2021

solid watch. may or may not have liked an ending with more definitive closure bc im an overthinker. idk if it somewhat implies det oh killed himself but . .. n..e .way

i remembered this differently from childhood. my mind made it more serious than it actually was. it also made me forget entirely about the two male leads probably bc ML was single-handedly the most annoying motherfucker ever gracing TVB cop-romcoms. except for that lunatic bastard this drama was ahead of its time. + brownie point for the ending wrt the romantic plot but why the fuck did that subplot have to exist at all. like the ML is literal trash why are we even in love w him to begin with?? explain.

but like it was whatever. not terrible. might have ruined another childhood memory idk

enjoyed the first nine(ish) episodes a lot bc it twas fun and nostalgic.

that will be all.

revised as of feb 2022: objectively deserved at most a 7 (originally 5.5) but i retain my thoughts regarding soojin. her story in the webtoon is iffy bc of the gratuity of writing female characters as victims of interpersonal violence as mere plot devices or a way of ""Glowing Up"" from internalised misogyny but goodness gracious at least she wasnt given a chance at Better Writing just to do the eXACT same thing. i had no expectations for the webtoon bc it hasnt been discussing any of its themes properly/in a well-rounded manner from the beginning but i eXpected the drama to at least reconcile that, or put some thought into those concerns, except they stuck to the status quo and pulled the exact same cliche shit and im just uGH. one can argue the entire story was riddled with cliches anyway but things like love triangles and plain jane meets local hottie aren't typically ""harmful"" whereas vilifying women (esp 2FL) and making them jealous and misogynistic is Characteristic of kdramas esp kdrama romcoms and goodness it was 2020, could they rlly have not done better??

much diversity very noice. visuals and cgi are gorgeous?? any production complaints will be ignored. gave a western-movie feeling except that might be bc space actions have been more prominent in the west thus far all g idc about western movies. plot is not exactly novel but it works and it’s fun and easy on the mind. fun watch.

my brain malfunctioned trying to understand the viet dub for the korean at the same time as trying to listen to the english, which i cant hear if i dont have captions on, but then i also need to process the eng subs for the other languages while also processing that the viet dub isn't  matching the eng sub at the same time bc my eyes are attracted to words SO im forced to read the subs even when i can understand the dub SO im reading oNe thing and hEARING another SO!!!! i have to process two things at once on top of like A Multitude Of Other Subtitled/Captioned Languages which is a :D anyway adhd ppl should watch this in intervals in only One language please make it english subtitled to facilitate the english dialogue while also translating the rest of the languages into just english make it consistent pls or ur brain will die ,, i breathe

jesus christ it took me ages to find time to finish this so my emotions have been too divided (read: compromised) to invest Wholly into this movie (meaning I will rewatch it again in one sitting sometime) but still it managed to beat some emotions out of me so :D fun, fun watch! also, cgi out of ten?? so gorgeous?? the ost is also So fucking gorgeous and the characters were likeable. i lay my heart and soul out for the princess zhang ping/fang yue she deserves better.

uh . idek. just vibes and feelings i guess that’s ok. things can lack substance and still be a sufficient distractor

this somewhat felt like a fever dream idek. when they had the scene where the orphan gang ran through the streets while being chased, laughing, i was like ye this group is gonna perish and Then They Did lmfao. kinda wished they spent more time on developing the friendship so more emotion was beat out of me but alas. i enjoyed him law's character a lot, might be one of his better characters in his filmography i guess. also wanted to see more of joyce but they kept pulling her away smfh anywAY i guess it was a solid watch.

so we got hit with an open ending again typical tvb buT i think the drama was very well done. themes of life and dreams and struggles and relationships are so down-to-earth and heartwarming. i love the friendship between the women so much like that shit rocks im head over heels for that shit i just want to see more female friendships in dramas?? this delivered 10/10. all the characters are so likeable and there wasn't any women-on-women hate and it's just. Women. 

also edwin's character is queer-coded idc he's gReat. he made Tong Yan so likeable and cute?? matthew ho's character was also really cute and i just,,, his love for Lai Mei is so . kind and pure and youthful i just hhhhhh. it was so bittersweet the look he gave her at the end, he loved her so much??? a romcom where the two male leads were actually likeable and root-worthy??

AND there's MORE: Lai Mei is Such a likeable FL like she's so kind and supportive and gentle and mature??? everything i love in people. the friendship she formed with Matt's ex-wife, Shum Wai, is !!!! the way they were so kind to each other and helped each other, im Floored. alSO special mention to harriet yeung i lOve her Kiki, so funny and mature and chic. amazing characterisation. i love more roles like this for her. also really liked ashley chu's Mandy too. loving all the friendships between the ladies i just have to say it again. ok that's all. great drama. one of tvb's better recent releases.

ye i remembered this differently from childhood too..............all i actually remember was that (1) kevin cheng was framed, (2) roger kwok was evil, (3) yoyo mung got kidnapped and stung by an electric gadget thingo (it was a dog anti-barking collar smh), which i guess sums up the drama pre neatly. anyway pre fast paced and easy to watch. early 2000s tvb dramas were always better anyway. very on brand of roger kwok's character to still be filled with pure rage, reminds me of his character in black heart, white soul. that will be all. also. hei's mother was so unlikeable why did he forgive her smh. liked hei's friendship w his bro in law tho that was cute.

ooF. that was a Solid drama. very well-paced and i think, quite well-written (esp for recent tvb dramas, i meant for that to be a backhanded compliment ://). the ending was also good, in the sense that it wasn't out of the blue/rushed—we saw her comin'! literally from day 1 Sum Sir was a lacklustre boyf lmfao. im glad Wing Jie put her foot down in the end and asserted her boundaries. also i thought the cases were very well-written and hella emotional and the characterisation for the villains was also well-done (like they're rlly smart?? and hella devious?? and So in love goddamn, power couple).

personally tho, i would've liked more action and less...uh, romantic struggles in the name of characterisation. the protagonists fell a little flat bc there were sO many of them (rosina and joman had no real role except to be love interests smfh) so everyone feels so detached?? or boxed up (in their respective romantic lines). it's fair since it's plot based but it feels a little dry. it was hard to be invested in any of the characters or really root for them because they weren't explored outside of their jobs and rls. nonetheless im glad to see ruco again!! his Sum Sir was so fucking good at martial arts there was no way he was ever gonna hit a real challenge. (on that note, the final showdown between him and Ngai Chi Lok was anticlimactic af (and a teensy bit cheesy) but that is expected of tvb lmfao). anYWAY, joman is cool i rlly liked her here despite her having little to do and she's sO pretty here too.

one last thing - im rewatching ruse of engagement atm which was filmed 10 yrs ago!! roe was certainly better in the action/character/emotional department but sb is more refined and had better overall writing quality. roe's ending was...uh...but turns out it's also more fun to watch. no matter, sb is solid but the rating is for quality and less...my emotions. aight time to pull this all nighter for my assignment \o/

what a fucked ending! :DDD 

upon rethink—i guess it made sense for the story it was based off of (like bc it was a buddhist fable) but mAn im just peeved at comedies ending non-happily like ik it wasn't a Bad ending but like,, why add a romantic plot-line then if you were gonna doom it from the start smh (it felt unnecessary?? no. like. unwarranted?). it's a slapstick romcom! i Want those unrealistic "it all works out in the end" typa endings bc it's a goddamn Slapstick Rom COM! you're supposed to be stupid and lighthearted, why did you have to curveball the audience just to be, idk, a "different" romcom, smfh, give me the cliches, you're Supposed to BE one

revised as of jul 2022: upon rethink, i genuinely do not know what this drama came out to do lmfao like. not a single thought up in here tbh. 

truly a [smitten little sigh]. what a gem. truly my perfect little romcom. not a single unlikeable character bar seongyeom's dad and danah's middle brother. really, i was gonna give this an 8 bc i lost momentum for it halfway thru and it took forever for me to get back to it (literally yesterday) but it was seamless how i fell right back into the drama's charms so it deserved the max of the rating category it fell into. maybe one day, when i watch it again more consistently, i'll up the rating, but for now...

am glad everyone got their happy little ending! sO well-shot too, the cinematography is out of this worlD. but wait, i just remembered: wtf happened to ms bang??? like seongyeom's old mentor?? i hope she got her happy little ending too. twas the most wholesome and cutest shit ever. i know it only took me a million years to finish but it was so thought-provoking and sweet and emotional and i cherish this drama. it's one of the better kdramas ive watched and im happy to have a kdrama that i wholeheartedly love that is also just Objectively great as well.

it truly was so healthy and real and good for the soul (lifted verbatim off someone else's review). each and every character's growth was so wholesome and nice and emotional to watch—i'm so grateful with how it handled the sexuality discussion (for yejoon; tho i do understand that we as a society should also move forward from making our gay characters fall into unrequited romance w str8 men). danah's growth made me so happy for her too. honestly, i think she was my fc but i genuinely loved the whole cast. maeyi's character being ace was such a balm for my soul, i cherished her character wholly. am genuinely very glad for everyone's little happy endings (the talk they had at the end about it was so well done and seamless). on that note, dialogue was So well-written, the conversations these characters have is sO natural & real & acting was superb. great ending too, well done!!

im fuckin speechless what the fuck [derogatory]

a 7 is generous bc idk how the fuck to rate this. its not Bad Bad, its not a No Opinion, it's not a Good?? it's in its own What The Fuck category. it's such a sideswipe idk how to even Feel.

this is such an outlier imma just leave it un-rated

ok so at the start it was ok so if i had to give it a rating it would be for those first couple eps where things were Epic and Action-Packed but heading towards the end the plot just got...?? and the whole secret parentage thing was... and then most of the death scenes were . so abrupt with no emotional follow-thru that i just felt Cheated and then the ending was just w??hat?? like the build-up wasn't satisfying at All even if it was intense buT a scene that i really enjoyed and thought was well done was when dor po stopped fuquan from killing himself and then slapped him and the bLood that smeared his face! as dor po yelled at him that they were all fuckin family what the fuCK is he trying to compete for and it was So good bc he was telling Everyone in that fuckin court off but he looked so Sad bc he lost so much?? and then he basically disowned fuquan on the spot (his older brother!), handed his rightful crown back to kangxi and then just walked the fuck out, stripping off his bodyguard uniform as everyone stares after him in awe. got some good emotions!

on the other hand, i hated the part where empress dowager had the audacity to look heartbroken when she found out the very grandchild she tried to kill was still alive :// ma'am. you tried to kill him as a baby why tf are you suddenly happy he's alive ??? she went UNPUNISHED and had the audacity to ask for foRGIVENESS!! AND when she died they passed her off as a Good Person in the records???? YIKES. (and duan man...yikes pt2).

anyway. ye. un-rated for now im just ?? it's such a bizarre storyline idk how to reconcile that w my average rating system,,

ost was good tho

this took me way too long to finish. i literally had to swap to viet dub three eps in bc i kept stalling ?

i cannot wax enough poetic about priscilla and how great she is, she gets so much flak for simply . breathing but she holds her ground well and watching her sparks so much joy?? i always thought she was so good at her emotional scenes and i'm right?? i watched her breakdown scene (ep25) like 3 times and cried through all three times. technicalities aside, she's always expressed the nuances of her characters and made them human? her attention to detail and microexpressions are good too. she did well!

now to the drama. lots of ppl said it was plotless and had no story—i disagree. the drama set out to be a slice-of-life, character-driven story; i never expected a grand story to begin with. it made sense that it was just simply following the life and struggles of its characters. i think the more notable flaw is the structure: the drama added too many loose details that they never had enough room to flesh out to begin with, so there was a lot of holes in the end (e.g. how did grace and alison make up? what was moon's mission, how did she get help in the end? why was grace's husband seen with his ex before the accident? etc.). i think the drama may have benefitted from an overarching theme of the sisters working through their misunderstandings and mending the cracks in their rls rather than having independent character arcs (esp w such a big cast). i feel like that would have helped with the cohesiveness of the story and also flesh out the character rls better.

nonetheless, i liked it. it was fun. it's a shame that hera's character died bc i felt she had great chemistry with pris and they would've made a fine pair of sisters had her character been developed into alison's confidante rather than being killed off to become alison's hallucinatory conscience ghost (which wasn't out of pocket, but still a shallow plot-device). lastly: big kudos to karl ting and judy kwong bc their characters were very endearing.

one of tvb's better dramas this year.

well that was . fun

tbh—and it seems to be a common occurrence—the overacting did catch me off guard;; i didn't expect them to translate that exaggeration from the anime to real-life (i wasn't sure that was a good idea but you get used to it) but i guess it makes sense considering the insanity of the characters. yumeko's actress, hamabe minami, did really well nonetheless! she rlly bodied yumeko's character and she suited the role neatly.

i'm not too?? keen on maeri's depiction, however—she's my favourite character from the anime but she gave off a more lóc chóc vibe here?? she didn't come off as the really intelligent, calculating, no-bullshit, rational, tsundere-type maeri from the anime and there was little chemistry for the yumeko-maeri pairing as there was in the anime :o other characters were okay i guess, i thought midari's actress did pre well, sumeragi's actress wasn't bad either. im not entirely sure how i feel about nishinitounin, but at least she was entertaining. i never liked s1 mayunda so whateves. ririka has black hair? anyway. sayaka was . rlly emotional here. her gesturing dramatics were entertaining even if not quite expected for sayaka's character. i despised the character jun and i also felt like the actor for him was a miscast appearance-wise but he still delivered the douchebag performance. lastly—what the literal fuck was suzui's actor smoking lmfao. can he refer me to his supplier.

idk what to say about the cinematography and production and whatnot bc i havent seen enough japanese dramas to know the norm but it was a vibe. actually, idk how i feel about the Freeze Frame So I Can Do My Dramatic Monologue Spiel thing bc that was also a direct translation from the anime and it can look a lil silly but i guess it fits in w the general silliness of the drama.

anyway it was entertaining. actually a rlly good watching experience.

a good time. just a couple of dudebros hanging out, having fun, sleeping till the sun goes down. young ppl things. i had a good time. got me my serotonin

listen. im so angry about this bc it was a sOLID plot, with good enough intrigue, and solid characters, a cute little women's friendship thingo, and enough mystery, aND they END it like THAT??????? bRUH.

also, why the fuck was jonathan cheung casted here, he had no role. he's a B-list actor at least.  why the hell was he here for like 20 mins screen time altogether??

anyway. im disappointed. they literally pulled "and it was all a dream" typa shit and like??? i was robbed. this whOLE time. there was no closure or catharsis at all. fuck all this.

i enjoyed my time! was really looking forward to linda's comeback and she did grEAT. im glad she's also getting the recognition and praise she deserves. i always thought linda and priscilla were the best at their emotional scenes and i was absolutely correct. linda's character, eman, was kind and mature and assertive and though she was close to linda's other roles, maybe even linda's real personality herself, she still did So Well. she was so natural as a doctor. her chemistry with kenneth and kevin was really good, esp since they never collaborated before—i'm absolutely convinced they're bffs no arguments needed.

i also liked the mature romantic lines, like it was so soft and quiet and lowkey. im into that shit. every pairing was cuTE. not a single unlikeable character except gabriel harrison and akina hong's charas yikes. the child actors also did rEALLY well. the storyline with mr. khan's son and his friend made me hella emo. all in all, while it's not anything revolutionary or wOW, it still did what it came to do and the ending esp was great. at least it tied in neatly, full circle, gave everyone the closure we all deserved. good for you!

(the only peeve i have rn is some supporting characters were given a teeny tiny bit of characterisation that was never followed up again like regina ho's character for example, or him law's character's cousin and the implied coupling with that other doctor???—it felt a little abrupt. the politics side of things was also kinda . frayed(?) not quite under-developed just. anticlimactic i guess. it was solved neatly but so . easily? in a way. i guess there's no suspense. old tvb dramas used to go all out with the final showdown but nowadays, they've opted for a more lowkey approach and idk how i feel about that lmfao.) n e way.