hzp
varishangout.com
So recently I've started to watch more and more Chinese and Korean live action media. And I was wondering if anyone else got into it, too? Or if you have any good shit to share with me.
This started with my Netflix sub, after seeing the few worthwhile shows on there I was bored and dared to watch international shows.
The JP content on the platform isn't very large and frankly speaking disappointing. Aside from million yen women (which I saw before getting on Netflix) and Giri/Haji (which is actually from the UK , but I do recommend!) it's almost all live action adaptations from anime. 3DPD with stupid haircuts trying to imitate anime quirks and tropes just doesn't do it for me. Most of the time I cringe hard and quit. I guess the Naked Director was fun...
So I tried a gook show first, and boy was I pleased. When I read the tags and synopsis for Signal (detective, drama, fantasy), I really thought I'd hate it. The trailer was intriguing though and I had nothing to lose. My only exposure to korean media on netflix were series taking place in the joseon era (equivalent of late middle-ages in Europe) and I just couldn't bear the stupid hats...
Anyways, back to Signal, that shit was very very entertaining. The actors were good too. And korean has its charm to my ears.
I then got into Stranger, which is around a prosecutor rather than a police officer. It was pretty okay, entertaining enough and better than 95% of the other shit on Netflix! And then Extracurricular, about some nerdy high school student who turns out to be a fucking pimp; if you like "wild rides", this one is really good.
I then recently stumbled upon The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity, now that title sounds goofy as fuck, and after watching the trailer you'd expect the usual extremely generic, bland and boring (sometimes cringe) fantasy movie which I'm used to quit after 20 minutes and forget. Also it's Chinese... And that's what I thought too, I watched it nonetheless because I watch a lot of stupid shit, I have a deep love for fantasy. I also thought that since I never watched any chinese fantasy before, I have no idea what "generic" over there is, maybe it's different enough to entertain me. But here I was decently surprised! Far from being extraordinary though, the CGI was good, it all sounded relatively original and convincing, it was entertaining. I wasn't bored and I didn't cringe! And most importantly I realized something. It was the first fantasy (you can even count sci-fi in it) I saw in years that wasn't plagued by the Marvel/The Hobbit virus where there has to be some comic relief every fucking minute nor GoT bacteria - twenty sex scenes per movie (far from being a puritan, I just don't see the point of having everything become muh adult flavour by adding extra blood and sex). I also love to hear mandarin tbh.
There's also The Rise of Pheonixes that I started and was genuinely impressed. Really like it so far, aside from the length (season 1: 70 episodes I believe)
I think I exclusively watched Korean media at some point (ignoring anime ofc), on or off of netflix. The majority isn't really worth mentioning, but was still entertaining enough for me. Personally this feels like a breath of fresh air and I hope these countries cinematographic industries will continue to thrive. All of east asia has an extremely big mythos and history as well as their own take on modern society that they can build upon for producing good shows and movies. I feel like there's a lot of HQ shit out there but that just isn't very popular over here.
If you're still only sticking to western live action media, I perfectly understand, but I just feel like you're missing out on something and hope you'll give it a try.
This started with my Netflix sub, after seeing the few worthwhile shows on there I was bored and dared to watch international shows.
The JP content on the platform isn't very large and frankly speaking disappointing. Aside from million yen women (which I saw before getting on Netflix) and Giri/Haji (which is actually from the UK , but I do recommend!) it's almost all live action adaptations from anime. 3DPD with stupid haircuts trying to imitate anime quirks and tropes just doesn't do it for me. Most of the time I cringe hard and quit. I guess the Naked Director was fun...
So I tried a gook show first, and boy was I pleased. When I read the tags and synopsis for Signal (detective, drama, fantasy), I really thought I'd hate it. The trailer was intriguing though and I had nothing to lose. My only exposure to korean media on netflix were series taking place in the joseon era (equivalent of late middle-ages in Europe) and I just couldn't bear the stupid hats...
Anyways, back to Signal, that shit was very very entertaining. The actors were good too. And korean has its charm to my ears.
I then got into Stranger, which is around a prosecutor rather than a police officer. It was pretty okay, entertaining enough and better than 95% of the other shit on Netflix! And then Extracurricular, about some nerdy high school student who turns out to be a fucking pimp; if you like "wild rides", this one is really good.
I then recently stumbled upon The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity, now that title sounds goofy as fuck, and after watching the trailer you'd expect the usual extremely generic, bland and boring (sometimes cringe) fantasy movie which I'm used to quit after 20 minutes and forget. Also it's Chinese... And that's what I thought too, I watched it nonetheless because I watch a lot of stupid shit, I have a deep love for fantasy. I also thought that since I never watched any chinese fantasy before, I have no idea what "generic" over there is, maybe it's different enough to entertain me. But here I was decently surprised! Far from being extraordinary though, the CGI was good, it all sounded relatively original and convincing, it was entertaining. I wasn't bored and I didn't cringe! And most importantly I realized something. It was the first fantasy (you can even count sci-fi in it) I saw in years that wasn't plagued by the Marvel/The Hobbit virus where there has to be some comic relief every fucking minute nor GoT bacteria - twenty sex scenes per movie (far from being a puritan, I just don't see the point of having everything become muh adult flavour by adding extra blood and sex). I also love to hear mandarin tbh.
There's also The Rise of Pheonixes that I started and was genuinely impressed. Really like it so far, aside from the length (season 1: 70 episodes I believe)
I think I exclusively watched Korean media at some point (ignoring anime ofc), on or off of netflix. The majority isn't really worth mentioning, but was still entertaining enough for me. Personally this feels like a breath of fresh air and I hope these countries cinematographic industries will continue to thrive. All of east asia has an extremely big mythos and history as well as their own take on modern society that they can build upon for producing good shows and movies. I feel like there's a lot of HQ shit out there but that just isn't very popular over here.
If you're still only sticking to western live action media, I perfectly understand, but I just feel like you're missing out on something and hope you'll give it a try.
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