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Reviews
Wo De Po Po Zen Mo Na Mo Ke Ai (2020)
The Title Means - Why is my mother in-law so cute? (sarcasm?)
A young widow battles her dysfunctional in-laws to find meaning of her life. The story may have been inspired by the life of Veuve Clicquot, the widow that created the vintage Champagne industry. The series seems to be produced specifically for the Taiwanese audience, but I'm not sure some of the self-deprecating humor is readily translatable to the general international audience. The language is a mix of Taiwanese, Mandarin, and some Japanese and English. I think the mix is perfect for present day Taiwanese audience. I highly recommend the series if you would like to know more about present day Taiwanese culture. Good luck to the translators though. Mandarin Chinese being the closes cousin of Taiwanese, I'm not confident that they can translate the meaning of the spoken words properly.
Tian Guan Ci Fu (2020)
Taoist Theology, Beautiful Visuals, Gay Undertones, Strange Worlds
The review is for the Chinese language version.
The show presents the story in a setting that should be utterly foreign to most western audiences. In order to understand how the world in the story functions, one might want to brush up on Taoist Theology first. The show does not introduce the audience to the world of Taoist Theology. Instead, it immerses you in it assuming that you came prepared.
The story revolves around 2 immortals, one that is a "deity" (yang) and the other a "demon" (ying). The "deity" is of very low stature and twice banished from heaven for doing something that is right but offensive to other deities. In order to pay back his debts to other deities, he takes on difficult exorcism tasks to help people in the human realm. Along the way he meets the yin to his yang. And together they rid the human world of demons and lessen human suffering.
The art for the show was beautifully crafted, the story lines were pretty tight as well. The action sequences could be better, awkward split second pauses are found in the sequences that shouldn't be there. The story was interesting, but ultimately I found it empty because the characters are unrelatable. The story was interesting because it presented a mystery, but the characters are deities and demons, both immortals that behave in somewhat unrealistic yet predictable fashion. The show is worth the attention for the immersion in the world of Taoist theology, but ultimately came up short because it's very difficult to relate to.
Murder Mountain (2018)
Engaging documentary about California Marijuana Industry
I thought this was going to be a murder mystery documentary but turned out to be more about marijuana in California. I burst out laughing when the growers complained about all the regulatory fees and studies they had to go through to be a legal business. That's the price you pay to live in a California pot growing utopia. As a business owner in California, I sure can commiserate.
Kingdom (2019)
Korean Walking Dead in Historical Setting
This series brilliantly combines political intrigue, vampire horror, and Korean history into one tightly woven story. The production value of this series is way above value, and be prepared to become an instant addict of the show.
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
If this movie were released before The Last Jedi
This is one of the best Star Wars movies ever, if it were only released before The Last Jedi. It's too bad that the movie didn't do as well in the box office. Based on its merits, I'd rank it up there with the Episodes 4~6, The Force Awakens, and Rogue One.
Hai Sukoa Garu (2018)
Gamer Fantasy
I stopped watching at Round 7. The main driver for me to continue watching is nostalgia. However, it could not overcome many issues I have with this series.
This story is about a gamer and his romance with his classmates. I was hoping for the gamer to grow into someone like a hero that has redeeming qualities. However, the gamer continued to be clueless, and the girls continue to fall in love with him.
Nostalgia is strong with this one, but unfortunately it doesn't have enough legs to carry me through the many problems with the main characters.