It pains me to say that this drama would’ve received a far higher rating...

from me if it wasn’t for the FL...Like genuinely the FL was what stood in the way between the rating I gave vs a rating that was 1-2 stars higher. I simply couldn’t stand her weird dialogue and acting since the very start of this drama. Although the drama itself kind of grew on me toward the end (not enough tbh), I consistently rolled my eyes at her and cringed at least once every episode. There’s a night and day difference between Su Zaizai and Jiang Jia (and I LOVED Jiang Jia) and I genuinely think they could’ve allowed Zaizai to keep her bubbly personality without turning her into a 5 year-old in a 25 year-old woman’s body. The plot here should theoretically be my cup of tea, actually, but for some reason I ran into the same issue I run into with some youth cdramas where for some reason I’m just kind of bored the whole time. I don’t think the drama did anything wrong per se, I might just not be one to enjoy youth cdramas as much as I think. However, I really enjoyed the fact that there was quick and easy conflict resolution and nothing super dramatic that happened. It made the watch very enjoyable and positive and is why I say that it’s technically “my type” of drama. Funny enough, as much as I complain about unresolved misunderstandings, I would’ve been okay with some of them being resolved a little later (the not annoying ones ahah) since they added some entertainment in the sea of “no problems whatsoever the couples are together and happy as can be” eutopia in romcoms that gets boring QUICK if you overdo it. Anywho, I personally don’t really think the drama deserves a 9.0 rating since there were personally quite a few issues I encountered that I’m sure other people have as well, and I felt like there was just little to no emotional impact with the characters for me personally (I’m comparing to how I felt watching dramas like Hidden Love or Someday or One Day who did great in this department). But if you don’t mind an incredibly cringey FL (gahh) and enjoy the youth genre, I would still recommend you watch this one as you’re likely to really enjoy it.

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Screaming, crying, throwing up

I’m not okay, I will not be okay for a long time. This was the most beautiful thing that I have ever watched and to be honest I don’t think I have enough of a way with words to describe just how amazing Twinkling Watermelon is. I was a long-time stan of Thirty but Seventeen and never thought I would find a Kdrama that could even hold a candle to my favorite drama of all time, but somehow Twinkling Watermelon completely dethroned Thirty but Seventeen in a short, short amount of time. In a way, I’m a little annoyed that my #1 Kdrama is, like, everyone and their mother’s favorite kdrama, since as I’m writing this review, it’s the top rated Kdrama on MDL with a whopping 9.2 rating (oh my god). Genuinely though, it’s 10000000% worth the hype and I honestly cannot even begin to explain how wonderfully entertaining, heartwarming, and marvelously written this drama is.
For a drama with such a young cast, I was first and foremost completely taken aback by the quality of acting, since I don’t often see this type of skill in similar youth kdramas. Granted, there was a bit of overacting on the ML’s part but it’s very rare and honestly just adds to the comedy so I can let it slide. The storyline itself very much reminds me of that iceberg meme where what you see on the surface is quite simplified and shallow but as you continue watching, the storyline just unravels before you and you end up making connections you hadn’t even imagined you’d be making. This was genuinely such a fun ride and I will definitely be coming back to this one as soon as I can recover from the first watch ahaha.
I could honestly write paragraphs and paragraphs about this but I’m kind of put into this weird paralysis state where I have so many things to say that I just don’t know what to say at all, so I will just leave this here: Literally whatever you’re thinking this drama is going to be, or whatever expectations you have, leave them behind and just watch the drama for what it is, because while it will likely be so different from what you were expecting, it will probably be far better as well.

PS this is coming from someone who has watched her fair share of kdramas and has become immensely picky with what she watches and enjoys (sadly lol)

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Very shiny but without much charm

Honestly, I think 7.5 might be too generous?? idk
I genuinely had so many hopes for this drama. I’m a big fan of PEB and was holding my damn breath until this drama would be released because it sounded soo interesting. Unfortunately, at least in my opinion, this drama ended up giving too much screen time to subplots that I did not care about whatsoever (RJ shares, Ran Joo’s mother, and most of all the stupid abusive dad storyline) and not nearly enough to the parts that actually mattered and most of us came here for (helloooooooooo? romance? literally where).
This is a drama that genuinely had so much potential and had all the right tools to become successful, but it completely fumbled the execution and left me feeling quite disappointed. Couple of upsides: love love LOVE the SML, honestly he had more chemistry with PEB than CJH and was honestly just the best boy all around. So devoted to Seo Mok Ha from the very beginning, was literally fantasizing about being her childhood first love to have an excuse to be with her like cmon the flag doesn’t get any greener than that. Music was simply amazing, no doubt about that. My Spotify playlists will be blessed with many new additions. Park Eun Bin slayed as always, I will always watch her in anything and everything.
Now for biggest pet peeves: Although I enjoyed the character development of the ML, they just didn’t give him enough time to develop as an individual and then as a love interest for Seo Mok Ha, they just kind of slapped them together at the end and called it love (even when we get past how insta-lovey their childhood story was). Because of this the chemistry was just so off and I couldn’t root for the main couple since they gave them nothing to work with besides a crush from 15 years ago. Like I said before, the inclusion of many uninteresting (to me) plotlines made the plot drag so much and genuinely just made for a very dull viewing experience. I quite frankly didn’t come here to watch a batshit crazy police officer chase his family across all of Korea, I came to watch Park Eun Bin become a singer and maybe fall in love, so the fact that such a large portion of the story was focused on stalker daddy disappointed me pretty immensely.
All in all, not a terrible drama and may be a worthwhile watch, just maybe not for me. Blame my sky-high expectations or the marketing, but this drama just didn’t live up to what I had imagined in my head. If you must, at least stay for Park Eun Bin’s music. Or find the Spotify playlist, that works too lol.

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I think I'm in love

Guys this actually became one of my favorite ever dramas so freaking quickly. I think I was pretty much hooked from the beginning. I’m slightly biased in favor of Zhao Lusi since I’ve already seen her in another drama and liked her from there, but I thought she was the absolute cutest and most perfect FL for this drama. You simply can’t change my mind. I’m still so high from finishing this drama literally a few minutes ago so I don’t think I can offer any constructive or cohesive thoughts about this show besides just wow. Simply the sweetest, least problematic drama ever. No idiotic misunderstandings, so stupid fights, no pointless breakups. Just vibes and cuteness and a simple story about a girl who was in love with her brother’s friend. Definitely not a rom com despite what the genre says, more of a melo/drama than anything else. Probably one of the best executions of a youth drama though, hands on. Usually the time skips where they get older feel weird, and quite frankly this one felt a little awkward too, but it didn’t last long and was pretty easy to transition to. And this is coming from someone who’s pretty freaking sensitive to time skips in dramas (big reason I usually avoid the youth genre), don’t really know why. My only complaint is that the drama did run out of steam a little toward the end. There weren’t many conflicts left and it very obviously slowed down in terms of plot development, interestingly this happened quite a bit after they got together and not right away, so kudos to them for that. Nothing too terrible, still worth watching, just probably soured my vibe a tad bit when I had to force myself to watch the last couple episodes when it was far from being an issue in the beginning (guys, I was eating up those episodes like tic tacs). Still 100% worth the watch, hence the rating. Just something to be aware of hehe. Anywho, watch this drama! If you’re a fan of cute contemporary romance that isn’t very heavy on plot and is just pure ***vibes*** then this one is def the one.

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Strong start, messy and disappointing conclusion

I will start off by saying I genuinely don’t mind the sad ending here. I did cry a little bit and honestly love me a good tragedy every now and again. My issue with heartbeat is with how the sad story was executed. Things got quite muddled and draggy towards the end, and it genuinely felt like midway through the series the writer was like, “lol what if instead of sticking to what we told the viewers in the first half of the show we made it seem like the cat dude just conveniently forgot to say that SWH needed to kill someone to turn into a human? Like woopsies I guess he just ‘forgot’ that killing someone is kind of a big deal and didn’t think it was that important.” Like cmon be so fr who would actually ever miss such a big detail. The logic is just so weird and the side characters quite frankly were so boring, I genuinely never got into any of their personalities and they just felt so misplaced in this show if that makes any sense. Anywho, I did really really love this drama in the first half and thought it was hilarious and super cute and aesthetic, but damn the writing was such a letdown for literally no reason.

TBH though, I don't think it deserves a 7.4 rating. I think the reason it's that low is because of people who gave it significantly lower ratings just to bring down the overall rating and that's kind of sad. It genuinely wasn't as bad as it's made out to be. The writers just got a lil confused in the second half.

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This was such a disappointing watch…

I really thought this was going to be a 10/10 drama for me because the beginning left such an amazing impression on me. The first couple episodes were so engaging, and I loved the female lead and her very fresh, confident attitude. Then.. the drama got bogged down in weird “car accident” drama (which was never really resolved?? idk I wasn’t paying attention cause that entire plot point was such a snoozefest) and the leads’ relationship took a weirdd nosedive. I felt like all of a sudden their chemistry disappeared (or maybe it was never present to begin with?) and I could’t for the life of me recall why they were even into each other in the first place. Just the pacing and compatibility and the romantic development was all weird and off somehow and I could’ t figure out why. I just sped through the latter third of this drama (no regrets because it just stayed boring). I guess the only redeeming point was the ending because it did surprisingly leave me a bit emotional and teary-eyed. But, overall, I expected so so much more from this drama, especially based on the two main leads and the extremely solid start that the drama had.

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Holyyyyyy mother of god this was such a boring watch.

I would’ve had a much better time with this drama if it was at least 12 episodes shorter. So many things were needlessly dragged out and it completely sucked the enjoyment out of a story that could’ve been so much more entertaining than it ended up being. While pacing is my #1 issue with the drama, I don’t think I will ever be able to forgive this drama for the route that it took in breaking up the characters. After watching this I’m 100% certain that my absolute least favorite trope in the history of drama tropes is the stupid fucking “pushing people away to protect them by lying to them” trope. Sometimes it’s done well if the person is pushed away without any deceit, however when lies become involved is when I absolutely tune out. There is absolutely no reason… none. I will never be okay with LX’s actions in this drama no matter how many times they are explained and justified. Not only did he lie and push ZY away (and can we talk about the 3 years of clinical depression the poor girlie went through?), he continued to do so even after coming out of prison. He made her cry so many times and betrayed her trust over and over, and we’re just supposed to be okay with this because ZY is an idiot who loves a very very toxic man? Absolutely not. Overall, my unpopular opinion is that this drama is really really not worth the glowing ratings that it gets. The only redeeming points are the chemistry between the leads and the great OST. I’d skip this one if you’re considering watching.

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I'm going to miss this one!

This one is honestly such a weird one to rate because my excitement and level of interest for this drama has been a constant rollercoaster throughout the episodes. The first half or so of the drama I was mostly having to almost force myself to watch because it just wasn’t catching my attention as much as I had hoped. I was always intrigued by the characters and the general plot but for some reason, the execution was somewhat dull and probably slower than I would have liked. However, somewhere along the way I ended up falling in love with the characters and the story and I can definitely say I’m a big fan of Crazy Love now. The ending was an absolute cheese-fest, and I do admit that the episodes following the main leads getting together could’ve been better. Based off of my level of entertainment throughout this drama, I probably rated it a tad too high, however I really love the overall idea of this drama and the characters in it, so I’m giving it a bumped up rating for that. I would recommend this one 100% though!

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Cheesiest kdrama I’ve ever watched to date

King the land and I have had quite the interesting journey together. I started off really disliking the drama because it felt shallow and extremely overrated. The romance was boring and nothing new, and the story of poor woman and hot chaebol has been beaten to death at this point. I put down the drama for maybe 3ish months because of college and ended up coming back and finishing off the second half in about 3 days during a family road trip. After coming back to the drama, I learned to appreciate how cheesy and cliche king the land is, and as the episodes went on, I began to see it for its own merits and uniqueness. I ended up falling in love with the main couple and the side characters, and I will honestly say I will miss king the land since it was a heck of a ride. There's not much of a plot and they do end up hitting on every cliche under the sun, but my goodness was it fun and cute and made me tear up many a time. If this genre is your cup of tea, you can't miss king the land!

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Get ready for an unpopular opinion

I’ve noticed that slice of life is kind of a hit or miss for me. This one in particular, as sad as I am to say, was quite a miss. The story felt directionless up until the last episode, as there wasn’t much of a central conflict present to keep the show going. Yes, some things were slowly getting revealed and we were finding out what happened in the past and why the characters are the way they are (looking at you, Mr. Sexy Uncle. LJH made this show bearable), however at the end of the day I was left with the question “Why?” : “Why should I care? Why is this story being told at all? Why has it still not ended?” It was kind of hard to enjoy the drama because of this. The one episode long stories about the deceased became a bit repetitive, and I don’t really think one episode is long enough for me to start caring about them. Han Geu Ru’s self righteousness became annoying, Yoon Na Mu’s overprotectiveness did as well. The dramatic backstories of the characters were giving me an odd sense of deja vu (mild spoilers): from the sad separation between two brothers, to the festering anger over an unfortunate misunderstanding, to the depressing backstory of a coach suffering through the death of his pupil, it’s all been seen before and I don’t think this drama did a good enough job of making these plot points seem fresh and unique. The pacing was drawn out and seemed to move at a snail’s pace, and my interest in this show ebbed and flowed because of the inconsistencies in storytelling and inclusion of interesting plot points. The last episode was perhaps one of the only silver linings and did make me shed a tear or two… or twenty. I thought that while Geu Ru and his family’s backstory was a little out of place considering it took up the entire last episode (and CSG’s boxing thing got resolved in 10 minutes what?), it was very touching, especially toward the end of the episode where Geu Ru was interacting with his dad and coming to terms with his death. Needless to say, I will not be tuning in for the second season as there weren’t enough interesting things to keep me going even through this one (at least I think there is one? Since when would Netflix do something as scandalous as ending a kdrama after one season?), however I don’t regret watching Move to Heaven as the conclusion was quite wholesome although a bit dragged out (but so is the rest of this drama).

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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 have two criteria for a 10 star drama: 1) It has to make me cry and 2) It can never make me angry. Sadly, SWDBS didn’t meet either of these criteria, although it came really really close to meeting criterion 1. Nevertheless, I loved this show to pieces, and it would’ve been at least a 9.5 had episode 13 never happened (I still can’t get behind the weird “first, do no harm” logic that only seems to apply when it’s convenient to the writer). I absolutely adore Park Bo Young, and I absolutely regret not watching a Park Hyung Sik drama up until now. SWDBS didn’t feel as filler-y as other people claimed, but maybe I just really enjoy a good slice of life. For once, I really really liked the crime/thriller aspect of the show (maybe I’m growing to like it or maybe it was just dumbed down and simple enough for me to appreciate lmao). Anywho, I personally thought the giant mix of genres worked quite well for this drama, and I enjoyed all parts of the show quite a bit. I’d definitely recommend SWDBS to all levels of kdrama addicts, and I’m impressed it took me this long to pick it up.

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What in The Disney Channel...

I really should have been writing things down because I have so much I want to say about this drama. I’m going to start with the reason for my review title. Warning: major spoilers. Sena is an absolute irredeemable character, and the fact that the writer dared to suggest otherwise is absolutely disgusting to me. Not only did she try to steal her sister’s lover (twice!) and tried to never let her meet her mother (btw, can we talk about what a useless plotline that ended up being?), she sabotaged her and Tae Yong at every turn and felt absolutely zero remorse for it. She’s an absolute sociopath who played with people’s feelings only for them to let their guard down so she could do it even more. The fact that she had some sort of redemption arc is absolutely hilarious to me because she was FORGIVEN by Park Ha for “saving her life” after Sena was literally the #1 REASON why Park Ha was on the brink of death to begin with. The Disney Channel “villain redemption arc” was terribly done and absolutely laughable after everything Sena had done. She doesn’t deserve anything she has and you can’t convince me otherwise. Park Ha is incredibly stupid as a character. This ties into my short rant about Sena and the fact that not one person on the planet could ever survive if they were as nice/idiotic as Park Ha. Like, girlie literally went to see Tae Moo the DAY after he stuck her in a freezer and tried to kill her, and yet she didn’t do anything about it. She forgave her sister because of a stupid liver transplant and even before that never really hated her for all the bullshit she put her through. All I need to say about Boo Young is that she’s a stupid idiot who ate persimmons straight off a plate instead of taking the whole plate with her and dumping into a river. That’s all I will say about that. Perhaps my biggest turn off about this drama was the odd romance development and the absolute mess of a toxic relationship that the leads had. Like, cmon, ML literally berated the FL and screamed at her whenever he didn’t get his way all the damn time, and half the time she screamed back while the other half she stared at the manchild with lovey dovey eyes. The relationship progression was just odd and it felt like the romance kind of came out of nowhere. Chemistry was absolutely absent and I honestly didn’t really care about the relationship nor “feel” their love for one another all the way until the end. This drama is also simply too long. Don’t get me wrong, it was entertaining enough and was pretty nice to watch in the mornings before class while I got ready, but at some point all the plotlines were being reused, they were just ~slightly~ different, and the show became an annoying drag. It was always either Sena doing some stupid shit and sabotaging Park Ha or Tae Moo making moves against Tae Yong in their stupid business. Not only were the plotlines super generic and very much the exact same as the plotlines in other 2010 type kdramas, they were just reused constantly to drag out the screen time. Now for my final grievance (as far as I can remember at least) : that ending. What. The. Absolute. Hell. Of. A. Monstrosity. Did. I. Watch? Not only was the ending weirdly vague (which is fine sometimes but I usually don’t enjoy it), it also seemed to contradict itself and didn’t lend itself to any solid interpretations. I could only see myself making “partial cases” for Tae Yong having Lee Gak’s memories and Tae Yong not having his memories at all. Any of the clues that the viewer was given to puzzle out whether Lee Gak’s consciousness traveled through 300 years did not add up, and if you found yourself arguing for either side, you would come across plot holes that would blow your theory out of the water. I would’ve been more content with either a sad or happy ending (or bittersweet) and the writer utterly failed trying to create an ending that’s “up for interpretation” by leaving way too many clues that all contradict one another. Random point, but why did everyone seem so OK in the end? Nobody was bawling their eyes out, nobody was depressed, they all kind of missed each other and got a BIT sad, but that’s totally not how I would react if I lost the love of my live. Everybody was just so damn calm and logical the whole time. Like what?
PHEW. If you read this far, thank you for coming to my Ted Talk, and I hope you learned that this drama absolutely does not get my seal of approval. It was entertaining enough, but I’d definitely think of this show as one of those “it’s so bad it’s ALMOST good” shows that I will absolutely never watch again but will sometimes think of fondly as a mildly entertaining waste of 20 hours of my life. Ciao!

PS: contrary to popular belief, I absolutely hated the last 4 episodes :D

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