Reviews

The overall pacing, cinematography and story telling is really great. I finished the drama in just 2 straight days watching it. The drama is really good in portraying the dark side of the Japanese invasion in Korea, it was diverted to having experimented to human beings and hence the creature. I liked that it was fantasy for the first time I have watched, I really am not a fan of this genre but it was a good decision to be having the genre fantasy.

Acting wise, I really like most of the characters, which a lot. I am really happy with Park Seo Jeon as the main lead, he carried the show alongside the people at the pawnshop. Han Seo Hee seems to having getting the same roles as her previous works but she is good at it.

It was a story of a mother's love.

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It has been a long time since i did a review, but i felt like i should do one for this. Unlike everyone i waited until its finished to watch it. For two whole days i was hooked. :) I am not gone talk about the story line and what not because everyone here has done that. DO NOT WATCH THE DRAMA BASED ON THE SCORES GIVEN HERE. WHY? because your expectation will be high and you might end up being a little bit disappointed. Almost everyone here gave this drama 10/10. For me it was 8/10. Here is why?
The story line is nothing special what made me want to keep watching this was the actors and their chemistry with each other. THE whole time i was on my toes and almost losing it in some points. Honestly 20ep was a bit long they could have finished it in 16. The last two ep were a bit frustrating because it left me wanting to find out what happened to the other characters nevertheless, although my satisfaction was not fulfilled it was nice to see a drama that keeps the momentum going. And the fact that there was some comedy also made this drama enjoyable LOVED Chang Wook here even better than in Empress KI. So good luck and enjoy the drama it is HIGHLY addictive.

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The leaning tower of pisa of kdramas

I told my friend just after finishing episode 11 that Business Proposal was much like the leaning tower of pisa. It looks good, it's competently shot, well acted, the music is utilised decently well, but the foundation on which it rests on is extremely shaky.

To take from Folding Ideas video on 50 shades, the story is written much like a fanfiction. It follows the structure where plot A connects to B, B connects to C and so on, where you need all of them for the story to make sense, but A and C aren only tangentially related. The amount of times that plotpoints are picked up then dropped is very annoying, it makes the pacing pacing of the show much faster, which is extremely good for the "light, airy" feel it has, but definitely does detract from the story's quality as a whole.

After the reveal early on in the show, the quality of the show seems to dip considerably. The tightness of the first few episodes is very prevalent, minus some scenes that set up something later. It's later on in the show where emotional moments are brought up just for the sake of the story needing emotional beats. The story could have easily been "light and airy" all throughout, but it brings in a very poorly shoved in third act conflict.

If there is one thing that is good about this show it is the acting. The chemistry between the actors is very obvious, and the leads make one of the most natural lead couples I have ever seen. They all play off of each other very well, and with more time I think they could have also done more with other under utilised characters.

It's very difficult thinking about whether or not this show needed more episodes. There is a lot that could have been explored still, Hamin's relationship to the family, more about the grandfather, more with youngseo and yujeong's relationship, but I don't know if that would make the show more bloated than necessary. For the story to work, I think they should've cut the whole Yoora plotline completely. At the beginning of the show I really liked Minwoo compared to his webtoon counterpart who is somehow worse than the show version, but the contrived drama they create for him is so lacklustre, it's actually embarrassing.

Overall, the show is good. It isn't great, and it stems from structural problems that can only really be fixed by rewriting most of the script. If you want a quick laugh or a convincing romance, it is enjoyable enough.

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pretty well done complex series

Overall: they handled a taboo topic fairly well, though the flashback to when Yuan was a child during a certain scene in episode 11 was cringey. This was a Taiwanese adaptation of a Chinese danmei (Da Ge by Priest). I have not read the novel and reviewed the series on its own merits. 12 episodes about 30 minutes each. Aired on Youku's app, Youku's YouTube channel and Viki.

Content Warnings: non con kiss, punch, blood, past parental abuse, violence/beaten up, kidnapping, coercion, unwanted outing, homophobia, manhandling, vomiting, (some people may include another one, I didn't based on how everything played out)

What I Liked
- a few central characters, got to know their personalities
- how characters cared about each other
- a grittier/more realistic tone
- sweet moments
- a few funny moments
- We Best Love actor cameo as the doctor starting in ep 3
- a well done antagonist, I could see his reasoning but he meddled and was hypocritical though he did redeem himself at the end
- a non cliche female character in ep 6
- one of the few times I was happy for a years-long time jump (end of ep 7)
- sassier/more confident Yuan starting end of ep 7
- intimacy/tension
- production value

Room For Improvement
- (neutral) I generally don't like series that start with flash forwards but I understood why they did this
- confused in the beginning as to who was biological siblings, adopted siblings and friends (Iikely compounded by the use of brother as a term of endearment/closeness and not reserved for biological siblings)
- the timeline/character ages took some effort to piece together
- Li Li was supposed to be in high school before the time jump in episode 7 but she acted like a middle schooler (went into a random guy's car as an example, also she outed another character), even at the end when she was 23 she felt like a high schooler
- should not have done the flashback montage in a scene in episode 11
- cringey the coworkers talked about their sexual positions at work
- introduced a very serious plot point only to never resolve it, also didn't feel that the gang issue was clearly resolved either

Timeline Notes (the series wasn't clear where we were in the timeline/ages, feel free to correct me)
2008 (eps 1/2 flashbacks) - they first met in 2008 because that was the first date on the wall with the heights, Yuan age 7, Qian age 14, Li Li age 8
2016 (eps 1/2 present) Qian graduated university at the end of ep 2, Yuan age 15, Qian age 22, Li Li age 16
2018 (ep 3) Yuan is age 17 & Qian is 24, note that Yuan skipped a year or two so he's in university already at age 17, Li Li age 18
2019 (eps 4-7) Yuan turned 18 in episode 4, Yuan age 18, Qian age 25, Li Li age 19
the series eventually mentions that the gap was 4 years as I guessed
2023 (end of ep 7 up to the end of ep 12) Yuan age 22, Qian age 29, Li Li age 23
2024? (end of ep 12) Yuan age 23, Qian age 30, Li Li age 24

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It should have stayed in draft

Is their story original? No. It was a basic rich arrogant guy falls for the naive poor guy kinda story. For what it lacked in originality it made up for by... not being bland. That’s it. There wasn’t anything outstanding or special about this couple that set them aside from others. I may not have been on this pairings bandwagon even in the first season, but I found them entertaining enough and can admit to their appeal. Besides I love Techno so there was also something to be excited about for me.

I know fans of this couple have waited two years to get this sequel and it should have been an overall success.

Right out the gate, this series turns off most viewers by deciding to restart the TinCan story afresh. Afresh wouldn’t be bad if it was an overall new storyline, rather they pretty much retold what took place in LBC1 in a long winded lackluster way. It took 6 episodes to reach the point of the story that wasn’t already told in LBC1. Its lack of continuity led to a lot of confusion and frustration as it also showed changes in character personality.

Plan’s character seems to have digressed in personality, Mean looked like he didn’t want to be there. I’m not even going to touch Techno and Kengkla’s plot nor Ae’s for that matter. The awkward and bad acting that hasn’t improved in these two years becomes even more evident, by the abysmal script, unimaginative plot, poor choice in OST, overall low quality production. Rather than a highly expected series, this comes off as one of those unknown small company production with first timer production.

The fact that Plan doesn’t even know how to command the muscles around his lips to part for a kiss scene while the script makes him sound like a horny teenager has managed to raise the cringe factor to high level. The only slightly interesting plot in this drama came around the end of the series between Tin’s brother Tul and Gonhin.

I had initially started taking notes so I can write an objective review but by the 3rd ep I chucked the list away since it wasn’t worth the effort. It was bad all over and if I kept making lists than it would be miles long and I can’t do that to myself. I’ll say this much though, This series owes Gun and Mark a huge apology for taking their characters plot from crap in season 1 to still crap here. Thailand owes Mark a better drama! Another apology to Perth, since I have no idea why both he and viewers had to suffer while he was mopping around for an entire season. And another one to Yacht for making him go through this when he had played such a lovable, fun Pond in S1. The only credit this series deserves is it washed off that incest-adjacent relationship between Tum and Tar.

For a series with a highly successful prequel, everything about this series showed the lack of preparation, commitment, and care for quality. If the purpose of making this series was to make the fans wish they could wipe out everything they have watched, I can say this drama has succeeded. If the intention was to give the fans the drama they have patiently waited for, to give the actors who have chosen this as their last project and their fans a chance to bid farewell to these characters, then it was a miserable failure.

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Its an over all 10 for me. From the script to the casts to the OST. The actings were great from the lead stars to the supporting especially during the Joseon era. I have seen a lot of kdrama and i dont usually get affected by the acting of some even if they are big stars already. The others were trying to be cute and the others don't even know how to do funny role even if the script already calls for it. Some K dramas , i ended up dropping it.
But here the chemistry of the two lead stars were great, I saw the male lead in "Birth of the Rich" and " A thousand Kisses" but this is where he is paired just right.
The story has the complete mix, funny scenes, romantic scenes, dramatic scenes( used a lot of tissues)& action. I have watched it again now that it is complete.
I seldom recommend a kdrama and do a review, but this is worth your time. One of my favorites, it is now the first among my list.

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This drama was beautifully made, from the outstanding storyline to the heartfelt music- everything was perfect. I didn't have any moments where I was bored and wanted to drop it. It was truly moving. If you like romance and comedy and you haven't watched this yet, you are missing out on SO much I can't even begin to explain. So get a start on it now! :D
Don't be put off by the historical theme as it is very well incorporated into the story, a majority of the drama is spent in the modern times. You will NOT be disappointed. In fact you'll probably start loving historical dramas after this.

Story- As I said before, the plot of this drama is really unique. Of course there are many time-traveling drama out this year but that doesn't stop this drama from being put into that stereotypical genre. It had a many mind blowing twists which were not disappointing. I really liked the riddle and mystery that we were left wondering about. Of course, the drama does not fail to bring an interesting conclusion which answers all your questions. Also, you will be hooked until the last episode. The magic of the Joseon era combined with the modern era is all bundled up to make this drama; the best drama of the year.

Acting/Cast- The cast were great! Quite a lot of famous people like Yoochun and Han Ji Min, who are well known for their great acting, were present and contributed well. I'm glad they picked Yoochun to be the character he plays because he did an excellent job on his part. I heard that he also received two awards because of his acting in this drama. The villains here were hated intensely by a lot of the viewers and this means that the actors did an absolutely tremendous job.

Everyone who's seen this will agree that the 3 funny side kicks were one of the main reasons why they enjoyed this. They were hilarious at times but also serious when they were required to be. Also I recognized Lee Min Ho/Man Bo. He was also in another historical drama with Yoochun (Sungkyunkwan Scandal) and I watched that one two dramas before this one so I was so glad to see him finally appear more often. His acting was great. :)

Music- The soundtrack selected for this drama was absolutely flawless. The sad scenes were matched with heart-breaking songs which literally made me cry. The funny scenes had a playful tune and made me feel so happy (Yes, I found myself smiling like an idiot at times XD) Also Jay Park's song is in this OST which was really surprising for me at first because once you hear his voice you will fall in love with him.

Rewatch Value- I would NEVER rewatch dramas mainly because of the fact that I already know what happens but I think I'd really like to watch this one again and experience all the fun and sad times that this drama has to offer. I'd watch this with someone special.. like a boyfriend or someone. hehe ^^

To sum this drama up in one word it would be: Indescribable

Tears of both happiness and sadness were shed. ;-;

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It's an okay masterpiece

Note: The title needs quotes around the word "masterpiece" but the system wouldn't allow me.

Before deciding to watch this drama, I came here to get an initial feeling of what this drama might be like. To my surprise, most reviews here were calling this a masterpiece and a must watch so I immediately went to watch it. I have just finished it and I have no idea if those revieweres were watching the same drama I did -- it's not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, in my opinion.

The story is really good. The music is good too, it didn't stand out to me as either great or terrible which is good. The cast is really nice too. The cinematography is really well done! Sadly, that's where the positives end.

The direction of this drama is not great. Too many episodes for what it ended up delivering. The characters are almost 2 dimensional as they make decisions that sometime seem random or make no sense. There's romance but sadly I didn't care for it one bit and I was not convinced of how and why the leads loved each other.

This drama could've been at least 8 episodes shorter! There are plenty of wasted "prolonged" scenes of characters just seemingly staring at each other as if the actors were trying to remember the next line. Some scenes were completely useless and added nothing of value; just fodder to pad this show.

The important bits were not given focus -- be it the characters or the political story. I do enjoy a good slow burner, with "good" being the operative word here. This drama overstayed its welcome and to be honest, I was bored for 99% (hyperbole) of the time I was watching it. I could not give it attention as I had the urge to fast forward past the useless scenes. My partner kept me from doing that and while she liked it more than I did, she still found it needlessly padded and slow.

I get the reason it's slow is to immerse people into the world and the characters and that the nature of political events unravelling is usually slow but this was needlessly slow. If there was a criteria for direction, I would've given it a 1.

Want a similar story with a far better pace? Watch Bridal Mask.

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Much talked about but very predictable drama.

I'm watching this drama for all the rampage behind it and while I enjoyed watching it, I think it's just another survival drama.

There is really nothing innovative, maybe just the fact that the games were simple because they were based on children's games but after that it is just a group of desperate people, for different reasons, willing to do whatever it takes to win. the award.

The acting was excellent as well as how everything was executed but let's say that all the characters fulfilled a stereotype of this type of genre.

The message was also the same as those often given in these dramas: "How much can we lose our humanity because of our ambitions?" There is nothing really remarkable, other than the performances, because everything was so predictable.

Even the end and there were characters who died stupidly and there was no great development.

Maybe I'm tough but it's because everyone talked so much about him that they created great expectations, that people like me who enjoy watching this type of genre didn't bring him anything new and innovative.

I still recommend it because it's not that bad. It is short and entertaining.

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It’s ok but no exciting surprises or interesting twists.

Some of us must have known the story and character of Li Changge. So, it’s interesting to see how it would be portrayed and visually performed; and how everything would be wrapped up in this drama series. Although I am not a big fan of the choice of Wu Lei as male lead with his flat acting and to be honest Dilraba could have been better Li Changge with more expressive acting. But overall I could manage that since Zhao Lusi has been doing fantastic job to bring up her character slowly but surely. At first, things actually were so good until episode 27, story moved in good pace keeping us interestingly watching . However, starting from episode 28, story was somehow dragging and becoming boring in which many unnecessary scenes. Some casts are only good looking but they were rather annoying to watch. I almost dropped this on episode 30, but I kept carry on watching as curious about how it would end and hoping I could finish it and preserve the good rating. Overall, It’s ok but definitely not the best serious historical drama as many praised , no clever twist to make it interestingly different and more captivating apart of the popularity of Dilraba and Zhao Lusi perhaps the one that are drawn us to watch.

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Hmmmm where to start?

Tiny Times is based off a popular romance novel of the same name, and was directed by the author. This is typically a dream come true for the fans of the books, because who else knows the book better than the author, amiright? Yet…Guo Jing Ming fell a little flat with the movie. Sure, it was pretty to look at, but it never really had any punch to its plot.

The girls are shown in high school, and then the first year of college. The narrator manages to get an impossible PA job for the boss at a magazine (Devil Wear’s Prada anyone?) within 10 minutes, and spends the rest of the movie doing odd jobs for him, including throwing a fashion show. What? Her quiet artsy friend practically has no role but to be pretty, and although we know she has an abusive boyfriend from one small moment in the movie, we don’t know anything about the backstory or why she keeps returning to him. The queen bee of the friends is flighty and sharp-tongued, her role is to provide the characters with a place to party when they all end up single on christmas. The “chubby” athletic friend acts as the token piece of comedic relief, which (albeit delivered in an amusing way), is a bit annoying when she has no substance apart from that. This is sex and the city meets gossip girl, without any support as to why the girls are friends and a lack of relationships ( including two sudden, ill-thought out breakups).

Honestly, the main appeal of this movie is the cast - or rather, the packaging. Music was decent but forgettable and the acting was difficult to judge because I felt like they were all limited by the poorly written script.

Will I watch Tiny Times 2? Probably. This movie is literal eye-candy, and sometimes you need an hour of fluff. Unless I really start to hate the characters or the plot (or lack of), I’ll continue watching the series!

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In terms of acting, production, storyline everything is close to being perfect. The story of a simple love story of a fool On dal and a princess recreated into a powerful story about power and sacrifice. the story progress steadily and gradually. The battle scenes were exceptionally good and quite interesting to watch. In short, rationally speaking this is a good drama.

About replacing Ji soo with Na in woo, although I initially found it disturbing but later came to the conclusion that Na in woo was a better choice after all and the actor did an amazing job of portraying our lead character on dal.

But truthfully the first thing that came into my mind by the 20th episode is "thank god it's finally over!!". For me, this is emotionally exhausting. River where the moon rises is about a fight between clans for the throne. In the midst of it is a princess who uses the love and devotion of her lover and wields it as a knife for power and personal revenge. Princess Pyeong Gang never cared for the people. instead, she used on dal and his entire clan for personal revenge and to keep her family in power. in the process not only on dal lost his mother but also many others, only for it to all end up with her a**hole of a brother to sit on the throne. To use peace for the 3 kingdoms as justification, the process was too acute to accept. I guess this is where the word ambitious princess comes in.

What was even more depressing is that while caught up in the power game she completely ignored On Dal on several occasions and refuse to notice his suffering. When he finally left is when she regrets it.

Here every character in the story is driven by a personal vendetta while sugar-coating it as love and sacrifice and I found this emotionally exhausting.

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Gratuitous violence

To begin my review, I'm someone who doesn't like gratuitous violence. But, if the story was interesting enough or if I had liked the protagonist I could still enjoy it. But that's not what happened. I didn't like the protagonist at all and that's nothing new about the plot, and the games were no fun either. There were times that the pacing was horrible, just couldn't stand it. The production it's amazing, but I've watched kdramas enough to know that they are almost always amazing. Overall if you like more of a battle royale story with good production and don't mind that the characters are mostly scumbags, give it a try. If you are more like me, who doesn't enjoy gratuitous violence and that needs to empathize with the protagonist to enjoy the story, there are plenty of better kdramas out there.

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A disappointment altogether :(

Ok I have to say that I started this drama with high hopes, I mean, look at the cast (and I'm a huge fan of Park So Dam), but boy do I regret wasting my time on this one.

I was expecting a high paced drama, full of fashion, intrigue and of course, romance. If that's what you are looking for, don't waste your time like me, this drama is dull.

You get a lot, I mean a LOT of family drama vibes with this one, and it's actually cute, but not entertaining enough to cary the whole drama (sometimes you don't care about the main leads family life outside their interactions with the leads) and it's not the premise that brought you in.

The main leads did not have chemistry (their bickering is not sexy or smart, they just look like an old couple that is past their passionate times in their relationship) and that shows, because they are almost never together (and the PDA is scarce).

They completely forgot the FL, I mean, she had passion, a career and dreams and a mysterious background, and all of this kind of get in the backseat and is not properly dealt with.

The storytelling way of the drama is also boring, they kind of introduce you the conclusion of a situation and then spend the hole next episode, retelling EVERY SINGLE UNIMPORTANT DETAIL, instead of glossing over with the juicy bits and moving on with the next plot.

I felt like I was watching a drama with no real plot, and the person presenting the story to me thought I was too dumb to pick up the details without them being overly explained in a very fastidious way. It feels like they tried to put a lot characters and ended up not developing any of them, and that's truly a waste of talented actors.

Well, it was a waste of time (for me) so save yours and go watch something more exciting.

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A mess.

This series had a promising start but unfortunately midway through it became a veritable narrative mess. Character arcs were abandoned and very often many of the main characters reacted inexplicably to situations which defied logic. Plotting and the script went out the window and nothing really made sense. The origins of the evil souls (why did like a cross between dogs and gorgons is beyond me) and how and why they were brought to the city was not established clearly. The infection of the humans also did not have any logic whatsoever and the link to the Goddess plotline was so tenuous and in the end it did not have a resolution. This show was frustrating in that there was no payoff for plotlines that the scriptwriter had spent so much time on earlier. They were just discarded or resolved in a perfunctory fashion as if they did not know how to wrap up the story. A disappointment.

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