Reviews

A tale of love and loss

Korean drama watchers love romance, love which burns as it builds. As the trailer dropped, the drama lovers knew what had been packed for them.

Baek Hyun Woo meets Hong Hae In under complex surroundings. What follows is love, angst, and a profound misunderstanding that engulfs them both with time. The story revolves around the protagonists. Their love meets a rough patch as a tragedy strikes. Caught in a roller coaster of emotions, they find each other drifting away caught in a whirlwind of misunderstanding.

Kim Soo Hyun as Hyun Woo is beautiful. You will love his effervescent slipping into the skin of the sweet little husband. The man who is infamous for sticking with rich heiress has got a beautiful score this time. Ji Won as Hae In shines like a moon in the story. Her dialogue delivery, strides, and hair flipping reminds me of Rachel from The Heirs. The girl surely knows how to build the aura. The chemistry between leads is palpable and smooth. Mixing vulnerability and resilience in equal proportions elevates the whole story to a new level.

The story has been creating buzz for a while. This is because of the way they explore the intricacies of human emotions. Even in his venture, It's Okay to be Not Okay, Soo Hyun talked about depression and multiple perspectives. In this story, the director uses family and complexities to weave a web of emotions as the characters develop. This is life, right?

The cinematographer did a brilliant job... Capturing the poignant dichotomy existing between leads evades through the change of tone. Throughout the series, the ensemble cast gives a stellar performance. Each actor whispers life through the skin of the characters. Glorified sung Hoon is back being icy cold sociopath lover doing extremely good in his job. The arc of characters this man is playing is clearly creating a storm. Alas! He is still not getting the girl again.

With Har In and Hyun Woo palpitating and gallivanting in their gallon, it is difficult to assume how love is going to make it. But the poignant exploration characters are making is surely leaving a never-ending mark.

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This one of a few very interesting story about reincarnation. And they watch over the quality of the story until the end. But still this also need a little bit more explanation too in the end....

This tell story about 2 couple, Korn-Intouch & Dean-Pharm. Korn-Intouch are the preliminary or first couple & Dean-Pharm are the following or second couple. Dean-Pharm are the incarnation of Korn-Intouch.

Korn-Intouch suicide because their relationship wasn't approved by their parents. Korn whose can't take the pressure anymore killed himself first & Intouch following him afterwards cause he just can't live without Korn. And afterwards, their parents tied a red thread in their body, cause legend said it can connect & make them find each other in their next life.

Now Dean & Pharm. Pharm often had sad dreams that wake him with a wet face. When Pharm first saw Dean, he felt sad & had familiar feeling toward him, it's like finding someone he's been waiting for. And turn out Dean himself also has spent his life searching for someone whose face he can not remember. And after met Pharm, Dean also having dream and wake up with a wet face. When the story rolled we get more & more clear view about Dean-Pharm as the incarnation of Korn-Intouch.

How the story evolved? What the tangled things Dean-Pharm need to untangled about Korn-Intouch past life...? How Dean-Pharm relationship progress...? It's all unraveled quite beautifully in this drama. Just leaving me with some questions that they don't quite bothered to explain, or just me being not understand....

What I like:
+ Fluke Natouch Siripongthon is amazing to play Pharm. Especially toward the end when all the crucial memory of Intouch really took over & haunted Pharm.
+ The amazing connection between Korn-Intouch & Dean-Pharm. All the surprise in the end. It just amazing & very interesting...
+ I really like the characteristics of Dean & Pharm. Pharm with his calmness, never really get angry over his friends teasing & Dean with his firmness. They never really get jealous over something stupid. But in my opinion, at the same time this also their shortfall, cause I think sometimes their friend tease too much, but Dean nor Pharm show any irritation / emotion.

Overall this really one good story about the amazing thing about reincarnation or our past lives. For my question I think I'll put in the SPOILER ALERT below.

Below is SPOILER ALERT!!! Read it with ur own risk.












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SPOILER ALERT!!!
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My question:
* What exactly make Intouch so traumatized...? I meman yeah maybe because of their family pressure that make Korn take his own life. But I mean that's just one stupid reason to begin with.
* Why Korn feel the need to apologize to Intouch. Cause he killed himself first and leave Intouch behind...? Nah.... That's also doesn’t make sense.
* One fast flip attitude from Korn's dad. After Korn & Intouch death we can see that their dads really change their attitude completely, like flip 180°. And for me that's not make sense. No one change their attitude that fast, even because of the regrets.

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Thank goodness for Steve

Oh man I was hoping for a classic cheesy rom com, but I don’t even know where to start. I feel like this calls for bullet points:
•What happened to the romance? Everyone got more romance than the leads! The 2FL. The bestie and the playboy. The sus VP. The rando artist guy. Even the last minute office couple. Seriously writers, you trolled.
•FL was so incredibly annoying. She only knows how to clompy run, can’t walk it seems, even just a few paces. Like her shoes are too big the whole drama. She cries ALL the time. She puts up with quite a bit (far too much) verbal abuse, mostly from the ML. For most of the show. Like 99%.
•Extreme lack of chemistry with ALL the relationships.
•So many plot holes, I’m not going there.
•Goes from mega rich to penniless in a matter of a day. Like seriously? You had nothing in the bank, and why does a rich person not own a home or a car?
•Plot was slow and pointless for too long.
•The scheming 2FL was as dry as a brick, the relationship was weird and cringe and went on too long.
•ML acts jelly in the early episodes and then seems to quickly forget he had anything to be jelly about.

Honestly I was hoping for a Cunning Single Lady type show and got something total pants. It’s so forgettable I’ve watched it before and forgot and only realized about half way through, at what point I watched the rest as I couldn’t remember the ending. Likely I’ll have forgotten about it next week.

Steve. We are all on #teamsteve. Thank goodness for Steve. For his weird facial expressions and random english lines that brought humor, laughter and a whole lot of funny comments on Viki. You did it Steve. You saved the show and the bored to death viewers!!!!

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Beautiful but ultimately hollow symbolism

I have finished watching MR SUNSHINE, and there was so much that I loved about this prestige kdrama. The writing of the heroine was SO good in how it discussed and defied some of the worse kdrama-heroine tropes. There was amazingly trenchant and deeply nuanced social criticism, gorgeous cinematography, lots of fascinating history, the warmest and most positive depiction of Christianity I've ever seen in a kdrama, men who drink respect women juice, the beautiful and angsty Gu Dong-Mae, FABULOUS period clothing, and rivals in love learning to put aside their differences in favour of shooting imperialists.

But the show has a major flaw - a flaw that was particularly interesting to me, because it's the precise sort of flaw that I would be most prone to. The screenwriter, who does such brilliant work in so many other ways, is clearly most fascinated by the themes and symbolism she keeps bubbling away in the story's subtext. The problem is that these themes and symbolism - which delightfully clever - are not actually supported by the storytelling, and particularly by the characterisation.

And it's a really fun, rich, resonant bit of symbolism: Ae-Sin is not just a character in the story, she's the living embodiment of Joseon Korea. She's beautiful, desirable, noble, privileged, gradually awakening to a life of hardship and struggle and resistance. Each of the three male leads in the story has a different complicated relationship with her. Eugene has run away from Korea, but returning as an adult cannot help falling in love with the land and the people in defiance of the nobility who mistreated him as a boy. Gu Dong-mae was horribly oppressed by his homeland but cannot help loving it anyway; the Korea which oppressed both men also saved their lives through small acts of kindness. And finally, Hee-Sung, Korea's richest son, is her approved betrothed, but past injustices committed by his family against the people Ae-Sin cares about stand between them. The three men fall in love, not with Ae-Sin, but with their homeland. They express their love for the woman by sacrificing themselves for the homeland; in dedicating themselves to her, they cannot help dedicating themselves to the fight for freedom.

This is why the story had to have a sad ending. None of these men can espouse the whole country; they can only die for her, while Ae-Sin - Korea itself - lives on, alone and victorious, even in exile.

This symbolism is itself delightfully rich, deftly painted, and rewarding to think back upon once you see it. There's only one problem: it doesn't. make. sense.

From the very start of the show, I felt a little impatient with the writing because the relationships between the heroine and her three suitors are so poorly developed. The feelings come out of nowhere. Take Gu Dong-Mae, for instance: he last met this woman when she saved his life as children. Now, it just takes a brush of her dress across his fingers to get him pining madly for her. Hee-Sung, after avoiding her for the best part of a decade, gets one glimpse of Ae-Sin at the washing-line and just like that conceives an undying passion for her. The central relationship, between Ae-Sin and Eugene, doesn't fare much better. The problem is that the story demands each of the male leads to sacrifice himself for Ae-Sin by the end of the show, and I simply couldn't understand why they should. They all have multiple other women pining for them, and Ae-Sin doesn't give two of them the slightest encouragement to hope. I wanted them so badly to find happiness with one of the other women, and they never did.

What MR SUNSHINE needed was not primarily rich and complex symbolism - it was believable characterisation and relationship development. As it was, the lack of substance to the relationships cheapened the grand historical tragedy which was being told. When at the climactic moment the last of the three leads sacrifices himself for the heroine, it felt cheesy and unintentionally funny, rather than tragic.

I loved so much about this story, but the heart of it never clicked for me, and it's a crying shame that with all that budget and talent, it wasn't better written. And that, for me, will be the central tragedy of MR SUNSHINE.

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YESS!!

This drama is top notch! I don't see why it's underrated because it really is a good series.
Fighting for what's right, that is the message you will get from watching this.
I do have some complaints though for example, Kim Do Yeon.

Don't get me wrong, I like him and I was really moved by him in Move To Heaven but he was playing an adult. In Strong Underdog he plays a high school student and I don't think it fits him well because he looks older. I have to say that he did a good job but I just don't think he should play such young roles, he should play an adult as he IS an adult.
I also don't like how the ending didn't show us Min Ah kicking ass. I mean, come on! She was already kinda cool (in my eyes) and then it's revealed that she is a total badass!

Anyway as I said, Strong Underdog is really good and I hope you give it a chance and watch it.

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ONE OF THE BEST HISTORICAL KDRAMAS I'VE EVER WATCHED

For those who keep giving this film negative reviews, sorry to say but you are biased and bitter. Because this drama is so far one of the best kdramas I've watched, this is coming from someone who has watched over 200 kdramas. You're a fan of the actress from the first season and not the storyline if you hate this drama.
I've rewatched this drama over 30 times and what amazes me it's I've never gotten bored of it. Every time I rewatch it feels like a new drama. I don't know why anyone who claim the plot is bad when it's literally just a continuation of the story which was split into two parts. Without part 2 I would never had understood the storyline. I also love the message the writers were conveying "LOVE SOMEONE BASED ON THEIR SOUL NOT APPEARANCE".
In conclusion Awesome and Amazing. Well written and amazing chemistry and cinematography

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Here for the leads everything else is frustrating

The leads romance really drives this drama and holds this drama down, without it it would not be worth it.

Basically a battle of the Yi family and Lu family to see who can on the top as the best estate company. I hated the Yi's grandma so much ! She is the female lead's grandma. The grandma treats the female lead her family horribly. She is willing to sacrifice her granddaughter for the Yi company. She does so much to hurt the female lead. Also the rest of the Yi family are leeches, trying to do all that they can to sabotage the Lu company. They are really horrible and dirty to try to try the Lu family. Watch this made me so made, so much dog blood.

As for the Lu family, the male lead is the adoptive son of the Lu family, The Lu company once went broke and the dad committed suicide, leaving behind the male lead's sister but she was in an accident during youth so she forgot her memory but is now the secretary of the male lead.

Female lead's best male friend is the abandon / real son of the Lu family. Of course the male best friend starts of trying to take revenge but gets melted by the female lead's kindness.

In this drama there is seriously male lead snsyndrome, where whatever evil the Yi family tries to do it doesnt hurt of phase the male lead, lol he always has the upper hand. haha how you like that lol, but except for the last incident...

The female lead is daring and brave and has wits willing to stand up for herself, she aint a dimwit or doormat.

The leads kisses are so steamy had to rewatch a couple times haha! They are seriously what made it through this drama. Too much scheming and plotting throughout , it gets really tiring...

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OK drama but exhausting to watch at times

Caught this drama on iQIYI recently and actually watched most of the 40 episodes, although I did start fast forwarding through episodes when I reached episode 30 or so. Just felt that this drama started to drag on too much and it probably could have been cut down to 35-36 episodes

The sets and CGI on this drama were good, and you could tell they spent some money on the production. The story was good although it was a bit predictable insofar as how it was going to end. Liked the actors, didn't really feel anyone annoyed me but also didn't feel that anyone was great in this either.

Felt like this drama started to drag as it was nearing the final stretch of episodes. The fight scenes got tiresome to watch after a while. Once you knew a big battle was going to start, it was a good time to just fast forward to the end of the fight to save time. After you watch a few CGI fight scenes they start to become repetitive. Some of these C-dramas like to fill up screen time with song interludes and flashback scenes and this one was no different. The song interludes, sometimes 3 or 4 in a single episode, were also good opportunities to fast forward to save time.

Overall drama was average, not terrible but not great either. Have no interest in watching any part of this drama again so rewatch value is a well-deserved 1.0.

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"The world is complicated and ambiguous. In this world, we mix and connect."

Have you ever looked at a Wimmelbilderbuch? These are books for children, where every page depicts a scene -- a market, a school, a street, a park -- with lots of people. You look at each person and discover a bit about them. Then you turn the page, and there's a new scene. Sometimes you'll meet some of the same people, and can continue their stories. Sometimes, there are new people. On some of these pages, the little people meet (or miss each other by seconds), which changes their course for the next pages. At the end, you close the book, but the stories about the people will never be finished.

This show is much like that. We get to see episodes of the lives of several teenagers, glimpse into the wide universe of their thoughts and emotions, turn the page -- and someting new might happen. That something new is more often than not hilariously surreal in this show, but -- like in other Japanese Dramas -- deeper than it seems at first glance.

Release all your preconceptions about how dramas are supposed to work, and look closely.

Look at another person, really look beyond what's immediately visible; listen to them, and you may find that you are Captivated, by them.

"Even so, you'd throw yourself into the world, in secret, with all your might, in an ambiguous form, in a complicated straight line."

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Fortune Favours The Bold: Subverting All Expectations

I. The Good
There's an unequivocal happy ending.

The plot is fantabulous. It's a refreshing take on the 'cannon fodder realises they're merely fictional characters; hugs big thigh to survive' trope. The FL refuses to succumb to her role as the evil cannon fodder, and stubbornly pits her wits against the Fortune Author once she discovers that she can push the storyline so long as the ink is not dry yet. The plot doesn't whitewash the FL as a misunderstood 'good' person. She is no meek, timid, mealy-mouthed damsel in distress. She is pragmatic, conniving, and arrogant, and will lie, cheat, and steal as means to an end. The FL commits all kinds of evilry to get the Big Thigh ML on her side and to ensure her own survival. Mr Big Thigh ML falls in love with the FL, sins and all, recognising that everyone has their good side and their bad, and she's just more honest about hers. The storyline constantly subverts expectations (e.g., the FL really isn't a 'good' person, the 2FL isn't really a 'bad' person, the various pot shots at cliche tropes).

I really, really loved the swipes taken at cliche tropes. In episode 9, the FL questions the need for people to hide in bathtubs. In episode 11, the doctor complains "Don't you think accidents happen to you too often? Two days ago she was poisoned, and today she's been shot!". In episode 13, when they were unable to feed the passed out ML medicine, and the 2FL is about to feed the medicine via mouth-to-mouth, the FL says "You couldn't get it in using your hand, but you can using you mouth? Do you think he has a special mouth-opening switch that turns on with a kiss?"

The costumes are gorgeous and intricate, even when the FL is dressed like Minnie Mouse in a few scenes. The details in the sets are superb, e.g., the delicate painting of cherry blossoms behind the ML and the exquisite lamp designs. The production team committed their entire music budget to one song, and it produced a beautiful, poignant melody with melancholic tailored lyrics that really elevated the scenes to full-length drama level.

LMC's acting as the FL has improved significantly, although she struggled in some scenes to emote sufficiently. Surprisingly, YSJ made a believable ML, which is a credit to his acting chops because his babyface was really difficult to get past, which leads me to the bad.

II. The Bad
YSJ's babyface had me struggling to believe he was supposed to be the merciless and ruthless ML. However, the combination of his acting skills and the strategic camera angles helped to glaze over this, especially during the steamy scenes (otherwise the audience would uncomfortably feel the need to sit in jail).

ZMY's acting as the 2FL was hard to watch. I get that she's supposed to play the ingénue role, but all she did was stand there widening her eyes and pouting her lips for every scene. The only time she came to life was in the last episode, when she and the FL are huffing at each other.

III. The Ugly
This drama is not for the liberals and for those who are triggered by some events due to some plot devices. The FL fakes a rape attack to trick the ML into taking her home with him. The FL physically harms herself and threatens suicide more than once.

There are also missing plot points, e.g., why or how did the Fate Book fall into the FL's hands, how did the ML break out of the Fortune Author's hold, when or why did the ML regain his memories.

IV. Verdict
I really enjoyed the constant subversion of expectations and will definitely rewatch this. For this drama to be pleasurable, you must not think too hard. It does make you examine why you think that only 'good' people deserve happy endings when really, most of us have our deep, dark thoughts that we never share because we're afraid of being marginalised and in all actuality, we would do the same as the FL.

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