Came for the bromance, stayed for the plot

So to start off, I really did come because of the bromance, but there was basically none haha. But I love the plot so much, especially as a mystery/detective show fan, the cases were fun to watch and quite engaging. What I love most about this series is the relationship between our MingJing Hall peeps, they're just the cutest bunch ever, actual friendship goals there. And they all have an episode / scenes dedicated to their own story and background, which I thought was a nice touch.

DYX as a catman is SO CUTE, much cuter than I would ever expect a cgi human-shaped cat to be. And YZH to me was quite an interesting character to figure out, since he'd always kept his story and motivation a secret until the very end.

The plot twist was huge, although I did kinda expect and see through it from the very start. I did doubt myself in quite a few scenes though.

I like that the characters are all complex, complicated, mysterious, none of them are just black and white, even for YZH. It really shows n reflects humanity, how it's never easy to understand, but always easy to speculate and misjudge.

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This sets a precedent for all future cdramas.

First and foremost, the effort put into the clstume design, setting, cgi, effects etc are clearly seen through the absolute breathtaking scenes. The makeup and accessories were perfect and accentuated the characters' personality.

Plot: It was simply near perfection. The only thing was the rushed ending for me, hence the 9.5 for plot. The side characters could be a bit more fleshed out at the end, however it was rushed possibly due to the limit of 40eps, cutting out scenes. Main cpl had a beautiful love/hate relationship and I LOVE LOVE how it was so complex and explored. None of the terribly cliched tropes (e.g. trip and kiss) come up in this series, and instead we get a forgiving and completely loving ML and a smart and kind-hearted FL.

I have cried many times watching this, especially for our poor ML as well as some side characters. The complex emotions and thoughts I had when I understood yet hated all the misunderstandings, has really made it unforgettable to me.

BaiLu and LuoYunXi were absolutely fantastic eith their acting, with even miniscule movements or expressions showing hundreds of hidden feelings. They have managed to portray so many different characters and personalities perfectly, really superb skills.

The OST was beautiful and always played at the right times. The music in general are all enjoyable and adds the right atmosphere to scenes.

If you're still hesitating, don't. This is the best romance cdrama to have yet existed, and it's on a far different level than all others. Hopefully future producers will take a page from this series, and grow up from their current overused tropes and plotlines.

One thing - this series is OE. For me, I interpretted it as a HE but it may differ for others. But it is implied more to be a HE in the series. I do wish happiness for our ML.

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Spectacular plot, unexpected twists, one of the best wuxia series there is (teeny spoilers)

Starting with the acting, we have ChengYi and Joseph, two actors who are absolutely perfect and acts out their roles to absolute perfection. ChengYi acts as the young LXY, and the older more mature LLH, the two personalities creating a stark contrast; Joseph as the young and vigorous 'kid' who dreams to be the greatest hero like LXY. Even ShunYao was great at being the cold and aloof, sometimes evil yet sometimes seemingly good-hearted DFS. The complex characters really add to the fun of the whole series.

Then there's the evil characters. The multiple plot twists here was amazing! Some weren't entire shocking as there was quite a heavy foreshadowing of the twist since a few episodes before it actually happens, but it was still unexpected to say the least. And then the least expected twist happens and I just sat there with my mouth open. JianLiqiao is simply gorgeous, yet also insidious and down-right sinister, but yet I can't ignore her absolute loyalty for DFS up until a certain point.

The 'bromance' was something i had expected, but didn't really get, but I wasn't let down at all as I love the master-disciple relationship of LXY and FDB. They are just absolutely a hilarious and genius. The most bromance we can get is between LXY and DFS, really DFS's conflict of wanting to win yet keep LXY alive at all costs is just so sweet.

The fighting scenes are beautiful, and the OST is very nice and suiting to the theme of the series - heroes, brotherhood - wuxia.

The ending really made my cry buckets, it may not have ended on a happy note, but it is slightly open-ended, and I'm much more willing to interpret it in a happy way.

Spoiler incoming:
LXY is highly likely dead, and that is the most logically conclusion. But without a true ending, I can always assume that Heaven favours LXY, and send him a miracle cure. He can continue traversing the world as a different hidden identity, and he may never be found by FDB/DFS, or maybe he will. Nothing is for certain, and that is a much more hopeful ending that what is most likely the true ending of LXY.

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Nothing special, but nothing overly bad

So this is going to be a short and simple review, just cuz there's nothing much to say about this series.

The main cp are quite cute at some times, but also really pisses me off in many many scenes. Nhai acts like a spoiled brat most of the time (which I get is his character), and Ai loves him for that, which I'm totally fine with. But Nhai my boy please do grow up just a bit? It usually seems that the relationship is really one-sided, as Ai is the one who pampers Nhai to no ends, but Nhai does reciprocate sometimes.

Mainly what I liked about the cp is that they do talk, and misunderstandings never last long, so there is no angst at all (not sure if that's a good thing since some people love angsty stuff). But I don't really like both characters on their own, Nhai as I mentioned acts like a child, and for Ai, I was just particularly disappointed with him in ep10 when he went of the rockers and started blaming his adoptive dad brainlessly. A good point about Nhai is that he can always stand his ground, and never gets bullied by bishes (ahem .. iykyk)

Side cps are basically non-existent in the series, probably only starting around ep11, which is the penultimate episode.

There is not underlying plot, as Nhai and Ai's relationship is the plot. I admit that I started losing a whole lot of interest starting the second half of the series, there just wasn't much to look forward to. Overall, i think giving it a 7 was already me being quite generous.

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Kinda FWB to a relationship so beautiful and healing

They started out on the wrong foot - a one-night stand, then friends, then lovers. But gosh the development of their relationship is just beautiful. Both are scarred and carry heavy burdens from their pasts, in Team's case it's his brother's death, in Win's case it's his middle child syndrome. But they help to heal each other through a long, arduous, but loving process.

I've seen comments of how it took them until ep11 to confess, but what did you expect from 2 guys, both heavily scarred, both equally as afraid to confess their true feelings to the other? When is love ever easy? The confession in ep11 was done perfectly, it was heartbreaking, yet absolutely stunning, and most important, they TALK and bare their hearts out. Well technically Team did most of the talking, but because of his bravery in taking the first step, he managed to break through Win's gold plated metal barrier.

Onto the other characters: We see little snippets from the og series 'Until We Meet Again' with Dean and Pharm being the absolute cuties that they are. We also see a lot more of the friendship between Dean, Win, and Pruek.

Pruek x Manow and Bee x Prince are just the doses of sugar I needed throughout the series, cuz Win and Team gave me lots of angst tbh. But I do wish we could've gotten a bit more on Tul and Wan's relationship, especially since it's of such a complex nature and Tul seems to be on the edge of starting to explore this.

I feel like the name of the series 'Hemp Rope' actually carries significant symbolism for Win x Team, unlike Dean x Pharm's red string of fate, they're relationship is a lot more grounded and realistic. It's a lot more 'unromantic' in a way, a truly even Team said once that Win is an unromantic person. But while less fantasy-ish, there's no better way than using a 'hemp rope' to describe their relationship. It's one that's rough, been through hard patches, yet creates the strongest unbreakable bound between them.

Overall, the series is just a masterpiece, and I must also mention that i absolutely love the 3 brothers' close connection in Win's family.

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Lovely little story, very heartwarming, and very comedic as well

One point I was make is that I really enjoyed the character settings of everyone, from the leads to the side characters. This series was perfect with no unnecessary fights within the royal family, with all 3 princes being very harmonious. The King himself is benevolent, and not one of the typical terrible monarchs seen in many tv series. FL and ML are quite unique characters, with FL being the perfect sly but 'weak damsel' actress, and ML seeing right through her act immediately. Even the side characters and couples are just adorable, and the perfect cherry on the already amazing cake!

I would've liked there to be more focus on the romance between FL and ML, but understanding the plot, it was more sidetracked for the 'war' parts of the story to progress. There were many extremely adorable moments between the leads, and there's no angst at all. At some point FL did drop the whole act, which I thought was quite funny as no one seemed to question her extreme 'quick recovery'.

Now to JinPo - honestly their country(?) just seems like a comedic joke, with their general, assassins and even their prince acting like complete fools, but I do find them quite endearing. Even with the context of war between the Jing and JinPo countries, I find myself quite pitying JinPo's prince, afterall he did get tricked by FL twice, leaving deep mental scars haha. But I do not like the prince, as he did try to initiate war, and nearly got FL and ML killed tsk tsk, he failed miserably, as did all his previous missions.

Overall, this was a short and cute story. Though I do wish it could be a bit more fleshed out as I thought the plot did not really have enough time to develop well. The plot twist happened too quickly, and the evil mastermind did not even have enough screen time for me to truly understand and empathise with his motives. But I did enjoy the beautiful character settings most, and this was what made the series for me.

PS - those little tidbit videos at the end of every episode is just the perfect little addition to the series, its fun, relaxing, and seems really like BTS scenes of the character's normal daily lives when they're 'off-screen', whoever thought of this is an absolute genius!

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Overall it was fantastic, although with a horrible ending

Discounting the last 0.5episode out of the 20, I would've given this a full 10/10 with the amazing acting, costumes, OST, perfect combo of romance and comedy, and of course the chemistry between the two leads.
However, the ending of this greatly dashed all my expectations and thoughts of this being the best kdrama ever. We were introduced to the 'queen' who struggles with gender and identity crisis as the male chef possesses her body, with 19.5 amazing episodes exploring the challenges he comes across and developing his relationship with the king upon excepting himself in a female body. This was quite an interesting gender twist and I found it incredibly refreshing.
BUT THEN in the last 1/2 of ep20, he is cruelly kicked out of the 'queens' body and returns to his Republic of Korea era, without any warning, without any chances of getting closure before departure, with the original soul of the queen coming back into her body.
While this may seem to be a perfectly happy ending, I ABSOLUTELY HATED IT, why? While Bong-Hwan (chef) returns to Korea, alone, probably traumatised, and ripped away from all his newly developed relationships with the people in the palace, So-Yong (aka real queen) comes to replace and pretends to be him, reaping all the gains from his efforts. Even the king himself notices the lost of 'something' as he so vaguely put it, with the ending being a big let-down for me with 1000 questions unanswered such as if SY is ever going to come clean about BH, or if BH truly accepts being kicked out despite portrayed as being very very very happy after returning.

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Short, Cute, Worth watching for fun

Sometimes, (low production) dramas are better than you would expect them to be. And this is one example, in these 2 seasons with total of around 4h, we get action, some romance, and nice plot twists. Of course, I didn't expect much going into this, but I have thoroughly enjoyed the ML's brains and bravery, the FL's martial arts and bossiness, and of course their cute little romance which was quite understated in my opinion, but sweet.
I would recommend watching this if you've got time on your hands and would like a short break from life. The ML was quite an eye candy for me, and I really admire his portrayal of the twins in s2 of the drama as well.

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Wonderful, emotional, and just beautiful (except the ending haha)

If anyone's read the novel before going into the series, they would surely have high expectations, and I certainly did too. I was not disappointed in the least, the plot, the mystery, the acting were all just executed to perfection. I love the cast, and they all suit their characters really well.

I felt that I was really able to develop such a deep bond with so many different characters, and in such a short time, which is something even the best TV series don't always manage to achieve. RNZ and LJS are adorable, and they give off such obvious lovey-dovey vibes i keep squeeling and kicking my legs everytime they're together.

As someone who extremely hates watching any visually scary / even the tiniest bit of horror, I love that while the story is one of horror mystery, they somehow managed to make it not that horrifying, and most of the time I actually felt it to be slightly comedic. I was really glad the director took into consideration scaredy-cats like me.

Finally, the ending. This was the only reason I had to take the .5 off that 10/10. The ending was a tad chaotic, unexplainable, not understandable, and slightly sad. There were many things that I failed to understand, but ultimately if I switched my brain off, I still enjoyed the very last few scenes of melancholic happiness.

Ps - to novel readers: the ending is quite different than that in the novel, and definitely not as happy i would say, since the series left the ending quite open-ended

PPS - to all international fans out there, I actually feel so bad for you since the subs are probably not that easy to understand (or not understandable at all haha)

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A bit disappointing to say the least

I went in with pretty mild expectations as it does have a rating of 7.3, which is a good score in my opinion. But I was sorely disappointed with the series.

While the acting was pretty good, and I did appreciate the interesting settings of split personality disorder, but the plot just feels extremely choppy. One thing happens, then suddenly it jumps, and it doesn't seem like there was a conclusion either. I'm bad at describing things, but generally what i felt was that it just kept skipping skipping skipping, very much possibly because it had to fit everything into 4 short episodes.

The main couple's relationship was not fleshed out at all, and Top was even presented as a 'cheating' jerk in the first episode. The synopsis made it sound like the Top's arranged relationship keeps getting in their way, but honestly she only appeared for 5min. That was it. While I do like Noah being YS's protector, I don't understand how he suddenly just changes his mind in the span of 3min and trusts WZ enough to rely on him.

Then there's the second couple that was just there for no reason at all. They were not even mentioned until the very last 10min of the last episode, and their relationship went from a misunderstanding scene, and skip skip skip straight to years later where they somehow just miraculously made up without explanation. This is why I gave the show such a low rating, and this is me being generous with a 5. It has a nonsensical plot that just cuts out everything and anything. I only gave it a 5 to applaud the actors' efforts for the nsfw scenes as they probably put a lot of work into them.

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A beautiful yet bittersweet story, one about love, death, and learning to let go

I was really surprised, 8 short episodes of stories, yet every single one filled me with such strong emotions. Koichi and Mitsuru's relationship is just absolutely beautiful, from their first time meeting, to their last farewell. I was blown away by their amazing acting, the way they could portray such strong emotions, how they managed to capture the complex characters and emotions.

This series portrayed the stages of grief through Mitsuru's experiences after Koichi's 'death', and it was amazing. Mitsuru tries as hard as he could to hold on, and Koichi also tries as hard as he could to humour Mitsuru. But afterall, everything must come to an end. It was when they both came to the realisation - that this could no longer go on - that my heart utterly shattered into pieces for them, yet i was glad, so very glad it happened.

Indeed, the one who gets left behind always suffers more than the one who leaves, and while Mitsuru did let go knowing that Koichi was suffering too, he promised to never forget Koichi. He will always love him, and Koichi will always be his number one. And that itself is maturing, learning to let go, and to treasure what they had. Perhaps Mitsuru will meet and see Koichi's spirit in the future as he did his mother, perhaps Mitsuru may find and love another, but his memories with Koichi will forever be precious.

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Mindblowing piece of art, but lacking in the romance section

This may be the first time I have written a review before completing a series, and it's only because it's too good to wait.

I have never seen such an interesting worldbuilding, where there is an overlapping of a fictional world and reality, where danger and characters can cross over both worlds. The first episode has completely captivated me, and the rest of the episodes contains so many twist and turns, I was left gasping or squealing at the end of every one if them. I did start feeling very bad for the choices FL has to make all the time, and for her dad as well. And sometimes, the plot does become a bit confusing, especially for those who actually use their brains when watching a drama series (cuz I don't). But either way, the plot is still interesting enough to grip your attention.

Albeit some parts were a tad scary, but that's only because I am very very easily scared.

We have superb acting from both ML and FL, and I especially love ML's cheeky yet warm smile. I think that the ML may be one of the most substanced male leads I know, if that even makes any sense. While in many dramas, the ML is there purely to be FL's romantic partner, but this is not the case here. We witness ML's growing understanding, sympathise with his situation and actions. And he is not simply an FL accesory.

The only bad bits were that I feel like so much is happening in the plot, there wasn't enough time for ML and FL's relationship to truly blossom. I was slightly disappointed with this bit, as obviously it was the main reason I had started it. That's why I dropped the ratings to 8, which is still a really high score only redeemed but its interesting world settings. The side characters weren't very well developed either, as they were like props to push along the storyline, with only a few being an exception.

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Cute high school love triangle, with beautiful character development

I usually hate love triangles as there is often lots of unnecessary drama, but this series was exceptional in the way of portraying the love triangle as a chance for them to grow and change for the better. Da-on with his pushover people-pleasing personality, learned to love himself first. Tae-Kyung learned what love is, and the importance of friends. And my baby Shiwoon learned to properly express his feelings and communicate with others.

I love the side characters, Lee So-Hee (could be counted as the antagonist) is portrayed as someone who's arrogant yet extremely confident and brave in pursuing her love for Da-on. She made mistakes, but she learned from them and became a better person because of it. Namgung is that one friend we all need, always supportive care-free, yet gives the best advice and helps the most behind the scenes when it comes down to it. And their teacher is seriously such a ray of sunshine, and so supportive of his students too.

Would I say this series was perfect? Not exactly. But it is an amazing story of friends, love, and growth.

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Short, sweet, bite-size happiness

A lovely short story about 2 boys finding what love is, one with deep emotional scars, and one who heals them. They truly do complete each other in such an endearing and adorable one.

One thing I love the most about this series, is the amount of communication and talking they did. Ryuuji manages to coax Amane into being his true self, and talking about his past wounds. He really listens, and only listens, and that's enough for Amane, having someone who tries to understand him.

I love the confession scenes, it really show Ryuuji's character when he puts such deep consideration into Amane's feelings. It wasn't a simple rejection nor acceptance, he accepted his confusion yet at the same time embraced his feelings for Amane. That for me was just beautiful, and one of the most nicely done confession scenes.

The whole series is just fluffy and cute, except when we deal with Amane's past scars. I wish we had more time with this cute couple, and could've explored more of the development of their relationship after they got together, but then again, that's not the point of this story is it?

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Too draggy, a bit disappointing

Giving it 7 was me being nice, I had high expectations mainly due to the extremely high ratings of 8.6, but was very unfortunately disappointed.

I wasn't really even emotionally invested in the Main cp, and that's a huge flag for me. They really do lack communication, lots of unnecessary misunderstandings happening, lots of explanations that could've saved them from danger. But they were cute in a way, and it's my first time watching a BL with fantasy tropes, which was pretty interesting. (though it wasn't done nicely at all)

The fantasy bits were just confusing (slight spoilers) - e.g. why did the sister look for Phaya instead of Tharn? She could've explained everything to her ex-sister instead, but she chose not to for reasons unknown. It could've been a lot more cohesive, but instead it adds only confusion to the plot.

Now for the 'police' plotline that underlies the entire series, I found it pretty unnecessary honestly. Them being a police didn't add to the main focus of the series - aka Phaya and Tharn's relationship. It would've made no difference even if they weren't police officers, except maybe they would've gotten into a lot less trouble and danger.

Now for the ending, the most unsatisfying part of the show. Why the hell did they shorten the reunion to 2 minutes. That was just unacceptable. They decided to cut out everything that would show us the dilema Doc had to go through, Tharn trying to explain his love for Phaya. Just everything important was cut out. All we got was 2 minutes of Tharn and Phaya reuniting happily, and Doc the sea-dragon leaving. Why did they cut out all the emotional parts, the conflicts, the important scenes?? I could never understand this.

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