DramaAjumma

Oh really? They're in bankruptcy? What a shame. They made quite a few of my favourite K dramas.

This is a terrific show on many fronts. Some of it reminds me of The Art of Negotiation but there's a lot of it about what leadership looks like and building a team. What the lottery win does for Eun-tae is that it gives him a safety net to rock the boat a little but also the right perspective re: his value to the company. He is a valued staff member which is why he's given "difficult" projects. At the start we see that he works hard but not necessarily smartly. Yes, the buck stops with him but he needs to learn to delegate and use his people well according to their abilities. Just as his direct supervisor uses him because he knows Eun-tae will rise to the challenge.
This is why it's important to build a good reputation and to push back gently from time to time with solutions.

Man, this show is painfully relatable. I came here for Lee Jun-hyuk and yes, he does make interesting script choices. The professional corporate slave storyline hits very close to home. Especially when the powers that be hand down bad policies that they expect the bottom feeders to implement. The philosophy of "if you want something done, give it to a busy person" also resonates.

Honestly the pacing doesn't get any better. I couldn't finish it even for Jing Boran.

I called it early and the show didn't let us down. For those of us who love a more historically grounded period show, this was a gift. Most C dramas these days are largely trope driven but this one is perhaps one of the more character driven shows to get come out this year. Well-constructed antagonists as well as wonderful but flawed protagonists.

In the end the Yu family were their own worst enemy. Evil is not the absence of good per se but the corruption of the good. They took every virtue and exploited it for their own purposes. How much evil was perpetrated in the name of filial piety in this show?! Not just by them too. Overreach and greed was their undoing. They couldn't stop or help themselves so in the end they had to be stopped. They were powerful and in the end that power destroyed them from within first. The cracks were already showing with their only progeny -- an utter disappointment from start to finish. I disagree with Tingyun when she says that Lady Yu was just an ornament for her husband. Lady Yu loved being at the centre of everything and in control of her pawns. She was addicted to power as much as her husband and wasn't afraid to use it in service of transcient wealth and glory.

Different tastes I imagine.
For me Pursuit of Jade was good for about 15 episodes and then it became mediocre in the middle. The last 10 episodes were an absolute mess. The political stuff was written by a child.

Definitely not just you.

I'm torn between who is more ridiculous -- Father Fu or Yu Jingxiu. Dad feels like he just stepped out of a Jane Austen novel as a pompous figure to be mercilessly mocked and ridiculed. Cutting his nose to spite his face. What idiot airs his family's dirty laundry in public? Another man elevated above his capability.
Yu Jingxiu is turning into a joke. A tantrum-throwing toddler who is upset because he can't get that shiny new toy. He has had everything handed to him on a silver platter. But maybe that's the problem. He's been overindulged into oblivion.

Yes, it is. But very slowly.

The difference is I didn't like Royal Betrothal from the first couple of episodes. It didn't impress me at all. Didn't give me that "must watch" feeling. Didn't care for the female protagonist either.

So far this is one of the better written C dramas I've seen this year. It takes the subject matter seriously and the character motivations are well threaded into the plotting. Everybody is scheming to some degree or another even if they think they're above all that.

Yu Jingxiu is certainly a hypocrite. He's the quite the schemer too. Quite manipulative and very willing to throw a woman's reputation under the bus if it suits him. Whether he knows it or not, he is his mother's son. It's also interesting how Fan Yake is turning out. She really knows how to push Jingxiu's buttons and get what she wants out of him. Her inferiority complex also makes her misread Mrs Yu's intentions and consistently frames herself as a victim.

I love heist shows especially ones invoking The Italian Job. This show is a hoot. Haven't laughed so much since Teach You a Lesson. And a contract marriage on top of that. What's not to like. Ji Sung seems to be drinking from the fountain of youth. The wedding was just... LOL.
It's a refreshing take on the genre.

Agreed. I thought they had a sibling vibe.
She, on the other hand, has wisdom beyond her years and grows even more when we get to the end of the show.

This turned out to be one of the better C dramas I've watched in the last two or three years. A pleasant surprise actually. Usually when I'm done with a C drama, I seldom have the urge to revisit. But this one is very charming and honestly Chen Yanyun is one of the best male leads I've seen in far too long a time. It's almost as if a lot of recent C dramas are terrified to have a good male lead lest he overshadow the female lead. But it doesn't happen here. Most things feels plausible within the set-up. These days just about every ML has a trauma or chip on his shoulder so it's refreshing to have one who is an adult, who is a thoughtful idealist and maneuvers politically without losing his principles.
I wasn't acquainted with Ci Sha or Ren Min before but I've become a fan of their pairing.
Honestly, I didn't think the last five episodes were that bad. Yes, the show did end abruptly but truth be told, C dramas in general are just woeful with endings. In all my years of watching C dramas, I can say confidently that this show certainly doesn't have the best ending but it's not the worst. Frankly I thought far less of the final arc of Pursuit of Jade and Veil of Shadows.

Ugh... Just when you think Ye Xian has grown up a little, he does something over-the-top stupid. She's right. He's exhausting to live with. At his core, he's a drama queen.

The leads are truly a splendid match. Such a likeable adaptable pair. The young emperor is pretty impressive too. I suppose he has a good teacher. Chen Yanyun is absolutely my favourite kind of ML. Clever, patient, able to work the big picture and play the long game. He gets Jinzhao from the word "go" and is thinking way ahead.
It's a better show than I thought it might be. It's far more political (yay!) than I had expected. Politics is everywhere even at home. Nice to see Jinzhao learning to accommodate and navigate the Gu family nest of vipers with flair.

A large dollop of Taxi Driver, a dash of Mary Poppins and a sprinkle of To Sir with Love.

Three episodes in... What's really interesting and I think what's at the heart of this generally satirical show is the incentive structures which enable the school violence. It's not possible to eradicate bullying altogether but it might be easier to target the underlying problems. Certainly there are bad actors behind each case that muddy the waters but there are features of modern life and culture eg. social media that exacerbate certain tendencies.

The whole thing about the FL becoming the Grand Princess sounds rather airy fairy but at least the show's somewhat entertaining.

I don't doubt it. 😉
I would say it's roughly the same percentage of period micro dramas. 😀

I'm watching this because of the talented Zhou Yiran but honestly the opening episode of this drama is pretty much the set-up of the vast majority of period micro dramas featuring rebirth. 😆 In the FL's first life she married a scumbag who ends up killing her and her family. Then the rest of it is the execution of her revenge.