#that the Main Trio had been calling him that nonstop and he keeps losing his cool

[icharchivist]

ALBERT TOO????? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE ALBERT???? ALBERT??? OLD MAN SPARKY???? BAE???? SWEETHEART???? YOU4RE HERE TOO WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE ITS NOT YOUR STORY IM DLKFJDLKFHDFLKJDFLFDJLDFKJDF

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[rockmywings]

Korean Crime TV Series Review#2: VOICE (보이스)

THE MAIN CHARACTERS TRIO:

Lead Male (Moo Jinhyuk “Mad Dog”): A veteran detective from Serious Crime Unit, being demoted as a leader of Golden Time Team under Emergency Call Department. 

Lead Female (Kang Kwonjoo “Kang Center”): A profiler who has super hearing ability, The chief of Emergency Call Department.

second lead male Main Antagonist (Mo Taegu “Mr. Mo”): CEO of Sungwun Express, an upper-classman. Psychopath.

PLOT:

Main: To catch the criminal who has murdered both Mad Dog’s wife and Kang Center’s dad and who also committed several crimes. 

Sub: To save a life who is in crucial danger from their emergency call.

OFFICIAL ENGLISH TRAILER:

REVIEW BY GENRES:

1) Various Crimes: There are Serial Killer, Kidnapping/Abduction, Child Abuse, Gangster, Illegal Immigrant, Stalker, Human Organ Trafficking, Corrupted Company, Corrupted Police--so complete. The series touches from individual crime to organizational crime, from marginal society to upper-class community. And the gruesome of crime scene places us in reality how horror the real crime is, why they are deserved to be censored in blur like News do on TV Channel (although it’s bothersome to me who use to see gore scenes in The Walking Dead and violence in any US Crime TV Series). I like how Golden Team looks so smart along with Kang Center herself as the profiler and with a hacking skilled officer to get any information. Though, there’s one staff whose multi-language ability is seriously wasted because what she did most times are similar to the hacker, as she also seeks information through internet. However, because our protagonists come from Emergency Call Center, we see how Serious Crime Unit are always outsmarted, making us wonder if they’re a bit competent in investigating while this one should be their expertise. For example, there’s no forensic or CCTV investigation ever shown here but somehow it makes sense because all of the victims who died here are under the main antagonist’s control who could ask to be covered while Golden Team successfully rescues all victims who made the emergency call.

2) Horror Elements: A part of the success of any popular scary movie is the perfect killer. There’s no other character more interesting in the show rather than the killer himself and I can guarantee Mo Taegu would steal your attention in every of his appearance. Let me explain it: A man wearing a black raincoat with face covered behind hoodie but his devilish grin is walking closer in calm steps, a sinister voice with a gravel-like quality of his jaw cracks then strikes the fear of a tormented fresh-faced woman before brutally murdering her--that’s your first impression of him. But, it wasn’t just a typical random unfortunate person whom a serial killer encounter in the dark street with certain modus operandi, nope!! More the killer is introduced, you realize he’s a type who could appear right in front of your door or behind the window creepily, making a hiss like a dinosaur to enter your room whether he decides to kill or just intentionally scare you--we’d find he did it at least 4-5 times in the series!!! (and my fave is when Kwonjoo met his eyes behind the lookout lens of her door) And behind the mask, there’s a rich, smart, and classy-typed businessman wearing an elegant suit with charming face who enchants everyone--so charismatic. Well, there is one episode that doesn’t really makes sense when he’s brutally murdering Madam Fantasia off-screen. The body is nowhere to be found in the building while he clearly didn’t have enough time to hid it in his car unnoticeable, laundry his suit (I mean, look at how much the blood he spread on floor and wall while he killed her not under his raincoat), peeking on Kang Center who has arrived 10 minutes after the phone call only to see her reaction finding his crime scene, then come back to meeting room he left before. But fuck off the logic, once again, this is horror show; let’s enjoy every killing scene of every bone he’s crushing using his kettlebell, or grotesque art of blood he painted on the wall citing Bible quote, or when he keeps the body wrapped in his house then doing bloodbath like Elizabeth Bathory, it’s all horrifyingly entertaining. Don’t forget that his victims also made a bad move tropes to meet him and give us a death flag. As if it wasn’t enough, Taegu also has some hallucination things, how creepy it is when he stared at the policeman in the car like a supernatural horror and when he’s being murdered on his mind like a zombie scene. Although those all aren’t enough to scare me, I’m sure there are some audiences who maintain to keep watching this show with eyes peeking behind their fingers but you can’t leave it yet to see who he’d murder next and who’d be survived. You’d be surprised when it reveals he commits more crimes through his company and more number of murders he had done for years with many different sizes of his weapon that will freak you out!! And with high status to work with gangster and a certain police to cover it all whom he could just eliminate as his next murdering target if he wanted, I’ll say “Welcome to Sungwun City, Mo Taegu’s World.” He is too complete to be a psychopath, an extremely powerful evil case with intellect brain to know what he does. He could be starring his own horror movie if Voice ever made a prequel. Maybe the only thing he hadn’t done yet (or ever shown) is cooking and eating the victims' meat LOL. But seriously, as the citing bible, doing bloodbath, and keeping body or organs, comes from nowhere (that is kinda different persona from the mysterious killer in eps 1-3); the writer even can add if he was ever cannibal too.

3) The high suspense in every episode: While the main villain is horror enough, the co-villains in some emergency cases also could raise the suspension that makes you hold your chair and grit your teeth. This was the most exciting thing because you could see desperate emotions of the victims transported through the call and how The Golden Team is rescuing them, battle in countdown timer minutes by minutes, second by second. Even after the first two cases that you become to feel every rescue is predictably success, you won’t lose the suspense. Voice is directed in plot-driven like a formula one’s car and once you’re seated there, you can’t stop ‘til finish line. My fave case is the child abuse, we feel so pity and hopeless because the one who makes a call is a little boy hiding in washing machine and bleeding. The least suspense is the rescue of bus passengers as the last rescue case in eps 15, probably I’ve been pretty surfeited of the repetitive rescue (but the case is important to show how crazy Mr. Mo runs his business).

4) Full Packed Action: Well, a premise of a lead male seeks revenge for the murder of the person he loves is cliche and standard in action movies; this how Mad Dog vs Mr. Mo’s confrontation has been lead since the series prolog, we know their final battle should happen. Jinhyuk himself wouldn’t be called “Mad Dog” without reason if this genre were absent. Look how his action is performed throughout the series, especially when he beat up all the gangsters in the meat house—so intense and brutal!! Don’t ever ask his nonstop energy, this is how action genre treats the main hero. Then, I expect a same intense hand in hand combat scene as to how action movie’s climax battle should be handled, main hero and main villain are equal although it’s predictable who’d be the winner in the end. Both Mad Dog and Mr. Mo are canonly brutal, you can see the same of them staring terrifyingly and intimidating when they talked to Nam Sang Tae in different scenes; you see how strong they are. Instead, we just get a short gunfighting?! I don’t complaint the gunfighting, but I mean, can they also make a duel with Jet Kun Do vs Tae Kwon Do as the two actors have the martial art skill for real? The director could make they ran out of bullet, then fight brutally, then the cops stop them to arrest him. It’s a wasted potential because the director even had given Mad Dog’s fight against a South East Asian assassin for two episodes! However, Taegu’s ending in the rooftop scene is still satisfying. Maybe the concept of Mad Dog vs Mr. Mo kinda like Batman and Joker. Despite being evil, of course Joker is powerless compared to Batman’s strength if he ever challenged him in combat. The purpose isn’t about which one is stronger. Same as Joker provokes Batman, Taegu also enjoys provoking Jinhyuk to kill himself even by telling him how he killed his wife, to prove he’s just another monster like him. And although we see how Jinhyuk doesn't hesitate to shoot Taegu four times in the rooftop brutally, he didn’t kill him at the end as he pities his enemy. But audiences would know later how it punishes Taegu in a very cruel way unexpectedly compared to what if he just died in Jinhyuk’s hand as he wishes. And of course, he deserves it.

5) The Drama is about The Victims: As well as how the credit title is presented, it tells us that this show is about the victim’s voice in asking help that used to be abandoned by slow police procedural--including our hero and heroine’s beloved one. But not only that, the profiler’s approach to seeking the Criminal’s motive then trying to calm them, making them tremble, and feeling sympathy really reminds me of Criminal Minds; criminals can be born because they were a victim too in the past--trust me, even you’d pity Taegu in the end!

6) Almost Zero Romance: 

Tbh, I don’t like the cliche that the lead male and lead female eventually hook up in the end (although I’m okay with the possible idea) so I’m glad it doesn’t happen with Voice. Even though they start to work together as a team professionally, they didn’t have to fall into an affair like duo Mulder and Scully of The X-Files. Their relationship is amazingly platonic ‘til the end as you watch them developing trust, teamwork, bond, and care to each other. 

If there’s any romance ever sparking, two Kwonjoo’s staffs in Emergency Call may be hinted. The woman is cool at first while the guy is cheerful and kind of a flirt. An obsessive fan of him is even jealous of her. But as I said, it was just hinted. Their occasional heartwarming interaction may be made for taking a break in all suspense and violent cases. It wasn’t out of place since it’s just a little and eps 9 could give you space to breathe. 

Well, this one depends on interpretation, but Taegu seems to have special attraction/interest of Kwonjoo sexually (of course, in a sick mind only psychopath could describe), for example when he stalked her, caressed her bed, stared at her picture, gave her a gift, happy when she found him, claimed that both of them are different from common herd, and show a disappointment that she doesn’t like it. On her profiling, Kwonjoo said why he’s “soft” at her probably because she reminds him of his mother, the only person he genuinely loves. Their chemistry is something the audiences not expecting before, especially in the rooftop scene as their climax. But I'm sure no one complaints [laughs].

Nah, the only true romance no one can’t debate is Jinhyuk’s love for his deceased wife; how he’s broken, how’s he seeks revenge, and then how he finally let it go.

OTHER POSSIBLE FLAWS:

Voice is an easy story and predictable with those action, suspense, and horror elements (although there’s still a twist); the ending is also clear, not open. The main mystery isn’t something that makes you heavily think to guess who is the culprit or suspect someone. Well, it’s enough to thrill for half series because once Taegu’s character is introduced at eps 8, the focus itself actually isn’t about a conspiracy behind the police/prosecutor institution like TvN Signal or TvN Stranger since the mastermind is the person outside it. Some audience may be fooled or even disappointed about it but I’m not (once again, I said Taegu’s character as psychopath fits more in horror tropes). The procedural pace, the variety of crimes, and the plot-driven won’t make you bored that you probably forget to ask for character development and question the logic; though, sometimes the running clock is too long to make us question if the run really happened just in 5 minutes. 

The lead female’s super hearing ability is the reason why all the emergency rescues success where the title “Voice” comes from, it’s full an entertaining fiction, we know real life isn’t like that. Still, it isn’t without flaw; for example, she could amazingly hear the boy’s slow tap behind the wall through communication but she failed to hear the hitting sound Taegu made when he’s smashing Daeshik’s head in the basement right when she’s entering his house. And her ability might be useless if the criminals were smart enough to make sure there's no cellphone being kept in their victim's pocket to be able to make contacts.  

OVERALL THOUGHTS:

Voice is definitely my fave Korean TV Series so far. It isn’t perfect but somehow I don’t feel this is a Kdrama at all. Look at those three main characters: 

The nuance I feel around the lead female’s department and how she handles the cases is almost like when I watch US TV Series of Police Procedural Dramas (many felt like Criminal Minds mixed with 9-1-1), 

the lead male’s fighting scene is like The Raid, Bourne, or John Wick (also the Surim-dong case reminds me of NCIS: New Orleans’s case “Clearwater”),

the main killer’s approach is like Wes Craven’s SCREAM and his personality is like American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman. 

With these references, I don’t recommend this series to those who can’t stand to watch gruesome violence. The age rating in Korea's Standard is 19+ and if it was measured to my country's rating standard (Indonesia), it'd be 21+.

I haven’t mentioned yet that the actors and the actresses, both leads and supporting, are amazing. I don’t watch much Korean entertainment (movie and show) so this is the first time I’m introduced to them all, and suddenly both Jinhyuk’s actor (Jang Hyuk) and Taegu’s actor (Kim Jae Wook) are added to my fave list for me interested to watch their other projects. I also like the veteran actress who plays a granny in Surim-dong incident; she could act as three different characters!

I’m looking forward to Season 2 aired on 11th August 2018. Now, without Jinhyuk and Taegu’s characters anymore as their confrontation story is over; I wonder if this time The Golden Team somehow ever fails to save a life like TvN Signal and have kind of a sociopath as main villain like OCN Tunnel. Who knows? I still can’t imagine someone more psycho and charismatic than Taegu yet haha. And with a different director, it’s probably not horror as season 1 anymore, but more thriller. But most importantly, I want to see and know more about the heroine, Kang Center, she’s at least need character development since she was the core of “voice”.

[daleisgreat]

G1/RoH Supercard (of Honor XIII)

Welcome to my annual Ring of Honor (RoH) blog for their annual Supercard of Honor show. 2019 was a wild year for RoH. They started the year losing access to Matt and Nick Jackson, Cody Rhodes, Kenny Omega and all three members of SCU (Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky) as they all departed after their contracts expired at the end of the 2018 to help launch All Elite Wrestling (AEW). Before that it was known that those seven wrestlers would be leaving, RoH collaborated with New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) to announce a special live PPV they would be airing on WrestleMania weekend: G1 Supercard. G1 is a recurring PPV special for NJPW, and I am presuming Supercard is short for the Supercard of Honor PPV special that usually transpires during WrestleMania weekend which is why I am covering this PPV and treating it as Supercard of Honor XIII. There is another big reason I wanted to cover this show…. That is because this joint venture between NJPW and RoH emanated from the ‘World’s Most Popular Arena’ Madison Square Garden. This was a shocking announcement because going back several decades WWE had the exclusive rights to MSG and the last other promotion that ran a show in MSG was back in 1960! WWE tried pressuring MSG and briefly got them to remove the show from their schedule….that was until the owners of RoH, Sinclair Broadcasting, called up WWE and informed them they own roughly half the FOX TV affiliate stations that would be starting to air SmackDown on FOX within several months and have control of what time to air WWE’s new flagship show and that was reason enough for Vince McMahon to back off and G1 Supercard wound up running as scheduled during the 2019 WrestleMania weekend from MSG.

NJPW and RoH have been lending talent to each other for years, but this is one of the first times they evenly split a card 50/50 for each promotion’s matches. When the tickets originally went on sale, it was shortly before the much hyped independent All In PPV put on by most of the Elite (at that time consisting of Cody, Omega, Young Bucks, Marty Scurll and Adam Paige) that RoH lent a lot of their talent for. The show wound up being a huge success and all the buzz for All In presumably was the catalyst for G1 Supercard selling out in under a day of tickets officially going on sale. By the time the G1 Supercard rolled around all of the Elite, save for Marty Scurll, departed RoH a few months earlier leaving a huge void of headline guys for RoH. The NJPW half of the card delivered with exciting match-ups, while the RoH half stuck out with a lack of top level talent. The PPV had two pre-show matches that are included as bonuses on the DVD. The first match saw Jenny Rose & Oedo Tai overcoming the handicap match odds and defeating Hung Kimura, Sumie Sakai and Stella Grey when Tai got the pin with a 450 in a bout that saw a lot of nonstop energy to get the crowd rolling. G1 Supercard will be the first PPV I can remember that had a 30 person Rumble match in a pre-show they billed as the ‘Honor Rumble.’ It was also the longest pre-show match I can recall at 49 minutes. Entrances were sped up at approximately 30 second intervals to keep up the tempo which made it enticing to see who would walk out next. Both RoH and NJPW stars competed and I only recognized roughly half of the competitors, but it was fun learning some new faces. Colt Cabana was on commentary for the night but took a breather to compete in the Rumble when Yano invited him to take his spot. Other faces I recognized were Justin Gabriel now going by PJ Black, Beer City Bruiser, Delirious, Kenny King, Cheeseburger and a trio of Asian wrestling legends in Haku, Great Muta and Jushin Thunder Liger.

I do not care how aged Haku is because he still looks like one of the baddest guys on the planet I would not want to mess with. I have no idea how active Muta is, but he was not at all agile and seemed very careful with his movements. Liger could still go, but he was in the midst of his retirement year tour and it was apparent his best days were behind him. The end of the Rumble saw it looking like it would come down to Liger and Muta, but then Kenny King pulled the ‘ol hide under the ring trick card and emerged to toss Liger and Muta out to win it all. That was a fun crazy Rumble with the frequent entrances and it brought back memories of that bonkers Rumble match on a 2000 episode of Thunder with all kinds of unique entrants that were AWOL in that time of uncertainty for WCW and also marked the last appearance of Macho Man in WCW. The start of the actual PPV saw a ‘winner takes all’ match with two titles on the line in RoH’s TV Title and NJPW’s Never Openweight Title. Jeff Cobb beat Will Ospreay here to walk away with both belts in a bout that did not fail to deliver a ton of insane spots. Dalton Castle was the RoH champ on a previous SoH PPV I covered here, but now his stock has dwindled as he lost to Rush in 15 seconds here after three straight Shotgun Dropkicks. After Castle collected himself, he turned and obliterated his eccentric seconds, The Boys. The RoH Women’s Title was on the line next and saw Kelly Klein beat Iwatoni with an Airplane Spin slam in a decent bout. I had no idea TNA/Impact Wrestling’s The Beautiful People were still a hot commodity after their countless stop-n-go runs in that promotion, but when Velvet Skye and Angelina Love walked out after the match and attacked Klein the announcers put it over as the biggest thing ever to happen to their women’s division.

DJ/Hip Hop artist Mega Ran came out for a musical performance next, the song is a decent catchy beat for the DVD menus too which is a nice relief from the generic basement-rock that dominates most other RoH releases. Anywho, Bully Ray interrupted and harassed Mega Ran and laid out an open challenge that turned into a six-man tag with Bully Ray, Silas Young and Shane Taylor taking on Flip Gordon, Juice Robinson and Mark Haskins. This was a surprisingly a fun weapons brawl with lots of creative spots. The finish saw Ray fall victim to the Wassup Headbutt and the Gordon hitting the 450 for the win. The IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title was on the line next in a triple threat between Bandido, Dragon Lee and Taiji. In a bout that I will remember as having a sick tower spot, it saw Bandido capture the gold after hitting a variant of a driver-pin combination. Another winner takes all titles match transpired next for both the RoH and NJPW tag team titles in a four way between The Briscoes, Guerillas of Destiny, Evil & Sanada and Brody King & PCO. RoH contributed some production dollars for PCO’s electric (literally) entrance that saw him get the Frankenstein electric chair treatment in a thrilling visual. Speaking of production dollars, this is easily the best looking RoH show I have ever seen, especially compared to the first couple of SoH shows I covered here. The Guerillas of Destiny walked out with all the tag gold when they hit their double powerbomb finisher on Brody for the victory. RoH caught a lot of heat for running a ‘worked shoot’ segment after the match ended with the wrestlers formerly known as Big Cass & Enzo running out and attacking the Briscoes after the match before they got escorted out, but RoH never officially acknowledged it on camera and after all the negative reception it got did not request feature services from Cass & Enzo so I will link to this fan footage of the run-in instead.

A third promotion contributed a match to G1 Supercard with Revolution Pro having their British Heavyweight Title on the card with Hiroshi Tanahoshi challenging Zack Sabre Jr. for the championship. I only remember Zack’s excellent work in the Cruiserweight Classic from a few years back so it was great seeing him again, doubly so since he was accompanied by another old favorite of mine I have not seen in over a decade in TAKA Michinoku. This bout saw a heavy emphasis on heavy duty technical and submission wrestling which was a breather from the spotfests that dominated the rest of the card. I want to re-emphasize ‘heavy duty’ because both Tanahoshi and Sabre did a superb job at conveying how much they laid into each other with a sick submission Sabre Jr. kept amplifying in unbelievable ways that I cannot even describe until Tanahoshi convincingly tapped out. Thinking about this now I would rank this as my favorite match from the night! The tenth contest of the night saw the IWGP Intercontinental Title on the line between Naito and Kota Ibushi. I recognize both guys from the handful of NJPW Kenny Omega matches I tracked down after hearing a ton of buzz for and also recognize Ibushi from his Cruiserweight Classic run too. This match delivered, and had a great NJPW produced video package too. Both guys delivered a lot of intense neck and head spots, and Ibushi wound up winning after a rising knee strike in another match that was close to my favorite for the night. The RoH World Title was on the line next in a triple threat ‘Ladder War’ between Marty Scurll, Matt Taven and Jay Lethal. Lethal was hyped going into this as having the title the most number of days compared to all other previous champions….but I could never buy into him as a top level guy, and I recall despising Matt Taven on previous RoH shows and Scurll I have bad memories of his match against Castle last year where he spent eons trying to find a weapon under the ring so I did not have a vested interest in the bout. It was a solid match with a few unique spots and saw Taven winning the title after fighting off Lethal in the end, but I felt rather ho-hum coming out of this, and apparently so did the crowd watching their tepid reaction to Taven’s title win.

The headlining main event saw Jay White defend his IWGP Title against Kazuchika Okada. I love how NJPW produces their video packages, and this one got me amped up going into the main event. The duo told a great story, and White’s manager, Gedo found clever ways to get involved. I recognize Okada from another Omega match I saw that I believe went to a time limit draw, and this match also went on a while going just over a half hour before White fell victim to the RAIIIIIIN-MAKERRRRR Lariat with Okada capturing the IWGP Title. I saw online reception noting the weak RoH half of the show, and compared to the New Japan offerings, they definitely were a couple notches below, but RoH still had a couple of really good matches like the TV Title and bout and Bully Ray’s open challenge was the perfect refresher for this long of a card. I will give big ups for the Honor Rumble, Tag Titles and IWGP Title matches, but my two favorites that blew everything else away on here was the Zack Sabre/Tanahoshi and Naito/Ibushi matches. More than anything I came out of the G1 Supercard wanting to get more into NJPW, but with so much other wrestling out there to keep up with, I will probably only be picking and watching the occasional match or two a year that generates a ton of buzz. Collectively, I will give G1 Supercard a strong thumbs up and recommend to track down, especially seeing both promotions operate in a big time atmosphere like Madison Square Garden made the event truly special and standout like few other cards from RoH history. Past Wrestling Blogs Best of WCW Clash of Champions Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2 Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 3 Biggest Knuckleheads Bobby The Brain Heenan Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes DDP: Positively Living Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials ECW Unreleased: Vol 1 ECW Unreleased: Vol 2 ECW Unreleased: Vol 3 Eric Bishoff: Wrestlings Most Controversial Figure Fight Owens Fight: The Kevin Owens Story For All Mankind Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection Hulk Hogans Unreleased Collectors Series Impact Wresting Presents: Best of Hulk Hogan Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story The Kliq Rules Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman Legends of Mid South Wrestling Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story Memphis Heat NXT: From Secret to Sensation NXT Greatest Matches Vol 1 OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History OMG Vol 3: Top 50 Incidents in ECW History Owen: Hart of Gold RoH Supercard of Honor 2010-Present ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery Scott Hall: Living on a Razors Edge Shawn Michaels: My Journey Sting: Into the Light Straight Outta Dudley-ville: Legacy of the Dudley Boyz Straight to the Top: Money in the Bank Anthology Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder Then Now Forever – The Evolution of WWEs Womens Division TLC 2017 TNA Lockdown 2005-2016 Top 50 Superstars of All Time Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season True Giants Ultimate Fan Pack: Roman Reigns Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe War Games: WCWs Most Notorious Matches Warrior Week on WWE Network Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition Wrestlemania 28-Present The Wrestler (2008) Wrestling Road Diaries Too Wrestling Road Diaries Three: Funny Equals Money Wrestlings Greatest Factions WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015 WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015 WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2016 WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2016 WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2017