K.O. One Re-act/All of Us Are Dead/Light the Night
I finished three dramas around the same time and I'm amazingly free today for a Monday. So here we go!
This is pretty much K.O. One Return, but this time, Jiro Wang sticks through the whole drama! Even the cast is pretty much the same. Read my K.O. One Return review for the cast list.
It comes with the addition of Wes Lo (K.O. 3Guo, Fabulous Boys) as Gu Zhan and Wayne Huang (Fabulous Boys) as Zhi Ge:
and Huang An Yu (The Crossing Hero) as Li Yan Yan:
Also, Nylon Chen (K.O. 3Guo) as Cao Ji Li:
Lol, the subber didn't know about S&M.
And Emily Tsai (K.O. One, Hana Kimi, The X-Family, K.O. 3Guo, Absolute Boyfriend, Amensalism) as Cai Yun Han:
The S with her whip.
For trying to "Re-act" K.O. One Return, they inexplicably brought back weakest-link in acting, Sam Lin (K.O. One Return) as Zhong Wan Jun:
I'll make this short, since this is a fairly average entry in the K.O. series. The good is that Jiro Wang stuck it out for the whole drama.
Bonus pic of Jiro Wang to make this photo series happier.
If I have to stick through another drama with Sam Lin as the ML, I'll...I'll...I'll probably drop that drama. The addition of Wes Lo and his two friends is also good. Wes Lo was amusing in K.O. 3Guo and he's amusing here. The same with Nylon Chen and Emily Tsai and enjoy watching them do things.
The bad is obviously Sam Lin and his slightly inconvenienced school of acting. I don't know who asked for it, but they brought back the love triangle between King, Da Dong, and Zhong Wan Jun. King and Da Dong's relationship was okay, but ended inexplicably so that King can end up with Zhong Wan Jun in K.O. One Return. For K.O. One Re-act, it's as if the writers are aware that King should end up with Da Dong, but they keep trying to jam Zhong Wan Jun in there. It's incredibly tedious. The general plot is less cohesive than K.O. One Return. In between the main plot, there would be long stretches where they talk about random things that just go on for so long! And then towards the end, it seems like they try to wrap things up in two episodes and things get left out (or maybe they're saving it for the future?)
So overall, I would recommend it for completionists like myself who like to try and 100% Jiro Wang's filmography and/or the K.O. series. But I would rank the K.O. series as follows:
Excellent
K.O. 3Guo
Good mindless fun
K.O. One
The X-Family
Somewhat questionable quality
K.O. One Re-act
Watch the first half, skip right to the next in the K.O. series
K.O. One Return
Then since my mom is unable to watch anything and stay awake, I watched All of Us Are Dead with her.
For awhile, I said "no more Korean dramas!" because...I haven't been able to find one good Korean drama despite their great popularity. But since my mom loves Korean dramas and zombies, I made the exception and watched this with her.
Cast and Characters
I hate the FL and I didn't care for the ML since he's inexplicably in love with FL. So I'll only talk about the only characters I did like in this drama, which are SFL and SML.
The guy in the front and cyclops-girl.
Jo Yi Hyun plays Choi Nam Ra, the quiet student class president that no one likes for some reason. I guess the other characters hate introverts, and that's why they suck. But then Nam Ra has to go and talk about how she actually wants friends. No, introverts don't just suddenly want friends, okay?
Lomon plays Lee Soo Hyeok, the all around awesome guy to have in a zombie apocalypse. He's fast, he's decisive, he's physical, and he doesn't go on and on about his feelings.
Archery girl isn't bad either.
Everyone else sucks so hard and too much screen-time is devoted to them.
Pros and Cons
Pro: Main story
The basic story is fine. It's a zombie apocalypse mostly localized to one city and the story mostly focuses on students in a school trying to survive. The main plot is perfectly fine because it's well-contained.
Con: 22 Short Films About Springfield
There's just so many extra side stories that come with it that no one ought to care about:
ML's mom trying to get to school to save ML only to be eaten by zombies after nearly half an hour focusing on her. Random pregnant schoolgirl and her issues until she gives birth, is eaten by a zombie. The streamer going into the city to film the zombie apocalypse and then having to be rescued. And all the awkwardness about romance. I get that they're stuck together for multiple days and what are you going to do to pass the time. But when your lives are at stake, are they really going to get jealous about SML holding FL's hand while trying to get her to safety? Arg! All annoying and all of their plots went nowhere.
And most worthless of all story aspects: FL's dad spending the whole series fighting zombies, fighting government forces that put him in quarantine, fighting zombies again to try and get to FL, and then just "sacrificing" himself in the most worthless, pointless death I have ever seen in a zombie flick.
The second most worthless aspect is the half zombies. The idea is fine. But for some reason, it's as if the writers thought the zombie apocalypse wasn't difficult enough. There has to be a school bully that's now a half-zombie and he goes around trying to kill ML. I hate the whole storyline.
The third most worthless aspect are the bullied kids. I get what the writers are going for. Bullying is bad, don't blame the victims. But the way the bullied girl is portrayed just makes me dislike her so much! The bullied guy too. They're just two of the more uninteresting, annoying people in a drama already filled with annoying people.
Pro: Good action
The action scenes are filmed and choreographed really well.
Con: Brain dead people (and the zombies want their brains?)
Question # 1: You're trapped in a room and need to poop. The room has windows you can open. You're not on the first floor, so there's no big risk of zombies climbing in from the window while you poop. Will you:
a. open the window and just let poop fly
b. poop into a bucket and then let it fly out the window
c. poop inside the room then complain about the smell
Question # 2: You're trapped in a perfectly safe gym with four other people and there's a barred door and no zombies inside. There's one injured classmate and you're trying to get outside to get to the rooftop to see if there's help. Will you:
a. take the injured classmate with you even though he outweighs everyone and cannot walk, and certainly cannot climb a ladder going to the rooftop.
b. leave the classmate behind in the safe gym and come back for him when you find help.
c. have one person go to the rooftop to find help while everyone else stays behind in the safe gym with the injured classmate.
Question #3: You've watched all the zombie movies, including Train to Busan and are aware being bitten is VERY BAD. You've watched plenty of your classmates turn after being bitten. When someone in your group of escapees gets bitten, you:
a. restrain him before he turns, just in case
b. stare at him, aghast, while constantly asking "are you okay", "what's the matter", "stop acting like that!", "don't bite me!"
c. leave him behind.
Question #4: Someone is bravely stupidly sacrificing their own life to buy some time so the rest of you can run away and survive. You:
a. run the hell away. That's what that person wanted and it would make his sacrifice mean nothing if you don't make the best of it.
b. tell him, that sacrifice is stupid. All of you have sufficient time to run away as long as no one acts like an idiot.
c. stand there and cry and scream (which, BTW, zombies in this universe are drawn by sound) while watching the person - and the precious time he's trying to buy - gets eaten.
Question #5: And lastly, your kid is being bullied at school. You:
a. homeschool him.
b. inject him with experimental fear-busting medication you developed yourself because that his literally never gone wrong in real life or fiction before!!!
c. teach him to fight back.
I'm not going to insult people's intelligence by giving out the correct answers, but this drama manages to answer wrong every time such situations arise.
Con: The last episode editing
For something that's pretty well produced, the last episode had such a bad edit towards the end. And what's up with cliffhangers? Netflix. Bah humbug!
The End
To be honest, a lot of the same complaints are what I have against the zombie genre in general and that's why I stopped watching them...except for continuing with Kingdom, season 2. First episode in and I'm already enraged by their inability to properly play tower defense. You don't just dig one trench and leave it at that!!! Ai-ya, the things I do for my mom.
Damn Netflix. This series is probably perfectly good at 2-ish seasons and it should just end there. But we get a third season, half of which feel like flashbacks.
Cast and Characters
Pretty much all actors in Taiwan are in this drama. No, seriously. Main leads are Ruby Lin and Cheryl Yang.
There's also: Puff Kuo, Nikki Hsieh, Lorene Ren, Ester Liu, Vivian Hsu, Chris Wu, Derek Cheng, Gingle Wang, Cammy Chiang, Joe Cheng, Wallace Huo, Xiu Jie Kai, James Wen, Austin Lin, Greg Hsu, and older actors Shen Meng Sheng, Chen Bo Zheng, and Tang Zhi Wei.
Tony Yang and Rhydian Vaughan are relatively unknown to me before. I didn't care for Rhydian Vaughan but I would watch other stuff with Tony Yang in it.
Plot and Thoughts
The first season is somewhat frustrating to me even though the story is engrossing. It's a murder mystery with a lot of the story revealed in flashbacks to the days before the murder. The central story centers on the nightclub Light and the madams that work there. I like all the female characters in this drama, but it sucks that the main conflict is the two FL arguing over pudgy-faced asshole Jiang Han (Rhydian Vaughan).
God, his face is so punchable. Maybe that's good acting?
The second season is pretty good. The dead person is revealed and it's the detectives investigating the other girls in the nightclub. But then it ends with a kind of out-there cliffhanger.
The third season is not good where it tries to tie all the ends together through more flashbacks. Ruby Lin teases at a fourth season, but this is where it should just end for its own good.
I never really watched much of Ruby Lin's stuff and I don't care much for her. But I would say this is a pretty good effort both in terms of acting and production.
Girl power: (from left) Puff Kuo, Nikki Hsieh, Cheryl Yang, Ruby Lin, Ester Liu, and Cammy Chiang in back
I like stories about strong females and - with the exception of fighting over smirkface asshole Jiang Han - I like all the female characters in this story.
All that jealousy and fighting over...this???
So I would say it's a pretty enjoyable way to pass the time. But just...Netflix! Ugh!
This is pretty much K.O. One Return, but this time, Jiro Wang sticks through the whole drama! Even the cast is pretty much the same. Read my K.O. One Return review for the cast list.
It comes with the addition of Wes Lo (K.O. 3Guo, Fabulous Boys) as Gu Zhan and Wayne Huang (Fabulous Boys) as Zhi Ge:
and Huang An Yu (The Crossing Hero) as Li Yan Yan:
Also, Nylon Chen (K.O. 3Guo) as Cao Ji Li:
Lol, the subber didn't know about S&M.
And Emily Tsai (K.O. One, Hana Kimi, The X-Family, K.O. 3Guo, Absolute Boyfriend, Amensalism) as Cai Yun Han:
The S with her whip.
For trying to "Re-act" K.O. One Return, they inexplicably brought back weakest-link in acting, Sam Lin (K.O. One Return) as Zhong Wan Jun:
I'll make this short, since this is a fairly average entry in the K.O. series. The good is that Jiro Wang stuck it out for the whole drama.
Bonus pic of Jiro Wang to make this photo series happier.
If I have to stick through another drama with Sam Lin as the ML, I'll...I'll...I'll probably drop that drama. The addition of Wes Lo and his two friends is also good. Wes Lo was amusing in K.O. 3Guo and he's amusing here. The same with Nylon Chen and Emily Tsai and enjoy watching them do things.
The bad is obviously Sam Lin and his slightly inconvenienced school of acting. I don't know who asked for it, but they brought back the love triangle between King, Da Dong, and Zhong Wan Jun. King and Da Dong's relationship was okay, but ended inexplicably so that King can end up with Zhong Wan Jun in K.O. One Return. For K.O. One Re-act, it's as if the writers are aware that King should end up with Da Dong, but they keep trying to jam Zhong Wan Jun in there. It's incredibly tedious. The general plot is less cohesive than K.O. One Return. In between the main plot, there would be long stretches where they talk about random things that just go on for so long! And then towards the end, it seems like they try to wrap things up in two episodes and things get left out (or maybe they're saving it for the future?)
So overall, I would recommend it for completionists like myself who like to try and 100% Jiro Wang's filmography and/or the K.O. series. But I would rank the K.O. series as follows:
Excellent
K.O. 3Guo
Good mindless fun
K.O. One
The X-Family
Somewhat questionable quality
K.O. One Re-act
Watch the first half, skip right to the next in the K.O. series
K.O. One Return
Then since my mom is unable to watch anything and stay awake, I watched All of Us Are Dead with her.
For awhile, I said "no more Korean dramas!" because...I haven't been able to find one good Korean drama despite their great popularity. But since my mom loves Korean dramas and zombies, I made the exception and watched this with her.
Cast and Characters
I hate the FL and I didn't care for the ML since he's inexplicably in love with FL. So I'll only talk about the only characters I did like in this drama, which are SFL and SML.
The guy in the front and cyclops-girl.
Jo Yi Hyun plays Choi Nam Ra, the quiet student class president that no one likes for some reason. I guess the other characters hate introverts, and that's why they suck. But then Nam Ra has to go and talk about how she actually wants friends. No, introverts don't just suddenly want friends, okay?
Lomon plays Lee Soo Hyeok, the all around awesome guy to have in a zombie apocalypse. He's fast, he's decisive, he's physical, and he doesn't go on and on about his feelings.
Archery girl isn't bad either.
Everyone else sucks so hard and too much screen-time is devoted to them.
Pros and Cons
Pro: Main story
The basic story is fine. It's a zombie apocalypse mostly localized to one city and the story mostly focuses on students in a school trying to survive. The main plot is perfectly fine because it's well-contained.
Con: 22 Short Films About Springfield
There's just so many extra side stories that come with it that no one ought to care about:
ML's mom trying to get to school to save ML only to be eaten by zombies after nearly half an hour focusing on her. Random pregnant schoolgirl and her issues until she gives birth, is eaten by a zombie. The streamer going into the city to film the zombie apocalypse and then having to be rescued. And all the awkwardness about romance. I get that they're stuck together for multiple days and what are you going to do to pass the time. But when your lives are at stake, are they really going to get jealous about SML holding FL's hand while trying to get her to safety? Arg! All annoying and all of their plots went nowhere.
And most worthless of all story aspects: FL's dad spending the whole series fighting zombies, fighting government forces that put him in quarantine, fighting zombies again to try and get to FL, and then just "sacrificing" himself in the most worthless, pointless death I have ever seen in a zombie flick.
The second most worthless aspect is the half zombies. The idea is fine. But for some reason, it's as if the writers thought the zombie apocalypse wasn't difficult enough. There has to be a school bully that's now a half-zombie and he goes around trying to kill ML. I hate the whole storyline.
The third most worthless aspect are the bullied kids. I get what the writers are going for. Bullying is bad, don't blame the victims. But the way the bullied girl is portrayed just makes me dislike her so much! The bullied guy too. They're just two of the more uninteresting, annoying people in a drama already filled with annoying people.
Pro: Good action
The action scenes are filmed and choreographed really well.
Con: Brain dead people (and the zombies want their brains?)
Question # 1: You're trapped in a room and need to poop. The room has windows you can open. You're not on the first floor, so there's no big risk of zombies climbing in from the window while you poop. Will you:
a. open the window and just let poop fly
b. poop into a bucket and then let it fly out the window
c. poop inside the room then complain about the smell
Question # 2: You're trapped in a perfectly safe gym with four other people and there's a barred door and no zombies inside. There's one injured classmate and you're trying to get outside to get to the rooftop to see if there's help. Will you:
a. take the injured classmate with you even though he outweighs everyone and cannot walk, and certainly cannot climb a ladder going to the rooftop.
b. leave the classmate behind in the safe gym and come back for him when you find help.
c. have one person go to the rooftop to find help while everyone else stays behind in the safe gym with the injured classmate.
Question #3: You've watched all the zombie movies, including Train to Busan and are aware being bitten is VERY BAD. You've watched plenty of your classmates turn after being bitten. When someone in your group of escapees gets bitten, you:
a. restrain him before he turns, just in case
b. stare at him, aghast, while constantly asking "are you okay", "what's the matter", "stop acting like that!", "don't bite me!"
c. leave him behind.
Question #4: Someone is bravely stupidly sacrificing their own life to buy some time so the rest of you can run away and survive. You:
a. run the hell away. That's what that person wanted and it would make his sacrifice mean nothing if you don't make the best of it.
b. tell him, that sacrifice is stupid. All of you have sufficient time to run away as long as no one acts like an idiot.
c. stand there and cry and scream (which, BTW, zombies in this universe are drawn by sound) while watching the person - and the precious time he's trying to buy - gets eaten.
Question #5: And lastly, your kid is being bullied at school. You:
a. homeschool him.
b. inject him with experimental fear-busting medication you developed yourself because that his literally never gone wrong in real life or fiction before!!!
c. teach him to fight back.
I'm not going to insult people's intelligence by giving out the correct answers, but this drama manages to answer wrong every time such situations arise.
Con: The last episode editing
For something that's pretty well produced, the last episode had such a bad edit towards the end. And what's up with cliffhangers? Netflix. Bah humbug!
The End
To be honest, a lot of the same complaints are what I have against the zombie genre in general and that's why I stopped watching them...except for continuing with Kingdom, season 2. First episode in and I'm already enraged by their inability to properly play tower defense. You don't just dig one trench and leave it at that!!! Ai-ya, the things I do for my mom.
Damn Netflix. This series is probably perfectly good at 2-ish seasons and it should just end there. But we get a third season, half of which feel like flashbacks.
Cast and Characters
Pretty much all actors in Taiwan are in this drama. No, seriously. Main leads are Ruby Lin and Cheryl Yang.
There's also: Puff Kuo, Nikki Hsieh, Lorene Ren, Ester Liu, Vivian Hsu, Chris Wu, Derek Cheng, Gingle Wang, Cammy Chiang, Joe Cheng, Wallace Huo, Xiu Jie Kai, James Wen, Austin Lin, Greg Hsu, and older actors Shen Meng Sheng, Chen Bo Zheng, and Tang Zhi Wei.
Tony Yang and Rhydian Vaughan are relatively unknown to me before. I didn't care for Rhydian Vaughan but I would watch other stuff with Tony Yang in it.
Plot and Thoughts
The first season is somewhat frustrating to me even though the story is engrossing. It's a murder mystery with a lot of the story revealed in flashbacks to the days before the murder. The central story centers on the nightclub Light and the madams that work there. I like all the female characters in this drama, but it sucks that the main conflict is the two FL arguing over pudgy-faced asshole Jiang Han (Rhydian Vaughan).
God, his face is so punchable. Maybe that's good acting?
The second season is pretty good. The dead person is revealed and it's the detectives investigating the other girls in the nightclub. But then it ends with a kind of out-there cliffhanger.
The third season is not good where it tries to tie all the ends together through more flashbacks. Ruby Lin teases at a fourth season, but this is where it should just end for its own good.
I never really watched much of Ruby Lin's stuff and I don't care much for her. But I would say this is a pretty good effort both in terms of acting and production.
Girl power: (from left) Puff Kuo, Nikki Hsieh, Cheryl Yang, Ruby Lin, Ester Liu, and Cammy Chiang in back
I like stories about strong females and - with the exception of fighting over smirkface asshole Jiang Han - I like all the female characters in this story.
All that jealousy and fighting over...this???
So I would say it's a pretty enjoyable way to pass the time. But just...Netflix! Ugh!