Breeze by the Sea (2024)

Despite a very common plot, there are many touching moments

Subjective Gut Rating: 8.25

I am reviewing “Breeze by the Sea” as a standalone drama, and not an adaptation of the Korean drama, “Top Star Yoo Baek”. Hey, this drama is directed by Peter Ho and got a small cameo and was quite funny. And he lost weight as he proclaimed!

“Breeze by the Sea” has a very common plot that we’ve seen in many other slice-of-life dramas before, about a city person moving or spending time in a rural area/village/island. You see the foreigner, in this case, superstar Bai Yin Mo, escaped to the island of Kinmen after a series of scandals and a botched reputation. Even though nothing is unique, there are many touching moments and I have shed quite a few tears.

Bai Yin Mo has a difficult personality and was coined by our female lead as a sea urchin: a spiky personality yet mushy and caring inside. Whether intentional or not, Bai Yin Mo becomes the catalyst and the main driving force in helping these islanders mend their broken relationships. While helping others and with the support of our strong and resilient starfish female lead, Li Hai Nuo, Yin Mo slowly put down his spikes and relaxed his difficult personality.

In dramas like this, there's a 50-50 chance that you will encounter villagers/islanders that might annoy the heck out of me because they are too loud or annoying. I’m glad we got a lovely bunch here. They were a little much in the first couple episodes, but toned down and became a found family for our ML. They actually aren’t that loud, which was a great relief for me. Their stories are touching and realistic, though not unique. The acting of the supporting cast is good, especially the veterans.

Speaking of veterans, we have a lovely grandmother! Each time there’s such an adorable, caring and perfect grandmother, I pray to the drama gods that they don’t kill her off (not saying this as a spoiler or not, just a general comment and wish). I love her relationship with her granddaughter Hai Nuo, but even more so is the precious friendship/found familial bond with Bai Yin Mo. She provides the family warmth that Yin Mo never had. I love the scenes of the three of them together.

We do have a love triangle here, but it’s not a bad one. It’s nice to have a second male lead who is genuinely a good guy and even become ‘bros’ with ML. It was hilarious at first when they were drunk and called each other ‘bros forever’ but afterwards, it’s just cringey when I heard the word ‘bro’ again and again.

Even though there’s a love triangle, romance is not a focus in this drama. Bai Yin Mo and Li Hai Nuo have many scenes together and they are fun with great chemistry. Their relationship is slow burn but developed naturally from disliking each other, to friends, to lovers. They support each other during tough times. Unfortunately, we only got two cute and fluffy scenes before life happens and derails them. I am especially disappointed in the last episode which I feel is a very rushed ending to their romance. I felt cheated like we skipped some scenes and they just showed us the conclusion. As much as I love all the cute illustrations (and they are SUPER cute), it feels like I am missing a full episode. Therefore, I docked 0.25-0.5 points from this drama. Arghhh….

Another negative surprise is the amount of product placement. I don’t think I’ve seen so many in a non-BL Taiwanese drama before, especially in the last quarter of the drama. Maybe they really need a lot of money to bring the whole cast to Kinmen to shoot this drama.

I would recommend this drama if you are a fan of and are craving island slice-of-life dramas. There are many touching and realistic moments that I love, but nothing you’ve never been before. “Breeze by the Sea” has solid acting, a nice small town feel of Kinmen and beautiful seaside shots. It’s heartwarming and healing.


Completed: 2/9/2025 - Review #542

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Comforting but borderline boring

I love healing dramas, the ones that are calming and deal with Human interactions.
This one checks the box yet have some negatives that made me rate it less than I intended to.

From the outside it's a calming and light drama that deals with serious issues in lighter way and ensure that everyone gets his happy end and/or move on from whatever trouble got them stuck in their lives.
Acting was great and well balanced from the funny to sad to lovable moments.

On the other hands, the stories were too boring, and some of the characters were uninteresting and very skippable, the two leads are just another story in the series, they don't seem more important or anything just like any normal story shown here, combine this with 18 episodes made the drama a little hard to enjoy.

Overall, not bad but not good, for me there is a thin line between a human, calm and comforting drama and a very slow, boring and longer than necessary drama, this one fluctuate between both sides.

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