michaelheath-71560 Reviews

ASC Clubhouse Conversations: Fargo: Season 4 (2021) Season 3, Episode 9

Very disappointing

[2/10 · 19 February 2024]

I loved the film and the first two seasons. The third season wasn't quite as good but was still okay. The fourth is terrible in comparison. The acting and writing was universally fantastic in the first 3 seasons. In the fourth the acting is summed up by the casting of Andrew Bird. As terrible an actor as he is a brilliant musician. His performance is embarrassingly amateurish and, for me, made the show unwatchable.

All that quirky funny warm humanity is absent. I don't think I heard anyone say, "okay then". It's just not really Fargo.

I watched two and an half episodes then skipped to the 5th season.

Gyeongseong Creature (2023– )

The Serious point that doesn't quite land

[7/10 · 15 January 2024]

Gyeongseong Creature attempts and largely succeeds in merging a missing person drama, a romance, a horror story, with a dash of martial arts all with a strong theme of occupation and possession. The story is clearly about the brutality of the Japanese occupation of Korea. It also uses the creature as a metaphor. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but the creature is the product of the brutality of the occupation. As such it is clearly set up to be an a purveyor of vengeful justice. I haven't got to the end yet, so we'll see how that pans out.

Prompted by another review here, I did go and do a bit of reading on the Japanese occupation and Japan's human experimentation program. I never knew. The really horrifying thing about Gyeongseong Creature is that it is disturbingly close to what actually happened. The creature is a fantasy of course and one that appears to be destined to be a monstrous saviour of the Korean people. To borrow from Jewish folklore, it is a Golem - a monster manufactured to protect an oppressed people. Only in this case it is manufactured by mistake by the oppressors.

If I'm right, or half right, then the criticism I would have is that there's not enough separation between the portrayal of things that did happen in some form, from the monster doing fantastical and monstrous things. The whole thing feels fantastical, not just the monster bits, and it's perhaps a little too easy to watch as a just a fun monster movie and tale of daring do. It would be better if it managed to do what Pan's Labyrinth did. Pan's Labyrinth is a fantasy yes, but it simultaneously doesn't shy away from showing the very real horrors on the Spanish Civil war. As I say, I haven't seen it to the end yet so maybe my criticism will be answered.

In the end I think Gyeongseong Creature doesn't quite make the serious point it's trying to. I'm sure the Korean audience will get it but will the international audience?

That said, it is entertaining, a great watch and looks amazing.

Orphan Black: Echoes (2023– )

A poor man's Orphan Black

[3/10 · 9 November 2023]

Having watched Orphan Black I kind of knew this wouldn't be very good. Orphan Black was held together by the amazing performance.of Tatiana Maslany and some decent writing. This show has neither. The lead actors are decent enough. I don't think Krysten Ritter could put in a bad performance. Her character here is basically Jessica Jones without the alcohol tolerance and super human strength. There was a fight scene where I was kind of wondering why Jessica Jones was letting a guy win.

There are some pretty woeful supporting performances. One in particular is embarrassingly bad with ridiculous make up to match.

On the topic of that embarrassing character, Echoes' narrative connection to Orphan Black feels like a bit of reverse engineering. My guess is they had a show about clones, realised it would be dismissed as a poor man's Orphan Black, and went, "hey let's do this". The connection has no real influence on the plot and means characters from Orphan Black have to be shoehorned into the story for no particular reason.

The writing is wildly inconsistent in quality. Again I think this has to do with needing to constantly establish that this is an Orphan Black show. There are also bits of quite horrible writing. The one that really stood out for me was when two characters go for a ride to talk about something incredible and unbelievable (that one of them is a clone]. You then see the characters arriving at their destination having had the conversation. When you're relying on the audience to write the script for you then you're in trouble.

In the end the real problem is it's impossible to suspend disbelief. The clones simply don't look like each other. It's not unusual having different actors playing a character at different ages but they're never all on screen at the same time. Perhaps if the plotting wasn't a bit silly and the writing was better and the acting wasn't so occasionally awful, then maybe you could get away with it.

So why 3 stars. Despite everything I did enjoy it and I did finish it. There are enough good bits and good ideas to keep you interested. I binged it in two days and that helped. I didn't have long enough to dwell on the show's obvious flaws.