Found this series on Netflix. After reading the plot synopsis of people buying items from the future on a ghostly website, I was intrigued. It did not disappoint! The story flows well from episode to episode and the characters are fleshed out well! The series can be broken up into three different sections, but the way how all characters are integrated throughout the entire season. If you enjoy "Black Mirror" Sci-Fi tech caution, you'll probably enjoy this series also. It ends on a cliffhanger, so I hope another season will happen soon!
15 Reviews
Good old fashioned science fiction from Taiwan
amnon-eden9 January 2021
Buying products from the future is an interesting plot device. This series, made in Taiwan, navigates well the cause-and-effect paradoxes of time travel. It is very well made and easy to watch, once you get used to a Chinese-language scenes set in a modern, thriving democracy. I liked how the detective plotline deals with the challenges of making sense of time travel. Impressive!
I'm glad I watched this
mrvino1529 December 2020
I'm torn between a 7 and 8 star rating atm. At 7 stars I might be underrating it just a bit. But I really dig this show! The acting is very very good, emotional. It can be a bit slow at times although not boring slow, so hang in there, it will all start making more and more sense as it goes on. It's not heavy sci-fi for those going into it wondering that, it's more of a drama/sci fi. Overall though I thoroughly enjoyed this.
intriguing sci-fi
davidm-143 January 2021
Interesting premise for a show - people are able to purchase items from a strange futuristic website that doesn't exist in our time. the purchases, of course, have unintended consequences. the stories follow several characters are interconnected and, even though not presented in a dubbed version on netflix, i found it to be extremely watchable and easy to follow.
reminded just a bit of a stephen king story i read once about a man who got ahold of a tablet with a seeming connection to other parallel universes. he was able to purchase books from authors that were never published in our dimension as well as newspapers from the future.
reminded just a bit of a stephen king story i read once about a man who got ahold of a tablet with a seeming connection to other parallel universes. he was able to purchase books from authors that were never published in our dimension as well as newspapers from the future.
Great first season
jlmajor-0278929 December 2020
I just finished the first season of Futmalls. I really enjoyed it. It's well produced and directed, and the acting is of high quality. The different stories and characters all intertwine to form an overarching storyline. The "No Chance to Grow Up" storyline had me in tears and was very well done. The first season ends with a surprise twist and cliffhanger.
Really hoping there will be a season 2.
Really hoping there will be a season 2.
Ever first succeed sci fic series
ks-605004 January 2021
I would say it's the first and most exciting sci-fic tv series ever from Taiwan. The unexplainable and mysterious part just make me think about ufo but the storyline support the unknown components. Hope it will not be lame for the ending.
Potentially great series
Snootz20 December 2020
At the time of writing this review, Futmalls in only in its 6th episode, and I've only seen the first five. Given that limited exposure, to be considered is the existing 8.1 rating on IMDB. (I was torn between 8 & 9, so I gave it a 9.)
The mood is dark and emotional, and it doesn't tie up everything neat and tidy-- quite on purpose. The show presents plot elements and satisfies those plot elements, but still leaves the audience wondering about certain aspects. This is as it should be, and part of what gives the show its unique premise.
Futmalls appears to be comprised of short stories that span 2-3 episodes, tied in by one overall story line with primary characters. This is integrated successfully.
The first series "Best Selling Writer" (ep 1-3) is basically good science fiction with a twist. It's not great, but it is good writing, directing, acting and and a story interesting enough to hook the viewer into the series to see what happens next. What happens next sets the hook.
The second story "No Chance to Grow Up" is the stuff Hugo Awards are made for. I'm leaving it at that in this review, no spoilers allowed. ; )
Both story lines though tied together rather well, bear no resemblance to one another in mood or method. This is admirable-- a continuing plot made of separate parts. I am hoping this series continues in this vein. If it does, we have a promising series to look forward to.
Giving it a tentative 9 stars at this point. It's too early to tell how it will turn out, after a full season or two, but this is one which warrants high hopes.
The mood is dark and emotional, and it doesn't tie up everything neat and tidy-- quite on purpose. The show presents plot elements and satisfies those plot elements, but still leaves the audience wondering about certain aspects. This is as it should be, and part of what gives the show its unique premise.
Futmalls appears to be comprised of short stories that span 2-3 episodes, tied in by one overall story line with primary characters. This is integrated successfully.
The first series "Best Selling Writer" (ep 1-3) is basically good science fiction with a twist. It's not great, but it is good writing, directing, acting and and a story interesting enough to hook the viewer into the series to see what happens next. What happens next sets the hook.
The second story "No Chance to Grow Up" is the stuff Hugo Awards are made for. I'm leaving it at that in this review, no spoilers allowed. ; )
Both story lines though tied together rather well, bear no resemblance to one another in mood or method. This is admirable-- a continuing plot made of separate parts. I am hoping this series continues in this vein. If it does, we have a promising series to look forward to.
Giving it a tentative 9 stars at this point. It's too early to tell how it will turn out, after a full season or two, but this is one which warrants high hopes.
Dare to be different
casey88187 January 2021
I am totally impressed by the maturity of Asian made movies/series. Gone are the constant supply of RomCom, the KungFu, the Blood and Gore, the extremes. I binged on two of the top most series I have ever seen, It's okay to not be okay and now this Futmalls. Both extremely well done, a treat to watch and leaves me at the edge of my seat, wanting more...
The story angles, the direction, the acting, the photography, all exquisite. Both left me in tears, my wife asked what? i said eye drops and showed her the dropper. Futmalls second story is really heartjerking.
I gave it a ten because there isn't an eleven. It's that good. Go see it in Netflix. Start an account if you've not. You'll be making the best decision in your life. Second best decision, to watch It's okay....be okay and this futmalls. Enjoy. You can thank me later.
Pretty Good - Worth the Watch
scocasso8 August 2022
So far, season one is free from woke commie feminism etc. So, that always gets an extra star for that alone. It's a terrible name for the show (in English, at least), it's the words Future + Malls put together. Future Shop would have been a better name, but prob. Lost in translation. It's a bit of a sci-fi show grounded in the reality of the current day. I give them kudos for keeping everything grounded and not going off into X-Files territory. This may be the first tv show I've seen from Taiwan. I thought it was prob. From HK, but I was wrong. I look forward to more.
Netflix is going to throw this in the scrap heap just like Triad princess
kmhlbeavis22 January 2023
This drama was very interesting. I got into it but because there was a cliffhanger and not a conclusive ending I am rating this a 1. For those that are waiting for a second season I don't think it's going to happen. Netflix is very good at completing garbage and not renewing the good series to their conclusion. What I am referring to was another Taiwanese drama called Triad princess. It was very good just like this one and to date it has not yet been renewed and it was 2019 when it was released. If they do show a 2nd season of Futtmalls I will be very shocked. Netflix seems to like to shove garbage down the viewers throats and not renew what is really good. I hope that I am wrong. I really got into this as well as Triad princess but I think that I will be disappointed again by netflix. That's why I rate this a 2. This comment is to Netflix. You claim that you are losing money due to profile sharing. That is not the case. If you don't renew good dramas to the end but finance garbage till the end that is why you are losing money and subscribers. Please get your act together, thank you.
Interesting series that has the potential to change Taiwan's television market
Zephrey8 January 2021
Warning: Spoilers
I've been exploring international TV series since the start of quarantine. I've seen quite a few series from different regions of Asia and recently I've come across some shows from Taiwan. After seeing one of the supporting actresses in another show I decided to watch this as the plot also seemed interesting.
The show's overall concept is intriguing. The main plot point is about a website Futmalls, acronym for Future mall, that's used to purchase products from the future. With a length of eight episodes and a tale of three separate stories intertwined with the same characters, we see how these future products affect the people who purchase them and those around them. When rating a show I hold the standards to that of the region it was produced in. Kdramas for example have a pretty large international market which allows them to produce high quality series, having a very large budget and all. For this reason my expectations for the quality of Kdramas are normally quite high. Taiwanese cinema is a relatively smaller market and there's no series or films that really stand out on the global scale. So my expectations are gradually lower. However I think shows like Futmalls will start the uprising of a new wave of cinema in Taiwan.
I'll start with the strong points of the show. The acting is very good and the cast really sells their performance however this can sometimes be ruined by the bad writing and sloppy editing which I will get into later. The series is very psychological and doesn't give too much backstory until the end and I found the cast did an amazing job with their performance on endorsing characters who have gone through trauma. For example in story 3 Chien-Ho Wu does a stellar performance of playing an introverted scientist with little social life, he keeps the audience guessing whether he's the suspect or not until the very end. For the second story Phoebe Huang did an amazing job of playing a grieving mother, I personally think the second story was the best because of how well Cheng-Hen Chu (who played her husband) and Huang embraced their roles of parents dealing with loss. Considering the budget this show had, the special effects were really well done and it never seemed fake and it never took me out of the story, of all things to me it really increased the quality of the show. I applaud the VFX artists and special effects team. One of the strongest points of the show is how they don't present information to the audience and how they deliver characters' backstories at the right time.
On the other hand the weaker points of the show was the writing, editing and sound design. Although I did say the concept of Futmalls is interesting, the writing of certain episodes and character backgrounds has me conflicted. For example Eugenie Liu (who I consider to currently be a breakout actress from Taiwan) plays a therapist. However she seems to be self conscious about a scar on her face, it doesn't make sense that her literal job is to help others mental health when she herself seems so caught up about receiving a cut on her face that happened so long ago. Another thing this show falls victim to is plot holes. The whole idea of purchasing products from a website that appears and disappears is intriguing however we soon discover the products are delivered by people. When the police do arrest one of the deliverymen they do not follow up and ask where the products come from, rather they let the episode finish and we never see him again. The deliveryman is used as a weak link to conclude the second story. It would've been a lot more intriguing if the products had just appeared at each character's house with no other context. Making the delivery of products more mysterious was a huge miss by the writing team in my opinion. Other problems I found is how easily everyone seems to accept that products come from the future. The police have multiple people who have used the Futmalls site and the site is what fuels the whole plot of the show, but again there's no follow up or questioning them.
Now to me the editing was really inconsistent. Sometimes it propelled the show to new levels and other times it took it down a few notches. For example the scene where Phoebe Huang (the grieving mother in story 2) is seen chasing around her kid on the school grounds is a beautifully constructed sequence, but in the last episode when the two police brothers, played by Bryan Chang and Wei-Ji, are searching a dark building for the kidnapped Bai Yong Xin (played by Yu-Wei) they have their guns drawn and flashlights in one hand, but when they exit the building their flashlights suddenly disappear and they're holding their guns with both hands. Another thing I found to be quite problematic is during climax sequences for whatever reason the editors decide to lower the frames and so the scene plays out choppy, I don't know if this is an effect used in asian dramas, but to me it looked amateurish and did not in any way heighten the emotions of the scene.
The sound design is the weakest part of the series. To me the use of music was horrendous. It seemed like whoever was in charge of sound didn't know the basic rules of film and sound. Music is like sauce. It's there to make the main dish better, but if you put too little it's noticeable and if you put too much it becomes uneatable. In this case the dish was uneatable. It seemed like during every dramatic moment the wrong sauces were used, it was like someone searched up into youtube: "Dramatic cinema music" and then pasted it on the scene without ever listening to the track. Music is supposed to heighten what you already see on screen, however every time there was a scene with music in Futmalls it took me out of the story because of how badly it didn't fit and this was mainly during scenes of climax which made it worse.
Now the reason I pointed out so many cons is that I hope this can be fixed for season 2. The show has its fair share of corny moments, but it also delivers some tremendous moments of cinema. I know that if we compared this show to other shows in the west or Kdramas, it's not on the same level, however I hold my standards to each region separately and I was really impressed with a lot of aspects of Futmalls and what it was able to accomplish in just eight episodes. Unlike some Kdramas that drag on forever, Futmalls pacing seemed well constructed given how short the show was. I feel the cast did an incredible job with their characters and this show could potentially make way for the Taiwanese market to produce more interesting content on an even higher level and for this reason I rated it a 9 overall.
The show's overall concept is intriguing. The main plot point is about a website Futmalls, acronym for Future mall, that's used to purchase products from the future. With a length of eight episodes and a tale of three separate stories intertwined with the same characters, we see how these future products affect the people who purchase them and those around them. When rating a show I hold the standards to that of the region it was produced in. Kdramas for example have a pretty large international market which allows them to produce high quality series, having a very large budget and all. For this reason my expectations for the quality of Kdramas are normally quite high. Taiwanese cinema is a relatively smaller market and there's no series or films that really stand out on the global scale. So my expectations are gradually lower. However I think shows like Futmalls will start the uprising of a new wave of cinema in Taiwan.
I'll start with the strong points of the show. The acting is very good and the cast really sells their performance however this can sometimes be ruined by the bad writing and sloppy editing which I will get into later. The series is very psychological and doesn't give too much backstory until the end and I found the cast did an amazing job with their performance on endorsing characters who have gone through trauma. For example in story 3 Chien-Ho Wu does a stellar performance of playing an introverted scientist with little social life, he keeps the audience guessing whether he's the suspect or not until the very end. For the second story Phoebe Huang did an amazing job of playing a grieving mother, I personally think the second story was the best because of how well Cheng-Hen Chu (who played her husband) and Huang embraced their roles of parents dealing with loss. Considering the budget this show had, the special effects were really well done and it never seemed fake and it never took me out of the story, of all things to me it really increased the quality of the show. I applaud the VFX artists and special effects team. One of the strongest points of the show is how they don't present information to the audience and how they deliver characters' backstories at the right time.
On the other hand the weaker points of the show was the writing, editing and sound design. Although I did say the concept of Futmalls is interesting, the writing of certain episodes and character backgrounds has me conflicted. For example Eugenie Liu (who I consider to currently be a breakout actress from Taiwan) plays a therapist. However she seems to be self conscious about a scar on her face, it doesn't make sense that her literal job is to help others mental health when she herself seems so caught up about receiving a cut on her face that happened so long ago. Another thing this show falls victim to is plot holes. The whole idea of purchasing products from a website that appears and disappears is intriguing however we soon discover the products are delivered by people. When the police do arrest one of the deliverymen they do not follow up and ask where the products come from, rather they let the episode finish and we never see him again. The deliveryman is used as a weak link to conclude the second story. It would've been a lot more intriguing if the products had just appeared at each character's house with no other context. Making the delivery of products more mysterious was a huge miss by the writing team in my opinion. Other problems I found is how easily everyone seems to accept that products come from the future. The police have multiple people who have used the Futmalls site and the site is what fuels the whole plot of the show, but again there's no follow up or questioning them.
Now to me the editing was really inconsistent. Sometimes it propelled the show to new levels and other times it took it down a few notches. For example the scene where Phoebe Huang (the grieving mother in story 2) is seen chasing around her kid on the school grounds is a beautifully constructed sequence, but in the last episode when the two police brothers, played by Bryan Chang and Wei-Ji, are searching a dark building for the kidnapped Bai Yong Xin (played by Yu-Wei) they have their guns drawn and flashlights in one hand, but when they exit the building their flashlights suddenly disappear and they're holding their guns with both hands. Another thing I found to be quite problematic is during climax sequences for whatever reason the editors decide to lower the frames and so the scene plays out choppy, I don't know if this is an effect used in asian dramas, but to me it looked amateurish and did not in any way heighten the emotions of the scene.
The sound design is the weakest part of the series. To me the use of music was horrendous. It seemed like whoever was in charge of sound didn't know the basic rules of film and sound. Music is like sauce. It's there to make the main dish better, but if you put too little it's noticeable and if you put too much it becomes uneatable. In this case the dish was uneatable. It seemed like during every dramatic moment the wrong sauces were used, it was like someone searched up into youtube: "Dramatic cinema music" and then pasted it on the scene without ever listening to the track. Music is supposed to heighten what you already see on screen, however every time there was a scene with music in Futmalls it took me out of the story because of how badly it didn't fit and this was mainly during scenes of climax which made it worse.
Now the reason I pointed out so many cons is that I hope this can be fixed for season 2. The show has its fair share of corny moments, but it also delivers some tremendous moments of cinema. I know that if we compared this show to other shows in the west or Kdramas, it's not on the same level, however I hold my standards to each region separately and I was really impressed with a lot of aspects of Futmalls and what it was able to accomplish in just eight episodes. Unlike some Kdramas that drag on forever, Futmalls pacing seemed well constructed given how short the show was. I feel the cast did an incredible job with their characters and this show could potentially make way for the Taiwanese market to produce more interesting content on an even higher level and for this reason I rated it a 9 overall.
OK production values are diminished by some really outlandish plotting
Pegasus-104 January 2021
Warning: Spoilers
-- and I don't mean the fact that you can buy books or other items from the future from a web site. I mean the complex relationships between the major characters. Such as the dead author's therapist being the romantic partner of the lead detective, whose brother is brought in to work on the case although he was initially the therapist's first love. I also thought the actress playing the sister overacted in all the early episodes, which didn't help. (The husband was close behind in that category.) In the second of the three story lines, Futmalls was an interesting plot device that was never really explored. The science fiction aspect is put on the back burner as we are shown how Meizhen's obsession with seeing her dead son (using the eye drops from the future) strains her marriage. Too much drama going on there, although the actress is mostly convincing. While the police search for the web site some of them are starting to believe does exist we're given an unneeded sidebar about a criminal selling phony Futmalls merchandise. In the final three episodes about the kidnapping of Internet "celebrities," there were too many plot holes (and as throughout the show: in a city that size how does everyone involved know one another?) The final episode dwelt too much on Nianjun and Xizhen, especially tiresome was the montage reviewing their relationship. Why a supposedly intelligent woman, who is experiencing visions of her facial scar expanding after using the face creme from the future, continues to use the creme is perplexing. Ending in a cliff-hanger where the kidnapper is revealed (although we never met him before) was a cheap way to induce people to tune in if another series is aired (unless they are too busy following Internet "celebrities."
Taiwan's version of Black Mirror
NFY0019 April 2021
For those who are fans of black mirror this series is a good ride. The plot is intriguing and I'm looking forward to season 2. Only 1 thing,though, the music. It should play better with the change of events.
Congrats Taiwan!
Congrats Taiwan!
I like it
wonderland_areej9 October 2021
AMAZING!!
sykoooo_5 August 2021
Warning: Spoilers
I honestly love this show. The plot was well executed, the story was very mysterious and thrill-inducing, and i loved the whole time travel type of thing they've got going on. I hate how they left us on a cliffhanger, though. But the acting was amazing, plot was amazing, even the tv show intro was amazing!! This was a very high budget tv show. Wish i could see more romance between the introverted brother and the influencer sister! But anyways, i completely recommend to sci-fi lovers!!!
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