Reviews

the definition of “comfort show”

guys. i can’t believe this drama is not talked about enough??? HOW IS THIS NOT TALKED ABOUT ENOUGH???

let me begin with the casting. they really chose the most perfect main leads they could’ve casted because oh my god the casting was *chefs kiss*. the actors fit so well with the characters, i almost forgot that im watching a kdrama for a second. as always, siwan did a spectacular job soaking himself into the role SO WELL. the female lead was also so perfect in her character and she was so natural the whole time that i shed so many tears with her because i just felt so connected to her. also, im literally in love with siwan’s character because oh my god how did he just portray it SO WELL???? the quiet, kind, shy country boy LIKE IS THIS THE SAME MAN FROM UNLOCKED???? of course he always just slays his roles because of his phenomenal acting 🙏🏼

the vibes of this show are literally the best, this is THE drama you’d wanna watch under your warm blanket with a warm cup of tea. THIS IS IT. the sweetest, innocent type of romance that i missed watching so much, they gave it to me. the supporting characters were also amazing and the found family trope is just *chefs kiss*

summer strike is truly SO WELL MADE i truly hope people do watch this because this is going to be your go-to comfort show!!

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Have some intense scenes

Sorry for the spoiler .It was the story about two persons , A girl and a boy . The boy and the girl who donot have good love history but both thought in the different way . The boy pretend to be a playboy . He never made a serious relationship but the girl actually wants a serious relationship. When both met ,the girl fell in love with him but the boy was not sure about his own feelings . Girl realised the fact and she left him but when she left him ,he realized his true feelings . Still not able to say his true feelings to her . On the other side the girl didn't have control over her feeling. Not able to forget him . At the end she asked him to go on a date . He replied her that was she sure . Would she not regret . By this reply if I would in her place ,I would leave him because still he was not sure but she told him that she would not regret and the drama end with the kiss. So this was the story . I think it has some intense scene which made some spectacular to like the drama but I really didn't like the drama

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Boring

This series is boring and not well put together. The chemistry was off and the bi-sexual storyline was not played out well. Not recommended. If your in to threesomes then go for it. Sadly i was happy when it was over as it lacked a lot. the cast is cute and has pretty good acting, but the storyline was not at all interesting. This looked very unrealistic and it would never really work out like this. Sadly for me a no-go. A lot of the backstory and flow did not work out well. I would say this is for someone that enjoys three three-way relationships and the drama of loving 2 people. For me, this was a complete downfall.

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Sweet Tai Chi

The name of the drama matches perfectly
It's really sweet drama Slow and steady
The flow Of the Episodes 1 to 24 It's amazing
The Director, Actors, Scriptwriter, Editor they are synced in same thought
That's way the output Of drama Is clearly new to our imaginations
Over all Awesome I'm really enjoyed
Really worthy's our time--------------------->Thanking you-------------------->
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Please Stop Yelling At Fiat

Okay so I have a lot of opinions, let me preface this by saying I have not watched TharnType2 (just not interested) and mostly watched this because it was available on Viki and I liked the actors.

The Good:
✅ Good chemistry with both couples
✅ Solid acting
✅ Decent production
✅ Some enjoyable characters

The Bad:
❌Voyeuristic trauma that's poorly resolved
❌ Somewhat thin and unbalanced plot
❌ Frustrating communication

With that said, overall this was fine, but I think with just a little better writing this could have been a much better show.

Regarding what I liked, the acting was solid from all the main cast (although a few moments felt a little over-acted or odd), the presentation was decent, and I liked the characters quite a bit. The supporting cast was fun and had some good moments, I always enjoy it when the characters have actual friends, although I would've liked to see them hang out and talk about anything that wasn't the relationships sometimes. The pacing was pretty solid, even if I didn't love every plot, they didn't get dragged out so long that I got mad.

The main characters have good chemistry and I easily believed that they actually liked each other. When Leo wasn't annoying me I thought he was really sweet, the birthday surprise was a nice touch. Though their relationship isn't perfect and has some slightly concerning undertones, they both seem comfortable and happy with each other and okay with each other's more difficult traits.
Also I loved Fiat and he can do no wrong in my eyes but we'll get to that.

My main plot issues were that sensitive subjects were not handled with appropriate care, and the whole show felt pretty lopsided. Fiat has some pretty distressing plots centering around abuse that has happened to him, and they were not handled well imo. While his family situation was presented as a very serious scenario, everyone got forgiven super quickly so that it could get wrapped up nicely and the actors didn't have to come back. I think things could have been left a little more ambiguous to allow for some more nuance. I'm still so mad at his dad lol, like, you could've protected him without being so awful that he thought you hated him for like 15 years, he should have apologized more. You could allow for some hope that they'll be able to have a positive relationship one day rather than everything being forgiven in an instant.

Speaking of people I'm mad at, Leo did frustrate me a lot. I liked him but he really suffered from perfect ML syndrome and it got grating, especially since he wasn't perfect and everyone acted like he was. He handled a number of serious situations very poorly and it was barely addressed. The whole series gives this impression that Fiat sucks and he needs to become a better person, and while he has made mistakes it really feels super one-sided. Even when he tries to be mature and reasonable he gets pretty much no credit. The scene after the bar made me so angry lmao, I can't believe they let Leo just get away with all of that after Fiat was trying so hard..... I think Fiat should've keyed someone's car but I'm clearly biased, sorry for liking men pretty men that cry a lot.
If the show had focused less on trauma-voyeurism and more on each character's personal issues I think I would have enjoyed it quite a bit more. Give Leo a plot where he's actually called out for being unreasonable or has something in his past he needs to deal with, have someone yell at him for once or let him face Any consequences ever damn......

Overall I'm not mad I watched the whole show, but I don't think I'd rewatch basically any of it. While there are some nice moments, they're too intertwined with a frustrating plot.

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Call Me when season 2 is here 4real

this show was pretty darn slay , 4 real 10 out of 10

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Sparks all kinds of emotiona

Perfect ? idk how else to describe it.
One of the best love stories in drama land this yr.

The whole drama was beautiful, the cinematography, the ost omg, the ost especially the one they ended with each ep?

From their meeting to falling in love to fighting for their love waa just good. They had fire chemistry, both sexual and just idk how else to say but spiritually.

The supporting cast was perfect. The lityle friendship group that they formes, the vibe and architecture of the house, perfect.

I also love how it wasnt dramatic like the love triangle, their separation, the whole drama was peaceful. Their live was peaceful.

I also just loved ira's character, she brought bright energy, comedy and fun to the drama, her and her friends.

Also this drama sparked and made me somehow remember about my own painful past and scars which lead to an 8 mins recording ( that i still havent sent which is what i was intending to do ) and soo much crying, i dont think i have cried like that b4.

Anyway, i really loved it, wished it was longer even though it was just perfect as 9 ep.

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Clumsy but heartfelt

I'm a big fan of IU as a singer, so I watched quite a bit of her on youtube, and I couldn't help but notice some of those comments that mention her as an actress as well. The thing is, when you watch a dozen or two of K-Pop videos, you start to realize that all comments for all videos are more or less the same, they might as well be automatically generated at this point. If you take them all at face value, you might think that K-Pop industry produces nothing but masterpieces after masterpieces, all vocalists are world-class, and in case they also happen to be an actor, they are also a genius actor, because of course they are. Needless to say, all this can't be true at the same time (and it's not), so when I saw all those comments along the lines of "wow, IU is such an actress, such an actress, wow", I was unimpressed. Famous singers branching out to an acting career is not a thing that often yields outstanding results, or even good ones for that matter. But oh well, what do I have to lose. "Hotel Del Luna" was one of the latest things featuring her at the time, the premise sounded kinda anime-ish, and I love me some anime now and then, might as well give it a shot. Long story short, I was skeptical about IU's acting, didn't know any of the other actors, and therefore didn't expect a lot from the drama itself. Was I wrong? Well...

First, let's address the elephant in the room. Saying IU's perfomance here is good would be a vast understatement. As I said, I thought she'd be passable at best, just stand there being pretty and maybe have a funny scene now and then, and honestly I'd be okay with that. Instead, right of the gate I got something wildly different. The ease with which this woman owns the scene is jaw-dropping, with force and confidence in every movement, every glance and gesture radiating such immense amounts of screen presence that at first it took me some time to even remember who I was looking at. That, mixed with (mostly) great comedic timing and several deeply powerful dramatic moments, make up a fascinating character. Words can't describe how fun she is to watch on screen, she literally carries the whole series. There's no ignoring it, I just have to admit: this time, youtube comments actually got it right.

On the other hand, IU carrying the show is precisely the issue, because it unfortunately does need to be carried. Despite it being overall solid, the problems are many, and they are hard to look over.

The first, and the biggest one, is the tone. The show is all over the place, jumping from genre to genre as fast as a hamster on coffee. Sure, you can combine a comedy, a horror and a drama, but it's hard, and boy oh boy here it's not done greatly. You can have a scene where the male lead runs away from a ghost with BLOOD-STAINED EMPTY EYESOCKETS and there's jolly "Benny Hill"-style music playing in the background. Like, look, what a wacky predicament this guy's in, don't you also hate it when there's an eyeless undead coming after you in the evening?.. Zoinks, Scoob! That's just one example that came to my mind, but there're many.

The writing suffers from this inconsistency too. I won't go into how the local "ghost world" doesn't really work, how they keep inventing new rules all the time, because to me all this ghostly stuff seemed more like means to an end, a medium to convey their ideas. There are other issues to talk about, for example how the episodes are divided. Episodes, except the first one, almost never feel like they have a beginning and an end, it always seems like the writers just chopped the whole script into 16 even pieces and each episode ends as soon as the runtime is over, no matter what happens. The final episode especially, it was literally like, "oh damn it, we still haven't wrapped up the bartender's story, quick, shoehorn it in! Ok, done, now back to the main stuff". It's really glaring.
Next. there's the most random stuff throughout the series. For example, IU's character happens to be a fan of some... dumpling-eating-champion dude?.. Huh? They make such a big deal out of it, just left me wondering, what it the world is this for. Maybe you have to be Korean to get it?.. Or another thing, this show has a strange habit of introducing new characters just to immediately kill them off (or despose of them in another way, given that some of them are already dead), Sanchez's girlfriend as the prominent example. This makes characters into plot devices, and it's not a sign of good writing.
The serial killer subplot was a huge disappointment. All that building up just ending in a wet fart. I get it, the Grim Reaper is an unstoppable force, but then why hype the killer's ghost up as this huge threat? What was the point of this dude in the story?
Most of all, after watching the whole drama, I'm still not sure I understand what IU's character did that was so wrong as to have to pay for it the way she does? From what I saw, all her deeds in the past warranted a prison sentence (ok, maybe an execution even, considering the times), but this? For killing that guy, really? She mentioned something about "a lot of bad things afterwards", are those "things" what's supposed to be her sins? Or it just guilt, like a self-inflicted punishment? Honestly, hell if I know, but whatever.

Acting is yet another mixed bag.
Yeo Jin Goo as the male lead is simply bland. As far as I heard, the guy is a really good actor, but for some reason here he always seems slightly out of place, always just a bit off, always just barely good enough. And the way I see it, it's not even really his fault, it's just the writing doesn't exactly know what to do with him with its tone jumping all over the place. His interactions with IU's character can be engaging to watch, but as everything in this show, it's hit-and-miss. Given it's supposed to be a romantic subplot, there should be much more chemistry between the leads. But it's... hardly ever there. His character development doesn't feel organic, he has like two and a half facial expressions, and with such a powerhouse of a screen partner, the guy's just kinda... there.
Hotel's staff I mostly didn't like very much. The bartender and the head maid were mostly there either to re-iterate what just happened (which required them standing next to each other and looking into the distance meaningfully) or to briefly announce what was going to happen next, with maybe a small occasional exposition dump. The receptionist had his own romantic subplot, because otherwise he'd have no place in the story. All three also got their personal quests just thrown in at the beginning and never addressed until the last stretch of the show. The "Miss Fourth Choice" girl I felt was the only one remotely interersting, even due to her circumstances alone, but even those were never really explored after she, uh, settled in. It was more like, oh okay, I guess I live in this body now, cool, and that's it. And yes, she's the receptionist's romantic interest.
One who was awesome was the Grim Reaper, I freaking loved that guy. He didn't have a lot of screen time but delivered a couple of one-scene miracles. Give that man an Oscar.

Now I have to vent a bit, please bear with me. The thing that started to really, REALLY annoy me several episodes into the drama was the soundtrack. Or, to put it better, the way the soundtrack was used. The playlist features a multitude of high-tier Korean stars, including IU herself, Gummy, Paul Kim, Red Velvet, the list goes on. So, what are they gonna do with such a cast? Of course they're gonna milk it dry! Every single there's an emotional scene, a ballad turns on in the background, most of the time the same one. After three or four episodes, it had me eye-rolling and thinking "please don't start the song, you don't need a song here, just let the scene play out", but my prayers were never heard. One time, the song had already finished but the scene still went on, and what do you think they did? Immediately put on another song! Because apparently the audience wouldn't know how to feel without Taeyeon singing in the background. This is one of the major directing problems with this drama, it seems to have no clue how to utilize its quiet moments, and hence there's barely any. I swear it made me remember Nostalgia Critic and his review of Disney's "Tarzan", where he bashed the cartoon for hammering Phil Collins into every "feely" scene. And it's a darn shame, these songs are great, too bad the authors didn't think of a way to use them sparinlgy. The funniest thing is, the soundtrack also has... "The Moonlight Sonata"! Because "moon", "luna", get it? I think it was the first track to play in the very first episode, and it was so jarring I couldn't help but laugh a bit. I don't know, maybe European classical music sounds exotic and otherwordly to Korean audience or something, but I just found it very odd and borderline pretentious, thank god it didn't play often.
Vent over, thank you, sorry.

All that being said, when "Hotel Del Luna" commits to something, it can be great, there are multiple cool little side-plots sprinkled in, and it can be genuinely funny and genuinely creepy, and sometimes deliver a good tear-jerker. It just doesn't always feel the right way to shift between the three or how to mix them up. I guess the whole point is to tell the story of this tormented old soul, and if you view it as IU's characters story, as opposed to a romance story, it does indeed work. When they speak of grief, guilt and learning to let go, it can actually be meaningful and touching. Though sometimes awkwardly put together, sometimes clunky and corny or even downright silly, it's still truly soulful, and it's still entertaining if you're willing to give it a pass on some stuff. This is not a masterpiece but more like "their heart is in the right place" sort of situation. It feels like they actually want to make something good. And if you haven't seen IU as an actress before, maybe it'll become your IU gateway drug, it sure became mine.

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Slice-Of-Life About Parenthood And Love.

The story was more slice-of-life and NOT about a college student/professor taboo. Their dynamic was really that of equals (there was a good balance mentally and emotionally between them). Overall it was heart-warming and I found myself smiling frequently. I highly recommend for one watch, though I won't re-watch often.

A sweet story about parenthood, love, family, self-acceptance, courage, and determining priorities.

The 7 yr old girl is actually written like a 7 yr old! No contrived lines that sound like an adult. And the actress is great and sincere in her role. Her interaction with the two leads is lovely, natural, and endearing to watch. There were no cringy, forced saccharine-sweet moments in the story, which I greatly appreciated.

The two leads were good and well-matched. A small caveat is that although they did feel drawn to each other, the sexual chemistry between them was a bit flat. That didn't detract too much though as the romance of partnership was more central to this story than sexual attraction. There are a couple of ok kisses and a decent intimate scene.

The friend of Fei Sheng Zhi deserves a mention too, she was great, both in how she was written and acted. I enjoyed watching her facial expressions whenever she was in a scene.

Nothing really memorable about the cinematography or music.

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Lu Zhi.

It was a 12-episode series. I don't know if there will be a sequel. It was not a spot-on finish. But the plot is resolved. Who did what was analyzed from both sides. It was an interesting series that was very descriptive and presented to the audience from both sides, as well as having two murderers. Some parts are dark and natural. That's why I had a little difficulty watching it. However, it was a very intriguing and immersive series, I liked it. The actors were also very good. Blended also. The lead roles are young and the lead roles are not overly intense, so it is a different series. So the leading roles are not sharpened. On the contrary, the characters are sharpened. There were very distinct and beautifully drawn characters. I especially; I liked the characters of judge Song, Lu Zhi, Lu Yan Bao, Lu Zhong, Si Niang. I liked the actors who played these. I even liked the young actor Yu Yao, who played Lu Zhi, very much. Well done. This young boy started acting and is actually an experienced person. I think the future is bright. The acting is pretty good. He doesn't grin at all. In fact, players have simplified their games. They did not create any sharpness or excess in the characters. This did not spoil the naturalness. I congratulate the writer and director. I recommend everyone, especially those who love this genre, to watch it.

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Disappointing light snack

Having read the webtoon, this was a poor execution of it. It didn’t have the same vibe as the webtoon. While the actors looked the part, the acting fell short. I am not sure if it is because of the editing or the flow. It’s like this series tried to crammed in all the elements of the webtoon without understanding the flow of storytelling.

Having read the webtoon, I was still lost to how jumpy and jumbled the pace was. Instead of having Eden fanboying over Hyunjin, we could’ve gotten more of how Hyun did Jihoon dirty. Or even the J/Hyunbin/CEO plotted. The execution was so freaking chopping in storytelling that it did not do justice to the story. I did not need to see the practice so many times or the fan meets. This clearly had better potential than what we got.

It was such a unfulfilling light snack. It felt that even for such a short series, I wasted my time on it. The ending was definitely rushed. And the glossed over of that final kiss felt like a very cheap trick to skip over a kiss. Not worth watching the first time so definitely won’t watch it again.

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A lovely and comfy show.

A Tale of a Thousand stars is, before anything else, a really comfortable watch, the show handles the setting really well, immersing us in this quiet town, setting up a great atmosphere and tone for the show.

The soundtrack was fine, nothing too crazy about about the songs expecept for the main theme, who even though is really soap-operay really pulls on the heartstrings each episode.

The characters are really charming, especially the secondary cast. Chief Phupha and Tian have great chemstry that is somewhat bogged down by the sloppy writing in the finale.

My main problem with the show is the third act, this big bombastic ride of revelations and misencounters was handled a bit poorly in my opinion, characters are too hasty, ommit information without any reasons, take really roundabout ways to make a point, the scenes drag on and on a drama that could've been easily solved if the characters talked like normal humans. The last two episodes were especially guilty of this when there are whole segments of Tian just doing nothing of importance.

Even though I have this big gripe with the show, I can recomend ATOTS, for its amazing setting, great story with a hint of mystery and its great characaters.

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Fluffy, but repetitive and boring

I love fluff, I love the male lead and I love clichés but non of this can save this drama as it is repetitive boring, predictable and has 0 contact with reality making me wonder if the writer ever met an animal, much less a vet.

The leads are actually pretty decent, the annoying characters and elements are surprisingly low and the realtinships in this are actually not bad. But there is this whole detective theme to this that makes me wonder when the vets actually have time to heal animals if they are off exploring mysteries all the time.

I really do want to watch this, just so I can finally see the leads fess up to their emotions but something tells me Ill have to sit thrugh another 14 episodes of nothing interesting to get there and I doub't it will be worth it as their chemistry is just not that great to begin with...

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Conflicting watch

When you start this you kind of try to understand the background of the characters and as the story progresses you start making sense of behaviours and decisions. Won Jun was extremely tolerant and understanding of Doona's situation even when she left him alone in the middle of nowhere. The end was bittersweet, they both matured and overcame their obstacles (specially Doona) and just when the final confrontation happens and you get a glimpse of what the future might hold we are left with an interpretative ending.
I understand this was maybe done to keep fans engaged and asking for a second season but for a 9 episode show they could have carried on with the story.
I'm just a sucker for happy endings and this ome was not what I expected. Still I enjoyed the watch and did it in one sit so it kept me pretty engaged.
Overall good, with good performances.

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