Reviews

A Somber Love Story Hinging on Desperation

Shelter.
A place to be.
A roof.
A resting place.
A place to–what?

Shelter. What exactly is it? And why is it so hard to hold onto? Why is it so hard to define? Why is it so hard to understand?

Starring Lee Jae Bin as Lee Yoon Dae and Jang Woo Young as Cha Soo Hyuk, the Korean BL Gray Shelter is all about finding a haven amidst life’s storm, amidst domestic violence and emotional abuse. Yoon Dae is a domestic abuse victim who learned to avoid anger by becoming angry at himself and others, all while fearing being alone. Soo Hyuk is trying desperately to survive while supporting a family whose income is being sucked dry by his gambling-addict father.

And both are looking for the one thing neither has ever truly known.

Read the complete article here-

https://the-bl-xpress.com/2024/04/26/gray-shelter-series-review-ep-3-to-5/

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Could Have Been Better

This is the real thing. Acting that does not look like acting.” – Quote from The Star

There is honestly so much to unpack here in this short series that goes way beyond the plot or story. Reality and fiction merge together to make this series unique. As the abstract states, this series is based on a ‘true story’. Perhaps a more apt description might be closer to a docudrama.

It begins with a hapless and sad young man, ironically named Hope (Night Yodsakon), who sets up his vendor cart selling fried meatballs in front of a BL production company. He looks and acts defeated and forlorn. Yet maintains a sense of optimism outwardly; merely for show. Inwardly, he seems to have given up ‘hope’.

One day he is approached by the owner of the BL production company who asks if he would like to star in a BL series. Indeed, there is something enticing about Hope that draws you to him. His face tells it all and there is something about his demeanor that is raw and organic. If he could learn to act, channel his difficult life experiences into real meaningful and believable enactments, he could evoke a freshness about a series. Hope knows nothing about acting or even what a BL is but is willing to try.

Read the complete article here-

https://the-bl-xpress.com/2024/04/25/the-star-series-review-ep-1-2/

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A Love Story Full of Yearning & Longing

Sometimes beauty is born out of tragedy, out of a broken place that doesn’t seem capable of growing something beautiful.

And yet, even roses have thorns.

The Taiwanese BL Unknown, adapted from the web novel Da Ge by Priest, is a stunning example of a relationship built from a broken place. Starring Chris Chiu (Wei Qian) and Kurt Huang (Wei Zhiyuan), it delves deeply into a story about two boys who don’t belong anywhere but whose hearts seek a home and family in each other’s brokenness.

And it succeeds.

From the moment a young Yuan follows Qian from the darkness surrounding him in the streets to the warmth of Qian’s home, Unknown becomes a story about finding light in a period of darkness. It’s a concept that threads well throughout the series; from youth to adulthood, strangers to brothers to lovers, light and darkness balance each other, intertwine, and then become one. It’s a transformative experience that grips the soul and doesn’t let go.

Read the complete article here-

https://the-bl-xpress.com/2024/04/23/unknown-series-review-ep-3-to-12/

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My Favourite Watch in 2024

Adapted from the web novel “Xi Hua Zhi” (惜花芷) by Kong Liu (空留), “Blossoms in Adversity”, this drama isn’t a one man show. No, rather it chronicles the individual journey of each character. It could be the main leads, Hua Zhi or Gu Yanxi, each of whom had their own struggles; or it could be the female residents of the Hua Family whose sudden fall from grace led them to live a life of misfortune, something they could have never imagined before. Even though they had their disagreements, blood is obviously thicker than water. They argued, fought and yet stood together when the times were worst. How far can a bunch of women hold out when the Emperor of the nation is out for their blood? The story line beautifully weaves a redemptive recourse with a somber romance. Neither overpower each other, they exist in perfect harmony, blending through motions. For now, let’s talk about the main characters and their journeys!

Read the complete article here-

https://kcdramamusings.wordpress.com/2024/04/27/blossoms-in-adversity-series-review/

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In the mood for laughter and love

If there's one thing I appreciate about cdramas it's that, from time to time, they manage to produce a story with characters behaving their age but also showing a pleasantly surprise maturity to their actions. In recent years, youth dramas like Love O2O, Our Secret, You Are Desire or When I Fly Towards You come to mind. Everyone Loves Me falls into this category. We are presented a group of characters who are young enough to make mistakes, but old enough to be aware of their limitations, of their missteps, and learn to grow from them.

I really liked both leads. Particularly Ling's spitfire personality, which is a breath of fresh air and I loved every minute she made Gu Xun sweat. But he didn't lose against her. Gu Xun was charming and overall had a great presence, boy needed to be taken down a notch tho. And thanks to the fact both leads are written as equals through their entire journey together, at the end of the drama it feels like they have come out as better people. I even dare say, it feels like their story it's just beginning.

Lin Yi and Zhou Ye have great chemistry and managed to portray their characters really well. They clearly had a lot of fun working together and with their character's development. I would love to see them work together again in the future.

The rest of the cast was also very good. The supportive characters hace each a function in pushing forward the story at the workplace and the leads's personal lives, which made for some very interesting office tension and hilarious interactions out of it. For example, at the beginning of the story leading man it's arrogant enough to know a good quantity of girls are crushing on him but for someone who claimed to be so popular, he spent a good portion of the story dealing with loves rivals from right to left, up and down. Everyone Loves Me? More like Everyone Loves Her. The results were awesome.

This was a very fun and easy going drama for me, with lots of re-watch potential. Every time I watched a new episode, it put me in a good mood and that's enough for me to recommend it.

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MY MANNN. lin yiyang aka WU LEIIIII UGH. watched this for him. he’s SUCH a good actor… like his eyes … shows he’s in love UGH. makes me want to watch love like the galaxy againnnnn❤️❤️❤️

ok this drama was meh. the beginning was better! very cute but lowkey kinda cringey but UGHH WU LEI LOVED HER SMMM. such a green flag he’s SOOO acts of service ????he’s so sweet like would do ANYTHING for her . i need a man like that. but lowk was kinda boring … like i watched 2x speed and skipped a ton of scenes. PLUS LIKE WU LEI WAS IN IT… he was THIRSTING for yinguo LMFAOOO . i don’t rly like the FL actress so maybe that’s why…. also i wish they developed the side couples better and i could not tell who was who lmgao. the billards part was boing they basically won every match LOLL but yea.

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Beast Mode Activated

Picked this up on a whim when the air date was announced as I had seen HYT (ML) in two republican era detective dramas and this was a totally different genre plus a romance so was interested in how he'd do. I'd heard of ZJY before but never seen her in anything and was familiar with some of our supporting cast especially the main antagonist. This was a female-centric drama about going through hardships and evolving. Not to mention ML's ability to go from quiet and kind to beast mode activated.

Pros: I have to give the martial arts of ML or GYX main pointers here; it gave this review a title. At 6'2 or 6'3, GYX towered over everyone including emperor psycho aka his own uncle (which baffled me when I saw it in the first episode as I had seen the actor who played big bad twice before and thought he was monster sized but here he looked like a mouse in comparison lol), so when he deployed his martial arts be it sword or fists, he could destroy a human in seconds. This was also funny to me because his fat guard in the brigade who could carry two people at once and the guard he killed upon assuming his post as commander; both actors played bad guys in TLB (ironically the aunt who was raising the kid of the concubine played the main antagonist in TLB too lol; reunion!), and they were huge there; yet here they paled in comparison. Props to HYT for doing the stunt work himself. The chemistry of the leads was on point as well. The story was nice about the FL and how she leads her female family out of disaster after disaster while they evolve from dependency on men to independence as the men are exiled north and just in general because once the men returned, they learned of the new normal very quickly lol. GYX also led the bureau to a change from barbaric to a brotherhood that was united and supported each other. Was also great that his three guards (my favorite was spider monkey guard though CQ was good too), always protected HZ and her family too however they could. It was like the Hua family and them became a massive family. Called the entire bureau the Spider-Man brigade; their ability to assassinate goons in a midst of a food competition at the restaurant while picking up blood drops took the cake. We're talking Cirque du Soleil meets Special Ops action here.

This drama was not short on comedy be it intentional or not. There was always something that made people laugh at any given point. The comment section here was lively. The OSTs and BGM really fit most scenes especially the beast mode ones. Favorite single character was actually very hard but both leads fit, wish we saw more of the SML as he spent like 30 episodes studying lol. The secondary couple (SY and SH) was adorable, SY stole everyone's heart (and boy is her actress versatile; from a cunning seductress spy in MJTY to a young woman with high functioning autism as it seemed here), Ah Jian, empress dowager (who I wish went to the wedding) as mentioned guards, the eunuch (first kind one I’ve seen in any drama next to a nasty emperor), all aunts and cousins of HZ, one uncle, grandpa and grandma (grandma's death was the saddest thing of the entire show other than Hua Rong's).

Let's talk about our main antagonist; emperor psycho as I dubbed him. Actor never disappoints; you hated his guts from the first episode to the second he died in the last one. Hell has never had a more deserving candidate from a drama. A narcissistic psychopath that only with death could people be free. Though I loved how HZ finally took him to town in 38 and GYX let himself be heard too, the man himself was the absolute monster and played it very well. Costumes and sets were nice as well.

Cons: I wish the script let the leads emote more as HZ was far too perfect and could get through any turmoil without so much as an eyebrow lift. Only saw her really show negative emotions twice, when she was told by the emperor she couldn't redeem the men through money and she went from catatonic to ballistic in under 2 minutes and when GYX took on the palace guards and got himself severely injured, she was shrieking and crying. Same went for GYX, the actor has a difficulty emoting in general apparently as his are very subtle; but when he's fighting, he's not playing around. But his negative or even positive emoting was rare i.e. breakup scene and when emperor psycho croaked were the only two times he cried, I think I saw him really smile maybe three times in the entire show. He smiled more in their BTS when they did the actual scenes; so wonder why director didn't use those scenes.

I had more issues with the script than the acting; though the breakup scene lacked gravitas especially given it was a nobility arc for a change and not a dumb misunderstanding. It just seemed that many important scenes where angst was required, were never given a pause but just rolled along to the next whatever it was. The spy astronomer and last adult prince were more like plot devices to get to the death of emperor psycho; I forgot who he even was. Felt very disjointed from the rest of the show. The last 6 episodes were a sprint to the finish line as for a story that large you needed to pack it in. Especially the very last episode. They really sacrificed quality for quantity here, sadly. Instead of focusing on many smaller characters and story lines, they could have chosen less of those and really fleshed out the leads, second couple, SML, a few others and stuck to more conducive storyline. Then at the end, you have a dizzying amount of people whose loose ends need to be tied and it's done in 30 seconds or less for each batch while the leads are forgotten for a bit.

Wish the Jurassic sized AI dolphins didn't take up the ending of the leads as they were unnecessary and made that scene laughable for the wrong reasons. Continuity and dubbing were also visible issues during the show, the CGI wasn't that great either though thankfully rarely used and mostly for the background and I wish the music didn’t drown out some of the conversations as well.

Would I recommend it? Yes, I would. Despite the running around and kinks, it was an enjoyable series and one I would recommend especially if you like female-centric with sweet chemistry types of dramas.

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Exciting and Fun plot

What a roller-coaster emotional story.. Laugh, thrilled, heartbreaking, laugh, intriguing, cry then so on xD There's a lot of actions that showed skillful and badass Ryo.. It makes me hype watching it.. Also love how they make Kaori that tough but at the same time fragile.. Her acting is superb..

But Suzuki Ryohei totally carried out the whole movie.. The moment they announced the cast, I knew he will nailed it.. and he did it more than I was expected.. ^_^

Nice camerawork that showed different kind and angle of shootings.. How I wish they make into drama series..
They have potential to develop the storyline.. Hopefully there's sequel..

Overall it was exciting and fun movie.. I really enjoyed watching it ^_^ Highly recommended

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Almost trope free, and the drama has a female CEO

Imagine a world where meat is biotechnologically generated and cultured. This eliminates the need to slaughter animals. Of course, such an advancement could solve world hunger. BF Company has hopes that in the near future all food will be cultured using biotechnology. Blood Free does not have many of my usual circle of acting friends in it. However, since it met my “Love it or Leave it” 15 minute criteria in 2 minutes, I thought it best to investigate further. Blood Free has a high technology driven plot-line. CGI and cinematography are through the roof.

I love a great romance drama. This ain’t it. However, the intelligently written story will keep you in suspense. Therefore, some should try to get out of their comfort zone and add Blood Free to their shopping list. Now for the guys. You have been asking for this Korean Drama. I think that you will enjoy Blood Free. For the girls. I know that actor Ju Ji Hoon starred in Kingdom, a drama I did not see, but wow, where did he come from?

The ML is Ju Ji Hoon (Jurisan, Kingdom) and FL is Han Hyo Joo (Moving, W:Two Worlds, Happiness).

I am excited about this drama Blood Free. The drama does not follow the usual Korean Drama tropes. The story is innovative and exciting. That acting and action are great.

A company has learned how to culture fleshly meat products and this company is poised to take over the world market. Can life be that easy? Not in a Korean Drama. I like Blood Free a lot. This drama is a total change of pace. The use of video gaming tools and drones to fight the bad guys is sure to please. CGI and Cinematography are great, with a great OST

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The Perfect C-Drama from beginning to end

Overall, the story line is great. It had a good pace - keeping us wanting more at the end of each episode. The relationship build up was also so exhilirating and did not create any unneccessary love triangle - all were necessary for their character build up. Absolutely loved this c-drama.

I am not sure why others commented that the ending sucks, or that they don't understand why they had a divorce. I think the last 3-4 episode explained it very well, multiple times why they divorced. Thankfully, I did not read those and give up on the series.

I think the character build up was great, the rivalry and frustration, as well as the swoonworthy moments. The only couple I thought wasted my time (while somewhat necessary), was the FL's 2nd elder brother and her best friend. Their relationship was necessary because it demonstrated the toxic nature of the relationship that scared the FL from getting married.

Another thing I really don't understand is why ML looks so tired and worn out in this entire series, when all he has is time (lol). The ML always looks impeccable in other c-dramas, so was a little curious why despite his best and lowest moments, he still look haggard.

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BORING

First episode, we got all these characters thrown out on us. Onto the 4th episode, I felt no connection with anyone of these characters. Very little info on the characters. I didn't feel a connection with any of the characters and after 4th episode, I didn't care much if any of the characters die.
Plot was all over. They didn't do a good job of showing the flash back. You don't know if it's a flash back or the present. So confusing and so boring.
Episode 1-4 just all about drugs and human trafficking. So boring how they took up 4 episodes on just that.
I don’t think this will have a season 2. Lol

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This couple killed it

This drama is about a whole lot more than romance, but I will start by showing some love in honor of the lead couple, Gu Yanxi and Hua Zhi. They were classy in their cuteness and made our hearts flutter with every interaction. The chemistry was undeniable; whether they were adorably close or longingly apart, they were always in tune with each other. They understood each other, supported one another, and sacrificed for the other. From potential enemies to friends to lovers, they became each other's greatest allies. What I appreciate the most though, is the strong communication and the unbreakable trust between them. This delightful duo embodied how love can endure, even in the face of conflict and circumstance.

Apart from our leads, the other couples have also left a memorable impression on me, and I truly enjoyed watching how the relationships developed and blossomed. Even when romance did not always lead to the happiest of endings, the stories were touching and, at times, really tugged at my heartstrings.

When Blossoms in Adversity started airing, I had high expectations because of the director, Chu Yui Bun, and the cast, and the show delivered more. There was a strong theme of female empowerment, and a quote by Goethe came to mind, "The Eternal-Feminine draws us upward". Almost all the women characters had character development for the better, but sadly, most of the male characters did not. Save for a handful, most of the male characters were a disappointing lot.

Zhang Jing Yi's Hua Zhi was solid, and she proved again to be an excellent actress. ZJY portrayed an FL who was plucky, intelligent, precocious, quick-witted, but also very human. With her entire family thrown into chaos when a power-tripping Emperor exiled all the men, HZ had to grow up quickly. Through HZ's struggles and triumphs, the show provided a lesson: in times of need, we can step up and be the kind of person others need us to be.

I threw shade at Hu Yi Tian in the beginning saying that ZJY was carrying the show, but in the end, I was won over yet again by our handsome ML. He shone in his fight scenes, and his usual stoic expression fit his role as Gu Yan Xi. This ML was also brilliant and was a skilled fighter. As the Commander of the Security Bureau, he was savage with everyone who deserved it but so gentle with the FL and the ones important to him. GYX started out conflicted, torn between gratitude to his uncle and his affection for Hua Zhi. Ultimately, he became a source of strength for HZ as he gradually determined that any amount of gratitude did not warrant the blind loyalty demanded of him.

GYX had background music dedicated to him, one that played whenever he turned up, ready to take the bad guys down, and it was just so bad-ass enjoyable. HYT should consider more historical dramas since this role is my favorite of his to date.

The supporting cast was terrific too, notably Lu Yu Xiao, who showed off how versatile she was. While Caesar Wu did not appear as often as I would like, he nailed his character as the overly earnest, idealistic Shen Qi. Bian Cheng as Shen Huan is someone to watch out for, and as the Emperor who demanded nothing less than everything, Hai Yi Tian delivered a great performance that had all of us wanting to see a painful death for him.

Apart from being amazingly acted, this drama was well-written and nicely executed. I applaud the show for keeping most of us engaged until the very end, throwing in something unpredictable just when I thought I figured out what would happen next. That said, the show didn't fall into the trap of using plot twists for the sake of creating last-minute melodrama.

The pacing was interesting to me in a good way. The plot went through the ups and downs of the characters lives so smoothly and quickly that angsty moments were not that dramatic and happy moments were more like normal events. No one really has an opportunity to dwell on the good or bad.Even with 40 episodes, the show never felt draggy, and best of all, it stuck its landing. I for one, am satisfied with how the show ended. It wrapped up the characters' journeys nicely and sent them off in such a way that left me feeling that this drama was well worth the watch.

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