Reviews

This was all set up to be one of my most favorite dramas ever! So how did it only make a final overall of 8?



Story (7.5):

I'll start with that I really enjoyed the first half more than the second half, even though the blossoming relationship was really great to see and there was great chemistry between the actors that didn't show up as much in the first half.

However, there were just enough overly ridiculous elements to this drama that it just couldn't get the 10 I so wanted to give to it after the first few episodes.

The main reasons include: stupid gangsters, stupid police, stupid "professional" workers, stupid comedy, stupid monk, stupid jokes...

The other reasons include: unnecessary gangsters, unnecessary "professional" workers, unnecessary stupid comedy, entirely unnecessary monk, unnecessary stupid jokes... And too little Ji Soo (only kind of kidding).

I enjoyed some of the comedy and loved to laugh at this drama, but it just got more and more ridiculous.

I don't want to bash on this drama too much because I really, really enjoyed it especially every scene that had: Park Bo Young, Park Hyung Shik, Ji Soo; and also didn't have: Kim Won Hae, Im Won Hee.

However, the final deal breaker was the final scene of the final episode, which episode I really enjoyed on so many levels and really didn't enjoy on some other levels.

It was great to see some last scenes with a sadly 2d but amazingly acted villain, and the result of relationship between mains was just the cherry on top... But then they had to go in and throw that last scene in which you see some irresponsibility with some mumbo jumbo about the world which I admit looked cool, but the more I thought about it the more I felt it didn't fit with the character...

*SIGH* That probably took away at least 0.5 off of my final score.



Acting/Cast (10):

Park Bo Young and Park Hyung Shik were aMAzing together, and having Ji Soo in there was just a great plus. The rest of the casting was great too, especially from the villain! and even from the overly ridiculous characters as they played it how they should have, even if I didn't exactly enjoy it all.



Music (7.5):

I guess I should also mention the music... It wasn't anything spectacular that I loved; the Love you love you song was fine and actually a really decent song, but nothing unique. Some people may like the Trouble song too, but not my cup of tea.



Rewatch Value (8.0):

For rewatch... I could re-watch a lot of the scenes over and over, and in truth I watched the majority of the drama twice, one raw and once with subs; but I think most of my rewatching will only be done on the first half, especially if it's full episodes.



Overall (8.0):

Wish I could have given it a 10, but had enough filler comedy I just couldn't deal. Still a great drama and recommended!

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Nothing in this depressing midevil tale tries to be original. Well, there is that techno Kpop dance.

Flower Crew is a huge mess of a series. At it its core it is the same vying for the throne Joseon story that Korea just keeps making on repeat. It dresses itself up as a cute comedy of an all male team of matchmakers, but doesn't deliver on that premise. The opening scene is the death of the king followed by an assassination of the prince. Now lets pan to some small town where a lonely peasant girl is breaking her back trying to earn enough money to both survive and hire someone to find her enslaved brother who has been missing since she was a child on the run.

And there it is folks, a comedy for the ages!

This tale follows the point by point checklist of what a Joseon story should possess.

1) Politicians vying for power and trying to overthrow the throne: Check
2) A King with no power who must figure out how to out maneuver the politicians that surround them : Check
3) Peasants caught in the middle of the political fray that will decide the fate of the story: Check
4) An entire subplot about consolidating power by wedding the king to his queen: Check
5) A queen dowager with her own plans for the kingdom: Check
6) A courtesan house that features all the secrets and information of everything happening: check
7) A love that is against all odds and hangs in the balance as everyone plays their cards: check
8) The big bad has a single swordsman assassin that does all their evil wetwork: check

Oh but again, this is a comedy not a drama. Did we tell you that?

For the first few episodes the show actually tries to pretend it is a comedy and not just a stale Joseon tale. The matchmakers actually do some matchmaking. There are attempts at comedy. The shows always has a sound effects laden soundtrack roaring with cat calls, dinging bells, kazoo glides, and other zany noises to say, hey look, this is funny. You should laugh now. And there is enough slow motion tripping and falling into peoples arms and long stares to fill up 30 minute You Tube clip collection video.

And then our second male lead is taken to the palace, crowned as king, and held against his will......and the story never looks back.

Character wise you get a handful of stock archetypes. Our main male lead Ma Hoon (Kim Min Jae) is the stoic soft hearted intelligent nobleman with a tragic backstory. Our second male lead is Lee Soo (Seo Ji Hoon) a noble kind lovelorn blacksmith son who ends up the secret bastard of the now dead king. Our female lead Gae Ddong (Gong Seung Yeon) is a tough as nails ex slave who will do anything for coin (except sex stuff). This is our triangle and this is where we will spend the bulk of our time. For the most part you can like and love these three. They mostly always error on the side of good, and remain heroes for the length of the series run.

That can not be said for the rest of the cast. Our second female lead Kang Ji Hwa (Go Won Hee) has not a single redeeming quality. She is one of the females that will vie to be queen. Along the way she will beat servants, sell of slaves, break promises, degrade our core characters, and help in a plot of attempted murder. Yet the story will still make her the love interest of one of our Matchmakers Do Joon (Byeon Woo Seok) as the second couple of the series. In doing so it basically assassinates Do Joon's character in his willful blindness to accept the monstrous things Ji Hwa does, and love her anyway. Why any of the rest of the cast have anything to do with him by the end is a bit of a head scratcher.

Though you also have Go Young Soo (Park Ji Hoon) as our final matchmaker and likely the most problematic character of the series. Designed to be the comic relief, his character is basically there to annoy everyone. He attacks the female lead constantly. Is jealous that our main lead Ma Hoon is giving his time to someone other than him. (There are lots of references that he may be gay and in love with Ma Hoon. And Ma Hoon seems okay with that and loves him back as much as he can which is kinda cool). Yet, the character will ultimately be given the most backstory of anyone with horrific flashbacks of his time before becoming part of the Flower Crew. This back story has lots of lifting to do, as it is meant to explain is superficialness and justify some horrible actions he will eventually take.

Everyone else is evil and there to do bad stuff.

I will say I never forgive any of the characters, the story doesn't give me time to, nor give the characters enough remorse over their actions to warrant it. There is a lot of betrayal. There is more gore than is to be expected. And there are fight scenes that look like they were made by a high school film class. Which makes for a very lackluster affair. Even more odd is the choice of the soundtrack, which oscillates between love ballads, kpop, and techno, in a Joseon period historical show. There is even a dance number to the techno as the flower crew tries to hire a female to join their ranks. It is definitely the last straw on any viewers looking at this series as anything of weight or noteworthiness. This is not a trend I can get behind Bridgerton!

In the end, this series is utterly and easily forgettable. It isn't good at anything it tries to do. As a Joseon piece it is repetitive, derivative, poorly constructed and a joke in historical context. As a comedy it is tragic, depressing, horrific, and serious. As a romance it falls limp and asks us to ship a side couple that viewers will have a really hard time getting behind and rooting for. While I do like the two main male leads, both doing excellent work here in acting while also being attractive hunks, that is really the only praise I have for this. I could have done without every wasting my time here. 4.5/D/ 2 1/4-stars. Flaws far outweigh the strengths here. Outside of a few bright spots little enjoyment really exists.

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dark and messy soap opera style series with cute side m/m couple

Overall: this isn't the type of plot (dark/murder mystery) that I enjoy, but I think they did a good job with it. Wish the side m/m couple would have had more screen time. Watched on YouTube.

Content Warnings: pretty much every single one, this could be really triggering for people so please take care if you watch the whole thing

Timings for the side m/m couple (in case you'd like to just see their scenes, I think I got most of them). The best are episode 5 part 4 and episode 6 part 1.
ep 2 4/4, 3m30s
ep 3 2/4, 1:30
ep 5 3/4, 4
ep 5 4/4, beginning
ep 6 1/4, 9
ep 8 3/4, beginning
ep 14 2/4, 4
ep 16 3/4, 13 and 16
ep 17 2/4, 1m10s
ep 18 4/4 4m30s

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Regretting this

I want to rate 0 but I think that's too extreme. Thus I settle for 1. I was anticipating this for 2 years only to see sun oh getting hurt over and over again. I'm disappointed. Super unhappy with the ending. I'm dropping this. Just gonna pretend this series never exist.

Some might be happy with the ending but not me. I hate this series so bad now, I regret liking the first one. I can't believe I wait for 2 years for nothing. I don't understand why do I even bother watching this series in the first place. Sun oh and jojo chemistry is too good, but this 2nd season destroys it. They should just end the series at that cliffhanger in the first season. Its wayyy better than this. I don't recommend you watching this second season. In fact, if you have not start watching the first season, don't even bother watching it. The ending is so bad. With all my heart, I hate it. Thank you.

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It's not the half you think, but maybe it's the one you need

I must say that this is one of the best short films I have seen and that in a few minutes I manage to transmit much more than other series and longer films.

To begin with, for me where the greatness lies is in the chemistry, there is no doubt that Earth and Mix have a quasi-magnetic chemistry, spiced up by their very good interpretations, which makes you not only connect emotionally with the characters in few minutes if not what, you understand them and you care about their history and where is going.

In general, the story is simple, two boys find themselves at school in "not very optimal" circumstances. From that moment on, their paths mix and they become very good friends. You start to follow a common path, however as the friendship progresses, the feelings become more complex and the expectations higher, until the mutual attraction becomes undeniable, obviously the moment of the confession of these emotions, although mutual, it causes a fracture in the relationship and the characters separate.

In the midst of that separation, Talay realizes his true feelings and decides to wait for the return of his beloved Whale, while he nostalgically remembers the moments that were gone.

The message is really very nice, on the one hand Whale who always felt that he did not have a place in this world whose best option was to go out and go through it to find a place to hold on, when his path crosses with Talay, the only person who has made him feel at home and belonging and feeling the relationship broken is scared and runs away; and on the other, Talay who is initially scared of how deep and confused his feelings are becoming, but the moment Whale leaves he realizes that he really loves him and is willing to wait for his return, at last and at the end each one got half.

We must not forget that this short is connected to a music video and I would like to talk a little about the relationship with it, in the end they tell us the same story, “I try to keep everything that reminds me of you very deep and can continue with life, but deep down I am still waiting for the moment when you return”. Facing our feelings can be scary, sadly sometimes they only have one chance and sometimes they are not ready, in the end, Talay and Whale can finally meet again and now they can walk together wherever life takes them.

Like I said before, the performances are beautiful Earth and Mix are great actors and it is clear that they put everything into the roles that they have, they have both matured as actors and I am very excited to see their future work. The short at the production level is beautiful, the photography, the direction, even the script with very little dialogue works quite well and I really liked the song.

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Beautifully shot, but hard to follow

Hidden Blade is a Chinese espionage film that takes place around the time of World War II in Japanese occupied China. It follows the stories of two men working for the Japanese government. Although it is a propaganda film, it doesn't feel as preachy as I was expecting it to be. It had a great cast starring some big names, such as Tony Leung and Wang Yibo to name a few. In my opinion, Tony Leung really stood out in his role compared to the rest of the cast. Before going into this film, it would help to have some historical context of this time period. Otherwise, the story is hard to follow as it is. The film drops you into the story and barely bothers to explain things. The main issue I had with this movie was the flow of the plot. There were a lot of times where the movie would jump back and forth to the same few particular scenes. It made it very difficult to follow the story and the timeline.

The musical score, though not bad, was a miss for me. There are some really great cinematic shots in this film. It is an art film after all. One thing I liked was the depiction of dogs in the film. There were various types of dogs featured that led very different lives. You can say their lives paralleled some of the characters in the film. If you've seen a lot of espionage films or dramas from this era, you might find the movie a bit predictable. Would I watch this film again? Probably not. Although it had some great shots and the climax was entertaining, the storytelling wasn't quite there for me since it was hard to follow. I also felt like there was a lot of subtext I might've missed. I knew a particular scene or moment was important, but couldn't quite put my finger on why. Even if I were to re-watch it, I don't think I will understand some of the hidden subtext unless someone explains it to me. It might be worth checking it out for the cast though.

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I was expecting more

I like the drama but it left me wanting.

In terms of acting, the believable one for me is Oh Jung Se as Sang Tae. I expected more from Soo Hyun acting. Ye Ji is a good actor, might look up more of her dramas. The supporting characters are good too, I enjoy the side stories. There's good comedic timing too. The actors just did not make me feel invested on their characters, I really did not feel the sincerity of it, I don't know how to explain it, that's just how I feel when I watched it.

The story is okay, I don't think the script really delve in the mental side of what I thought this drama is all about. The plot holes, the mother plot. It did not grab my attention as I hoped, the last episode is really nice though. What I did not like too much about it is like I feel there's confusion on what they want to show, if they want to show the realism or the fantasy of it, so I guess it's better to view this as a fairy tale story.

The OST is okay, there's one song that they play that really reminded me of the Jonas Brothers song.

Overall, the drama is good to watch, beautiful production and transitions. The drama is ok and many will like this kind of show, I guess it's not my taste.

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If you want a dramatic drama or a complicated story, it's not for you. Because this is a soothing romantic story where you can find a best friend who will never play badly on you (even if you and her love the same guy). This is where you can see an imperfect male lead but warm as the guy next door whenever you need him. If I can describe it, I can say this is a pleasant story as warm as the morning sun. If anyone loves comedy drama, it's definitely for you.
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Far out, I could barely watch this. I stuck with it because of the storyline but the female lead was painful to watch. Her facials and over the top acting was cringing. Her loudness was off putting. I found myself rolling my eyes at her stupid portrayal of a character that should’ve been portrayed better. I soldiered on because of 2 male leads. Even the second female lead wasn’t any better but that may have been because of her character. I laughed at some points but I expected to laugh a lot more. I’m mildly disappointed as this could have been so much more and then some. I found myself fast forwarding quite a few times. Sigh.

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their friendship is the best and so cute!!! you'll love it!!!

This drama shows you many scenes that can happen in real life, but above all how friendship despite everything is something that keeps us connected and is like our daily support in our busy and complicated lives.
you probably identify with some actors character, for example I identify with woomin sometimes you're not sure about something and you realize it late but that's what it's about learning from your mistakes and trying again (to the actor who played woomin I fell in love with you I hope see you more in this industry).
I liked the theme of fashion industry because it's so glamorous and it felt great to see a little piece of that industry.

and remember friends can be place where u can find ur answer or just a little place to cry but be safe too !!!

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This is not the worst thing I have ever seen from beginning to end, but it comes pretty close. If I look only at the main romance, then that's a decent 6/10 guilty pleasure with a minor twist, where the woman is the mysterious aloof one, not the other way around. The problem is that there is just too much padding. Later on there are episodes, where the main characters have less than 1 minute of screen time. Overall the part that I wanted to watch took up about 10% of the drama.
Even though the -extremely pretty- actors are okay in terms of acting skill, overall the characterization in the drama is just terribly bad. Most characters couldn't be any more 2 dimensional, I mean sure this is a fluff cdrama so I did not expect too much depth, however the writing is beyond terrible. Each storyline outside of the main romance and perhaps the hacker girl's stuff is dull, boring and uninspiring. The entire drama feels incredibly sloppy. It's like every second scene should have been reshot, but the director decided that it was "good enough" let's go home early today, which is a pretty big shame, considering that the production quality otherwise is quite good, they used high quality camera gear, hired a skilled cinematographer & the 2-3 original soundstracks were also up to standard.
There is also the issue of subtitles. The machine translated subs are enough to understand the story, but there are many fine nuances lost and there were times, when I couldn't make a sense of it.

I'm a bit baffled by some of the other reviews, perhaps ppl are just a bit too mesmerized by beauty? ^
If you are interested in watching a fluffy Chinese romcom look elsewhere. A Love So Beautiful, O2O, Put Your Head on My Shoulder are all infinitely better in almost every way.

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