Reviews

Must watch!

Wow. There's a lot I can say about this drama, but I'll start off by saying; Tale of the nine tailed is one of my all time favorite Kdramas and I enjoy watching it over and over again. It's probably my favorite fantasy drama ever! It has everything, a beautiful story, dramatic scenes, good music, great acting (and really good looking actors, I know that's a big bonus for people)
The plot intrigued me from the very beginning. Im usually not a huge fan of romance dramas, but this one is an exception. Lee Yeon and Nam Ji Ah were a perfect couple. They had so much chemistry, I love the back story of Yeon and Ah Eum too. It was very touching. These 2 were just constantly supporting eachother and there was something so magical about their romance. It felt so right and so real, the emotions in this drama were on point! I love the constant rain scene they show with Yeon giving Ji Ah and umbrella, it just feels so romantic. Also, Yeon is the definition of loyalty and I find him quite inspiring in that sense. I generally just love their love story,
Like everyone else, I really love Lee Rang and Lee Yeon. I do love brotherhood in Kdramas, especially evil siblings, lol. In a way, they really remind me of Stefan and Damon from "the vampire diaries". They may fight like dogs, but at the end of the day, they'd die for eachother. Even though Rang always claimed to hate his brother, in the end he was the who who saved Yeon and I loved seeing their connection deepen through the series.
The villan is also very interesting. The serpant, who has a unique ability to cause death and chaos by just touching people.
And of course, the old hag. She was really annoying sometimes, but deep down she loved Yeon and it was very touching to see.
The cast just feels perfect. Lee Dong Wook really seems to suit fantasy dramas, there's just someone so unreal and beautiful about him and IU love his character here. The orange hair suits him well too and his acting as always, was one point.
Jo Bo Ah was amazing as always too. The first drama I saw her in was actually "my strange hero", not this one. But her performance in tale of the nine tailed was so memorable and impressive that whenever I think of her this drama immediately comes to mind.
Kim Bum was probably the most impressive to me. Lee Rang was my favorite character and I think no one could have played him better than Kim Bum. In one scene, he could perfectly play an evil menace and in the next he could make us feel so much sympathy for his character.
The music adds so much emotion to the scenes, especially my favorite OST "Parting at the river of three crossings". It's just beautiful and adds magic to every scene. Everytime it starts playing, I instantly fall in love with the scene. And there are so many other good OST's this drama has to offer.
So, in conclusion, I LOVE tale of the nine tailed. I don't think there's anything I specifically dislike about this drama. I definitely recommend for people who enjoy fantasy and romance. Tale of the nine tailed perfectly ties together many different tropes and genres and creates a beautiful captivating story.

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I guess miscommunications works well with these two

*happy ending*


I think they did a great job recreating the manga. They really did well in acting the tense scenes and making the love scenes seems sensual but without showing too much.

The actors are very handsome as well. Though i dont know if it is their acting or the leads' characters that are the problem. I think their characters are too static and flat. I am kind of sad that the series only showcased the part where there is not much development in their relationship and in their own careers. This series became somewhat like an introduction series ofr a future season 2, if there will be one.

I hope i can see growth in the next season in their characters as well as the actors' acting.
I still love though that their kisses is not a peck but also not a very deep kiss. I can feel them being comfortable with one another.

Must watch BL i might say. ♥️

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Unique storyline. FL is incredible!

ep 1 . thinking to myself "hmmm is this something I would really watch all the way through?"
but the high ratings made me curious.
Ep 3 in "This is kind of funny & entertaining"
Ep 11 in " OMG why am I crying?"

The FL casting is just perfect. She's one of the most beautiful unique looking actresses & she pulled off the character perfectly.
I am sure this story isn't for everyone. It's a lot of weird humor with OTP personalities.
For me I love the unique story line & most of the casting. However since this is the first time I've seen Wang Ying Lu as Feng Bao Bao, so looking forward to her future works!

Beyond Feng Bao Bao?
Well there's Neo Hou, I am happy to see him beyond the Chinese Ken doll character dubbed in proper voice. A lot more personality with Wang Ye's character.

Enjoyable watch!

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An impressive and very well-made military drama.

I finished watching Glory of Special Forces more than a month ago. I was initially hesitant to watch it, because I thought 45 episodes was a bit long for a military drama, but I'm glad that I dived into it. After I've completed this drama, I was actually hoping there would be more episodes!

Things that I like, which kept me engaged throughout the series:
• It has a very engaging and well-paced storyline that made me excited to know what's going to happen next.
• Interesting characters with great character development, especially Yan Po Yue.
• I'm very impressed with Yang Yang's acting here. He's one of the reasons (or the major reason) why I picked up this drama. He was able to convey all emotions - sadness, joy, confusion, anger, fear, resoluteness - he nailed them all! I can't imagine someone else playing Yan Po Yue.
• The rest of the cast also gave good performances. Kudos to the entire cast and crew for a job well done!
• The drama showed the challenges and hardships that the soldiers had to go through in their training, as well their teamwork and the victories they gained in the process. There are also glimpses of their past, events that shaped them to become who they are.
• Opening and ending themes songs that fit the drama so well.

Other Comments:
• This drama has little to no romance - there are hints of potentially something developing between the main characters (like they could be more than friends), but that’s just about it, that angle is not developed further. It would be good to expound on that.
• It would be nice to have more stories about the next stage in their military careers.

Overall, I really enjoyed this drama, so I highly recommend it.

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NOT extraordinary, not awful

I hesitated about watching this drama for a long time, in the end it was neither as good as I hoped it would be nor as bad as it could have been.

One of the biggest problems I have with Extraordinary Attorney Woo is the way it infantilises and fantasises autism. I have no problem with the presentation of an autistic person who has an idiosyncratic speaking style, but the presentation of attorney Woo's speech is that it seems designed to be cutesy, and that was to be a problem with the entire presentation of her autism.

I cut the drama some slack for that because I know that Korea is an extremely ableist society. It demonises the different, and it may well be that the drama decided to present the attorney as a cute overgrown infant at least in part in order to overcome the deeply ingrained antipathy toward the different in Korea's extremely homogenous society. Nevertheless, it got very wearing. The intent may have been noble, but the effect it was, for me, counter-productive. Presenting her as “a genius fairy” was demeaning, and even her display of the characteristics of her autism was inconsistent.

Similarly I am fine with the idea that attorney Woo has cetaceans as her special interest. One of my best friends is on the spectrum and his special interest is Koine Greek grammar – his brother, further on the spectrum, has superhero comics as his special interest. Both display the same sort of devotion to their interest she does to cetaceans.

But again the presentation of her special interest was infantile and fantasised. Not in the fact that she always wanted to talk about them, that would be normal, but the whole fantasy element of her "Eureka!" Moments involving various cetaceans floating through a field of vision was disappointing for me. Disappointing because it suggested again that she somehow lived in a fantasy world , not like a normal human being .

That fantasy world was also evident in many of the cases. One of the worst examples was in episode nine, involving the "kidnapping" of the children from the Academy bus. Like the kidnapper, I find the whole concept of forcing children to effectively spend 16 to 18 hours a day in some form of schoolwork repugnant. Nevertheless, it is legal in Korea and the extent to which that episode relied on "jury nullification" and sheer feel good fantasy was disappointing.

The wide range of cases covered was a positive highlight, bringing attention to lots of serious issues that are seldom featured in K Dramas. Much of the dialogue when serious was also well thought out, and if it does anything at all to prompt some to consider neurodivergent people in a new light, that’s great. Park Eun Bin did a good job of portraying the character she was given, even if that character was in the end profoundly unsatisfying for me.

So in the end, I give this 6.5/10 – 0 points for its depiction of autism, 6.5 for its highlighting the issue OF autism, and for the often quite exceptionally relevant and well thought-out social issues covered in the cases of each episode

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Could've been better but if you like Saeguk genre visuals...not bad.

For the first 8 episodes as I watched and probed for fallacies, I wasn't sure what the viewers found problematic. It was really entertaining, true to the period-vampire genre, manageably melodramatic, okayishly romantic and the melodious music completely complemented the tone of the show. After that though, the melodrama heightens and believe me it's so hard to swallow. The scholar dude gets hurt so easily, stumbles around and falls in the arms of his lover way too often at the detriment of the show. I cringed hard at the bathtub scene. It was supposed to be romantic but it's so obviously wattpad romance, I'm not sure why he was 'in' the tub, he could just cut his wrist sitting outside? And a little overacting from Joon Gi, I mean I understand the pressure to bring out the beast and the pain together but still...his pining for Yung Sun wasn't really my cup of tea.
About the plot; it's meticulous in its own way and the period Korea felt like a perfect place to harbour one or two vampires. But from the context of vampire literature the show offers nothing new, it has all been done before. Which is why as a viewer I wanted them to at least get the well-worn story right. If it's not original, it can at least be good among the knock offs...but it falters. I grew tired of the book seller girl and her unwavering love? And everyone is too willing to give up their lives, lets say the heroes are like that, but so many people just blatantly talk back to Gwi as if they have no will to live-_- And I needed a little more background for Gwi, they could've cut down on the 'Scholar-Book seller walk in the woods' a little to give the villain some body. And anyone would know that an obvious way to kill a vampire is to trap him in the sunlight...it's odd that no one could found a way to do that or even think about it.
But it wasn't bad, the costumes are good, the first half is really enjoyable and the romance had its ground when the scholar wasn't so willing to feel so much. The rain scene in the forest is my favorite. I think there was scope of more internalised complexities. The prime minister's daughter and the scholar could have a better arc and the prince and the book seller too to counter the obvious romantic leads. Crown prince totally liked the book seller girl but then his interest just suddenly transformed? It was weird.
And the ending needed to be tragic. I was hoping the prince would marry Yung Sun and they both would miss their lovers and still love each other in their grief. Anyways, this show has 20 long episodes but the end doesn't give you that giddy feeling you want after such a long ride. So, 7.5 from me. Even though the parts are not good on their own, the show holds its ground and the logic of the story keeps you around. There are some nice acting too - the double role of the queen/scholar's past lover was nice. Gwi delivers some nice expressions of loneliness and arrogance while looking really pretty. I ended up liking the gisaeng Hyun Soo, she was elegant and always aware of her priorities. And even though the music is blaring at times, ruining subtle scenes, the OSTs aren't bad on their own. So, not all that bad, I guess.

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Hesitate to watch this cause Angelababy not my fav actress, a few times watch her just to find her acting lack something. But on the first ep I already see Ren Jia Lun act something beyond my imagination. Of course that make me have to watch this....

This story really interesting to watch. They talk about something taboo, mental illness & make us understand that this kind of illness we can't take lightly & sometimes we really need consult or just talk to someone & that's nothing to be embarrassed about.

Ok this drama talk about Liu Xia (LX), a psychological counselor & Qi Lian Shan (LS), a screenwriter. They accidentally become roommates & friend & finally partner for each other. Really interesting how their relationship grow, it's a little slow pace but how they build the friendship & trust is real & fit. I can feel Ren Jia Lun & Angelababy have good friendship, if not earlier at least in the time they shoot the drama.

What really interesting from this drama:
+ We can sometimes see Ren Jia Lun act combustible, due to him act according to script he write. We see him jump, do little karate, everything so cute that I never expected him to do...
+ We got more story than we expected. Haha... LS is script writer and during the drama he write 3 drama, so we get to see all the story he write comes to live with familiar face from all the actor in this drama. So yeah each actor also played more than 1 characters throughout the drama.
+ We got to see the real character true face from the drama LS wrote, especially the police story.

What feel a little lack:
- I don't like the ending. It feel it still leave something hanging in the air that need to be take care of before they close the curtain.
- Due to each character play several characters in the drama, I sometimes got confuse about it. Yeah i know they quite different, but still....

Overall this quite good drama to watch

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Disappointing and less than mediocre

In short - the story was shit, the acting was not very good, the main two leads were good looking and had some sort of chemistry.

Goodness, this is the worst drama I have watched this year by a long shot...What's with the story? Too many elements thrown into what turned out to be a crazy stupid plot. The beginning was kind of interesting and I stayed watching because of the cute actors (yes, I am superficial like that!). It was funny at places and that made it kind of fun. Then I started losing all sense of what the overall story was supposed to be. The antagonist at the beginning was lost during the middle and was made to pop up during the final episodes, so very conveniently just to tie the loose ends.

The historical, past life bits were fucking annoying. Some side characters were irritating and I wished them to be gone from my screen. The main leads, as I mentioned earlier, were eye candy and that's why tolerable but oh god I have some gripes for them as well. The female lead started grating on me with her childish way of speaking. Like please!!! The writers and directors need to start treating their main leads like proper adults pleaseee..The main lead's acting felt like 'acting' in so many places and it irritated me to see him not working even thought he's supposed to be a lawyer. I think this was because I recently watched a couple of lawyer-judge type dramas where it's more realistic..

Anyway, conclusion is this is like a bubblegum candy type drama that will ignite your interest in the first couple of episodes and then leave you feel vastly disgruntled at how fucking boring and mediocre it is.

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Loudest Silence

What is this? Who cuts onion here? Why did my eyes puff like hell after finished watching this? It's not even a melodrama with a tearjerker or dying character.
I like how the production team makes its total silence when it's Sakura's POV. It makes me feel like I'm taking a peek at his life without any sounds. I can only depend on the provided subtitles to understand what they're talking about. Maybe it's because ads break when airing on TV, but the randomly-ended backsound doesn't sound comfortable in the ears.

STORY - They brought me into a sea filled with each of the character's stories. It's a whole package of love, best friend, and family. Dealing with knowing you are losing something you take for granted while considering important people around you. There goes your butterfly effect which spans 8 years.
I also like how the writer makes Sakura being careful before confirming his relationship. He looks up various references related to their future before taking one last step. On the other hand, Aoba one sidely proposes to give up everything without asking Sakura what he actually wants makes me lower story rates to 8.0. Is she really ready to welcome their future together? If it takes another route of compromise, I can easily give it a solid 9.0.
ACTING - Standing applause to actors and actresses who have to learn and memorize sign language for this drama. All actors handled their character very well. Sakura's outburst, Aoba's despair, Togawa's dillema, Kaho's dwelling with prejudice, Sakura's family, Aoba's brother, Haruo Sensei, Toga Sensei and other actors are all well received.
MUSIC - I know "Subtitle" by Official Hige Dandism and have been loving it long before watching this drama. This drama makes the OST hits different and deeper than ever. The lyrics reflect the character's feelings well and convey them in a beautiful melody. Every time this song played in the background, it made me more immersed in the scene.

I much enjoyed this drama. Many of the problem's climaxes happened at unexpected times. That made me sit on the edge, anticipating what would unfold later.

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Show didn't know what it wanted to be

So, the last time I left a negative review of a relatively popular Kdrama, someone actually created an account to tell me how much they hated me. LOL. I continue to be befuddled by this confounding behaviour and would like to tell everyone who has the knee-jerk reaction to do this to please cool your heels, touch some grass, and realise that my opinion will not destroy your world. Also, I'm sure Rowoon can survive my bad review, promise.

Anyway, long story short - I really, really wanted to like this. Trust me - I wanted to squee along with most people, but I couldn't. Destined With You was a mess in terms of plot structure. It tried too hard to be everything and ended up becoming nothing. I was terminally bored throughout because there were a lot of filler characters doing pointless things when all I wanted was to find out what was up with the curse, what's up with our couple and their past lives. But these kept getting pushed back until when all was revealed, I was like, thank God it's over.

In the end, Show was just messy. Too many plot threads that ended unsatisfactorily. It’s an extreme manifestation of the current K-Drama trend to shove a mystery/murder/reincarnation plot line in a romance and done in such a way that it distracted rather than enhanced the story.

So, yeah, what a wasted opportunity, my friends. It could've been better.

You can read my full review here: https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/2023/10/14/destined-with-you-review/

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Bite Sized Saga

An excellent drama roller coaster ride. From the white truck of death/doom to the ear bleeding screams of angry women throwing tantrums, this show has a lot going for it. It's a murder mystery and chaebol family drama rolled into a 15 one hour episode mini-saga with a two finale episode.

The main characters are solid and well played. The character development is well told. Most of the main and supporting cast play their characters well enough to be relatable or create feelings about them and their situations. There's a fair amount of laughing at, crying with and getting mad for them throughout the show. The cast is also mostly attractive or otherwise fitting their character.

The music is pretty good, depending on your tastes, but the BGM fits each scene well. It's a great OST. I like the makeup and costumes also. The costume styles are very particular to the characters, right down to the nail polish or handkerchief. The sets are beautiful and fitting for each character and scene. The lighting and set designs cater to each character even.

The "who done it?" part of the story kept me guessing after every other episode. After the first few episodes, you think you know what's going on, but you change your mind at least twice by the big reveal episodes. I like how they wrap up the character storylines during the end credits also. Good or bad, every major character gets an ending of some kind.

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Like:
+ The story is pretty interesting. I like the plot of childhood friends meeting after a long time period and come closer again. And it's definitely different from the shows I watched before about this topic.
+ The start was really good. I liked the pace in which the story was told.
+ We get enough information to stay interested, but not too much to get bored after revealing everything all at once. It was a pretty exciting show.
+ It's pretty serious. Talks about serious topics and I think it would be important to put a content warning in it, but I guess we are not that progressive that shows have such things like books. ^^'
+ The production is nice. The different color shadings in different kind of scenes were nice to watch.
+ I really like the soundtrack!
+ They choosed child actors who actually fit to the adult version of them!
+ The actors were all good. Imho not absolutely great, but they did an okay job. I was a bit awkward in emotional scenes, but the more intimate scenes were great! Didn't make me uncomfortable at all and weren't overdone. It was sensitive and nice to watch without having to cringe about.

Room for improvement:
- I didn't really feel the chemistry between the actors. The actors were a bit stiff sometimes.. even tough I remember that I liked the actor of Ren more. He was a bit more charming I guess.
- The ending.. I think, after like episode 5 or 6, it was just too dragged with a lot of flashbacks. They should have told more about the story (I still have some open questions..) instead of dragging it for like forever with flashbacks and useless repetitions.
- After a good start it was a bit disappointing that they lost it towards the end. The pace was annoying and the open questions bother me.
- The ending was too rushed.

Overall I liked this drama. It was interesting, exciting, sensual and didn't make me uncomfortable with the scenes with a lot of naked skin. I am a really open person, but shows sometimes tend to make it weird and awkward with intimate scenes. But this one was well done. Although the actors were sometimes too stiff, these scenes were absolutely great (by both actors!)
I even wished for more intimate scenes with some progress in their relationship to show how they come closer and more comfortable with each other.

Normally I am more into fluffy RomComs (at least this is what I watched since I started with asian shows) but I really really liked this show. I didn't expect it, tbh, because I watched a lot of dramas in the last days, which weren't that good. So "Tokyo in April is..." was a great, refreshing surprise, even if it's definitely more serious and not fluffy at all.

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An okay watch

was going okay till ep 4 .... but i am going to skip to the final episode
edit - okay so i skipped to the final episode and found that the female lead too gets into the spying industry, a source to be specific and her ex husband and her do a mission together and after it's success they drink wine, talk and see their fortunes and the episode ends with them kissing, maybe the feelings are rekindled.
meanwhile fl's husband is alive (he was a spy too and was declared dead) and fl comes across him thinking it's a coincidence (they don't meet or talk tho) but it is not ! when she recognizes him she runs after him but he disappears but before disappearing he leaves a pin (used by dressmakers to pin fabrics) on fl's coffee table.

so even if you skip a few episodes from the mid of the series you won't miss too much.

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Drowning into deep fanstastic drama

Seriously Japan’s dramas gives a different vibe and pulls all kind of fans into them I love it there isn’t much complicate scripts and stories just a very simple drama with 2 boys how they met and got into relationship without much deep conversations I like it they don’t seem to give any intense romantic scenes but just a kiss with different vibe I mean their voices and expressions feels like we are in the script it really drag us into it omg the acting of cast were good I like when goofy boy falls in love with cool type guys I enjoyed this drama every week and waiting for updates I hope I can see them In new series all the best to them team

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