I was pleasantly surprised by this show. The acting was outstanding - not a clinker in the bunch. I thought the story was pretty good - it kept moving along with enough happening each episode to make me want to watch the next one. If I had a criticism, it would be that the plot stalled a bit during the last third of the series, but it picked back up often enough to regain it's momentum. Happily, it passes the Bechdel test with flying colors - the female characters are well-developed and have moments of lovely "chick" humor and pathos as well -- good insight in many spots as well. It was a good quality series with good writing and acting.

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I Wish I Liked This More

The storyline has some interesting twists and turns, and while I find most time loop stories to be versions of "Groundhog Day" trying to be really different and failing, this one was not bad in terms of plot.

What ruined it for me was the casting of the FL who was a mumble-bunny martyr, which set my teeth on edge. I don't think there were many conversations between women that didn't focus on men, which is another disappointment for me. I do think the ML did a good job.

The last few episodes did a good job of explaining a very different ending plot twist, which was a nice surprise.

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I have to start off by saying that Riley Wang is so adorable, I could watch him sleep for the duration of the series and still make it all the way to the end. His portrayal of his character was about 5 degrees too chilly, but flashes of warmth humanized him. Female lead was a little bit of a caricature, but largely well done. There were a few very nice fleshed out roles with reasonable acting, and a couple of regrettable stereotypes.

What made this watchable for me was the creativity of circumstances and the changing relationships in both main and secondary characters -- those were nicely done, carefully acted, and nuanced more often than not. I also give it a thumbs up on passing the Bechdel test, which made it more interesting as well. I would rewatch it because I found it entertaining and not a wad of damp cotton candy, as so many of these are.

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Painfully two-dimensional characters with unlikely attributes/characteristics/traits/behavior. There was not one single conversation between women that was not focused on men (total Bechdel FAIL), the plot was just dumb, the music uninteresting. I can't think of a single character that wasn't over-acted to the point of being a blatant stereotype, many of which were demeaning. Lord save me from the obsessed, narcissistic, hysterical dingbat "best friend"; I wound up fast forwarding through each of the scenes with her in it because it was ALWAYS the same thing with different toppings, as it were. The only reason I watched it through was because a) I took several long breaks between clusters of episodes, and b) I wanted to be able to write a credible review.

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Really well-written and acted characters - I find little to fault in this one. I also found it to be interesting, funny, sad, and not as predictable as it might have been. All the female leads were well done, as were most of the male characters. My favorite episode is the last one, which has the most devious payback I think I've seen, and I loved it because it was bang on target.

There were some aspects that are uniquely culturally different from situations in most American shows, and I found that to be part of the reason it was so interesting. I appreciated that the female characters were smart, good at their jobs, sassy with each other and not irreparably emotionally damaged, which is important and real. Oh, and drawn out mopery was not a problem -- people moped and then went back to working, talking with others, and coping.

Also, passes the Bechdel test - yay!

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Caricatures and Stereotypes

There is nothing new in the story whatsoever - no surprises, no cute or interesting deviations from the tired tropes we see in so many other romcoms. This show is what it looks like when writers "phone it in" instead of actually writing.

On the upside, there is some reasonably good and entertaining acting, far better than the script deserved. Unlike other reviewers, I don't think that either the ML or FL gave good performances. ML looked either wooden or like he was forcing himself to look less wooden and not succeeding. FL was a travesty - everything she put in her mouth got the exact same squee of delight, whether it was soup, coffee, or a carrot stick, or if it was a gift of some sort. Her acting was amateurish and painful to watch. The secondary characters, however, were vastly entertaining - the boss who is so hammy and chewed the scenery so flamboyantly, and the second male attorney and female attorney were worth watching, just for their masterful comedic skills. A gentle attraction portrayed with care between tertiary characters was a breath of fresh air as well.

The music was repetitive and therefore annoying, Sadly, and somewhat grimly, there was so much obvious plastic surgery/cosmetic procedures on display that it was distracting and depressing. For just one example, look at the FL's lips in the first several episodes and then look at them in the last episode. And the show spectacularly failed the Bechdel test, which is a hot button for me - seeing as the concept of women only talking about men with each other is so unrealistic as to be nauseating as well as insulting.

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It's as if an AI Bot scanned all the afterschool specials written, and barfed out this series. It's awful.

It starts off as being about 5 college girls who want to form a band. They name it G5 because apparently they were frightened by Bingo cards as infants. The problem is that they can't actually play their instruments, their voices aren't great, they have no sense of rhythm (even the drummer quits after maybe ten beats), and the songs they pick/write are attempts at mopey, juvenile poetic verse. GAK. Plus, they never actually finish singing or playing a song. In fact, ALL the music is dreadful.

Mostly they run around, rattling off nonsense at 45 mph, poking their noses where they don't belong, gossiping, exaggerating, and being generally narcissistic nightmares. Their parents should drink hemlock in shame and apology.

In the episode that hit my tolerance fence, the least realistic, least likable character faints, winds up in the hospital and becomes convinced she has leukemia. That episode and half of the next episode (which is as far as I could stand), she slumps around, gazing woefully into the distance, saying cryptic things to her friends and family, leaving weird gifts for them, and refuses to believe the doctors who tell her she does NOT have leukemia, she's just anemic. That's right, the drama of a deadly illness is far more interesting to her than the reality that she needs to eat spinach and get some sleep.

Memorably, the not-leukemia girl gets invited to a concert which required purchasing tickets, does stupid things, shows up there, and the "concert" is a bar band, in a bar, moping marginally more tunefully than the G5 members, AND THE BAR IS ONLY ABOUT 1/4TH OCCUPIED. Yeah, that needed a purchased ticket to get in.

So, being the hopeful soul that I am, and remembering the series is called "Dancing angels", I skipped forward to the one episode that is listed as being about dancing, only to find a damaged hero dance teacher for ballroom dancing, which, of course, goes well with mopey teen mock rock, and more mopery ensues. I lasted under a minute into the silent mopery.

Really, I'm ashamed of myself for sticking it out that far. I'm going to go see if I have any hemlock tea.

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What a shame

I thought there were many quality aspects to this show - production value was good, settings were good, and many of the characters were played well by good actors.

Sadly, the main reason the score is so low is because the lead actress, Shen Yue, was dreadful. She was exactly the same character that she was in Meteor Garden and in A Love So Beautiful. I am forced to believe that she is a one trick pony when she is acting. It was disappointing to see the *exact same* mannerisms when she was worried, upset, angry, tired, etc. - not a whit of difference, and that, in and of itself, was enough to ruin this show for me.

It also fails the Bechdel test since there is little to no conversation between women that doesn't revolve around men.

I watched to the end because I thought the storyline, while trite in many areas, nevertheless added some interesting timing and character development. Kudos to Dai Yun Fan for pulling off the adult decisions his character made in a completely believable manner, and to Vivi Yue for bringing patience and kindness into her role in a thoroughly professional manner.

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This show got so many positive reviews that I decided to watch it all the way through. Even giving it plenty of latitude for being dated, this is dreadful -- trite, repetitive, slogging along for most of the show, mediocre acting, unintentional overacting, wild overuse of fake tears and pensive gazes into the distance... Stock stereotype characters, really low budget music, of which 3 songs are played over and over and over and over, crummy costumes, cheesy emotional scenes and caricature level tragedies.

You have your dimwitted, angelic hayseed ingenue, your handsome, emotionally damaged, indecisive male lead, TWO vindictive B*tches trying to undermine the hayseed, and a narcissistic, violent 2nd male. Add in an authority figure wedded to toxic traditionalism, and an evildoer, and I'm pretty sure you can write the script yourself, if you get a little drunk and morose.

I have to give a sincere warning if you are still considering watching it -- it goes downhill after the first episode and never gets better.

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Four actors - female lead, male lead, former boyfriend, and his assistant are all worth watching. Their acting is solid and sincere. I found the rest of the actors largely overdone, especially the female lead's mother -- an obnoxious motormouth. She was bad enough that I turned off the sound and just read the subtitles when she came into a scene. I am going to be magnanimous and assume that most of the supporting actors were told to act like dull-witted stereotypes and that they did their best to fulfill those instructions.

The story line was above average for the first 10-15 episodes, then it lost focus until the last two episodes. Rather than being outright bad during the middle episodes, situations and dialog became somewhat predictable and repetitious. There were some very good moments that included realistic friends for each main actor, with honest, believable dialogue, and several conversations that keep it from failing the Bechdel test. Definitely overkill on the flashbacks, though. I would rewatch this with a friend, rather than rewatching it alone.

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Lots of Laughs

The plot was nicely done and lasted just the right number of episodes to keep it moving along well. The settings were good, the comic relief characters were nicely done, and it passes the Bechdel test with ease.

I enjoyed all of the acting - I think the cast was well chosen and did a really professional job. ML and FL had good onscreen chemistry and played off of one another nicely.

The music did not annoy me, and I'd rewatch it without hesitation.

The only part *SPOILER ALERT* that was disappointing was the outright wrong resolution of the FL's mental health issue. It just doesn't resolve that quickly or like that. I DID appreciate that there was good context, but the flip from having a socially/mentally disabling condition to "on top of the world" mentality was not realistic.

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Hollywood Level Gore

There was a whole lot of violence and a huge amount of gore for a Korean movie , which surprised me. It suited the plot, however.

A definite action movie, which could have been formulaic but wasn't because it was extremely well-paced, crisply written, and outstandingly cast. This was a high quality cast which lifted the story far above where it would have been with lesser talent. Even when actors were portraying stereotypes, they were skilled, nuanced, and sardonic; those roles which could have been trite were made amusing and believable by superior acting. I thought the settings were well-chosen and some quite beautiful. I can't say much about the Bechdel test, since there was only one woman in the movie, and she was terrific in her part.

I have to give special credit for the lead male character who managed to make all other mobsters look like pansies in comparison to his sheer, unstoppable, relentless determination in his final scene.

I might watch it again to pick up things I missed during the first go-round, and I would still enjoy it just as much.

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I have nothing new to say about the content of this show -- I agree with most of the reviews - it's fun, a little too long, but character development seems good. HOWEVER, about 3 episodes in something went wrong with the subtitling -- it would only show one line of what was being said and never showed the rest of it! This hasn't happened on other shows I watch subtitled, but it sure did make this one challenging to keep up with. At one point, I just start calling out potential "rest of the sentence" ideas to try to keep interesting.

I sometimes have issues with poor translations in subtitles, (misuse of send v take is a sure way to make me grind my teeth), but this was bizarre and disappointing.

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