SEASON 1
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STORY: 6 Anime plot. Don't take it too seriously and you'll be entertained. Script is pretty bare-boned, which is a good thing in an action flick. Some weird lines here and there, but it's possible language barriers played a role there.
DIRECTING: 7 Not an easy task to translate the source material into the screen. But while there may be nothing exceptional to speak of in the details (that i noticed), the result is a very solid and artfully storyboarded adaptation. Pacing is somewhat slow at some points, with the camera lingering on way after the scene has been exhausted. But this can be forgiven in a TV show trying to hit the runtime mark for each episode - not an easy editing task. And this filler is minimal and doesn't affect engagement too much.
ACTING: 9 I'm always extremely impressed with the average level of South Korean actors. Whatever they're teaching in those Drama classes, everyone else in the world should be taking notes. The whole cast is incredible expressive, colourful and nuanced. Can't fully rate their competence on line delivery though, since i don't speak the language.
CINEMATOGRAPHY: 9 Just spectacular. Camera work is excellent and lighting is on a class of its own. Grimy post-apocalyptic sets with cranked up to 11 saturation filters are the ultimate eye-candy.
VFX: 7 Hard to rate this. Not a huge budget for a very ambitious ensemble of monsters with a lot of screen time, often too well lit. So it's barely above passable, basically on par with your typical video-game cut-scene, at times better, other times much worse. But creature and set design alone would push the rating closer to a 9 and gore effects are a solid 10. I'm still scratching my head on how they pulled off those nosebleeds.
SEASON 2 ------------ Don't bother.
STORY: 6 Anime plot. Don't take it too seriously and you'll be entertained. Script is pretty bare-boned, which is a good thing in an action flick. Some weird lines here and there, but it's possible language barriers played a role there.
DIRECTING: 7 Not an easy task to translate the source material into the screen. But while there may be nothing exceptional to speak of in the details (that i noticed), the result is a very solid and artfully storyboarded adaptation. Pacing is somewhat slow at some points, with the camera lingering on way after the scene has been exhausted. But this can be forgiven in a TV show trying to hit the runtime mark for each episode - not an easy editing task. And this filler is minimal and doesn't affect engagement too much.
ACTING: 9 I'm always extremely impressed with the average level of South Korean actors. Whatever they're teaching in those Drama classes, everyone else in the world should be taking notes. The whole cast is incredible expressive, colourful and nuanced. Can't fully rate their competence on line delivery though, since i don't speak the language.
CINEMATOGRAPHY: 9 Just spectacular. Camera work is excellent and lighting is on a class of its own. Grimy post-apocalyptic sets with cranked up to 11 saturation filters are the ultimate eye-candy.
VFX: 7 Hard to rate this. Not a huge budget for a very ambitious ensemble of monsters with a lot of screen time, often too well lit. So it's barely above passable, basically on par with your typical video-game cut-scene, at times better, other times much worse. But creature and set design alone would push the rating closer to a 9 and gore effects are a solid 10. I'm still scratching my head on how they pulled off those nosebleeds.
SEASON 2 ------------ Don't bother.
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