Reviews

Give this one a shot...

I ended up really liking this one - agreeing with others that there are parts and people you can fast forward through and not miss anything.

This is a multi-episode commercial for 7-Eleven with a story thrown in. My biggest surprise was seeing 7-Eleven avoiding offering a full on espresso selection along with their smoothie bar. This would truly make them a one stop shopping for quick needs both going to and leaving work.

A little grating from the Thai group - why do you feel it necessary to always make all the sons in the family gay? Why can't one brother be straight and the other not - and, as in all these - have everyone be okay with it. Anywho - small complaint.

Love Venus. Strong character who understandably is very guarded. At the very least - he knows he is being taken advantage of - work wise - and leaves. Through his brother's 7-Eleven ownership - he meets Sky - three years after being rejected by him. Sky, trying so hard to get back together with him keeps whitewashing the past and that makes Venus bothered even more. This is the strongest storyline in the whole series. The secondary storyline with the brother is badly done and usually ignored by the director and writers - it shows. The third storyline could have been left out completely - busy people not connecting and drifting apart. Yawn. Cute characters though - nice eye candy. LOL

I grew to really like Sky and Venus and really LOVED the behind the scenes stuff we saw between the episodes. So nice to see such good hearted people get the work and appreciate being in the series.

Read More

"빛나게 해주고 싶어요. 일단은 무대 위에서. 그 다음은 인생에서."

Reenact Back To The Future, fall in love with the young version of your aunt, teach your nonchalant 18 y.o. dad guitar, try to prevent a major tragedy, play matchmaker for your future parents, take over the Jinsung empire, and accidentally become an international idol - be like Ha Eun Gyeol! The drama explores so many relatable themes, and it deserves way more than roughly 3% rating on Korean TV. Ryeo Woon and Choi Hyeon Wook have amazing chemistry, both humorous and dramatic, and their acting is outstanding till the end.

"이곳에 와서 알게 됐다. 내 아빠 엄마에게도 아픈 청춘이 있었다는 것을."

?Do you want to escape your problems somewhere far away where nobody would be able to find you..? For example, in the year 1995! You'd get to befriend your yet-young parents and hopefully find out why do they act so confusingly as adults. However, time traveling still won't provide you with a safe playground to explore the world because growing up has never been easy for anyone. And if it wasn't, why do adults forget about their own teenage experience while building a relationship with their teenage kid?

"나는 아주아주 반짝이게 빛나야 한다는 말이지. 할 수 있는 건 다 해볼 거다. 사랑이든 벤드든 내가 반짝일 수 있는 거라면 모두 다."

There aren't many thoughtful shows and movies that explore teenagers and their parents together as equal human beings. Twinkling Watermelon achieves this by literally putting them all side by side through time travel. Not only do the highschoolers start to understand their parents better, but the adults in the future change too. The way the drama was written, I was confident from the very beginning that all the characters and their lives are in the hands of a skilled screenwriter. The drama transitions between sentimental exploration and genuine humor so seamlessly that I simply cannot put an episode on pause. There is no intrigue who ends up with whom, and because everything is predetermined we get a chance to feel this fleeting moment of happiness and enjoy it while it lasts.

"내가 사는 세상엔 소리가 없어. 그래서 이렇게 눈을 감으면 세상이 사라져."

?I'm sure every viewer has caught on to a couple of KSL (Korean Sign Language) words just by watching this drama. It contributes well to the awareness of people with hearing impairments and subtly educates about the challenges they face in society. Deaf character Cheong Ah still enjoys listening to music vibrations, and many deaf people still enjoy going to loud energetic concerts. Moreover, there is a scene where Yi Chan interprets the legendary song '마법의 성' into KSL and performs it for Cheong Ah - this is what deaf performers do. I suggest you check out Justina Miles interpreting to ASL (American Sign Language) at Rihanna's Super Bowl show this year to get an idea of how you can communicate a song to those who can't hear it.

"수화야. 손으로 만들어내는 소리."

Sign language is an incredible dimension of human expression, and it's not hard to learn. It should be more widespread in today's society, and good thing someone is popularizing it. I personally started learning ASL and KSL, and even though there is no one around me to talk to, sign language has improved my acting (surprisingly!) and communication in general.

?Deaf experiences can vary. Some people are Deaf and mute like Cheong Ah, who lost the ability to hear before she learned to speak; some people are partially deaf, and others, like Yi Chan, lost their hearing later. In Yi Chan's case, he is probably mute by choice, either for Cheong Ah or to not give in to an ignorant society, since he could talk normally after getting the trauma.

"음악은 귀로만 듣는 게 아니야. 음악은 눈으로, 마음으로, 심장으로 느끼는 거야."

?Twinkling Watermelon is simply magical and now one of my top K-dramas. Its ethereal plot allows me to rediscover other aspects of life that we usually miss in today's hustle culture, like creating music, art together, building strong friendship - all those overlooked human expressions that are essential for human happiness, just like sign language. But overall, it's also a blissful reminder to stay strong and try living my only youth to the fullest. 나도 '반짝이는 워터멜론'처럼 반짝반짝하게 빛나고 싶다.

Learn sign language, you guys! Sign language changes the world. ✨

Read More

Refreshing and THANK GOD - THERE'S MORE THAN ONE SONG!!!

Loved this one. Agree with others - pacing is just right. Typical Korean BL - they still treat kissing as almost taboo and therefore - limited. That's okay. Still handled well.

Love all the characters including, the evil one. He stays perfectly sewer dwelling throughout. I would hate to know who else he took advantage of during his teaching years before trying to debut himself. Chemistry is good with all the main characters - love it. Little family. People taking care of each other and looking out for each other.

Another reviewer made reference to - understandably - Han Ba Ram misunderstanding both characters touchy feely-ness being confusing. Been there. I am so concerned about not understanding those moments - I usually avoid being touched! And, avoid too much touch/affection with people I don't know.

And, I did love Im Han Tae's growth as he slowly realized how much he grew to love Ba Ram. First, you don't think about it. Then, you deflect - Naw...I'm not falling for him...then, you finally admit you love them and can't be without them.

Love that there is more than one song. And, the main song is never played fully as the series goes on. The director and those involved pay attention to what the viewers notice and appreciate. Agree that this is a OST worth owning.

Read More

Delivered as promised

The story as in the title has delivered its objective. The story possesses the fantasy and romance element that people who watch dramas without over analyzing the situation can watch and enjoy. Not everything has to be dark and Iffy. Enjoy it with a light heart and don't take it seriously.

At first, I was apprehensive about it however, I thoroughly enjoyed the lightheartedness. It was different from the regular clichés. Hope you enjoy it as I did.

The Fact - Heavenly Idol a heavenly being becoming an Idol was different from Ideas I would have thought off or dreamed off.

Read More

Just want to air out my frustrations

(as the headline suggests this is subjective)

I initially liked the concepts of the show enough to overlook some problems with the execution but I can't pretend that I didn't feel a huge disconnect when it switched to the present in the last episode. The questionable aspects clouded my thoughts and took me out of the experience. Maybe I should've been more prepared for how much Eun-Gyeol's interference in the past would naturally affect the present, but I still feel like they could've done way better to make it less jarring and evidently divisive.

It's just so bizarre to think about how alone Eun-Gyeol is with his memories of what his whole life was like before he went back in time, and he's basically just now starting the life he's responsible for creating. Also the fact that everyone who knew him in 1995 has the worst memory ever and can't tell that he looks exactly like the guy they befriended and have pictures of and also has the same name. Idk I'm just disappointed and the emotional moments that really landed don't even feel like much anymore.

Eun-Yu as a character was very solid though I love her.

Read More

so good but so short

I didn't expected this series to be good. I saw the run time and my expectations were low. But I gave it a try anyways since it was short and I had nothing to lose, and I am glad that I did and now I am regretting that it is so short. This series has the plot to stretch it to a 16 episodes with 1 hour runtime. We need a depth of how they met in highschool, their story in highschool, the reason for Dong Wook insomnia, how they first fell in love, Dong wook's reason for the misunderstanding should also be expanded more, just because he saw Do Hyun laugh with someone who is not him is not a good excuse. We need dept. BUT STILL they managed to make it good. Even with the lack of dept and run time. I am actually surprised. Another thing I love about this is the skin ship. Actually a good kiss which is rare in KBL. I wasn't even expecting one or i was expecting a bad one, but they actually did pretty well. So applause to that. The actors did well. Kinda here a there more emotions is needed but otherwise okay. They had really chemistry with each other. And also I am looking forward to the romance of the 'second lead' since he didn't really do much to be even consider a second lead. So in conclusion this was good, But could have been better with more episodes. Still overall very good.

Read More

Depression throughout the show

Just saw this randomly on my netflix feed and seemed interesting, so i watched it. And my god! I've never cried like back to back to back watching a drama before. I've watched a lot of sad dramas from China, Korea, and Japan, but i've never cried more than once, I think twice is the max, I would only cry in the climax and the ending if it's done well, but here I don't know how many time I've cried, I think cried like more than 10.

In the first episode, we were greeted with the 2 mains that we're gonna follow throughout the series and they wanna find the whereabouts of the other 2 mains of this show who created a song for them. Immediately they will hit you with the "Oh both of them are dead already" so the drama suddenly takes a dark turn faster than your grandma could stand up, and then the back story of the other 2 mains plays and hits you with another dark plot slapping you in the face. And that's when i knew "Ahhh I'm gonna be depressed throughout this show".

This drama never ceased to amaze me, cuz as you keep digging down to the stories behind these characters, it keeps getting darker and darker, like chill the fuck up, can we have just a least one good part of the backstory?? It's like you're staring in this abyss watching the backstory of these characters.

Though the other 2 mains of the story are dead, i was still really invested in their backstory. It started out dark and then turned into a revenge story, but ended up as a sad romance. And that's my problem with this show, which is that they made the story of the deceased 2 mains really REALLY good. It's soo perfect from A to Z that I wasn't really invested that much with the 2 Alive Mains. It's not that the 2 alive mains are boring or their story is badly written, It's just... i couldn't really relate to their story as I'm not at that age yet or I have yet to experience that part in life. So every time their part would come on, I would immediately press the 1.5 watch speed and be like "COME ON JUST GIVE ME K & CREAMS BACKSTORY!!!!". We also have a third couple that we are gonna follow throughout the show and their story is somewhat tied to the deceased mains, because they have a bigger role to play in that part, but again... wasn't really invested in anything aside from K & Cream's story.

I wonder why they didn't make this drama as K & Cream's story only?? by itself I think their story is 10/10. It would hold itself really well. Maybe the writer isn't confident that their story alone wouldn't sell well??? Though way they told the story was still unique to me and was done really well. It's like you have this Cat and Mouse chase, but the mouse is dead already and the cat is just blindly chasing.

And I'm not gonna spoil the most important twist as that would greatly ruin the immersion of the show, but yeah.. I don't think they should've called this 'More than Blue, they should've just titled this "Black: The Series" cuz the stories in the show is just different variation of the color black hahahaha I'm joking xD

minor critique - The actress of bonnie, i think her acting is very mid.

Highly HIGHLY recommend this show if you want something that would slowly chip away your heart and then glue it together again just to burn it into ashes in the end.

Read More

It was...okay. Lol. It is what it is, kind of like a Chinese grey's anatomy, no warning, happens out of the blue with the craziest scenario while two people are trying to be in love lmfao. But like a... slow love. Like they know it's love but they're too scared because of their past and everything that's happened and it's understandable but you find yourself skipping the show a lot because once they're like you know what??? I LOVE YOU, then you're like...okay? We get it. You find yourself not caring a lot and just realizing that you have a toxic rich family and multiple people with trauma but no one is doing anything about it truly. Lmfao

Acting was cool though, average, nothing sparking, tear jerker moments.

Music was calm.

Wouldn't rewatch it.

Overall a good watch, probably truly too long for what it was, still have a lot of questions like so the girl was a stalker towards her brother or??? Someone answer this lmfaooo

Read More

Refreshing Twinkle of Youth

Unlike the name this drama is not light hearted but yet very beautiful in it's own way,
The story stars with Ha Eun Gyeol, a musical genius lives in a deaf family. he lived upto his parents expectations and put his family over everything,, Eun Gyeol find himself free only in music. he had to sacrifice his youth spirit and become mature despite of his age . But after a conflict with his dad he tried to gave up everything and even tried to broke his guitar, a mysterious master shows up and send back him to past when his father was also 18 years old just like him .........
Now Eun Gyeol will experience the Twinkling youth and also unfold the past of his parents . His dad was not born deaf but became deaf after a certain accident , he will learn his parents also go through hard times in their youth ....... I don't want to spoil so watch it yourself
This is one of the best drama of 2023 .

Read More

Very Cute and Sweet, but wasn't perfect

I wasn't really expecting much when started this series, all I know is that my sister really really liked this cdrama to the point where she watched it multiple times.

At first, I wasn't really that hooked, so I watched it at 1.5 speed. The first thing that I noticed is that the ML acting is such a robot, that it has no soul or emotions at all. I mean, I get it he's supposed to be a cold character, but he's doing it too well... and the FL acting, like she can't act at all like there's only a set of emotes that she can do and because of that, it dragged the others acting like they're all newbies. There are some side characters that I think the acting was okay.

Once I got past around ep 4-5 the acting really didn't bother me that much because the story got interesting, so I'm finally watching it at normal speed. The dynamic between the ML and FL is getting cuter and sweeter, I think that's what finally sold me on this drama. The development and interactions are soo good.

Also, jinyang the FL's best friend, is what I was expecting out of Jingjing in 'A Love So Beautiful'. This is how you write a best friend character. Jinyang is the example of the best friend character done right, she knows the flaws of FL's ex and she points it out and she's advising the FL to not get back with her ex since they're also over now. I don't know the full story of FL and her ex maybe there's more to that, I kinda wish that we had more backstory scenes of tong yao and jian yang like they didn't really show much of their relationship, i was kinda invested in them or maybe because i felt bad for jian yang, but regardless.. I'm still glad that we got closure for their relationship, so that's good.

Jinyang and Aija's relationship is really cute too, it's like a good side dish that's there to enhance the dining experience more, I hope we get a drama of these two actors, their dynamic is really cute.

Something that's really bad BAD in this drama, that you can't really ignore, is the korean dubbing... Like WTF was that, it's sooo bad. It threw me off when I first heard it, cuz it's very different from the actor's voices and it's very deep too. It's very obvious that the VAs are reading a script and trying to match the lip flaps, cuz they're saying it so slowly, but it's very enunciated, so I'll give them that, but again it's very weird... they could've just made the actors say it themselves instead of dubbing it since it is not very prevalent in the show.

The gaming side of the show doesn't really interest me. The show is very meticulously done, like i noticed the small details that the director is trying, so I wish they could've taken the time and effort to add something that would explain the know-hows of the game, that they are playing for me to care about the gaming side. Good thing I used to play dota, I kinda understand the overall gist of the game and the terminologies that they're using. Something about the FL and ML's team that I wish that they would do that they actually did was, I hope they would at least lose once if not a couple, because them keeping a winning streak would be unbelievable. I mean, it's possible for it to happen in real life, but it's only a minuscule chance and I'm glad they actually did lose a few games, and that actually contributed something to the development of the characters and their relationship as a team, so good job.

Good thing that in the beginning they only focused on the mains and fleshed out the characters for us watchers to get invested, they didn't really add crazy plots. I was kinda amazed because it's just you're typical drama that you would watch, they're not doing anything crazy and new, they're just doing it safely and hitting all the points of the story that you would kinda expect. When they add side plots, it's mostly contained within 1 or 2 episodes, it's mostly when they need to build up the next enemy that the team is going to face in the tournament. and later on, they started expanding the business/politics side of esports and it was aight.

Around the later parts of the show maybe ep 27 above, i started kinda falling off again. I don't know, something felt flat and kinda rushed, so i started watching it in 1.5 speed again, i mean I'm already this far so I just wanna end it. The ending was okay. Overall it's a cute and sweet drama. As much as it was only okay to me, I think i will rewatch some of its parts again and i would recommend this to someone.

Read More

There's No Beautiful Love At All...

I watched this 4 years ago when it was the hot topic in my country. However, I immediately got bored after 2 episodes and dropped it. But this week, I decided to give it another go and see if I'll like it since I've been really into cdramas this year. Sadly, I still did not like it, but I still managed to force myself to finish it.

First off! OH MY GOD... I don't get the hype for this. The audacity to call this "A Love So Beautiful" when this is such a fetish fantasy, poorly written drama. There was no beauty whatsoever, the characters make me fucking angry for how dumb they were all written, there was no redeeming arc, it felt like they were all the same as they were in high school when they became adults, they didn't mature at all.

In the beginning, it was BORING as hell, too many side plots to drag out the show, that don't even contribute that much to the story. I'm all for slow burn story and no matter how many side plots you're going to pull... IF you can pull it off and tie it all together. But here.... *sigh* oh my god, they were all just distractions.

Around the middle, it kinda started getting heated, because finally, the ML started moving and that's because 2nd ML is really doing that grind on getting the FL's attention. It was kinda exciting, but that's where the bad character writing really shows...

Out of all the characters, I think the 2nd ML is the only likable character here. The goated character. I would've understood if they ended his character after the High school part, but no, he showed up again when they were all in college, clearly to be wronged again. It would've been great if he and FL were the endgame.

ML is too cold as if he's some kind of robot, a character with no soul. Like the dude didn't even smile throughout the show... well, he did twice... like one in the early episodes if you watched the extra bits after an episode and second when Xiaoxi made her smile about something related to food???? When he was a doctor, I get it, you're too busy doing operations, I can also see he really wanted to spend time with FL, but he didn't do SHIT to at least explain his side to make FL understand as why she can't spend that much time with her. They only brought up the "Oh my patient died that day that's why I didn't say anything when you broke up with me, because I had a lot going on my head" like get that shit outta here... when you're girl is trying to break up with you, always try to save it and see what you can fix or did wrong, no matter how busy you are.

Xiaoxi. like, girl??? how can you be so dumb?? In the beginning, her character is only to annoy ML for how in love she is with him. I think 'When I Fly Towards You' did this well, But here it's sooo insufferable. and she kept bouncing back from ML to 2nd ML like she's soooo fragile when it comes to ML, but when they finally broke up, I don't get why they did this, they time skipped 3 years, right? and she got back with ML only in the span of 2 episodes?!??!?! It would've been great if they showed 1-2 episodes of FL healing from the breakup and what 2nd ML filled to help her with that.

Jingjing. I really had fate in her to be a good character since she was FL's best friend, but most of the time, she's so useless. When FL is going through struggles about love, she could've been there to give her the words of advice that she needs, but when she is actually there instead she would just "It's alright" and then a few moments later would encourage FL to fix her relationship with ML, like what?!?!?! I don't get how as a girl she can't see how red flag ML was. There was no moment for at least once to consider advising FL into loving the 2nd ML. smh...

Lu Yang. Also a dumb character. I understand you want to help your bro get his crush but at least point out his own red flags first. But what do you expect from a clearly idiot written character. Also, in what rights does he have to be angry with jingjing and throw tantrums, when jingjing admitted her love for the school doctor?!!??! he's just a friend?!?!? I would've understood if he pointed out that "no, you're still a minor, you're too young for him". On top of that, he finally confessed and tried to get closure, but the dude pushed her away, so wtf?!?!?

In the later episode, it kinda got fast paced a little and the ending is soooo anti-climactic, like wtf was that ending?!?!? and as I've said the characters didn't mature at all, because the way they act and talk is still the same, like you're all adults now, so at least act the part, mygoood...

I will admit this was a cute drama, I think I will like this IF I too was still in high school and didn't have a loved one, but sadly I'm not, so I wouldn't recommend watching this. was planning on doing a review without spoilers, but I couldn't really help it, as I need to point out where this drama fell off(in my opinion).

Read More

Evil for evil

A series about a lawyer who faces a corrupt law firm and gangs after he gets involved with a gang member and provides legal advice. He and his brother witness a crime scene. They are forced to help the criminal clean up the crime scene, so Soo Dong begins to exploit them until they become partners in the business. Because of one wrong referee’s decision, life changes for the worse, so he farms. The seed of evil was seeded within him until he became a monster. He was trying to get rid of the monster that frightened him. The lawyer was able to get rid of Moon Sang and tried to betray Seodong and get rid of him, but the opposite results appeared. He discovered Seodong and killed his brother. They were two monsters fighting, and killing became easy for the lawyer just to get rid of them. Seodong gave orders to someone to kill the policeman after he gave the policeman false information that Seodong would transport the body, which is the only way to catch him red-handed, but they killed the policeman to implicate Seodong and get rid of him, of course. The plot is wonderful and made me surprised by the lawyer’s decisions and how he changed, and after losing everything he felt remorse. The dialogues were wonderful. The acting was great. Very good, wonderful series worth watching

Read More

Nothing Special

Yet again, another Thai BL that, one, does not live up to its expectations, and two, does not live up to its title. This was a typical formulaic standard, trite, and tropey BL that I could have written even if I were in a coma. It is pretty much epigonic. Only the names were changed. Had this been more creative or even a thought-provoking series or one that even tried to be a little bit different, perhaps it might have been more impactful. As it is, it became another run-of-the-mill BL with little creativity with one exception. That exception and disappointment was the secondary relationship. They were most interesting but were not the main focus. Too bad. They were way more developed than the primary couple.

Read More

Light & Heavy at the Same Time

This drama had been on my plan to watch list for a while, but I had been putting it off because I was worried the comedy would be too in your face or forced, which usually makes it unfunny for me. However, and even though I was watching/started quite a few dramas already, I decided to add one more to the list on a whim. This was because the ones I really wanted to watch had entered their multiple day breaks and the other ones I do have episodes available to watch aren’t keeping my interest.

During the first episode, or at least the first 30 minutes or so of it, I thought I would end up dropping this because the beginning of the episode wasn’t appealing to me and the comedy did feel a bit forced. But this soon changed as I kept watching.

For me, the comedy handled the comedy aspects of it well. Even when the comedy was too far out there, it had the right amount of angst, mystery, action, and seriousness to balance it out. This for me worked well because they didn’t overdo it on either the comedy or the tragedy. Another issue I encountered was a bad case of second lead syndrome. Don’t get me wrong, the king was endearing in his own right, but I felt the second male lead was better as she would have never have to guess what was in his heart. However, in the last episodes, I am glad he didn’t do what I was yelling at him to do and get what I wanted because the female character introduced then was perfect for oorie second male lead. She was as gentle, honest, protective, and fierce, in her own way, just as he was in his. I would have honestly loved to watch a few more scenes with them interacting, but I am glad they didn’t give him a miserable ending, of dying, becoming a villain, or eternally longing for someone who didn’t love him back, as they sometimes do in other dramas.

This drama was light and fluffy, while also being angsty in the right amount and at the right time. I enjoyed watching a grand queen dowager who, albeit trusted the wrong individuals, was not a raging evil plotting monster. I also enjoyed watching that the king’s main court lady and eunuch were loyal and never betrayed him. And most of all I loved that everyone received their just desserts at the end. The OST was nice and for me this is worth rewatching.

Was it a masterpiece? No.

Was it what I needed at the moment? Definitely, yes.

Read More