A supernatural dream come true, turned a sappy nightmare

First of, this drama is undeniably pretty. The money for the drama was well spent on the production quality, location shooting, costume and interior design. Si Teng's outfits were everything for me. Everyone was well dressed and so much eye-candy! I like the flipped tropes of Guy saving Girl and mean male lead - instead it's Girl saves Guy and mean female lead. Si Teng was a sight for sore eyes when it comes to female protagonists and I want to see more like this. This drama had an interesting and impressionable dynamic for their ML/FL couple. Si Teng is more mature, powerful and wiser than Qin Fang is, so the subtle scenes of them in different scenarios and adapting to new situations is great because even their arguments are entertaining to watch.

However, there the ending/s....
....I don't understand anything.

The last five episodes lost me completely and I stopped asking why anything was happening anymore. I would recommend this show but only to watch until episode 20 and then stopping there because the story just goes into utter chaos afterwards. Si Teng suffered character derailment when she was infantilized and pitied for being a child before the establishment of New China. (Yes, I noticed that.) Suddenly, Yan Furui becomes an unexpected hero who lives to old age, surrounded by success and family when he started off as a bumbling, pitiful comedy relief character. Quite insulting and mind-blowing because so many scenes will be iconic to me from this show, but the ending is so strange and mystifying that I will never truly understand what happened and I think it's better that way.

Still worth a higher score for everything else but the 180 plot line twist after episode 20 and the 'dates' (????) between the young Si Teng and Qin Fang at the end takes away from a 10/10 scoring. Try again and do better please, don't depower your main lead near the end of the show!

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More than I expected and more than welcomed

This was a perfect conclusion to another surprisingly good Netflix Kdrama. The Sci-Fi genre tag got me interested in this drama in the beginning, and then the first season's finale had me invested in what was going to happen next for this alternative universe that was heavily influenced and indebted to an app called Love Alarm.

What I appreciate more than anything is the conclusion and logic making sense until the very end of the show. It was completely rewarding to stick with the show until the end of the second season finale. I'm glad the series is short because it feels like it makes the story better. No excess airtime to waste time and put in red herrings, or smoking guns in the series that takes away from the plot and character's development.

From the outside, the drama seems average. Average cliche stories and character stereotypes with repeated plotlines that we've all seen before. I wasn't expecting much when jumping into it. I just wanted to know how much of an impact will an alternative universe with an invasive but innovative app called Love Alarm will have? The impact was major.

First and foremost, the drama isn't a Romantic Comedy, Coming-Of-Age, or Love Triangle with an emotionally constipated chaebol and the 'nice guy' who is just a friend. This drama is Science Fiction in a way that overshadows the other genres of this drama. It was during the season finale of season one that I first realized that this drama's only important and constant main character is the app: Love Alarm. This drama is about Love Alarm and how it affects society and the individuals that reside within.

There's a time jump in the story and a well-done one at that. It jumps forwards and later reveals important and crucial details that happened in the time jump. The cinematography was perfect, as well as the music and acting from the small cast. These otherwise flat and one-dimensional, trope-like characters were able to showcase deeper and complex emotions and experiences in a considerable amount of time. Worth a standing ovation in my opinion. Everyone has a just end that made sense for their characters' decisions and development. I particularly like the fact that the son and mom of the horrible husband and father politician have a.....mutual understanding and concern for each other despite the trauma and pain they went through in the past together and separately.

There was growth and healing in the drama. A journey of self-identity crisis, self-discovery, and self-love that was missing in a world monitored by an app. The main female, JoJo was able to make peace with herself and heal from her Survivor's Guilt that she carried with her since she was a young girl. A tear-worthy moment at the 2nd season finale in Jeju. It was beautiful and I cried I admit. I think anyone would too after the positive message that was relayed to her by Duk-gu, the founder of the app. I like what he said in the end, that he doesn't regret making the app despite the fact that he didn't directly benefit from it as he hoped. He was glad it worked out for others. However, he realized that too many people were depending too much on an app and not their own instincts and feelings. What I got from that was the idea to always seek out companionship and connection in person as well and not just through algorithms suggested through an app. There's always room for error in science because science is man-made and humans make mistakes. Get to know yourself, love yourself, and trust yourself.

I think the great message that I took away from this drama is related to the Sci-Fi genre of the app Love Alarm making decisions for humans that humans can never be able to calculate through science. Love isn't an exact science, just like any area of science isn't exact. Humans are too complicated and complex to be conveniently computed and researched into data.

I'm always down for Sci-Fi dramas and this was a great but wonderful surprise and I would love to see more of this Netflix! You hear me?!?!? Make it happen!

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A 'Reader-inserted Fanfic with a Mary Sue surrounded by a reverse harem, Time Travel Theme' Drama

This drama is a masterpiece.
It was horrible in so many ways and yet I thoroughly enjoyed watching this drama and laughing at it. Truly, I had tears in my eyes.

Now, I'm not really sure what this show was hoping to accomplish since there was no plot, no message, no greater idea to take away from this experience other than, "What did I just watch?"
The FL was Qian- no, her name is Mary Sue.
Names don't really matter in this drama because the characters are just stereotypical tropes copied from a Shoujo rom-com manga that got popular due to toxic, unhealthy relationships with rich, powerful, and emotionally stunted attractive guys.

Anyway, Mary Sue is detached from reality in the present day and suffers from melancholy though nothing in her life seems troublesome, tiring, or threatening. She lives with her mom, they have a successful business to support them and pay for the large, fancy room that Mary Sue seems to call her bedroom and Mary Sue is even engaged to an attentive, business savvy, and considerate man. What is her problem? I don't know and I don't think the writers knew either. They just needed her to quickly adjust to being transported to the past all of a sudden so they can get on to the juicy bits: the romance!

So yeah, the romance.....is bad. All of her love options are horrible and she herself isn't likable at all. Throughout the drama, many characters suffer Character Assassination and they make a complete 180 at just about any moment in the drama. Mary Sue decides to endanger a pregnant woman and her unborn child for a political move to boost her beau (at the time) the 8th Prince to the throne.

My jaw dropped.

That happened often while watching this drama and not in a good way. I have never been so shocked, so many times while watching a drama of only 35 episodes. There were moments where all I can do in reaction to what was happening on the screen was to shake my head and repeat out loud, "Wow. Wow." There were SEVERAL attempts and actual, successive assaults and r**e throughout the drama. There was se**al coercion, child endangerment, child death, mass murder, sexism, misogyny, physical/emotional/mental abuse, domestic violence, and all-around deceit. By everyone. No one was innocent in this drama - except Mary Sue's mom. Poor lady. She was just a pawn in the bigger scheme of this train wreck. It's hard to say this went off the rails because there doesn't seem to be any end goal in this drama.

Not everything was bad in this drama. There were rare moments too. The acting isn't the problem. The actors did the best they could with the flat, dry source material called the script and screenwriting. The main couple was boring to watch though they provided the most comedy in the drama and that's due to the romance aspect. I found those moments hilarious because this drama, unfortunately, reminds me of 'Boys Over Flowers' and I hate that story. No, I'm not a fan of young, impressionable, and innocent girls falling in love with their bullies who happen to be rich and handsome. No thank you. This drama is the Ancient Chinese version of that story. The similarities hurt to look at really.

The show is either tone-deaf or delusion, I can't tell. (Could be both.) One moment the ML tells the FL lead that he wants to control everything about her after he makes a public display of jealousy and drags her away 'by the wrist' - the FL responds by laughing. LAUGHING! She tells him that he's cute and he reminds her of a little boy.

.....Excuse me? Does a boy - or really an overgrown child - throwing a tantrum sound attractive to you? It doesn't to me. Why is this in a drama that came out in 2011? Why is such a toxic portrayal of 'love/romance' present in a nationally popular drama in 2011? I'm confused about how it got popular other than its visuals. Both the actors, costume, and setting. The Foribben City is gorgeous as always. This drama was definitely beautiful to look at but thats' it though.

One scene was filmed pretty well, later on in the drama and the editing is much better to follow than some Cdramas that came out this year. The writing doesn't make the show make sense, but the editing makes it easy to know the total area and space where the actors are located and there's some type of attempt to keep a measurement of time since Mary Sue arrived in the past.

Which that scene in the first episode was hilarious to watch! Nothing realistic or convincing there's since a young, beautiful girl dropping into a brothel showcase in a thin, short dress in broad daylight is nothing big! She's perfectly safe, I'm sure!

Also, Mary Sue wanted to go back but 5 or 6 episodes in, she's forgotten her prior struggles and instead falls in love so nothing else matters after that. I was waiting for the laws of the universe to guide her into completing a certain mission she was destined to do OR for the universe to correct itself and remove her - a paradox - from the past. Never happened. The story of Consort Liang and how she saved the Emperor's sister from dying according to history but instead saving her erased her history altogether - that was a great moment. Flawless moment. There were finally repercussions to these Time Travelers' presence and actions.

However, Consort Liang goes back to her original timeline and Mary Sue stays because of love. Not her poor mother who is not doing well back at home. But anyway, the show must go on since there has to be a new Emperor before the show ends. it happens, it's anti-climatic and the 8th Prince gets a free ride to the future - even though the nine planets aligning is supposed to be an event that only happens every 14 years. Apparently, that was just a suggestion and the writers were just 'being creative' so the couple needed to be together.

One thing though, Consort Liang or Sun Yan should have been the FL for this story. They actually had some character arc to them though Sun Yan deserves better. I honestly feel like if Mary Sue hadn't dropped in with her Plot Armor and inability to do anything wrong - Sun Yan would have been the perfect person for the FL role.

This drama was a hot mess and I thoroughly enjoyed looking back at something from 10 years ago and seeing something way older and outdated than it should have been. 1.5/10, I only recommend if you watch it to laugh and not to take anything seriously.

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Sit Quietly and Look Pretty

A beautiful drama in appearance. I've never seen a Cdrama set in the Old Republic time era so this was first. Everything looked beautiful. From the costumes, hair & makeup, set designs, and props. However, the drama feels mostly empty. And it's a short drama too. That's crazy to feel like the story is dragging on when there are only 12 episodes.
I will say that there are moments when the gentlewoman says something or does something profound and I'm proud of her for that. Those moments are far too few though.
The best chemistry was between the Detective and Yan Wei. Surprisingly, the actress that portrayed the gentlewoman in the drama was perfect for the part. The Detective too. The scenes where there was action were the best parts in my opinion.
The enemies in this fic were society and the gentlewoman's husband. (Who, I've learned from reading the first few chapters in the webcomic was a royal piece of garbage and the author didn't bother to hide it with a charming artifice and deadly, undiscovered threat like they did in the TV show.) Too much screen time went to the male characters too by the way. As if they want you to feel pity for why these male characters are so vile and oppressing to the FL and other females. Pity? Not here!
The ending is confusing and I don't want to think about it much because I'm sure the answer will upset me because it seems like all the trouble of getting the two female leads together was for nothing.
Pretty looking drama though. That's it.

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Should be considered a classic

I love this drama. I like how it's filmed in a retro style. The narration and cinematography helped the drama look seamless. Yes, it was low budget but it was handled well and worth my time and emotion. I love the characters and the drama club antics.

The main couple is adorable and the play within the drama is soooooo good, I wouldn't seeing that in a separate movie/drama. Their story of those years together have got to be something else, right? Love it

It's short and easy to pick up and worth several rewatch moments. It's simplicity makes it perfect.

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Alternative Title: 'Stupid Questions"

It started off well with a promising story and dynamic characters but it fell flat so badly it's concave.

The MVP and best actor in the drama was Nanaka (the daughter!) She has better facial expressions than her own parents.
No one took Rina seriously even though she is EXTREMELY CRAZY! Like, does no one have common sense or at all least self preservation skills?! *facepalm*
The main female character had a series of stupid questions to pretty obvious negative situations and revelations.
The Idiot Husband was phenomenally superb at being either a horrible actor or a pretty generic, bland male lead that is the center of a love triangle between two females characters that were more interesting than him.
The character with the most growth was Mr. Izutsu and thank goodness for that because he seems to be doing better than his wife obviously. Even in the end, he was able to adjust and understand how essential his wife's role was in their family. I have the most hope for his character in the future, though I strongly suggest therapy for everyone in this show.

Every character in the show besides Nanaka is pathetic and why is Marriage Counseling or calling the Police not considered? All of this could have been avoided if proper communication between the couples was initiated. All relationships are Work In Progress, and seriously talk things out before you marry and the during your whole marriage,

Haru is a Champ and well deserving of anyone's company and time. He was a better influence in the story's event than anyone else. Also, why was Reika - I mean, Shiga - surprised to see Haru in the bar? Even though it shows nowhere that they met and that she knows of him beforehand? I also wonder exactly what is her job, because that was very vague as well.
(Why can't Fake Kuroi be pardoned on the account of Self-Defense? .......*after 10 minutes of Google results*...... Oh, that's insane!)
It feels like the message of the drama is 'Once you're married, then keep settling. You might not get lucky again after you're divorced.' Though, the ending suggest otherwise for Azu's older sister and Mr. Izutsu. Smh, make up your mind please!
The drama feels off and people's reaction to bad news seems surreal and down right insulting! (If someone tells you they're in the middle of a divorce in result of adultery.......why do you nervously chuckle or change the topic?! What's wrong with people?! But then again, someone gave horrible advice to Azu about forgiving her cheating husband before she cheated herself such as, "Do you know how much bravery and courage it takes to apologize to someone who's angry at you?" NO! Because he's the reason she's angry!) This entire drama was insane for all the wrong reasons. Wasted potential.

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A really good show. I rewatched it just now to give it a proper review and it was so easy to see all over again because it's so good to watch. I even cried and laughed at the same parts! No non-con or unnecessary drama. They even do a good job of showcasing different types of female side characters that we see in BL dramas: one who supports the main couple and the other that tries to get in between them. I only watch Crossing the Line and Trapped, but I'm ready to watch the rest of HIStory shows if all of the shows have such great writing with good messages about self-acceptance and embracing the goodness in your life that may come unexpectedly.
The main couple's relationship had good progression and pacing. The Professor was justified in his emotions and reactions when it seemed the younger student was still too hesitant to take what he wanted and be happy. Plus the domestic fluff from the story is downright adorable! You You as a child actor was well played and she wasn't annoying at all. Perfectly done and highly recommended.

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I never had found an Asian Historical/Fantasy drama that made me want to rewatch it as soon as it was over like Ashes of Love. I thought this was going to be just like other Historical dramas that ended on a sour note for me and made me wait a few months to even think about emotionally investing myself again in another one. I am so glad to be wrong! Even though it is long, it still had my attention. I had favorite characters and actors that I'm now interested in to see about their other work. The costume design and sets were beautiful. The relationships and character dynamics were really flushed out and written well. I truly loved the ending and resolution. I realistically didn't get to get all I wanted from the end and my favorite side characters but I'm not too upset about it. If you don't want a drama that breaks your heart, then watch this one instead!

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Yes to everything!

I loved everything in this movie!

I laughed at the funny and cheerful moments. I was sad when the couple had their communication issues and intrigued when the two would 'play'. (Also, where did they go for all of those 'play' moments? Because yeah, I've heard of the Love Hotels/Motels in Japan and S.Korea but wow! Those places were so cool!)

Love the characters, the acting, the cinematography, the plot, and the way it ended. This film did so much better than any other film when it came to introducing BDSM. I would recommend this to anyone who needs to understand what good communication in a relationship looks like.

Listening to Girl's Generation for more than ten years makes me nostalgic for the maknae of the group to lead in this film. I loved her performance and how tasteful this film was and how mature she was able to portray her character.

This is cute, fun, serious (the research done for the Dom before she tried anything when they play), sensual, colorful, relatable (especially in the office scenes), and chaotic. I'm watching this again, not going to lie.

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First of all: Fandy's facial expressions give me life!!! He is SOOOOO cute and adorable and conveys how he feels through his actions perfectly and I love it! He made this experience just so much more for me and I really applaud him for that. This was so great to watch. I replayed certain parts over and over again because of him and I have no regrets.

On to SPOILERS! He wasn't the only amazing actor in this drama, Zach's character and the other members of the volleyball team were special in their own way and stood out on their own too and I love great supporting characters. They are always important. But more importantly: THE KISSES!!!! This BL drama delivered the best imitate scenes I've watched so far and it was still able to be cute and heartbreaking throughout the series. The dream sequence was the best and ultimately my favorite no doubt and it was still funny because he woke up afterwards and giggled! GIGGLED!! I'm happy for him, hes happy. Just yay! I want only good things for him in life, I really do. They were comfortable with each other and it showed through their progress from classmates, to volleyball member and coach to friends that help with teaching each other to help study or tease them about their love for their family. It made the ending scene when they finally got together well deserved and I jumped in joy when it happened. They got my heart.

The step brothers relationship was tricky for me. Since they are not blood related (unlike the rival volleyball team twins near the end of the drama......eww), their relationship arc was very mature for a laid back drama. One believes it's okay for them to like each other and the other thinks now that their parents married and they are brothers, they shouldn't be together. It's a definitely sensitive and taboo topic so I'm impressed with the show's ability to seriously talk about it because the character responses and reasoning had merit behind it.

The chemistry between the main character made me love this show and made me want to see more of them or just their actors in BL again. This couple is a favorite for me.

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DROPPED - Are we suppose to feel bad for Oh Su Jae???!!

I gave up in the middle of episode 3 when she brought up the first episode's mystery crime in the classroom.
This drama felt too insensitive and tone-deaf for me. The production quality and cast of actors were the only saving grace for me.
Either the Writers wanted the audience to find OSJ likable and failed,
OR
the Writers never intended to make OSJ likable and there's a villainous plot twist waiting near the middle or end of the drama to showcase that and confirm my suspicions.
Sadly, it looks like OSJ is meant to be pitied and rooted for, even though her pride, apathy, and 'holier-than-thou' attitude make it hard for me to stomach her non-existent virtues and ethics.
The more I watched this drama and OSJ, the more enraged and violent I got. So, I stopped watching.
Hopefully, I'll find other works of the actors to enjoy and appreciate their acting abilities. My issue is with the writing of this story and not the actors themselves.

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