Reviews

How to best describe Vincenzo? On the surface it seems like the Godfather meets Korean drama and the premise looks promising. In practise, I can at best describe it as a strange mix of black comedy, mixed with action and horror elements. Truly a strange mix, which ends up being confusing and you end up on a rollercoaster, but one that is moving in all directions!

The whole story did not make any sense and was far from credible and may be culturally insensitive. A Korean adoptee who can speak fluent Korean and Italian with a heavy Korean accent. Right...! The development of the characters was stale and the plot twists may be surprising, but totally ridiculous.

The sub-plot where Vincenzo was gay baiting someone was truly offensive. In this time of inclusion, I found this highly cringe and insensitive. It may be normal for a Korean audience, but in the rest of the world this is not done.

We see through the episodes the violence escalating. Where it starts relatively innocent, it escalates into something increasingly more gruesome and gore. Culminating in the torture and demise of the antagonists: stabbing in the neck where we see blood pouring out, live burning of a woman and the slowly drilling to death of the "end boss". It intends to shock and wrap up the story, but I found it unnecessary, unsatisfactory and out of context with the vibe of the other episodes.

The acting of some characters was quite good though, notably the main protagonist Vincenzo (Song Joong-ki) and the antagonists Choi Myung-hee (Kim Yeo-jin), Jang Han-seo (Kwak Dong-yeon) and Jang Han-seok (Ok Taec-yeon). I can appreciate their performance. It is just that everything else was incoherent and a confusing mess.

And what about the take home message of Vincenzo? There is no justice in this world. An eye for an eye. Torture and killing is okay. It is okay to take matters in your own hand. How can you spread such a message? Truly incredible!

Love Alarm has a very good message, which was explained in the last episode. Instead of living your life because of an app, you can just live your life by following your own will and heart. This is what Kim Jo-jo and Lee Hye-yeong eventually did. Many are upset because they really liked Hwang Sun-oh, and Song Kang who played him really nailed it in Season 1.

But Sun-oh chose to let his life be determined by the app, and accepted the break-up because of the app, although he knew that he loved Jo-jo and Jo-jo loved him. Meanwhile, Hye-yeong was really chasing Jo-jo and was madly in love with her, despite the app saying otherwise. There is a cardinal rule in life: the guy who tries harder gets the girl. And Love Alarm is no different.

For those who feel sorry for Sun-oh, don't be. He got an excellent girlfriend Yuk-jo who is very patient, caring, unselfish, loving and pretty. Such girls are really rare, and he hit the jackpot here. If he starts to live his life like his best friend Hye-yeong did, which is following his heart, he will return her love.

I really enjoyed Love Alarm, both seasons. I think Season 1 was better directed and had better cinematography. At times I found the camera work in Season 2 distracting and even annoying. The colors were sometimes too bright, which was hurting my eyes. But the music was better in Season 2 and the shots on Jeju island were stunning, so the PD knows how to deliver good shots. The back stories were very nice, and I liked the growth of characters because of these stories. The actors were top in their class and I am looking forward to their next shows.

The only thing I would have changed was to give Sun-oh an explicit happy ending by finally letting Yuk-jo's love alarm go off in their final scenes and with them both smiling. This would have reduced the expected backlash and reduced the SLS effect.

I rate the TV show as 9/10. For those who love the actors, show them YOUR love by watching it on Netflix!

"Follow YOUR dream," this is the summary of this excellent drama series from Korea.

To start with the best: the soundtrack and music is really great and enhanced the experienced by bring additional emotions to the story. You will definitely enjoy the awesome and uplifting music in this show! Definitely high praise for track 5 "Running" created by Gaho.

In terms of cast, granny Choi stole every scene she was in, some of them true tear jerkers. All praise to her! One of the lead characters in particular, Han Ji-pyeong or "Good Boy", played by Kim Seon-ho and his younger self Nam Da-reum, were very impressive as well. They showed a lot of depth and range with their character. Seo Dal-mi, played by the stunning Bae Suzy, is truly a joy to watch. Nam Do-san, the Korean Sheldon Cooper, played by Nam Joo-hyuk was good in the beginning, only wished he could have stayed in his nerd role instead of transforming later to a regular male protagonist that you can find in Korean dramas.

The story is original, especially in the start-up and IT context. The different terms used are explained well and even accurate. Great to see the popularization of artificial intelligence and machine learning. It was not always accurate though, but that can be forgiven and overlooked.

The cinematography is stunning. The graphics very well done. The production is slick and of very high quality. It is candy for your eyes.

What I did not like was the many flashbacks, which slowed down the pace of the story. I also think less time should have been spent on the love triangle that never really took off, but instead the other characters deserved more development and air time, such as the history and bonding between Samsan friends and relationship between the Seo sisters.

In contemporary modern societies, the pressure to perform and follow the path that many others follow is high. So the morale of the story is actually good. You need to dare to follow YOUR dream by sailing off without a map sometimes. Don't be afraid to be a trailblazer. Truly inspiring!