moojiii

[moojiii]

im disappointed

sigh... i saw a small trailer on tiktok i think and tbh i didn’t think it looked good at all. I didn’t really understand the preference. I just saw an asian woman and 2 white people, so i thought it was another clickbaity movie that disguised itsself as an asian movie but was really one of those white savior movies. 

so when i saw the full trailer right before i watched the movie i was pleasantly surprised that it was just an american family trying to escape the past. there was a sliver of hope, that literally plummeted down when i saw the rotten tomato score. ill admit that it was my fault that i just had to take a small peek to see what other people were saying, but i just had to know. spoiler alert: they didnt like it. and spoiler alert: neither did i.

ive seen some bad horror movies and some of them actually are so terrible they make this movie seem like a blockbuster 4star timeless classic but if i had seen this movie on a random night while i was bored scrolling through netflix, i would feel much better about it. ( i paid like 12 bucks to see this movie in theatres). I also have nothing against Sandra Oh and the actress that played her daughter, Odeya Rush, their performances were really good! super emotional and believeable and there were times that i felt for them, both having thier own problems, thier own trauma, wanting the same thing but not knowing how to get there, how to get past their fears. but their acting couldn’t save this movie by a longshot.

the beginning of this movie was actually very nice. lots of spooks and scenes that would lead to a nice build up, a nice mystery. for example there is this hanbok that keeps on appearing on screen as a reminder of the mc’s trauma. and a woman’s figure suddenly fills in the empty hanbok, and she appears several times, in the dark, that fear you have when your clothes on your chair suddenly look like a human body in your room. its that kind of fear, and its really well done. there are also some really beautiful lightning and thunder scenes that actually turns menacing since the mc has a phobia of electricity. 

and those parts of the movie are the only parts that i enjoyed. i will now explain the movie in as most detail as i can remember. 

Sandra Oh plays a korean woman who basically abandons her physically and emotionally abusive mother. she runs away to the middle of nowhere and starts a bee farm with her wasian daughter. They live a self reliant lifestyle, farming for themselves and using their bee farm to sell honey for a living, all the while having no electricity becuase the mother has a phobia of it since its a reminder of the abuse that she suffered at the hands of her own mother, the mc keeps up this lifestyle by convincing her daughter that any kind of electricity makes her very sick,. (strike 1). then on a random day, sandra’s uncle comes to her farm and hands over her mother’s ashes, saying all this terrible stuff like “your mom begged for you as she died, why did you leave her, this is all your fault, you shouldve been there for her, she’s going to haunt you for the rest of your life” bs. and this emotionally unstable woman, after running away from her past, and her undeniabley awful mother is reunited with her spirit and is really really swayed by the uncle’s words.

basically a bunch of shit goes down, sandra starts seeing her mother everywhere, starts having blackouts because her mom keeps “possessing her” all the while hiding everything from her own daughter, who is terrified out of her mind by the way her mom is acting. this is extrememly ironic becuase sandra keeps on repeating to herself that she will never, never become like her own mother. and until the ending, the viewers are wondering, is this really the mom haunting her as a ghost? or is this just the psychotic breakdown of a woman who has mountains of trauma from her mom? a woman who cant decide if she’s guilty for leaving her mom all alone? or a woman who is angry that her mom is still haunting her to this day, even when she travelled so far to get away from her? unfortunately in her effort to be not like her mom, she becomes very much the opposite, which is not much better...

when sandra oh gets “possessed” by her mom, she does not very nice things to her daughter, locking her in a dark cellar to “punish her” for not being an obedient daughter (strike 2), ruining her college application becuase she wants to keep her daughter close to her forever, using the excuse that she’s protecting her from the evil world (strike 3) all the while hiding really important stuff from her, such as the electricity thing, and the trauma thing she’s got going on. I don’t really like using the word possession literally because all the things that she does to her daughter, it’s not her mother forcing her to do it, its her own desires that come to the surface when her state of mind is in shambles. this is evident because when the daughter pushes sandra on going to college again, she says awful things to try to make her stay like “you’re not brave enough, youre not good enough, look how you acted when you went to school, you came back to me crying, so i taught you at home, look at all i did for you, this was all for you, you cant leave me” all this manipulative parent bs that was actually kind of realistic in a terrible way. I kind of like that idea, in which the movie portrays that she is fearful of her mother but she should really be fearful of herself, herself as a mother. it WOULD be a really nice take. but of course thats not the actual movie message.

now we get to the ending of the movie. the grandma who is made out to be the main antagonist of the movie is.... surprise surprise actually real. her ghost actually exists, which you know is true because the daughter actually can see her and the ghost has true power in the real world. sure sure, the grandmother being real, its whatever, even if it destroys the meaning of the movie, its fine, its a horror movie. its whatever . its not even the worst part... sighh so the grandma is able to fully possess sandra oh and tries to i guess kill(?) the daughter for being disobedient but sandra is able to take back her body enough to like run away? idk i forgot, but they end up in the farm outside and the ghost drags sandra underground. she basically speaks to her mother in the underworld and they have this supposedly emotional talk. “i know you were hurting but you hurt me too so i had to leave” and they reach a mutual understanding and the grandma ghost is basically laid to rest after the talk. ok the talk was literally so bad i think my mind is forcing me to forget it because i seriously cannot recall it at all. anyways, after that, sandra wakes up in the dirt and claws her way to the surface. and then she has a proper burial for the grandma ghost (korean style) and then she sends her daughter off the college and everyhting is ok now. :)

its pretty obvious what the problem with this movie is now. this movie isn’t about guilt, or generational trauma, or mental illness, or how to deal with the trauma that you can’t seem to heal from no matter how hard you try. NO. this movie is about family, forgiveness, making amends with the person that you felt that you had to move across the world to get away from, the person that abused you so bad, you felt the need to stay away from electricity forever if you had to. i wouldn’t be surprised if the person who wrote this movie was a mother who purposely almost killed her child but wants to be friends with her again. :I like WHAT IS THIS. and then after they give the mom a proper burial after forgiving her or whatever, all is well and the daughter goes to college all willy nilly, they don’t even add a subtle line like “you better get going too mom, youre going to be late for therapy”. literally everything gets all sunshiny and better after they give the absolute garbage grandma, forgiveness and a proper burial. its so stupid. totally walks all over abusive relationships and the need to better oneself through other means like therapy. if she had just gone to korea and seen her mother pass away and given her a proper burial there, this never wouldve happened in the first place. such a terrible movie with a terrible message. i would give it 25% out of 100% :I

there are some metaphors that i probably dont have enough korean knowledge to be able to relate deeply with them, but the grandma also has a favorite mask? i guess its a bit spooky but seeing a grandma floating around in a hanbok and wooden mask wasn’t really scary to me. i was thouroughly unimpressed. they didnt even try to make her look scary. they humanized her as much as possible while trying to depict her like a terrible ghostly creature, it didn’t do it for me. there was also a ninetailed fox metaphor. it showed up like 3 times. once to kill a little chick which probably had a deep meaning but this movie was full of fake deep meanings so i legit dont care about neither the mask nor the fox. ugh anyways, bad movie, terrible korean representation in my opinion, bad message, yet another korean movie that does the opposite of what it trys to convey. in pushing the message that family is sometimes bad, you should still forgive them cause youll feel better about it, and respect them too they had a hard time too , you shouldnt blame them, theyre still family you should at least like them a little bit.

 bruh.... dumbass movie. :I

[moojiii]

me la la likey

saw this for the first time yesterday, ok it’s pretty good. I would say that it was a bit overhyped at the time it was released, which is what drew me away from it in the first place, but yeah its pretty good. i will say that i enjoyed it, and i wasnt watching it to be critical of it, i was watching it with like glee i guess. i feel like that’s bit too strong of a word but i felt actual emotions watching it. 

a very big portion of the plot is jazz music. i feel like they really nailed the jazz instrumental portion but the actual musical singing potion i felt was lackluster. musical songs are made to be super catchy while telling a story, but i tried my hardest to listen and like the songs that were playing but couldnt enjoy them. they were just boring, and didnt showcase the “good singing” that was supposed to happen (because spoiler alert: there was no good singing). there was hardly any dancing either (not a complaint) but i give my props to the actors that had to practice and learn the numbers. I dont know if ryan gosling actually learned to play the piano or if he is a piano prodigy already but he sold the performances. The best portions of the movie were when gosling was on some keys. those moments really got me going. I feel like it heavily focused more on the movie portion than the musical portion.

ok the story and the acting are ‘chefs kiss’ really good. Gosling and Stone are SUCHHHH good actors and they nailed this performance. two people falling in love and then falling out of love. it was just so fluffy when they first started dating each other and painful when they started getting busier and fighting more and getting more and more frustrated with thier lifestyles and dreams. it was just such a good story, with characters you could relate to and cheer for and feel for and root for. when they both achieve their dreams like they had spent years talking about, they couldnt have each other. good good good stuff right there. hits right in the realistic feels. 

movie part: nailed. musical: not so much. first of all the singing was very very veryyyyyyyyyy mid. may i say less than mid. i know that gosling and stone are not musical geniuses, but you have to point out thier singing if theyre gonna star in a musical. like come on, whenever gosling opened his mouth, it was a random note omg it was so bad LOOOOLOLOL. 

anyways my thoughts are all jumbled up but it was a good movie, not good enough for best motion picture for musical. I think every one will agree with me on that stance. i personally liked this one :>

[moojiii]

this is a failure

ok i havent been caught up on my kdramas in a while, but i recently saw a tiktok of The Last Empress or 황후의 품격 and oh my lord. it might be one of the worst things ive seen in a while. I was drawn to it in the tiktok because it was about the ML realizing he loved the FL only after the ML2 fell in love with her and he was about to lose her. and i was likeee hmmmm its 2019 (when the drama was released), maybe this will finally be the drama that the ML really isnt the ML and he missed his chance so he doesnt get the girl now, she loves someone else. that would actually be so good. like i would be giddy. so i look up the kdrama and mind you my smile immediately fades away when there are like 26 episodes (52 parts) cause holy sh, that is WAYYY too much, like you already know that there is going to be so much unessecary drama and filler episodes. its just too much. but i would do anything for the satisfaction of ML2 getting the girl instead of the ML1. So basically, the plot is... if SKorea still had a monarchy in modern times and the emperor marries a common girl, BUT he only marries her according to his mother’s wishes to protect the girl he really loves.

characters

I have gotten to episode 9 (part 19) and so far, there are 7 character that seem important 1. the emperor ML 2. the queen 3. the grandqueen (grandmother queen) 4. the empress FL 5. the emporer’s lover FL2 6. King’s main bodyguard ML2 7. the late emperor’s concubine (f) 8. the emperors little brother these are the most important characters so far but im only on episode 9 so there are probably so many more. 

firstly i would like to point out that there is not one singular character that i like to see on the screen. these characters are so over the top and act like complete animals. I feel like whoever wrote these characters do not understand human emotion and interaction. the ONLY character i enjoy is gma. she is the only sane character in this drama. and the lil bro.... and the FL younger sister. everyone else can suck my cawk. bro everyone is so infuriating it actually makes me nauseous.  lets talk about the queen. ok this lady put cameras. CAMERAS in her sons bedroom and bathroom. she watches him bathe bro . like cmon how can you watch this drama with peace in mind. she is obsessed with her son which is the reason why she hates every woman that he loves. there are several awful scenes where she is kissing him on the lips and there is so much seggsual tension between her and him i cant stomach it. she makes him marry the common girl (FL) because she known he doesnt love her and the FL will be easy to get rid of. she killed the first empress (yes there was an empress before the FL and the mom killed her cause she was jealous ig??) idk man. its so hard to watch. her acting is pretty good though. she’s super emotional and believable. her chemistry with her son is so good that its actualy disgusting. props to them.

ok now the FL. i have never seen a more unlikeable female character in my life. its probably on purpose, to make her so ignorant of true royalty life, but this girl is so stupid, i cant even like her a little bit. in general its hard for me to stand by anyone who will lick a man’s boots no hesitation. like,, i feel like its fine to fangirl over a cute celebrity, but how are you still gonna act like a fan girl to your husband. ML tricked her so easily too... like bro come on, not even a little suspicion?? i had a little bit of hope for her in the beginning but she folded IMMEDIATELY. it took 1 day and she folded. man proposed to her after meeting her 4 times. you have to be a DIFFERENT kind of stupid to fall for that kinda scheme. and after she found out he was cheating around, girl was like, “ill believe anything you tell me” and then punished his lover. like WHAT???? i know this dude the emperor and all but please get at least a little angry at him. her “redeeming quality” is supposed to be that she is a nice person and she sings well ig? but that doesnt cut it for me. It’ll probably come into play later, but right now it just seems like she’s hella pushover and ditzy. i cant watch and relate and feel for a character who is constantly getting sht on and continues to be the same person as before. :/

ok ML. bro... i have never seen such an insufferable character IN MY LIFE. IN MY WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE. this dude is the BIGGEST ASSHOLE IVE EVER WITNESSED. i cannot come ot like him. he does not get a redemption arc. if you murder someone, you do not get a redemption arc. you get sent to jail immediately. i get he has trauma and stuff from his bum ass mom, but come on dude, he is a child in a grown mans body. the worst part is that even though he is treating FL like the grime under his fingernail, HE IS STILL GONNA GET HER???? like what??? please make that make sense. unlikeable character. terrible attitude, and i dont like his acting either. i dont htink he is a good fit for his role. his “sweet smile” looks absolutely insane.

FL2 = emperor’s lover. ok i’m actually rooting for this girl, cause she has a plan in mind and she’ll stop at nothing to take it. she’s the only character that is showing gains and getting what she wants because she is working for it. she is an absolute slimy weasel no doubt about it, but damn is she good at what she does. and no matter how hard the characters try to throw her away, she alwys comes back in a new suit, face beat, hair done, nails done, smiling. i cant help but htinking how much of a girlboss she is. and she has the emperor wrapped around her fingers. but yes she is absolutely annoying and a murderer as well. she killed her own adoptive mom and doesnt give 2 shts about her son. all she cares about is power and money (fatal flawww) but i swear to god, if she is the MAIN antagonists and just continues to be a hurdle up until the very end, imma be pissed off, its just dragging at this point. Also she has like 5 scenes that are identical of her hugging ML and cracking a devious smile behind his back. its actually hilarious.

[moojiii]

why

cast

first of all this casting was not good. the rock??? GAL GADOT???? come on now. i was skeptical of ryan reynolds’ role (im not a really big fan of his so i wouldnt know how good his acting is) but i actually think he did fine. I wouldve enjoyed probably anyone else (except chris pratt) but he did fine and was definitely the best out of the 3.

Why was mister rock casted? a genuine question. he was so terrible in this role as a “BAU FBI agent”. I know that action movies like this, the acting doesnt have to be super high quality best acting ever, but he was so bad, it was jarring. there was something just so odd about his acting, it was kind of like when you and your friends are playing mafia and the person who cant lie gets picked as mafia and has to try and act like a good guy. it was just horrible. I think that they casted rock just so reynolds’ character could make all those bald head jokes. and im not going to lie about it, i laughed every time.

i do not think gal gadot was good in this role. basically anyone who is “hot and tall” couldve been casted. ive never seen wonder woman so idk how she is as an actress (she was probably way better in those roles than in this one) but holy sh. she was terrible. she tries her hardest to act super evil and cunning but she was just cringe.

there was a fourth character in this movie which was the italian cop or something. i mean, she got in here, did her job, and what she had to do, i guess. i don’t want to call her character useless because the characters needed someone to chase them but she was a terrible terrible cop. Im thinking it was supposed to make it seem like the criminals were too smart for her to keep up with them, but it was just so hard to watch her follow them around and proceed to do absolutely nothing, like, why even bother having her in the scene then?

gripes

now.... i know this was supposed to be an action movie or some sort of spy movie or something of that genre but this movie did not satisfy that action itch for me. i feel like the action was very boring and minuscule. all of the fight scenes were really boring or lame. I remember there was this one fight scene in the museum on the scaffolding with reynolds and he pushed one guy off and there was a specific “ahhh” scream that just made me burst out with laughter. that had to be on purpose. they put that generic sound effect in there on purpose, but see the movie was so bad, i just cant tell. 

who wrote this? WHO WROTE THIS? some of the lines were so terrible i gagged. when they attempted to bring reynold’s and rock’s character closer together, it was so cringe and painful, i thought they were purposely ironic so that they could sneak a joke in at the end. joke never came and i was just left with disgust. the romance between the rock and gadot was atrocious. who green lighted that? they couldve just been partners in crime???? why, god why did they make them a couple. they do not match at all? they had no chemistry. they were calling each other baby and snookumns and all that. it killed me from the inside out. 

SPEAKING OF... the “huge crazy plot twist” at the end was not good. it made the whole movie feel even sloppier and more cringe than before. i hated it. i also dislike how many times they used the “omg they must have followed us” excuse. like please bro if youre making these people out to be super smart international thieves, why would they make same mistake over and over again.

what really irked me was that if they had to travel somewhere or be in a certain place half way across the world, it took one cutscene and they were there. i feel like this movie just had no sense of time or area or anything. 

likes

the cleopatra eggs were pretty cool. i wish they were more lavish and older looking than the movie made them but i liked the concept of them. i also enjoyed the underground bunker. im always into hoarders with old antiques and bunkers filled with crazy stuff. 

the humor was actually pretty good. most of the jokes by reynolds landed. only by him though. he was pretty funny and saved this awful movie in my opinion. i also really liked that they randomly added ed sheeran ??? i liked his cameo as well. 

overall: 2.5/10

ending hinted at a sequel. hopefully it never happens