Helpless (2012)

May 4, 2023 8:40 PM

A man searches for his fiancée who vanished without a trace just before their wedding.

Moon-ho and Seon-yeong are on their way to meet Moon-ho's father before their wedding. At a rest stop, Moon-ho goes to grab some coffee, but when he returns to the car his fiancee is missing.

After attempting to find his fiancee at the rest stop and failing, he goes back to their apartment to find everything she has touched removed. He gets in contact with a former cop fallen on hard times and the two set out to find the missing woman as Moon-ho begins to realize he knows nothing about the woman he was going to marry.

posted by miss-lapin (6 comments total)

Tubi really came through on this one. I think what's fascinating here is that there is no villain. It's just characters struggling to cope with circumstances they had no part in creating. A man discovering his fiance is a complete stranger and a woman trying to escape abuse for her father's debt. It's very well constructed and acted. When Moon-ho finally loses his shit, his desperation is so real.

Definitely highly recommend this one.
posted by miss-lapin at 6:24 AM on May 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

There has been a definite shift of gears at Tubi over the last 12-24 months from "We grabbed some stuff people will probably watch and it's free so you're welcome" to a more conscientiously curated service that yeah, still has a large volume of shit, but is also paired with savvy selections from people who know their stuff and are ready to pounce when they get the chance to show something that is great and had not been picked up elsewhere or had fallen out of rotation in the name services.

Plex is starting to pick up some of that, too.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:42 AM on May 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think also, in regards to Tubi anyways, that some of this stuff has been there for awhile but the issue is that it is so buried under the cruft that it can be hard if not impossible to find. Very few services seem to be interesting in making their searches better and more often than not actively obfuscate what they have available (looking at you, in particular, Amazon Prime).
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:42 PM on May 5, 2023

I think also, in regards to Tubi anyways, that some of this stuff has been there for awhile but the issue is that it is so buried under the cruft that it can be hard if not impossible to find.

I've been watching kdrama lately, and tubi has a whole kdrama section. So I just scrolled around until I found something that looked interesting and had an actor I know I enjoy. It took about 20 seconds at the longest.

I agree that a lot of services are a pain in the ass to find the things you like. I'd say both Netflix and Prime suffer this way. But I have to say, tubi's algorithm has always worked well for me in terms of suggesting things I like. But I love a lot of ridiculously cheesy 80s horror movies, and tubi is an absolutely TROVE of those so not exactly challenging for them to offer selections I enjoy.
posted by miss-lapin at 1:02 PM on May 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Honestly it was news to me that Tubi had any Kdrama. Oddball genre films yes (they have a lot of the prints I've seen used by Shout, Vinegar Syndrome, Severin and Code Red as well as other smaller boutique physical media labels) but international films less so. Tho I suspect that's likely because of what I watch on Tubi skewing the algorithm!
posted by Ashwagandha at 1:29 PM on May 5, 2023

When you're on Tubi go to the Browse option. Under Collections you'll see Kdrama.
posted by miss-lapin at 2:45 PM on May 5, 2023