And it was a good thing too, because once you kind of have a general idea of what the show is actually about, Dark actually becomes one of the more creative and compelling shows I’ve seen in a while. It definitely has a Stranger Things vibe, as it deals with specific periods in time and everything is visually appropriate, and the plot unfolds in a very thought-provoking manner that people like me tend to think a lot about afterward.
In the end, I ultimately got sucked into the show, and once the plot gets going, this becomes one of those shows where the second the credits show up, you quickly look at the time, and do everything to justify and rationalize “ok, one more episode.” It starts off at a snail’s pace, but becomes good pretty quickly, and before you know it, you’re on the last episode wondering how the show is going to end. A definite recommendation for those who like thought provoking thrillers.
Kakegurui (Netflix) – after watching 10+ hour+ episodes of Korean and German dramas, I wanted something of a pallet cleanser that was mindless and quick. Which is pretty easily exactly what anime is, and considering I hadn’t watched anime since like, Soul Eater or season 4 of Initial D, I figured a show about gambling would be something somewhat interesting to help clear the brain of any intelligible thinking.
Ultimately, Kakegurui is a widely forgettable series with weak characters, weak writing, lots of fanservice, and almost a formulaic cast of tropes. Including one character in the show that’s uncomfortably gun obsessed and suicidal that I kind of had a difficult time enduring, but the rest are pretty safe and standard. Despite being advertised as a show about gambling, I can’t really say that it is a show about gambling, and out of courtesy to anyone whom might actually want to watch this after reading my blunt review I won’t state what it actually seems to be about. But every episode is 22 minutes, so it flies by very quickly and I didn’t feel like I wasted that much time imbibing in it.
**
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon Prime Video, pictured featured) – I didn’t know a thing about this show going into it, and watched it at the strong recommendation of a close friend, but ultimately it turned out to be a very strong show that I’m glad I took the time to watch.
It’s the story of a spunky 1950s housewife who when her picturesque family life comes crumbling apart, discovers she has a penchant for comedy, and embarks on a journey of pursuing the talent while picking up the pieces of her family life. Mrs. Maisel is cleverly written, moves at a smooth yet pretty fast pace, the visuals are Mad Men-like good, and the acting is superb. Rachel Brosnahan, who plays the titular Mrs. Maisel, is a starlet in the role, and I think it’s kind of impossible for anyone to not fall a little bit in love with her throughout the journey through the show, whether it’s through her plucky acting or just how her presence and look captivates the viewers’ eyes. Frankly, I always remembered her as the sad side quest character for Doug Stamper in House of Cards, but now she’s kind of this mix between Annie Edison and Leslie Knope, which is very much a good thing in my book.
Depending on my mood, this is easily the best show I’ve binged recently, and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes strong writing, captivating period visuals, watch a strong female lead, or all of the above. It’s a great show, and I hope there’s more of it in the future.
Prison Playbook (Netflix) – the primary reason to why I watched yet another Korean drama, was that my sister told me that my mom had recently watched the series, and for once, I wanted to actually have a show that we could talk about together. Otherwise, it was a show that caught my attention, since it was somewhat baseball-related, but at 16 episodes at nearly 90+ minutes each, the sheer time commitment was as intimidating as picking a fight with Haku, and I doubt I would’ve pulled the trigger without a good reason.
TL;DR, it’s about a Korean baseball player on the verge of Major League superstardom in America, who gets tagged on an “excessive self-defense” charge, rescuing his sister from an assault. Instead of heading to the Boston Red Sox, he instead goes to prison for a year, and it’s the story of how he goes about his business and the other inmates around him during his incarceration.
The plot is weak and fairly predictable, and it doesn’t help that there’s a definitive timeline in the story, so you kind of know what is to come of the fate of the characters. But the acting is superb, as Korean actors do know how to drama, and they’re really capable of evoking strong emotions and feelings with their own subplots and back stories that are revealed throughout the series. However, pretty much everyone gets some back story time throughout the series, regardless of what their roles are in the grand plot, and it goes without saying that the show most certainly did not need to be 16 episodes long much less at 90+ minutes apiece. I could only really stand to watch an episode a day, since two episodes would mean three hours, and I just don’t have three hours to spare on a regular basis.
But the variety of characters is pretty well mixed, and it’s a pretty easy to show to watch in spite of the sheer volume of show there is. It’s an eternity to get through with a predictable plot, but wasn’t the most terrible thing in the world I’d ever seen.
Midnight Runners (DramaFever) – this is actually a feature film I watched while my mom was visiting my house, but when the movie ended, I can say that I enjoyed it.
It’s a straight-forward story about two young police recruits who become friends during initial training, and during a night out on the town, they witness a kidnapping. When they realize how much procedure, bureaucracy and red tape gets in the way of the ultimate goal of helping people, they utilize all of their initial police training to take it upon themselves to solve the crime and uncover a more sinister organization.
The pace of the film is quick and doesn’t waste a lot of time with fluff, which I can appreciate, especially from a Korean production. The plot is fairly predictable, but it’s still a harrowing look at the darker trades of the black market, and how frighteningly in plain sight their effects can be out in the open. And this is definitely easily a buddy-cop film, but the acting is good and the sentiment is understandable.
Ultimately, it’s a film that’s easily enjoyable by anyone already fan of Korean culture, but it’s also a flick that’s probably enjoyable by those who aren’t that familiar with Korean cinema.
Needless to say, I have been enjoying the pursuit of good television and movies, since I have such a sweet setup for watching things. And hopefully my blunt and quick review blurbs might influence any of my zero readers to expand their horizons and give any of these things a whirl if they already haven’t seen them.
