Strong start, awful middle, and strong finish

I won’t lie and say I’m not disappointed with how this drama turned out, because I was initially extremely interested in this drama and couldn’t wait for next week to come faster. While the drama has a strong start with an amazing cast, music, and special effects, the storyline starts dragging and repeating itself midway through. This loss in momentum is the main reason why I and so many other people ended up rating this drama a lot lower than it should have been rated. Additionally, the romance fell extremely flat for me, and while there wasn’t much character development and interaction, the leads seemed to have fallen in love almost instantly due to the one day they spent together as kids and a few strange encounters when they were 20 years older. This led to a lot of unclear character motivations since all laws of logic were pointing to the fact that they shouldn’t be this attached to one another after having met just a handful of times. Ignoring all that, I did think that the drama had a very strong finish. The last episode, while extremely cheesy at the end, was intense, heartwarming, and quite satisfying. I was not expecting much at that point and was actually pleasantly surprised. All in all, I’d only recommend this drama for those who can’t get enough of Kim Yoo Jung and Ahn Hyo Seop (like me!) or otherwise enjoy strangely paced historical fantasy with a million plot holes. Everything about this drama screamed perfect, and it’s a shame that the repetitive and dragged out writing had to let the drama down like that.

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sigh

Here’s the thing. I really hate to be writing a review this negative because I genuinely loved the crap out of this drama all the way until the last quarter. At that point, the pace of the drama heavily slowed down, and I began to grow more annoyed with the leads. Mostly it was the FL that kept making everything into a weird metaphor or just deeper than it really was. A drama that is also guilty of this is Run Onn, and I gave that drama three stars… Originally I could appreciate how poetic the drama was, but the longer the FL went on about “the meaning of marriage” or “what IS real love” or, my favorite, “collecting your memories in a star pocket and using that star pocket when things get tough.” She just lost me there at the end. I loved how the drama focused on three different couples, it’s three romances for the price of one drama! It’s great, right? Except the pace of the romances was completely different for each couple, which really threw me off there at the end, because one second I would watch CEO Ma and Soo Ji sucking each other’s faces off, then the camera would suddenly flip to Se Hee and Ji Ho awkwardly holding hands as if they were 10 and not 30 and 38. This weirdness made the chemistry between the leads feel a little off, because watching the other two couples makes you strangely aware of how slow the main romance is progressing. There was just too much distraction from the main plot, really. I don’t know how to explain this any other way, I’m sorry. As I said in the beginning, the entire drama just took a nosedive, and I was honestly just generally confused by the actions of all the characters. The female lead suddenly began to ponder the entire reason for her existence and got into this weird depressive funk and up and left her husband for god knows how long. Then, she shows up without explanation at NIGHT, sleeps with him in the same bed, then wakes up and makes him breakfast like NOTHING HAPPENED. God, I just wanted to punch her at that point. Excuse me ma’am, you literally confessed your love to this person in your voice-over several times, then you LEFT him for NO REASON, then you have the audacity to show up and just expect him to forgive you after you broke his heart and made him cry for you. Not. Cool. While I’m criticising the female lead, I’d like to just add that I would have liked more closure with her writing career, and I was, once again, pretty frustrated when she was being indecisive as hell about the job offer. Just overall, the main couple could have been done so, so much better, and this is why I really appreciated the second couples, which were, sigh, not without their faults by a long shot. I feel like Soo Ji was initially a little dramatic about her life situation and her reason for pushing people away, otherwise I thought her story arc was probably the best out of all the characters. Loved how strong she was and how she refused to wear a bra half the time, because I felt that on such a deep level haha. Overall, she and CEO Ma were my favorite couple in this whole drama. Rang and Won-Seok…. yikes. First of all, Rang has some serious issues she needs to fix, because even at the end of the drama I felt that she was toxic and manipulative as hell and just a poor excuse of a girlfriend to Won Seok. I supported their breakup wholeheartedly and thought that this drama could have shown how they recovered from their breakup and maybe found some love at the end with people they were truly compatible with. The whole, “oh we dated for 7 years and i know you inside and out. I cannot live without you after all wah wah wah” storyline that happened instead was just disappointing and didn’t solve their initial problem: She wanted to conform and get married (nothing wrong with that) and he couldn’t marry her because he was insecure about his financial situation and was just not really all that jazzed about getting married in general, which is FINE but this is also why they should have just broken up and found better people that could complement their interests better. My Bo Mi and Won Seok ship sank rather quickly though… Now that I’ve got all my grievances out of the way, I’d like to say that I really liked the cat. Thank you for reading this long-ass ramble and good night. Watch something better please. Your time is more valuable than this.

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Comedy and angst all around

I'm not kidding, I was sobbing for nearly the entirety of the last episode, it was so good. This drama was so not what I expected, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, since what I got was a more wholesome plot that didn't purely rely on the romance to keep it afloat. The comedy was really REALLY well done (I made a couple of collages with screenshots of my favorite moments. That's how good it was) and the romance was paced just perfectly (I would say even slower than your average drama) to instead add more substance to the leading storyline. Dong Joo was a bit of a brat for parts of the drama, but she made up for it with her badass bow skills in the end, so ain't even that mad. I'm not gonna lie, I was at first really confused about where the storyline was going cause EVERYONE LOOKED THE SAME, but once I got used to the characters' faces, I began to understand the plot and was totally on board with everything by the time the ending rolled around. THE ENDING. OH MY GOD THAT ENDING WAS SO DIFFERENT. The authors really took a risk with the ending that they wrote cause it deviates so much from what you would think would happen. But honestly, the bittersweetness of it just made the ending SO much better and so much more memorable than if they had stuck with the predictable storyline. And can we for a second just TALK ABOUT THAT OST? The OST is freaking gorgeous, the music alone probably contributed to half the tears I shed during this drama. Definitely would recommend it to anyone who appreciates a refreshing storyline, cute romance, and a plot with actual substance.

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Cute and refreshing!

The writer must really hate the characters, because whenever something bad happens, it gets worse. And when you think it can’t get worse, it gets EVEN WORSE and I love every minute of it

This was really cute! The 20 episodes just flew by, it’s crazy how quickly this drama ended, considering I usually find it a tad hard to finish extended kdramas. I really liked this overall, the show was absolutely hilarious, especially in the first half, and had some really cute romances in the second half. I still can’t decide whether or not I like that Welcome to Waikiki has a more realistic take on relationships than most kdramas, but it was definitely refreshing at the very least and really fit the overall theme of the drama. I’d definitely recommend this as a light pick-me-up kdrama where you don’t have to think too much or worry about too much conflict. All of the ships were super adorable, and one of them I definitely did not expect but ended up being my favorite one surprisingly! The only things I’d say were negatives in this drama are the fact that some jokes were feeling reused a bit (there’s only so many times a character can fart in their sleep before it becomes gross and not funny) and the fact that the “main” couple of this drama had a weird uneven development to their romance which kind of made it a bit awkward to follow. Otherwise, this drama was a blast and one of the funniest dramas I’ve ever watched!

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Absolutely Incredible, what a freaking ride

Hands down one of the best dramas I have ever watched. I do truly understand why there is so much hate for season 2, and it took a lot of reflection for me to not only come to terms with the way the Hong Sisters decided to execute this season, but also to learn to appreciate the beauty of the choices they made in Jang Uk’s and Naksu’s love story. No joke, 10 minutes into the last episode, I was sprawled on the floor crying my little heart out because this show has tugged on my heartstrings so so much. One of the most beautiful conclusions in Dramaland and the best conclusion I could’ve hoped for with their story. Sure, it had flaws, but I’m willing to overlook them and instead focus on all of the things that were executed so beautifully, especially the “1 year later” epilogue. My little hopeless romantic heart was so happy with those last 10 minutes of the show haha. I genuinely cannot recommend this whole series enough, and all I want to say is for everyone to go into this season especially with an open mind despite the negative opinions.

PS: I challenge you to find a more rewatchable drama than this one

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LISTEN

I am someone who rarely starts historical dramas because I generally can't stand the whole palace politics crap since it's very similar all the time and generally just bores me. I'm also someone who rarely enjoys fantasy since it usually takes the focus away from characters and makes storylines unnecessarily complicated. So if you're like me and prefer to turn off your brain and kick back and relax while watching a stupid romcom or cry during an overdramatic melodrama, TRUST ME and watch this anyway. Alchemy of Souls is such a gem and I'm so incredibly glad I gave it a chance despite how many freaking episodes it has. The reviews don't lie and I don't believe it is overhyped at all. Everything about this drama is incredible, and you will enjoy it no matter what your genre of preference is. This is my first 10/10 drama in almost two years so I don't give these out easy at all.

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I don’t know how to go about rating this drama because it took me WEEKS to finish (thanks to my kdrama slump) and I was enjoying it but at the same time kind of bored with it as well. Overall, this was a great drama. Love the actors (except for Shin Min Ah but that’s just my personal preference. Sorry :/). Storyline was pretty decent and I really liked how they were slowly unfolding everything and the viewers were kept in the dark about a lot of the story until the end. However, I did also have several problems with the storyline. It was never really clear to me when So Joon stopped acting and actually fell in love with Ma Rin, and that kind of felt weird and unsatisfying to me because I definitely need clarity in my romances. Also I felt like there were a lot of plot holes, such as (spoilers) why did Ma Rin’s dad leave her family? Why couldn’t So Joon return to the past? Why were all the characters acting so dang stupid all the time? Why did it take him 2 years to wake up from a stab wound? As well as some other weird time travely things I wasn’t satisfied with. I additionally felt that the ending was wrapped up way too quickly compared to the pace of the entire drama. The drama completely glazed over “you-know-whose” death and the whole issue of the “big death day” as if it wasn’t the entire reason So Joon married Ma Rin in the first place. Besides all that, I genuinely did love this drama, although it took me forever to finish it, and I think I have developed a new crush on Lee Je Hoon :)

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I haven’t laughed this hard watching a drama in a while, and I’m very happy with the way everything was executed. The editing was sometimes a bit confusing and jumpy but not too bad. I know most of the cast in the drama except Doo Joon so overall it was fun seeing all these familiar faces in one drama. I’ve only seen Kim Seul Gi in two very short dramas, but I absolutely love her playfulness and cute acting. The storyline was overall incredible, but I can’t help but be quite unsatisfied with the way the drama ended. It was probably the best the writers could have done, but the ending doesn’t feel too happy since she ultimately left her lover and only met up with what I assume to be his reincarnated version. It’s quite sad and gives me Goblin vibes but it seems like they all recognized each other? Even then, I can’t imagine Sejong living another 30 years of his life without her by his side. Totally unrelated, but what is up with the queen’s reincarnation telling Danbi that sejong had 20 children and seduced a bunch of women? Was that real (in drama version) or a rumor? I don’t even know anymore. Anyhow, I loved this short little drama and I’m glad I watched. It just kind of hits home because the previous drama I watched had an incredibly sad ending and I wasn’t ready for that sadness in the end.

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Pardon my French but (major major spoilers btw)

Oh shit oh fuck what even was that? I’m pacing my room bc I don’t even know how to contain all these emotions. I totally spoiled myself and knew the ending was sad but holy God it was so much worse than I ever could have imagined. But it was so good at the same time. Like it was better than I pictured it but also way fucking worse. THEY HAD A KID??!! From the way the drama was going I was like ok, they’re gonna have a romance, they’re gonna be “in love” for a few months, she’s gonna die, he’s gonna be sad, but he’ll probably move on in the future and she will accomplish her little bucket list and go to heaven. That’s kinda sad but could be worse. I jinxed it. I totally jinxed it. I was kind of spacing out during the rooftop scene so I didn’t pick up on the fact that she was planning on staying for 7 more years. I thought she was just saying random nonsense to make the grim reaper save her little idol. But she stayed for seven years to save her love and then she took the spot of the grim reaper’s daughter? Omg this is like that Chinese drama (which I won’t name but if you know you know) where her husband died from poison like 5 years down the line. Why they gotta do this to me!? The only way to make a sad ending more sad is by making them live happy lives together only to take that happiness away a few years later. I’m literally tearing up just thinking about her smiling and hugging her kid being like, “it’s my time now” and him just looking at her with tears in his eyes, knowing he can’t do anything and their time together is over. Ugghhhh that cuts deep. I gotta rewatch that, that was so good. On a more negative note, this is what I wrote down before I watched the ending (I write reviews as I go sometimes): “I usually don’t mind nonsensical romances but this one was just too much for me. Their attraction for each other came out of nowhere, and in general, the entire reason why they initially started hanging out makes no sense. If I was a star, the last thing I’d want to do is take the girl that stalked me, stole my dog, broke into my house, and tackled me on stage on a date. That wasn’t enough, however, because she behaved in the creepiest way the entire time she was around him. She openly idolized him, and while that’s understandable, I can’t imagine how you can have a romantic relationship with that type of person. I don’t really understand die-hard fans, so to me the whole fangirl culture is almost like legalized and socially acceptable stalking. I can’t imagine falling in love with someone like that.” Um yeah, and this is the reason why I can’t in good faith give this drama a higher rating, although that ending will always be a 10/10 and if their romance was done better, you bet this drama would’ve been at LEAST a 9. Yeah, overall their romance doesn’t make a lot of sense, and worldbuilding was rather confusing (there’s a LOT of corruption in the underworld, who knew?) but I think I’d still recommend this to others because I love crying and this is a 10/10 tearjerker. If anything, watch for the ending. Happy (sad) watching! :)

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PEACH

This is a nice, lighthearted rom com than I never really expected to have a high rating in the end when I finished watching it. So I suppose it met my expectations. It’s one of those really ridiculous shows that are mostly watched as a guilty pleasure (though I probably won’t rewatch this tbh). My only real problems with this drama are very personal to myself and may not bother others, but I just wasn’t all that interested in the side stories where the other classmates engaged in a bunch of different shenanigans together. Those parts got sped up usually but eh. My other real complaint is probably the ending and (without going into too much detail) I didn’t like it mostly because it felt a little incomplete and like it was supposed to have a sequel but it never did. It just felt open and not in a way that seemed like it was on purpose. I think my favorite part about this drama (and the most torturous imo) was the love triangle because I got the biggest sls for the second male lead ever and his little crush on the fl is what made a majority of the drama so enjoyable for me. Even until the very end I never quite jumped on the Sano-Mizuki bandwagon but I think partially it was because of how the drama ended. I think I’ve definitely outgrown school dramas at this point but I think Hana Kimi was an enjoyable enough watch that I’d recommend it to someone who likes silly gender benders and a slice-of-life type of drama.

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...empty

I wanted to love this drama so bad. The first 12ish episodes were absolutely amazing and I was sure this drama would be a 10/10 or a 9/10 at the very least. But after the main idea was introduced, nothing more interesting happened. It’s not really a good sign when the synopsis of a drama is the most interesting part about the drama. The plot just kind of went in a weird direction and never really recovered. I was hoping the main plotline would be centered around Yoon Hui Jae but it ended up being around one of his weird little underlings for most of the drama. To me it seemed kinda dumb to include him at all besides to make the audience think that the older brother was the murderer and then make the brother out to just be a victim of Yoon Hui Jae by revealing this other psycho dude to be the one that caused all the crimes in the first place. I definitely would have enjoyed this better if YHJ escaped earlier and was hunting them the whole time instead of just in the last 8 or so episodes. The entire plot also felt too safe and too diluted if that even makes any sense. Like everything was moving at a snail’s pace for some reason and it just got really boring after a while. Someone needs to take this speed up button away from me because the last third of this was watched at 3 times speed and it was still too slow. I agree with another review that said the emotional depth between the leads was not there. I feel like there’s supposed to be something but their entire relationship feels very shallow and one-dimensional. My guess is because they didn’t allow for enough screen time to flesh out their relationship and the drama focused more on the serial killer plotline. With the snail’s pace they took, they could have honestly done both. I’m convinced that Jang Ki Young just doesn’t pick very good romance dramas because I didn’t like anything that I watched him in except for The Boy Next Door. I really don’t know what to say besides that I wanted MORE from this. Just more of everything. More drama, more angst, more romance, more fleshed out characters. Just more. Still a 7/10 because I believe this is a decent story but it just felt oddly empty to me.

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Oh come on

I was so convinced that Homecha would be my first 10 star of 2022 but it just didn’t happen. The first 10 or so episodes were absolutely incredible and I loved the mellow atmosphere of the show. It was hard to admit its faults even then because I was so in love with the actors and the overall vibe of a romcom set in a middle-of-nowhere seaside village. But the last 6 episodes, and especially the last 4, finally made me realize that Homecha was just a bit overrated. Obviously by my rating you can tell I still had a hard time giving it a lower rating, but that doesn’t stop me from complaining about everything wrong with Homecha (imo) in this review :). I guess let’s just start with the leads. I didn’t really like Hye Jin since the beginning of the drama but I kept telling myself that she would get better but she really didn’t? I felt so bad for Hong when she was dragging him around stores, making him try on suits and do yoga with her. Like ma’am you can tell he hates everything about your bucket list, why are you torturing him? I appreciate that the writers made her distinctly different from him and kept her like that throughout the drama rather than making her turn into someone else like a lot of romcoms do, though. She still kept her expensive style and her city-girl behaviors. But dang, you can do that without dragging your man into it. Hong? Hong’s too perfect. From beginning to end. I was SO hoping that his terrible backstory would include him doing something horrible to a person that caused him to change his entire lifestyle and move to a middle of nowhere town to work a minimum wage job. But no… he unwillingly sells stocks (or shares or something I don’t remember) to an idiot and just so happens to be the only survivor of an accident he didn’t even cause. And I get the whole survivor's guilt and I would have been more willing to believe that he blamed HIMSELF for it despite not really doing much to contribute. What pissed me off the most is the fact that other people blamed him for it. What right does the son have to blame a company employee for being begged into selling only a small portion of the stocks/ shares/ whatever that made his dad broke? Anyways I hate to admit it, but the backstory was the biggest reason why this drama is just ruined for me now. I probably got more angry about it than I should have, but I just couldn’t enjoy the drama after that. Like many kdramas, it got really weak towards the end and I was watching it mostly for the sake of being done with it at that point. I still really enjoyed the beginning parts of homecha and got a bit emotional when everything ended. I definitely think there’s better dramas out there, but this one isn’t bad either.

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disappointment of the year...

Man, I was so excited to watch this drama because I heard so many good things about So Ji Sub and was loving Shin Min Ah in Homecha, but these two great actors just ended up picking an absolutely horrible script. I already knew that 2014-2017 was a dark time for dramas (at least in my opinion) in terms of the same overused cliches in all romcoms, but this drama is just something else entirely. As someone who had her own share of issues with food and exercise, I was really hoping that this drama would present some good information on leading a healthy lifestyle, however Oh My Venus just ended up reinforcing all the common lies of korean diet culture and I was hugely disappointed with this drama because of this first and foremost. I won’t go into detail since it’s going to feel like beating a dead horse at this point (I left a comment with a majority of my complaints in the comment section) so I will address the storytelling issues in this review instead. This drama greatly suffers from what I call the “leads getting together too soon in a drama where the only storyline is the romance between the main leads” syndrome. The title is a work in progress. Basically this drama made a grave mistake of getting the leads together extremely early and had no more story or conflict left to tell. Everything else that followed after the couple got together just felt like meaningless filler. They should have seriously considered ending this drama at 10 episodes, but Korea for some reason has a weird 16 episode quota. I am one of those weird people that was rooting for the second leads, and their relationship actually had some conflicts and issues which I honestly appreciated in the never-ending sea of happiness and fluff that was the rest of the drama. And maybe a little because I could relate to Oh Sujin just a little bit. I don’t think I even need to mention the weird separation at episode 13 because what even was that? I usually get mad at these things but I was so apathetic to everything by episode 10 that I just kind of didn’t even care. Still, it’s hella weird and I would have 100% given the ML a hard time about it if I was the FL. This last one is a very personal complaint because I haven’t seen anybody say it here, but I honestly preferred the second lead couple to the main couple. Not exactly because their love line was any healthier, more interesting, etc. It’s genuinely because they just had more substance. Their characters felt a million times more fleshed out than the main couple. They actually had flaws. All that Yeongho and Jueun had to offer was never-ending love and understanding for one another. Sounds healthy and it probably was, but damn it I was so bored when I was watching them. There was zero tension, zero everything. It just felt too easy and too similar to everything else I’ve seen in kdramas. They were too perfect, too understanding, too nice. Everything about them felt so vanilla that I found it hard to ship them. They were too generic and honestly just became really boring once they lost their personalities after getting together. That’s it. That’s the review. Oh my venus is too overhyped and I’m too burnt out from writing college essays to care about wrapping up this review nicely. So yeah. There’s way better dramas out there so don’t waste your time with this.

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This is kind of an odd one to rate for me. Usually I’m the first one to cry when watching a tearjerker (and romcoms too lmao. I shed so many tears for Homecha in the first freaking episode) but this movie just didn’t really make me that emotional. I did tear up pretty good when he told her he loved her in the very last scene of the movie but otherwise my eyes were dry as the Atacama desert. I’m pretty impatient and just coming out of a kdrama slump so the snail-like pace of this movie was not working for me. It was bearable but also really unentertaining. Overall, I will definitely say that it was worth watching despite it not making me all that emotional, and I’d recommend it anyway.

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I can't believe I actually cried watching this

This has got to be the strangest movie I have ever seen PERIOD. I'm such a sucker for anything psychological so this movie intrigued me right away. Even though I got kind of bored and watched most of it at 2x speed, I had an absolute blast, especially towards the ending. Like other reviewers mentioned, this movie's characters feel oddly alive, despite the overall strangeness of their personalities and plot. They are all a tiny bit (scratch that, VERY) crazy and are extremely flawed, but there's something so real and so raw about their emotions that just makes them feel like they are actual, real-life people. Everyone's motivations, no matter how weird or messed up, seemed to make sense, and even the insta-lovey, extremely flawed and extremely toxic Romeo and Juliet romance felt really fitting and honestly super endearing in this movie. This might be hormones, but (spoiler alert) the weirdest, least-explained, and extremely illegal reunion of the couple in the last 5 minutes of the drama made me shed a tear, and the ending was just as romantic as it was absolutely f***ed up, unrealistic, and kind of scary. Overall, kudos to the entire team behind this drama. I might revisit this weird nightmare a few years down the line, and I'll enjoy every second of it when I do. Would recommend.

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