Reviews

A one hour plot stretched to a four hour snooze fest.

As Thai BL goes, the production values are good. And a nice set of attractive actors.

But the BL is only skin-deep.

It suffers from unimaginative writing with a minimum of plot. There is an hour's worth of plot stretched to four hours, hardly the first time this has happened in Thai BL, but still.... As usual, the first few episodes are somewhat engaging, and then they just keep stretching and stretching until you beg for it to PLEASE BE OVER.

Second, I had trouble figuring out who the target audience would be. The portrayal of human relationships seems really limited. Idealized grandmother-ness. Jealousy. Friends are forever. Even most tweens would want more than that.

Third, as the time is stretched, I found myself paying attention to extraneous details. As an example, anyone who has ever visited a bakery or coffee shop know that they are fairly busy places. But in this world, the kitchen has a few listless pretty boys on their smart phones while one takes forever to twiddle with one cake. And then they all meet up to take a chunk out of the ONE cake they've spent hours making for tasting purposes. I totally get the need to build a fantasy world, but when hardly anything happens the ancillary things start becoming more interesting than whatever counts for plot/character development and it becomes harder to suspend disbelief to live in the fantasy world.

Finally, they've managed to take a BL and remove any sense of LGBTQ, queerness, freedom or even gender. Many fans of BL / Yaoi come because this genre offers an escape from a reality in which everyone / everything is stuck in some cultural role / expectation. This offers none of it.

I'm definitely going to watch some Japanese, Korean or Taiwanese BL next. I need something with some life to it.

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The worldbuilding is a mess. The action scenes are lame.

This drama is such a disappointment because the quality is below expectation. Usually, viewers are able to overlook imperfection regarding CGI, editing, dubbing, and other technical aspects if the story has quality. But, the story is this drama greatest weakness.

Setting/ Worldbuilding
Xianxia typically revolves the story around three realms: the Heaven of immortals and deities, the Earth of the mortals/ human-being, and the Underworld of the demons, spirits, and devils. Each realm has its own creatures, rules, limitations, and boundaries.

The immortals and deities can live for thousands years, They are born asexually from the ascension of lower beings as the results of their good deeds in previous life. They have superhuman ability and not usually died so easy (the only method is through the destruction of their primordial spirit so they cannot reincarnate). They live in the vast and unlimited heaven so usually, they are flying and teleporting. Immortals cannot intervene with lower realm affairs or use their ability in mortal realm. They can go to mortal world for tribulation or penance, and during this trip, they will forget their past.

Human being, animal, and plant are earthly creatures, have short life-span. They are relatively weaker, but can learn cultivation and martial arts. They live with family, in a sect, or a city. They have political entity to govern their affairs. They are crawling in the Earth on foot, horse, or carriage. Their culture and ways of living are richer. Their lives are bound to reincarnation circle. If they are good, they can ascend to godhood. If they are evil, they descend to be lower being.

Meanwhile, the demons, spirits, and devils are usually bad and on the lowest hierarchy of beings. After cultivating for years, they can have human form. They usually live as a nuisance to human, sometimes they eat human to get stronger. That is why they are hunted and killed. However, some of them are kind and not disturb human. They live in clan, so we have bird demon clan, fox spirit clan, etc. in the forest, river, lake, or sea.

Basic rules above are among common characteristics of xianxia worldbuilding. But, this drama breaks some important "rule". For example: Immortals are still immortals even when they go to mortal worlds (2 ML, 2 FL). They are very intervening, and without consequences. Human-being can have superhuman ability that makes them immune to injury and death even after severely wounded (ML). The spirit is not different to immortals as they can go anywhere i.e. the heaven without limitation (FL, the little flower spirit). What is more, the immortals act like human. They bleed when injured, they walk and run to reach certain place, and they are weak in fighting. They love and are jealous to each other. They are full of revenge and ill intention. Their living places are just like human palaces. Nothing wonderful and otherworldly. And, they can live, die, and revive as their wishes, not following the cycle of samsara/ reincarnation (just use a certain artifact to live again). Therefore, the time sequence of the story is messy. Everything seems happen in the present time. The past, present, and future are blurry. No good working timeframe.

I think, this mess is the risk for a too grand story (involving three realms), but no attention to details of each realm. This drama is weaker in the worldbuilding in comparison to xianxia like Love and Redemption (2020) which focus most of its story on the mortal realm. When they abuse the rules of the realms, the conflicts is resolved in lame manner. This drama uses deus ex machina, like when ML suddenly kills himself with unknown swords to stop himself going berserk, or when FL's heart weirdly has so much magical power, or when ML suddenly have magical pool to cure him, or when ML revives the Heavenly Emperor. There is not internal mechanism to solve their problems, like the use brain, analytical thinking, strategic talks, hard works, logical sacrifices, and risk taking for benefit. All depends on external power, weapon and artifact.

Story/ Plot
Immortal Samsara doesn't follow its premise. From the title, viewers may keep asking, what is samsara here? I don't know its meaning until the last episodes when ML confronts his father and learns about his parents story. His father is the demon king who loves and marries a goddess (his enemy), but ends up killing her in the end. So, he turns the time back from the beginning again for a different story and ending. Alas, the ending is repeatedly still the same, because his ambition never change and he never regret doing sins. It is the "immortal samsara". This is the more suitable back story (and the birth of an exquisite god as the result of their love), IMO, rather than the story of twin lotuses which has no significance for the realm, making this like the story of the prince and pauper. The story should use the ML's point of view.

Storywise, this drama lacks good story structuring. It can be more interesting and suspenseful, if the story progresses back and forth to reveal the mystery of the past and hidden identity of ML, and the reason behind why love is forbidden in Heavenly Realm sooner. Alas, this drama put too much emphasize on the ill fated relationship and the romance between ML and FL which is not important to the overall story and conflict. It will be a better story if in the end he becomes the Heavenly Emperor and takes the FL (a mere spirit) as his queen to reward her love, loyalty, and sacrifice, as the result of him learning about his parents, his identity, his enemy, the long conflict between immortals and demon, and the mistakes of the strict rule. This drama wastes an interesting plot where the enemy successfully kills the former Heavenly Emperor and impersonate him. It is never seen in previous xianxia. This drama could have interesting revenge and justice story rather than a mere romance and stupid double suicide in the end.

Characterization
Cheng Yi and Yang Zi are very good actor and actress. But, their potential are wasted because of the problematic story. ML and FL are very two dimensional. Their personalities are predictable, their behaviors are predictable. The writer should dig more on the psychology of a lowly ang young little fairy in the front of the greatest deity. They fall in love too easily, which is illogical considering their statuses. FL should be more selfish (think more about her self) because she is still too young, weak, and needs protection, and wishing for a future and pride. She shouldn't prefer death than life so easily and work harder to maintain her position in the heaven. But, they write her to be a lazy woman and have no aspiration better than a play writer. They can create her to be more interesting with describing what kind of story she would like to write and it will show us her life values, idealism, and personal difficulties as a person, and how it connects to the ML's aspirations and values. The way they introduce ML to FL is so not romantic (as a turtle flipper), downgrade him to a level of child, while he should maintain his dignity as a responsible and wise thousand years old deity. How could he fall in love so easily to a "baby"?

Other supporting characters are generally useless, like a decoration in the background when they are just standing and watching. Supporting deities do more talking than doing something to help, going here and there in a crowd, screaming, and being angry/ sad. They act like ministers in the mortal court rather than deity with specific duty and certain ability. They solve problem through debating, rather than doing something magical. The demons in the valley are also just cute, but useless. The heavenly soldiers are so small in number, like 20s. They should use CGI to multiply them and create a majestic war battalion with good fighting skills to counter demons.

Music
Nothing memorable. No banger. No heart punching beats. Too flat. Too cheesy.

I hope future xianxia learns something from this failure.

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This is a nice miniseries to watch while waiting for a great one to come and there is another miniseries (Forever Love-2023) with almost the same plot that is absolutely great so, watch this one first and savor “Forever Love” next. The plot in this revenge drama can’t be taken seriously because the male antagonist (Ma Cheng Jun played by Denny Deng) was a guy with an evil buffoon aura that didn’t play well with the grand scheme. The leading couple was okay but the leading guy didn’t have enough instances to display his bodyguard fighting skills and the leading lady is not great at playing a woman in love. Still, the drama is watchable and entertaining.

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Best drama for women, understanding couple, forgiving nature.

I am very pleased after watching this drama, It doesn't show emotion of 1 character. it tells collective stories of all the characters and in a very raw, unfiltered, and natural way.

I also doesn't show super powerful villain or hero but rather show how they use their brains and even lie and trick to win the battles. The plots were not like alien attacks or supernatural infact they were exactly what you would expect from a historical drama like war, politics, society, and all these small social issues.

My only thing that i wanted to see was the highschool reunion of drinking wine of jisung that they promised in early episodes. Every Time jisung visit his hometown i was expecting the reunion from his best buddy but it never happened i was expecting it at the last episode too. His friends sacrificed so much for him i really wanted them to see each other again sometime.

But it was so good it has sorrow but still understandable. i cried alot but also enjoyed every single episode. There wasn't a single episode i ever wanted to skip. Thank you to actors, producers and writers for bringing this to light.

No crazy or sad ending thank god. Jisung and ye acting was good according to roles. Yuru was also good.

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another crack comedy in the Ossan's Love franchise

Overall: there is a lot of ridiculousness with the plot and characters but it's obviously intentional and I did laugh several times during the movie which is about 2 hours long (make sure to watch the very cute post credits scene at the end). Aired officially internationally on GagaOOLala in December 2023 when the platform picked up almost the entire Ossan's Love franchise https://www.gagaoolala.com/en/videos/2118/ossans-love-the-movie Note: the movie should be watched directly after the 2018 series, the Love in the Sky takes place in an alternate universe/totally different plot and is not a continuation of the 2018 series

Content Warnings: past death, threatened violence, kidnapping/held against will

What I Liked
- how the movie started with that chase/action scene and then another action scene towards the end
- fun comedy moments
- the actors made me cry towards the end with talking about marriage equality, the challenge of having a family and their love for each other

Room For Improvement
- how Maki wouldn't let him explain
- could have used a few more sweet moments before the conflict started
- how a character asked a certain person for permission to marry before asking her

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Never seen a show that made me cry so much

This show in one of the episode made me cry so much that it's unlike before. To add on this show when you watch it you can't stop watching; be ready to binge watch this over nights and days. In some of the episodes you might feel it's uninteresting but then it's what builds to the next part that would get you eeking like a screaming baby. Unlike most other historical dramas which i have seen this one contains wording which express what the characters extremely clear. Some people might not like this show cause of so many scenes that get you worked up over nothing but it's what makes the story have a spontaneous essence.

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Cute filler show

Umm , this show is strange but in a unique way , it’s also cringe but it in a charming way . I really enjoyed dutifully putting it on everyday after a couple tasks . It’s a really cute filler series as well for when you need a nice fluffy inbetweener or a break from a heavy drama you may have on rotation . Or just a good ole binge . It won’t take long .

The leads have great chemistry and deliver cute performances that make you root for their characters' budding romance. Their on-screen dynamic is filled with charm, and their interactions are both funny and endearing.
This show doesn’t even make sense like how they fell in love sooo unrealistically quickly but I rolled with it unabashedly and SKINSHIP helped too. wink wink

Side bar : sometimes shows are good for the charisma even though they have zero plot and Shanai is such an example.

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Typical “criminal minds” series with a remarkable Wallace Huo

PLOT: the ML, a brilliant but tortured profiler, meets the FL who will become his assistant. Together they will solve cases and fight against twisted and evil criminals (of whom the ML is the target).

PROS:
+ excellent actors (Wallace Huo, Wang Kai, Sandra Ma, etc.)
+Efficient and rapid execution
+ Permanent suspense
+Excellent OST (well suited to the scenes)

CONS:
- some rather violent scenes
- the part located in the USA is not always credible, in particular the way of proceeding and the weight of the FBI
- Villains a little too Machiavellian and sophisticated to be realistic criminals.

=> Excellent series, which keeps the viewer glued to the screen.
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Série type "esprits criminels" avec un Wallace Huo remarquable

PLOT: le ML, un profiler génial, mais torturé, rencontre la FL qui va devenir son assistante. Ensemble ils vont résoudre des cas et lutter contre des criminels tordus et diaboliques (dont le ML est la cible).

PROS:
+ excellents acteurs (Wallace Huo, Wang Kai, Sandra Ma, etc.)
+Réalisation efficace et rapide
+ Suspense permanent
+Excellents OST (well suited to the scenes)

CONS:
- quelques scènes assez violentes
- la partie située aux USA n'est pas toujours crédible, notamment la façon de procéder et le poids du FBI
- Villains un peu trop machiavéliques et sophistiqués pour être des criminels réalistes.

=> Excellente série, qui tient le spectateur collé à l'écran.

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The night has come, the darkness is here and what not what lurks behind the shadows. Here we have a very odd school drama that I longed for. Like most of the rougher and more unexpected series that some of you may have noticed. A different one where terror and death reign within the school's corridors and walls. The social game mafia is lived out for real. You have to guess who is to blame for all the terrible events. Reminds a bit of the Squid game where it's everyone against everyone.

A thriller that is quite devastating at times with serious high tension. don't know what happens next. The feeling of dread never goes away. As far from romance as you can get in these contexts. Caring is the closest you can see. Otherwise, it is betrayal and false trust in each other that applies to being able to survive. The mafia against civilians, doctors and police according to the rules of the game. Except with the method of voting everyone is done on their own mobile phone instead of pointing someone out by hand. The biggest gain is to have life preserved, a lot that happens in between.

Reminiscent of Duty after school without monsters but with more horror instead as I wanted in the already mentioned. The alliances are not as clear. Not as comical as it was at certain moments, but a real horror, a nightmare in the school world. All of us are dead should also have similarities with this one, even though I haven't seen it, I know it's in a school setting as well. However, this one has no zombies. Also darker and much better. Good music and visually good as a horror. Very interesting!!!!!!

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It's a moving TV show

This show feels distinctly different from what I associate with kdramas, but I guess I tend to stick to rom-coms.

It is a moving, heartfelt, suspenseful, sometimes graphic with violence and gore, but at its heart it's about people and the relationships we have with our family and what we'd do to protect each other.

I enjoyed it, but often found myself distracted because some story lines dragged. I understand why some back stories were introduced and showed, but then it sometimes was too long and detracted from the suspense of the action that was happening!

There are SO many hints dropped along the way, so it didn't help when I got distracted and didn't connect/notice the hints dropped along the way. But I feel that's a problem with the pacing. I know some people say it had 'perfect pacing', but I do think this was a problem. I was engaged, but it was also a series I felt I could drop too because it lagged and dropped with pacing.

I didn't cry, so I feel that says a lot, but I did feel a lot, and my heart squeezed in so many moments.

Not likely to rewatch, not eagerly anticipating season 2 that was hinted at during post credts (MCU style), but I'd give it a go if and when it ever comes out. I'd imagine a lot of the actors/characters we saw this season would only make guest appearances in season 2 though.

Worth checking out!

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Yes, I know many people think this show is over-hyped with all the rom-com cliches that it could find. Sometimes, I listen to the keyboard critics (like when I passed on “The Heirs”), and sometimes I don’t (like I did in this instance). But I am glad I did not listen, not only did I find “King the Land” enjoyable, I found a newfound appreciation for Yoon Ah, whom I wasn’t really too keen on when I saw her last in “Love Rain.”

Are there other pairings with better chemistry than Jun Ho and Yoon Ah? Sure. But I will recognize Gu Won’s and Yoon Ah’s effort in portraying two people who couldn’t be more opposite of each other. One who constantly smiles as she sees the silver lining in every situation, and has the tenacity to tackle challenges despite setbacks. While the other has a persistent cloud over his mood, because of his mother’s mysterious disappearance that he sees as abandonment.

Despite his lack of emotional intelligence, Gu Won tries his best with what he can, and after meeting Sa Rang, he learns to become more attuned to the needs of others. I also loved how the rest of the cast contribute to Gu Won’s character development, from “The Six Siblings” to Sa Rang’s Grandmother, they all shape his world view that allowed him to develop programs that are considered progressive for his hotel business, treating his employees and regular customers as “kings” in their own right despite their status.

To say that this drama is without its flaws is a lie. Could the product placement be less ubiquitous? Yes. Could the drama use fewer tropes? Maybe. But in the end, when Sa Rang realizes that the genuine pleasure of serving people isn’t necessarily being in the most prestigious lounge serving top-tier customers but in the every-day common folk, do we see the fundamental principle of this drama.

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Love on Lo - feels like a very looooong advert or music video

Ok so reading the synopsis suggested it was more BL than it was. You have two guys staying at a 2 bed resort and one loses his keys and has to share with the other on NYE.

This is a 2 episode series with very little happening. I left thinking maybe they were advertising one of the following
1. Lo
2. The photo /video app on the phone
3. The OST??
4. New Years Eve

I really don't know. The one thing is that the beach IS beautiful and if you can ignore the staff at the resort it's not a complete waste of time but, it either needed to be longer or have more of a point .

I'd skip this one as it feels more like a pilot for something or an advert

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Love-Sacrifice-Love-Sacrifice-Love.

Finished it finally after dropping it the first time after 8 epiosdes, and thinking about dropping it the second time around the same point, I want to thank the people who told me to watch up to ep 16 before deciding, thanks to them I finished the drama. The story starts picking up slowly starting from ep9 and change completely later on (ep16), that doesn't change the fact that the drama was still too draggy, and that took away a lot of its quality. My final rating 8/10.
2 reasons for dropping the drama at the first arc, the story was slow without any interesting character that keeps you going, the FL was annoying at times and had no self-esteem other times , ML the typical cold main character. The second reason is the 2 main leads didn't have chemistry, I've seen them both making better chemistry with other actors and actresses. But they grow on you afterward. Maybe because their characters change.
I wasn't sure about casting Xu Kai as the ML at the first arc until I saw him as Qing Mu, he fited him perfectly. ZDY was good enough, I fell for her beautiful smile.
What I loved most about the drama are: OST, CGI, some very good support characters and some emotional scenes that put me to tears (The OST made them even more emotional)
They had enough time to give us a complete satisfying ending, still chose to drag the parts before it instead.

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Watch Something Else

Warning that this does contain spoilers because I just have no way of being nice to this story.

Honestly, it has lots of potentials to be a great story but it became a mess as they tried to stretch it out. There’s these scenes of grandma in and out of dementia which was fine at beginning but it became regular, that it wasn’t cute anymore. It didn’t give any effective results of it so yeah, it became a drag. The main issue of female leads father as a murderer was a good plot until it was dragged out towards the end and it was like, so all that just for everyone to be one big family. Trust me, you’ll know what I mean when you watch. Female leads character was just terrible. She bowed, she got slapped, food thrown at, forced to divorce, openly dislike by mother in law and sister in law, that at end, they thought her the greatest thing they bout fell over to get her back in family. There was so much disdain and abuse of the poor and unfortunate from rich a***oles it’s disgusting that a society lives like that. Yes, we’ve seen it a lot in these chaebol dramas but I found this so intolerable.

The acting especially of Choi Soo Jong as father of main lead was really good, I could feel his every emotion in his complicated character. Sorry, I don’t mean to talk bad but female lead, Uee was just not up to par. I could see how her character is supposed to be meek because she’s poor but her facial withdrawn face throughout pretty much never changed throughout entire drama it was so boring. My gosh, it was so frustrating watching her. The actress Jung Jae Soon, adorable as she was could not save this mess. Props though to the snobbish evil ones because as always, their characters shine as bright neon on the hill as to how not to behave in any decent society, even if they’re filthy rich.

Writing was terrible. I think there was so much better plots to get out of situations here without giving bad people excuses to act awful towards others. I mean, we watch and want to come a2ay with something that is lasting and impactful to grow as a society. This show in the most, maybe ninety five percent of it made poor people so pathetic they don’t deserve to live in society and the empowerment to the rich continued until very end when had a light bulb moment of change.

Go ahead if you want to try. These after all are just personal reviews. I scoff that I hear this drama got lots of awards. I wish I never gave it any time of my day. Waste.

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