Reviews

my humble opinion

Firstly I will talk about the acting, etc.

The actors did a good job, there aren't many things for me to highlight, just the lack of Gun always being able to play an incredible character. I love that about him, he manages to get into character, that's very interesting.

Regarding the production and the plot, I loved every detail. In my vision I didn't see any apparent problem. the plot is fantastic.

How I thought it unfolded. I can say that from the first episode I loved it. In the first episode, this drama had me hooked. I was intrigued to know what was happening or what would happen.

spoiler:


I'm not happy with the ending, it's not sad. but they could have done better. There are several aspects that could be improved. But it was still an incredible experience.

Read More

Goddamn good

Well you can't blame me for giving this an overall 10... I mean you should watch to see for yourself. The first episode 2 episode might be a little too much for bullying and all but it's getting better and now I'm in episode 4 and still on going it is incredibly good. I love how kanghan became soft towards sailom when that 'incident' happened at home. The drama just keeps getting better and better though I have to wait every weekend for new episode but it's really worth the wait. This is the only series that I've been watching and waiting for an update weekly, I normally wait for the series to be completed before diving into it but this one is really calling my attention every new release. Perth and Chimon have really reallllly good chemistry so glad that they have their own series now because I wished for them to have their own series when they were casted as a side couple in Never Let Me Go which I find really cute. I also love the involvement of the two (might) side couple Nawa and Guy I loved them in My Gear And Your Gown so I was really surprised to see two of my favorite couple in one series. That's all I hope this helps you get encouragement to watch the series. Believe me it will not let you down til episode 4... will wait how the story unfolds.

Read More

A decent mystery plot and family reconciliations

My Perfect Stranger is a well-grounded story told in a comfortable pace, the twist is unexpected but the reason for the twist is not so convincing. I appreciate that they tied all the loose ends in the end, no suspense in disbelief.

But for me it's really forgettable. I'm not thinking about it when I'm watching it because somehow it's not so exciting, so I didn't feel hooked to keep watching. i completely forget about it once I finished it. I don't buy the chemistry of the leads, and I wish they become good comrade.

I think it's a show worth to watch on the side of watching other shows, especially if you enjoy following a decent mystery plot and family reconciliations. But mind you that it has unexpectedly a lot of physical and verbal violence.

Read More

Back To The Future meets Tunnel

I start watching anything that has time travel tag. Start, mind you, not necessarily finish though! So of course I had to see this!

Year 2022: Yoon Young is an unhappy person. Her parents are a mess and she's bullied at work. One day she argues with her mother and later that evening she discovers she had been murdered. Sad and full of regrets, she wonders around and ends up in an freak car accident which takes her to 1987. There is a serial killer creating mayhem in the peaceful village and with the driver of the car, they have to stop him.

One episode was enough to see that the plot lifts heavily from both the movie and the drama. They mixed the two plots and frankly it works rather well. The plot manages to remain logical, because it stays mainly in the past so we really do not know if the repercussions on the future are more than cosmetic as it was shown in the last episode. Butterfly effect was not their priority. But characters' original unhappy and miserable lives were changed for the better. Most of plot points and characters were very predictable/cliché so I was a bit wary of the outcome. They managed to surprise me a little bit. Some of those plot points (plagiarism) were solved in a blink-and-you-miss-it rapid way.

The romance is not romancing very much though: apparently they fall in love and live happily ever after but their actions are not very obvious. They never touch each other's hands before the last minutes of the last episode. Zero kisses! Don't get me wrong, I do not need kisses and stuff in romance but this kind of restraint is so anti-climatic. The romance does not really change their characters which are emotionally stunted. It reminded me very much of Summer Strike: same kind of story without time travel!

The drama is a very very slow slow-burn mystery. I love slow burn dramas. But this one is on another level: so much so it took me over a week to go through the first half. I kept falling asleep. I almost dropped it because I was annoyed by the tropes and the predictability. But it got better in the second half. The plot was often very interesting and gripping but there are many many very long scene between the main leads, standing facing each other, five meters apart and talking with the speed of a snail (it felt like one word a minute).
Those scenes were rather pretty! Well done for the cinematography: fields, water, moonlit scenery. It was pretty to watch. The sets and costumes for 1987 were spot on. The hair was awful. It brought back some unpleasant memories! LOL

I have to congratulate the casting director: they managed to cast actors who look so much alike to play the same character in different time periods. It was uncanny! Of the rest, Kim Dong Woo was his usual self. I guess he is typecast always playing these stoic, cold, taciturn characters, men of few words. Well, if the shoe fits....Lee Ji Hyun, the actress playing Yoon YOung's mother in 2021 looks like a grandmother and she is the only miscast!

Time travel is notoriously difficult to write but they did it here masterfully. It is a good albeit a slow watch.

Read More

Interesting topic but lacking in acting, storytelling and execution .

Subjective Gut Rating - 7.75

I wanted to check this out to see what's all the buzz about. It's usually not my type of drama but it's still an interesting watch. However, Netflix disappointed me in not translating all the text messages or even some of the IG posts.

A few quick notes instead of a full review:
1. Park Gyu Young is really pretty in everything she wears. But acting is only so-so.
2. No chemistry at all between the leads. I would not call it 'slight romance'...more like no romance.
3. Oppa is hot but he's as bland as a white sheet of paper. Is Kang Min Hyuk usually this bad, or is it just this drama?
4. Lee Chung Ah also looks very expressionless in her portrayal of Yoon Shi Hyun. Sometime is missing from her portrayal of a rich, high society wife.
5. All the other ladies aka e-celebrities are over-the-top and loud, but I guess that’s all part of their characters and the makjang-like portrayal of these influencers.
6. It is interesting to take a peek into the glamorous world of these social influencers. Not sure how exaggerated everything is.
7. The reveal of the livestream is interesting but rushed and not executed well.
8. The reveal of @bbbfamous is disappointing. I would never have guessed it’s that person. The drama is not giving us much time to hate or pity this character.
9. The shoe scene is indeed iconic and memorable.

There’s so much potential to the plot, but I find the acting, execution and storytelling lacking. I probably won’t recommend this unless you really like this genre and this topic. Of course, if you want to turn off your brain and check out the lives of these rich fake celebrities and enjoy all their glamorous lives and fashion, it could be fun.


Completed: 9/10/2023 - Review #351

Read More

A Masterpiece

This show is a perfect blend of romance, crime and fiction enough to push down goblin from my top favorite list. If a higher rating than 10 were possible then i would have given it.
So drama lovers this is a must watch drama or else you will regret it and don't worry about lack of romace there's a plenty of it and a happy ending too.
It would have been better if the writers concluded the parallel worlds ending too.
If you liked this drama i would like to recommend you others similar to this " again my life" , "lawless lawyer", " vincenzo ", " come and hug me"

Read More

Enjoyable but Original is Superior

Don't get me wrong... A Time Called You is well-made and visually wonderful but there are several ways in which it cannot beat the original despite a great effort. I suppose fans of the original, like me, can be happy that they didn't ruin it which is very common with remakes. So that's always a plus. Hopefully everyone will also go and watch the original drama - Someday Or One Day.

One of the strongest points of SOOD was the OST. Both the theme song and the main song - Last Dance by Wu Bai, are magical and memorable. Unfortunately, Gather My Tears can be described as nice at best but not worthy of being THE song that makes magic happen. It doesn't give me goosebumps the way Last Dance did. It's unforgettable. And it was the highlight of the original. However, I didn't get the same feeling from Gather My Tears. Last Dance was also meaningful to the story and elicited nostalgia. 'A Time Called You' made it seem like a song that happened to be liked by MinJoo and it wasn't the highlight of the scenes. Or at least it didn't come across that way to me. That itself took away the essence of the drama.

The main plot is essentially the same so I won't spoil that but there are a few other differences that I'd like to highlight from memory which count as spoilers. This review might be more appreciated by those who have watched both versions.
- One of the basics, they changed from the original is how the FL discovers the photo of the 3 friends. That was unique in SOOD and tied a bit more into the destiny theme perhaps.

- One big moment that stood out was when the FL, Han Jun Hee first arrives in the body of Kwon Min Joo, she is so shocked to see Koo Yeon Jun. That was supposed to be an impactful scene but it didn't feel that way. It was one of the FL's weakest scenes in my opinion.

- A memorable FL's dialogue from the original is her highlighting the age gap between her and the school boys which also added to her awkwardness at seeing her fiance's face. every time Something this show glossed over.

- They changed the way the ML meets the child FL of the past. The original encounter was far more memorable from the perspective of a child. I wish they hadn't changed it.

- There were times when I didn't see much difference between Jun Hee and Min Joo when it should have been more blatant. Alice Ke, in the Taiwanese drama, was masterful in that way. But Yeo Been's final scenes with her counterpart matched the emotions of the original's actress very well. I appreciated that a lot.

- Comparing the male actors, Ahn Hyeo Seop did a good job and there were moments when he really shined but Greg Hsu had bowled me over (considering I didn't think I would like him initially). He was far more charming and cheeky and one could see why he was popular. AHS's character didn't stand out as much to be a popular guy. I also felt his hairstyle wasn't great. However both male and female leads fit the ages they were portraying well.

- The lame jokes scene was just immensely better in the original. It felt terribly flat in this Korean version and lacked soul considering how important it actually was.

- One of the reasons I was keen to watch the Korean version was for Kang Hoon. Although I feel his character was given more importance here than the original which I liked, the original had a bit more heart. His hearing disability was inconspicuous and forgettable for the most part. The original depicted his liking for the FL far better. You could also understand his pain better in SOOD.

- The ML's accident was quite different from the original though I wasn't really upset with the change.

- Koo Yeon Jun and Tae Ha (Rowoon)'s moments together was an interesting take on the original story.

- The show failed to highlight Min Joo's attacker and his obsession the way the original did. It was a bit muted.

- The weakest points of the original was the ending so it was good to see A Time Called You address that which required SOOD to release an additional clip. Though it would have been nice to have a little bit more.

It's been over a year that I watched Someday Or One Day and I'm glad I could not recall all the details especially towards the end so I could enjoy A Time Called You a lot more rather than just comparing scene for scene. But I would always recommend the original before this one and it will always be one of my most favourite dramas. Watching the remake just made me want to rewatch the original again because that's how impressive it is.

Read More

Just lit as s1. Shouldn't be dropped halfway in any circumstances!!

I'm one of those who waited half a year to watch s2 and without any doubt i can say ,this never disappointed.

S2 was fresh with so many new charecters(some still remains a mystery),ofcourse there were some tissue grabbing and sobbing moments,but was extremely entertaining ,thrilling and satisfying with the ending.


Mild Spoilers ahead !!!!

After the 3-4 th epi ,the story faced a slow pacing (maybe because of the loss of someone) and also due to a diverted less significant' case' than the previous ones. But to my great surprise the show retrieved the initial momentum the very next week. To be honest,it made me completely forget the trauma that was given in the earlier episodes and was fully immersed in the new story arc.

??? ???? ???? ?? ?2 was being connected with S1 .Certain charecters and events had great importance in season as well, which made it feel like Master plan or something of the writer.

The only thing which was disappointing in my opinion was ,
(???????? ?????)
Im a great fan of PARTNERS FOR JUSTICE [2018-2019] which infact is by the same writer(i think). She did this very similar doctor character in PFJ too, so that felt easy to pin point the main antagonist. Moreover, the antagonist was more obvious than the previous season, nevertheless the journey was worth every second.

Read More

Cheng Yi nailed it again....

I swear to God, Cheng Yi perfectly suits wuxia and xanxia roles. He plays each character as if they were made for him and seemed like his other selves in another world.

I rarely watch series without romance in it, but MLC was another exception. Instead of a fast-paced drama, they focused on solving each case, like a detective novel. My fave part was the Yipin Tomb. The martial arts scenes were on point. Was quite entertained everytime Fan Duo Bing got duped by Li Lian Hua, being the gullible and a kind-hearted guy that he is. Di Fei Sheng's character was a bit impressive as well, being the formidable leader of the Jinyuan Alliance but later on became friends with the two. Having highly skilled friends traveling along with you, LLH doesn't even have to lift a finger. They can wipe out any sect, honestly. If there's one thing I didn't like in this series, is Qiao Wan Mian. Her role may have been Li Xiang Yi's former lover, but she wasted a decade of her life pining for someone who might've been dead. She could've made use of the time to revive the Sigu Sect, as she was also considered a senior member and a master. I would've wanted her to become someone dependable, just like Shi Shui.

As for the open ending...Well, It would've been perfect if they just found a way where Styx flower grows and have Li Xiang Yi / Li Lian Hua take it. At least give him another couple decades to live and roam the martial arts world with his two buddies. Any maybe give Su Xiao Yong a chance to be LLH's end game? Haha.

Anyway, kudos to the staff and cast for a great show. Congratulations to MLC for bagging high spots in Weibo rankings as well.

Read More

Legal Rommates

THRC was “supposed” to be a story about a upcoming star instructor who got pregnant and entered into a marriage contract with a guy and later they fall in love. 100% of everyone who tuned in to this expected that kind of story. Instead we got a rising young instructor who gets pregnant enters into a marriage contract and then becomes the second lead because her baby daddy and his nonexistent issues came first.

This show had potential. If only the writer hadn’t gone and smoked that cheap ass pot or whatever it it they smoke. To come up with one of the most stupid nonsensical stories ever. So many storylines were started and like magic they abracadabraed out of existence.

Examples:
-Yeon Doo’s career before and after the baby
-The shared baby between her uncle and TaeKyungs brother & sister-in-law (shaman’s vision)
-SeJin’s revenge on the Gong family for making her family feel like shit
- SooKyum’s mom’s absence for majority of her life
- BongNim and SeJin’s dad possible romance
- The weird resemblance of YuMyeong’s ex Jay and DongWook which was extremely weird I might add
ummmmm I think I’m forgetting something else……what is it?????Oh yes!! The relationship/chemistry between Yeon Doo and Taekyung.


It very clear that this writer caught some form of amnesia or writers stroke cause they clearly opened more plot lines of than a DC Comic TV series and forgot to close them.


Another thing that got on my nerve was that as a writer you’re supposed to not be biased and not have favorite’s. Clearly this writer missed Writer’s 101 class. That wretched character Kim JunHa became the main lead over night and everything that was done worked in his favor. Woth the way he was written you’d think this writer hated happy endings.


As the weeks went by TRHC went from a show that solved problems by episode 2 or 3 to a show that dragged issues out for the next 5-10 episodes then solve then either 2 minutes I to the show or before it ends.

And don’t get me started on the lack of chemistry between the main leads. Their marriage progressed from fake to real and only stayed real on paper. For the entire series they were roommates. The most intimacy they’ve had can be counted on one hand. You’d think that for a show based around fake marriage there’ll be loads of lovey dovey I’m falling for you stuff.

I’ve seen my fair share of weekend dramas and honestly after YLAG I’d sworn off them. But I’ll rather take the amnesia plot lines than this crap show. The only character that I liked was Haneul. She made the show better.

To any future watchers of this circus freak of a mess show…..please I beg of you with everything that exist DO NOT watch this show! Even if you’re curious pick any show…better yet take a deep dive into the comments and you’ll see for yourself what I mean. We all hated it with a passion.

Read More

One of the best kdramas ever no cap

Kim Hye Soo, aka the Queen, her character might be one of my all-time FAVORITE characters in the history of K-drama land. I personally am not the biggest fan of historical dramas, I always end up dropping them because they're not my cup of tea. However, I decided to check UTQU out when I saw a picture of this drama on Twitter. It was a side by side photo of the Queen holding the umbrella for her son when he was young and then again when he was old.

I love this drama so much, it is SO well written and the actors are so phenomenal. The queen's unconditional love for her children is what made everything. There were so many moments that were so touching. I learned a lot of wisdom about moms and their relationship with their children through the queen. It made me reflect back on my relationship with my parents as well.

Overall, I can not stress this enough - it is worth the watch. Truly a drama that I think everyone should watch at least once in their life because we all have a mom or guardian and I think this drama is relatable to everyone.

Read More

light hearted comfort show

i watched this as it premiered and have since watched it again at least 5 or so times , and ive got to say i do not get the disdain for how the main couple ends up with eachother. maybe because i knew when i started they would end up together it just seemed obvious from the first episode. they make ji hoon unlikable and rude imo (which is understandable, he let a homeless man with amnesia into his home... and he touches all your stuff, id be rude too),,, so i dont feel bad for him.its hilarious watching hyun jae root for his sons first love and then decide to just steal his girl it gets funnier every new watch. but if you didnt expect this i understand how it could make you upset. the comedy and tropes this drama uses are my absolute favorite truly nothing wrong with this drama besides the time travel plot line is iffy when you think too much but i dont mind since its not important if you just trust it works in their fictional universe. very comforting show with a good soundtrack. hidden identity is done really well here and the identity reveals are drawn out for different characters in the show which keeps it entertaining the entire time because the reactions are hilarious.

Read More