Reviews

Awesome Wuxia drama with a disappointed ending. I would rate higher if it has a better ending.

"A Journey to Love" is a Wuxia drama starting Liu Shi Shi (Cecilia Liu), Liu Yu Ning, Alen Fang, Chen You Wei, He Lan Dou, and Wang Yi Zhe.

The Synopsis: Female assassin Ren Ru Yi, the former left envoy of the Scarlet Guards, becomes a member of the Wu State's escort delegation to save the King of Wu, who has been taken hostage by the State of An. Together with Ning Yuan Zhou, the leader of the Wu State's Six Realms Hall, the free-spirited Yu Shi San, Princess Yang Ying, clever teen Yuan Lu, and the imperial guard Qian Zhao, they experience love, life, death, and grow together.

I enjoyed the drama, and all cast members' acting is undeniably good, especially Cecilia Liu, the FL. Liu Yu Ning did a decent job as ML as well.

I also like He Lan Dou; she did a better job in this drama than in "Tiger and Crane." The kung fu fighting scenes were good, except for the last 5 episodes, where some of the fighting scenes were unrealistic, like in the WRTW drama.

I was going to give it an 8.5 rating, but I am downgrading it to 8.0 because I didn't like the ending where Ning Yuan Zhou and his comrades were all killed, which was a big disappointment.

Read More

A Truly Beautiful Drama

Okay, now I understand why this drama has such high ratings.

It truly deserves even more than that. It was beautifully crafted with a compelling storyline, the best chemistry and romance between the leads, heart-wrenching moments, and a flawless OST, scoring a perfect 10/10. I could go on and on about how awesome this drama is. Each episode feels like a little emotional journey that sticks with you. It's not just a show; it's like living these moments with the characters.

However, one minor drawback was the occasional repetitiveness, particularly in certain scenes. There were too many small breakups and goodbyes, which at times felt excessive. Additionally, their relationship seemed somewhat toxic and manipulative after some point. Following a breakup, they would reconcile as if nothing had happened, without addressing the issues that occurred, honestly I found that frustrating.

Not every relationship is perfect, and in the end, it was sufficient that their love made sense and was convincing. After numerous tears, the show is finally finished.

Read More

Getting second chance in 30s

My second Aoharu already tells the brief of the story by its title. Sayako is a 30s woman who once gave up on her dream. Until one day, she met Taku, 10 years younger male than her, who advised her to give another shoot for her dream.

This dorama is really refreshing. Once again, the concept of sharing house is still a good idea. Throughout the episode, we are served with the brief and harsh reality of workers nowadays, college life, and the beauty of friendship and love. Despite of the number of characters, they were portrayed beautifully along with their backstories.

Taku and Sayako's love story is also well-done depicted. One of the refreshing age gap doramas, since it is a love story between young and adult collegers. The thing I love about their relationship is they are growing and supporting each other. They also advised each other. And the best thing, they resolve the misunderstanding by having good communication. I love sometime Taku would be mad when he was still considered as a kid. Even he is still young, he knows himself the best. Both Alice (I really love with her facial expression) and Micchi really did well with their characters.

Another typical ending with the promise of marriage. Also, the OST from Naniwa Danshi is cute and makes you want to sing along.

Give a shot if you don't mind with age gap romance with the spark of youth story.

Read More

Beautifully Decorated Cake That’s Missing Flavor

I placed spoilers at the end of this review.

Overall, this series was ok. Although it’s not a new concept, I still appreciated the attempted. It failed with the executed and something got lost in the mix. One problem is the pacing was a little off. There were some sections that felt rushed and disjointed. This caused some scenes to make no sense. Then we get sections with long useless scenes that are there as filler screentime. One example is there were too many flashback scenes in episode 5 and 6. There were also some weird scene placements which added to the story disconnect. Another problem is the script has many weak elements. Once again, there were one too many story elements/conflict scenarios for a 6-episode series. All the storylines were messily incorporated and received half-baked out-comes. Considering most of the cast is still relatively new, the acting was ok. I normally don’t single out actors, but Ohm unfortunately didn’t do a great job with his character. He didn’t show that much range of emotions with Shin. The cinematography and locations were stunning. However, it had some poor background music choices which did not match the mood of the scene.

Random Notes:

The two opening credits in episode 2-6 was weird.

Product placement was ok with one exception. In the middle of the 4th episode and during a very important scene, it turned into a Toyota commercial. This killed the overall significance of a scene between Shin and Peach.

If you are new to my reviews, I’m fascinated by seeing familiar location used in different series. The location for Peace’s house was also used in the series “Shadow” (Dan’s childhood home), “Sing Again” (Piano’s childhood home), “Mama Gogo” (Annie’s house), and in “21 Days Theory” (Q’s house). Yes, I acknowledge I'm a nerd for this.

******Potential Spoiler Alert******

On a positive note, this had a happy ending. However, it was rushed with everyone forgiving each other.

I wish they had just focused on one- or two-story elements that showed the character backgrounds, relationship development between the main leads, and friendship developments between all of the characters.

Read More

idk

Maybe is one of the best of 2023, I won't rewatch but was a good one to watch, I mean the story is awesome I can't deny, they address numerous pertinent topics in the daily lives of gay couples, Shiro is really a incredible man and Kenji is a star, we have a lot of simple points that we can feel good about, like they individuals lifes, they eating together are so fun and how they care for each other was so warm to watch. But 2 seasons and not even touching hands, or hugs and kisses, thats not fair. I don't even know how much times they touch each other, or maybe love is not just about touch, I really don't know about this, the soundtrack was mid, but the act was amazing.

Read More

Short and funny

These two episodes are a pilot released to see if the audience is interested in concept. Apparently they were since two seasons were made.

The story follows three best friends, students at the university, meeting regularly in a restaurant called Just One Bite to eat deliciously spicy food and talk about their love lives. This pilot focuses only on one girl and her dating adventure.

The drama is full of clichés about young women: excessive drinking, blackouts, misunderstandings, bitchy rival. Again, and I find this a repeat offence in K dramas: drunk women are considered cute and amusing. I really do not understand that. I wish somebody would explain to me what is cute about someone staggering around, talking nonsense and stinking of alcohol? Her friend, eats too much as well as drinking and her boyfriend also finds it cute. Any kind of overindulgence is just too much for me.

Fortunately(for her!), her boyfriend is the epitome of understanding, respect, honesty, fidelity....as well as being really smart and handsome! And of course, there is the rival: his friend who wanted to be more but did not succeed.

The production is on the normal webdrama level: cold, underfunded (awful make up) but not too terrible. The music is nice. It is just a typical Playlist Global web drama. From the bottom half of their list unfortunately! I should watch the full drama to see if any improvements were made, but this is actually quite good for a pilot!

Read More

Lovely healing mini series

I did not expect that Bake Me Please would end up as the only November premiered series that I caught up with but alas here I am, writing down a review for this series.

I will not lie, I came to this series with super low expectations. Not because most are still rookie actors (except for Ohm), but because this was CH8 so I honestly braced myself for the worst thinking this is gonna go down the lakorn route, super melodramatic and average tv lakorn-style cinematography.

Never was I more elated to be proven wrong. The cinematography is not like earth shattering excellent but it's really beautiful and well done (especially the mouth watering pastries shots). The production value is much higher than I expected but I guess maybe it's thanks to the Toyota money ? (I gladly accept those random Toyota car scenes).

The story is simple, so cliche and cheesy. sunshine boy meets cold ice prince, they fall in love, they change each other lives. It was predictable no doubt. Yet, I came back every week, fully engaged and determined to see how things played out. Guide Kantapon is just such a charming actor, although a relative rookie. His smiles completely melt me (as well as Shin's heart).

Ohm is once again playing the typical stoic cold tsundere male lead. Even though, Ohm may be type casted into these roles, I think he plays them extremely well. Shin just fits him like a glove. It's really nice to see Ohm playing opposite Guide too, which is totally different chemistry from OhmFluke but equally as charming and endearing.

I love all of our supporting actors Poom, Prame, Atom but if I had to give the MVP is definitely Poom Phuripan and his incredible performance as the heart throbbing second male lead - chef Guy. Guy's pain from losing his best friend, his unrequited affection for Peach, his pettiness. I felt every single emotion Poom was delivering. It breaks my heart to know Poom was hospitalized after filming his scenes with Prame in the final EP because he had caught influenza but he still persevered and gave it his all ?.

I will miss waiting for Sunday every week for Bake Me Please so much. If you're looking for a cheesy as heck BL series about a bunch of baker boys in love, please consider checking out Bake Me Please.

Read More

A Sea of Emotions

I love this story! For someone who lives in North America, I find the whole concept of Haenyeo(women divers)fascinating. and this is what I love about watching Korean Dramas. I learn so much more from the dramas than from a written book. I am somewhat familar with Ji Chang Wook and Shin Hye Sun in their various dramas, but I think this drama shows their talents and chemistry really well. It's funny how parents' grudges become their children's problems but yet their health concerns are kept away from the children. I enjoy how this drama is very realistic portrayal of everyday life in a small community. All in all, this is a drama I would watch again.

Read More

‘Common stuffs become unattainable goals’ resonated within me?

It’s stressed me out everytime Yi Jae had to die in different bodies but I always look forward to his next ‘role’. I felt bad for Yi Jae tbh because I felt bad bad, he didn’t deserve this pain. But I guess this drama was about the people he left behind when he chose to die. Plus there’s something else hidden along with his death. I think he wronged someone else.

So far I’m really attached to these characters:
- School student’s reincarnation, Kang Hoon nailed it of course. I can’t forget the innocent face he made when he’s confronted by the senior iljin? sneaky Yi Jae with his smart solution using high school style. The scene when he was murdered was so tragic tho, I was shocked.
- The dramatic gangster in love Jung Seung-Joo’s character, his scenes were like action movie for real with the impressive camera works for the bike chasing and action scenes. It was so cool imo but too bad he’s killed by the woman he fell in love with, poor dude. Kudos to sneaky Yi Jae for his sneaky plan to hide the money tho.
- The aspiring MMA fighter Kim Jae Wook! This is my fav reincarnation so far because he nailed the emotional acting and action scenes so well. KJW’s acting was really good here even for short appearances, he really delivered his role. I like how he taunted the fake psycho who killed his school’s student reincarnation. Dude should rot in the jail and go crazy. This reincarnation also had good plot twist about how he died. I didn’t expect the father of the hit & run victim to come and stab him. But he ended up dying in the hands of his so called prison bestie instead. Very well done reincarnation so far imo.
- The model Lee Dohyun’s character where he finally met his ex-gf and his mother. LDH nailed his emotional acting like LJW. These two had the heaviest emotional reincarnation. The last part when Ji-Su died…it was too cruel to Yi Jae.
- The baby was cute but it’s too cruel even tho they tried to make it lighter with Yi Jae’s voice over.

Seo Inguk was good, but I think he’s kinda overshadowed by his reincarnations, especially by Kim Jae Wook & Lee Dohyun. But I think he gonna have more scenes for part2, his emotional outbursts during the ending of ep4 was good, I want to see him to lash out to the Death. I can’t say much yet about Park So Dam since her scenes were so limited here, didn’t challenge her acting yet, probably she will have more parts on part2.
I think he has entanglement with Death tho. He probably wronged her somewhere. My guess was he accidentally killed her when he killed himself. I can’t wait for part 2!

Read More

Nothing Redeeming.

Had a soap opera feel. Multiple dishonest characters repeatedly making stupid decisions and a melodramatic plot that is also boring. Nine is a very pushy, lying, toxic ball of red flags. The first episode was actually decent and interesting and then the things characters did after that quickly made me not care about any of them.

I watched some snippets of later episodes on YouTube to determine if I wanted to keep watching after Ep 4 and I saw nothing redeeming. The dialogue is ridiculously contrived. People stay dead silent for long stretches instead of pleading their case or even verbally reacting to what another character says. It's SO unrealistic, awkward, frusterating, and inane.

The intimate scenes are okay but feel rather flat- I've definitely seen better elsewhere. They are certainly not special enough to put up with watching the whole show.

The actors are at a 7-7.5 out of 10. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt because they were given such a crappy screenplay to work with. It'd be hard for anyone to make those characters and that insipid dialogue empathetic or realistic. No one was really charismatic but they weren't bad either.

Though it's a complete waste of time it didn't leave any mental scars, so I gave it a 1.5/10.

Read More

Reality...

Finally after many attempts I have completed this drama...it was in my watchlist for so long .
This is my one of the favourite drama♥️of 2023....this dramas tells us how can a person can go to any extent to achieve what they want even if it means to kill a little kid in a name of sacrifice ...
The cast was perfect ....every cast has given their ? to their role which leads to this perfect drama.....
I just recommend to every kdrama fan who loves horror, thriller genre ...plz do watch this drama atleast one time ....it is perfect to binge watch especially at night ?.......

Read More

Frustrating

It was an okay drama. What I find weird is that they never have the FL say I love you to the ML even though he said it to her multiple times. Weird and not right. Or did I miss it, since I started fast-forwarding? Also, I would not forgive the SFL for feeding into the ML amnesia, hiding him, and keeping him to herself for 3 years. The ML was too nice and forgave her. The ML father is also a piece of work. Family is not only biological/blood-related. Some non-biological people make better families than the ones who are genetically related. The ML dad has never done anything good for him so I don't why they entertain this dude.
They portrayed the ML in the beginning as not being so forgiving especially when someone is trying to get between him and the FL. They softened him up at the end. I liked his attitude much better before the amnesia trope. In the beginning, they portrayed the ML as very stalkerish and obsessive about the FL. Truthfully I was side-eyeing him there a little but he grew on me, especially when the FL seemed/acted like such a trusting child to people.
Side Note: Is this the actress's first romantic drama? She does not know how to kiss. She was giving purse lips/fish kisses and the ML was doing all the work. Sheesh. It was very cringy and threw me out of those scenes.
A Chinese drama that does " siblings' grow up together and become lovers is " Exclusive Fairytale". And the kisses were fire. Also, the FL in Exclusive Fairytale has not done a lot of kiss scenes so I was surprised when she matched the ML with the passion. Great drama.

Read More

A fun series to enjoy.

The series was over all was a fun series. I do love the two leading couples. The always have great chemistry. My favorite couple to see develop was Mingmueang and doctor, they were fun to watch. I wish they did a better job showing there storyline. The cast were cute and they had there lovey dovey moments, and it was a nice welcome to see the change and the comedy was good. The guest cast were nice to see and played there roles well. The bad guys were basically annoying to watch get away with stuff, but the the life of villains. They were mess ups to like when title kiss ashi when he was sick and the massage moment was not ok, and he should have done better job of stop both those moments from happening. I did like seeing the miss between pai and diao lol. Overall it was a fun series to watch. Loved the NC moments were sexy and hot to watch.

Read More

Big Mouse

MDL be like:

-Get a drama with dumb writing, black and white characters, overpowered gary stu protag who has titanium plot armor, and an ending where all bad guys are punished regardless of their crimes and ml and fl live happy ever after: FUCKING MASTERPIECE SLAY GIRL!!!!!11

-Get a drama with clever writing, multidimensional characters, where protagonist struggles all the time to get what they want, and the ending is unhappy or bittersweet: REEEEEEEeeeeee *hellish screeching*

It so happens that Big Mouth (should be Big Mouse) is in this second category, and this explains any complaint or bad review you might have read of it. Really it's just MDL idiocy, the drama is great.

The only faults I could find are:
-The last episode felt rushed
-The ML can't act and was clearly chosen just for his looks. But it actually works in his favor here, somewhat, considering what kinda character he plays.

Extra credit to all the humorous and unintentionally humorous scenes that you might not expect from this kind of story and to acting of Yang Kyung Won who just dominated every scene he appeared in.

Read More