Aramintai

I really liked FL's recent drama Our Unwritten Seoul and tried to give this one another go after several prior tries. And, hotdamn, was it a boring, overacted slog. This drama's not even that old, but it's very old school. They don't film or act them like this one anymore, thankfully. And it's not even actors fault, I've seen them acting very well in other, more recent dramas.
I'm not sure I can even give this one a 7, overhyped af.
I've also tried watching this drama's recent sequel about FL's relative who lived in Mongolia for a long time, but couldn't even finish that one, it was just boring trash.

Since it's all beyond the scope of this drama, it doesn't help with overall impression at all here.
It would have been interesting to see how ML appeared in the modern times wearing his old garments and being all clueless, showrunners could have made a few more episodes about that. But as it is, he just appeared all confident and dandy, like he lived in modern times all his life and nothing about him was explained. Just made the ending worse, imho, because his weird appearance immediately raises dubious thoughts about whether it's all a dream in FL's head.
Personally, I would have been more fine with an ending where FL simply meets a similar loooking guy, no need to explain much that way.

It just doesn’t make sense. He appeared like he was living some high life since birth in the modern time. Not like how FL did in his time - with anachronistic clothes and no knowledge of what’s going on. Did he take some other guy’s place? Or magically inserted himself with all the credentials? Even if it’s magic, writers should have made it consistent. Otherwise it just looks weird and surreal, especially with other cooks also appearing in modern times. Makes one think that FL is still in coma, living a bizarro life in her dreams or smth like that.

I didn’t like the last 2 episodes. Everything starting from dowager’s birthday party up until FL returning back in time felt forced, overacted and written as if by a 12 year old. Competent political intrigue plots are rare in saeguks, this one here is somewhere at the bottom.
The ending was predictable, but I didn’t like that it wasn’t explained how ML went to the future as well, with all his memories seemingly intact. Should have spent less time on boring evil bishes twirling their mustaches and more on the main couple.
Anyway, this drama had lots of potential in the beginning, was pretty funny. But then food took over as the main character and it started to get boring. Remove all the food porn scenes going on here and evil mofos plotting their plots, and there’s actually very little that was going on between the leads to make any sort of impression.

Apparently it was metaphorical scene, not a real one, like somebody is out there wanting to kill him.

I don't think there's any really that is exactly like this drama. Lots of boss+secretary ones with skewed relationships, but nothing as crazy or unhinged as this one.
But if you want a good laugh about work colleagues turning from enemies to lovers I'd recommend Gaus Electronics. That one is absolutely hilarious and there are some pretty unhinged shenanigans.

That’s the only more or less fitting one out of all suggestions. And quite funny too.

It was a good movie and actors were great. Dunno why such low ratings.

I’m wondering how the f could that have happened, but judging by all the crazies in her husband’s family it’s quite plausible. That would make her mother-in-law and mistress totally unhinged though.

Everything was bugged, lol. Strange that nobody came to arrest FL and ML in that cabin, since they were likely tracked through bugs as well.

I thought at first it was India, but they've said Middle East, so maybe Iran. Iraq was mentioned as is in the drama.

Episode 6 was a rather hamfisted cheese with its reveals, but episode 7 got me disappointed. Instead of political intrigue it's back to the initial makjang bs about the squabble concerning money and inheritance 🙄, another story about a crazy chaebol family. Look at the closest relatives for a culprit, I guess, statistics don't lie.

Also, I'm disappointed that FL, who is so smart and who was able to notice and gather some dirt on her mother-in-law (though not the juciest one), hadn't noticed her husband living a very busy triple (!) life, getting medals in NK, working as a politican in SK and having a side bish with a kid. I mean, no man is that perfect at hiding things, he's like a super spy or smth, lol. Makes me think FL and her husband were estranged for a long time and didn't really care about each others lives. At least that would make her affair with ML just after her husband's death quite plausible.

The plot about the submarine also starts to make little sense. Why invent this elaborate bait and switch plan with lots of assumptions for FL, that could go in all sorts of wrong directions? They wanted her to expose the existence of the submarine, but they also wanted to kill her, but they also hired a bodyguard to protect her, and they also assumed that he would seduce her to discredit everything she said about the submarine, so that the submarine would be thought a myth. At some point the writer just got lost in his own sauce, I think.
Also, if any rich b*tch with money was able to buy parts of the cutting edge military submarine and its schematics, and then build it somewhere, there'd be lots of them swimming around, threatening every nation on the planet. Irl those parts are not for sale to anybody outside of government contracts and even then there's lots of red tape and regulations. And every nation guards their military innovations as top secret.

I feel like people fake outrage about this drama just to have something to b*tch about, the fictional politics here are fictional, there's no need to take it seriously or personally. And it's pretty mild compared to some cheesy plots US media has and nobody's batting an eyelash about those. Sure, this drama's based on current irl political tensions and fear mongering, easily fed to gullible neurotic social media. But just relax and enjoy the show, will ya? It's fiction, nobody's trying to offend anybody with this, it even says so at the start of every episode.
And the only provocation here is thought provocation. Look around what's going on around you, stop being buried in your own little world. You may not care about politics, but politics cares about you, whether you like it or not. And someday, because of some politician's ego, this sort of s*it may very well happen for real.
I can very well understand the idea behind this drama. No sane person wants a war, SK people's fear about war with North Korea is understandable, they're living it every day. They sure as hell don't want it on their tiny peninsula, which will get blown up into smithereens by nukes, while the big guys behind the scenes are duking it out on their territory. And since they're not moderated by the "big brother" like some other countries, they're allowed their freedom of speech and expression to manifest in plots like these. If somebody doesn't like it, it's their problem, the drama was made for SK people in the first place.
Overall, the only real controversy here is that the writer is pro-unification and came out rather snobbish and one sided about it, like it’s all up to SK and NK is just waiting with open arms to embrace capitalism, lol. Afaik, SK citizens currently are not in favor of this at all, as it will tank the economy and make everybody poorer for generations to come. But that doesn’t stop some of their pro-NK aligned politicians from trying, judging by their history.

She's not even a wife, but a mistress. But the gall of her is somewhere in the stratosphere.

Yea, it felt like there was something off about the husband and it wasn't related to politics. For a mistress, his bish is very shameless. Just like the rest of his awful family. But most of all the husband, he had a child with a mistress at the same time FL lost hers, meaning he was cheating on her for many years. FL should have divorced him ages ago. I'm not sure she even loved him anymore, or just stayed for the sake of his career. She's always looking cold and composed, it's hard to tell.

And also, maybe a nitpick, but most of the characters are so well spoken, super smart, calm and to the point in this drama it's taking out my immersion. It's like they've prepared their speeches before hand. Especially jarring are the awful family interactions. The writer should have made it messier to be more realistic.

People these days just look for something to be outraged about. I don't care whether it's Chinese bots, or real idiots with nothing better to do, but China's government been known to be unable to take a joke, or separate fiction from reality when it comes to other countries fictional representation of China. There are plenty of ridiculous examples. It's just 🤦‍♂️worthy, nothing interesting going on here.
Also, are these shows even legal in China? If not, then who the f cares?

Just started this. I thought it was some sort of espionage action thriller, judging by the trailer, but in the first episode all I'm seeing the regular makjang bs about chaebol family squabbles over money. Is this actually gonna get good?

Some people can't separate fiction from reality. China suffers from it as a whole. Nothing new here, move on.

Some people can't separate fiction from reality. China suffers from it as a whole. Nothing new here, move on.

It was basically food pron 🤣There's some of it here as well, when people eat food and get all sorts of whimsical CGI backgrounds while basically orgasming from its taste.