The Technicians

기술자들 (The Technicians; also known as The Con Artists) is a South Korean movie directed by Kim Hong-sun that was released in 2014 with a running time of 116 minutes.

Story: Lee Ji-hyeok is a safe cracker and counterfeiter - one of the best in his field - and works with Koo-in who introduces him to Park Jong-bae, an elite hacker. Together, the three plan to steal diamonds worth 500.000$. After that Chairman Cho of Chinatown wants them to work with him to steal 150 billion won. But Ji-hyeok and his comrades make their own plans instead which gets them into some trouble..

Cast: Kim Woo-bin as Lee Ji-hyeok was really good in this movie. He played the smart and cocky character so well that I can hardly imagine someone else in this role.
Lee Hyun-woo as Jong-bae was really good, too. He looks so innocent so it was pretty much against the typical cliché but he did well and the role of the youngest of the team who always gets accused of being a traitor somehow worked well for him.
Ko Chang-seok as Koo-in was somehow the naive part of this trio even though he is the oldest and has the most contacts in his field. The acting was really good, especially when getting mad at Ji-hyeok at one point.
Jo Yoon-hee as Oh Eun-ha is the typical helpless female character we all should remember from K-Dramaland I think. There is nothing special and I think her performance was okay but definitely not the strongest.
And I can't leave out Kim Young-chul as Chairman Cho. I recently feel I stumble upon his name way too often and in this movie I think it is one of my favorite roles. He's definitely a good villain and a good actor in my opinion.


8.5/10 was my decision for rating this movie. It is good, definitely on the better side of the scale but some parts of the plot were too obvious - which isn't bad because it is still very strong and has his strong parts. Especially the acting and the characters but also some unique twists make this movie good. Highly recommended!

Voice of a Murderer

그놈 목소리 (Voice of a Murderer) is a South Korean crime-thriller drama movie that is the fictionalized version of a real kidnapping in 1991. The movie was released in 2007.

Story: Han Kyung-bae is a famous news anchor of the 9PM news. His wife Oh Ji-sun is a Christian who tries to make their chubby Han Sang-woo lose weight. One day Sang-woo goes out to the playground and doesn't come back home. His mother tries to reach friends and family but during the night it becomes clear that Sang-woo disappeared without a trace. The kidnapper calls the father and gives clear instructions on what to do so the parents will get their son back alive. However, soon Ji-sun informs the police and a special task force is set up under detective Kim Wook-jung to find the young boy.

Cast: Sol Kyung-gu as Han Kyung-bae and Kim Nam-joo as Oh Ji-sun were really good in the roles of the parents who try to do everything to save their son. It was a realistic way of portraying desperate parents and both actors put their feelings into those roles.
Kim Young-chul as Kim Wook-jung was also really good when it came to portraying the feelings of his personal situation - for example in a trunk to always be with the father in his car - showing how much energy this case cost the police force as well. While he was of course not as emotionally involved as the parents having a child himself he did work hard to try and get the boy back.
Ko Su-hee as Cha Su-hee brought some funny aspect to this movie in parts while it still kept it's serious atmosphere. Song Young-chang as Captain No tried to keep a rather calm atmosphere around him and to give the parents some hope and safety.
Other actors in this drama include Kim Kwang-gyu, Kang Dong-won and Yoon Je-moon.

So I did like this movie in some way. The story was interesting and it is definitely not something to take lightly. It was good to watch but left a bitter taste behind. Some parts were filmed very shakily so it would've been nice to hold the camera a little more still and pay more attention to the way it was filmed. As the story, setting and acting were good I would give this a 7/10 rating.

IRIS: The Movie

아이리스 : 더 무비 (IRIS: The Movie) is a Korean movie that basically summarizes the first season of the Korean drama series IRIS. It was released in 2010.

Story: Two close friends, Kim Hyun-joong and Jin Sa-woo, who are actually working for the military in the beginning are brought into a secret organization called NSS. Both of them fall for the analyst Choi Seung-hee. Hyun-joong is brought into a solo mission in Hungary which makes him a culprit so that a lot of people are after him. He then tries to find out who put him in that position and stumbles upon a top secret organization called IRIS and tries to figure out what they actually want.

Cast: The cast is actually incredibly well-known nowadays. The main cast consist of Lee Byung-hun as Kim Hyun-joong. Kim Tae-hee who is known as one of the most beautiful actresses in Korea took the role of the female lead Choi Seung-hee. Jung Joon-ho acted as Jin Sa-woo. Kim Young-chul joined the cast as Baek San whose intentions are a huge mystery to the viewer at first. And please, let's not forget about T.O.P as Vick.

The story is exactly the same. The cast as well. And the OST as well.
But this movie is like.. horrible. My personal rating is 3/10. Why?
The whole plot isn't only extremely shortened - it feels like they just cut some parts together that are important in themselves, yes, but there are parts missing that explain why in the world the things happen. Plus, I've been complaining about the missing balance between the IRIS political story and the annoying love story in the drama before but in this one they just left out things that are important to understand what IRIS actually wants and why in the world the organisation exists. But they had to add a bunch of love scenes. That doesn't even make any sense!
People, I get they had to shorten the drama but it would've made more sense to leave out some unnecessary lovey-dovey stuff and to add the important facts..

IRIS 2

아이리스2 (IRIS 2) also known as IRIS II: New Generation is the second season of IRIS, like the name actually says, and aired from February 13th to April 18th 2013 on KBS2.

Story:The story starts three years after the end of the first season and the death of Kim Hyun-joon. The story tries to reveal what happened in the past while the new agents of the NSS also have to deal with IRIS and the attacks this organization plans. Nothing more to be said about it. If you've watched the first season you'll understand that this is enough to fill the 20 episodes.

Cast: Almost the complete cast changed. The male lead role Jung Yoo-gun was taken by Jang Hyuk. The female lead, Ji Soo-yun, was played by Lee Da-hee. Oh Yun-soo was included in the cast as Choi Min. One of the very few actors also active in the first season is Kim Young-chul as Baek San. And Mr. Black or Yoo Jung-hoon finally has a face more commonly known as Kim Gab-soo. Im Soo-hyang is one of the more important female members of IRIS as Kim Yun-hwa.
There's another person who appeared in the first season: Kim So-yeon has a cameo in episode 20 as Kim Sun-hwa.
As for the reason why this might be a good option for K-Pop fans: There's Yoon Doo-joon of BEAST/B2ST as Seo Hyun-woo included in the main cast. Yoon Shi-hyuk was acted by Lee Joon of MBLAQ (I hated this character deeply after some time). And there's Kim Hyeong-kon of A-JAX as Song Young-min, a rookie agent (and an adorable agent). Last but not least, belonging to the North Korea Party is Park Se-joon of SPEED as Ri Hyuk-soo.
The acting was great after all, I loved this drama to death (and finished it in about three days) and I think that's mainly because all of those people and also the rest of the cast did an amazing job.

Soundtrack: The soundtrack is one of the best soundtracks I've ever listened to. I enjoyed the instrumentals that actually fit the atmosphere almost too well. But there are more treasures.
At first there's Davichi's "모르시나요 (Don't You Know)". I love Davichi's vocals a lot, both of them are great vocalists. My personal favorite track is "Black Paradise" by BEAST (B2ST), it's one of my favorite songs by BEAST and I love this song a lot. It works fine with the drama but is not a typical soundtrack song after all.
And there's one song they reused - originally it was sung by Baek Ji-young, the remake was performed by So Hyang and it's called "잊지말아요 (Don't Forget)". Since this song was basically the most played song in the first season I wasn't really happy about a remake version but they didn't overuse it and So Hyang's vocals are impressive.


Rating this isn't difficult, for me it's a 10/10 and there's no need to discuss the reasons. The soundtrack is amazing, the cast flawless, the acting really good and the story still really interesting and less focused on the love story which makes this season so much better in my opinion. And I do need to mention Baek Sung-hyun. Thanks to this drama I became a huge fan of his though he's not even included in the main cast.
As a K-Pop fan there's one thing that was really too much for me. Hyeong-kon is one of my first bias' ever, I can fangirl way too hard because of him. Also, Doo-joon is my bias in BEAST and I like and respect him a lot. And then there's Park Se-joon who managed to ruin my whole ranking already a long time ago. That's enough to give me a heart attack, alright? Thanks to Lee Joon I've felt my heart breaking from time to time in this drama and got really mad at his character but it's not his fault and I actually like Lee Joon a lot as well.

So, yeah, my ranking is biased - but how is it possible to dislike those cuties?

IRIS

아이리스 (IRIS) is another drama that originally aired in 2009 (and I start to believe I've watched too many dramas that aired then..)
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy love stories but as much as I like romantic comedies I need some more action in my life.
The first season aired from October 14th to December 17th on KBS and has about 20 hours of material to watch. It was also summarized within a movie - creatively called "IRIS: The Movie" but I'll talk about the movie later.

Story: Two close friends, Kim Hyun-joong and Jin Sa-woo, who are actually working for the military in the beginning are brought into a secret organization called NSS. Both of them fall for the analyst Choi Seung-hee. Hyun-joong is brought into a solo mission in Hungary which makes him a culprit so that a lot of people are after him. He then tries to find out who put him in that position and stumbles upon a top secret organization called IRIS and tries to figure out what they actually want.

Cast: The cast is actually incredibly well-known nowadays. The main cast consist of Lee Byung-hun as Kim Hyun-joong. Kim Tae-hee who is known as one of the most beautiful actresses in Korea took the role of the female lead Choi Seung-hee. Jung Joon-ho acted as Jin Sa-woo. Kim Young-chul joined the cast as Baek San whose intentions are a huge mystery to the viewer at first. And please, let's not forget about T.O.P as Vick.

Soundtrack: While after some time some songs might be quite annoying I have to admit that the whole soundtrack is at least alright. Especially the instrumental pieces are quite similar to those you find in action movies. As for the other songs I enjoy "잊지말아요 (Don't Forget)" by Baek Ji-young a lot nowadays but while watching the drama and it was played like every 15 minutes it was way past annoying. However, I am a huge fan of Big Bang's "Hallelujah" and that's pretty surprising since I'm not a huge fan of Big Bang after all.

In the end one could guess that I really liked this drama. Well, I did like it - but sometimes the balance between the love story and the actual political and economic issues is kind of.. weird. The political aspects are complicated enough. And I admit that those love story scenes were really boring compared to the rest so I started to skip it bit by bit. That actually influences the rating a lot. So my personal rating is 6/10.