Knavery

This is like "what if an American soap opera had a huge budget to make really pretty sets with good lighting". The story itself, the motivations of several characters were a big problem.

I think it's also why the FL gets so much criticism. What was the point of her character? She can only act what is given and her character just doesn't have a proper motivation.
The only main character who did make sense at the start was In Ha. That's his family. I can understand wanting revenge or recognition or whatever.

IDK maybe I'm missing something, I fast-forwarded through most of the middle of this show. It deserves its rating even if other South Korean dramas get rated high without good reason.

It was the one where the female lead was a mermaid, I forget the name. She was on that lab team that the mermaid was friends with. It was a minor role but she was expressive enough from what I recall so she might work well as a lead.

Personally I think it's always worth checking out a Ji Chang Wook drama. This will be interesting. I think I've seen one drama with Mio Imada in it but she was supporting cast.

I think in general for me though Korean dramas have moved away from believable stories into moments dramas where it's all about longing looks building up to a kiss because that's what lots of people seem to want. Who knows, maybe an international collaboration will work and give me a good story.

I like how they look together but again this is such a cookie-cutter, telegraphed story that seems purposeless.

A week or two ago someone mentioned how this isn't for the TikTok crowd and with each episode to me it's clear this is for the TikTok crowd. You could post 5 30 second clips per episode on TikTok and people would understand the story and plot and if you quizzed them on it, they would pass. Last week I pointed out they had the secondary couple reconcile so this week the main couple could reconcile. And right on time. It's so easy to spot and there was never any doubt.

It's this worrying trend in what global audiences are seeing coming out of Korea and China - less and less story, more and more romance. More romance is not bad if the story can justify it but that's the problem.... the people behind a show no longer bother with a coherent story and plot and the shows are increasingly becoming a compilation of warm romantic scenes. Any story only serves to create romantic scenes (one character looks longingly at the other, they're cuddled in bed, whatever it is) instead of the scenes serving to create a story (and that story can have a compelling romance).

The show sucks. That's not the lead actor's fault.

But you're right, normally the fans brigade their mediocre actor favorite (or idol turned actor favorite) up to an 8.5+. That should tell you how bad this show is that the fanboys can't get it above 8. Again, it's not his fault - he's just mediocre as he always has been. What sucks for him (and Wang Chu Ran) is someone said they're both working with this director again (on separate projects). Feel bad for both of them.

One person's worst cdrama of the year is another person's cdrama comedy of the year.

This is soap opera drama and not a methodical, well put together story. The leads are fine in their roles but that's about it. The story twists and turns and would make most soap operas blush. It's just another one of those Chinese period dramas of the last 10 years. The story serves the romantic plot whether that's to delay the romance or give the characters moments together for the fans. Nothing needs to make sense. Nothing needs a build-up. Just make those romantic scenes to put on Tiktok/Douyin.

I miss 10 years ago where these dramas were a portion of period dramas but there were also many serious, story driven period dramas... now it seems like for every 1 drama that takes it story seriously there are 10+ that don't and cater exclusively to people interested in the romance.

It's okay. Give it a go if you like the soap opera romance. If you don't... maybe you'll like it anyways. I'm at the point where I'll fast forward to see how it resolves the various "plotlines" if we can even call them that.

This is a show designed for TikTok. It's literally a series of moments and scenes slapped together. They couldn't even be bothered to give Cha Ji Yun and Yun No A different stories... so they have identical ones. They both break up with their exes at the start of the show. They both get a mysterious new man as a love interest. They both have their exes show back up in their lives to slow their budding love interests. They both double down on their new love interest. This week in Episode 7-8 they both get a damper because exes show up again. Yun No A being the secondary character gets resolution in Episode 8 because her storyline needs to wrap up to give time for Ji Yun's story to wrap up so I expect Episode 9-10 we'll see Ji Yun reuniting with the male lead just like No A did this week.

Yes, relationships can be messy, people can make mistakes. The problem is Korean (and Chinese) dramas continue to lean further and further into cookie-cutter romance instead of telling a story that also involves romance.

I like this show because of the cast but I've seen this exact story hundreds of times over the last decade and it seems to be getting even more common, even more cookie cutter. It's a bad sign for the industry overall.

I know nothing about her but he's always worth giving a chance to as I feel he's one of the much less stiff young actors in the Chinese TV industry.

Edit: yeesh, she's 17? I don't think that's great but maybe the romantic scenes will be tame (they usually are in Chinese romance dramas). This stuff does happen. That 70s Show for example.

They make a cute couple from the images I've seen, I'll definitely need to check this out.

If we're talking acting talent I'd rather have Lu Yu Xiao in a lead role than Zhang Ling He. Although unfortunately Chinese dramas like Korean dramas are leaning increasingly into the "cast a good looking actor even if he's stiff, focus heavily on the romance and the story can be on the backburner" approach.

It's just whiplash from the subtle underacted and too-few-scenes development of the relationship/romance to the ex-boyfriend's massive over-acting. It's such a typical Japanese TV problem where it doesn't come across as serious.

This is pretty good so far, I'm enjoying it.

Nobody has an issue with kissing or sex. The problem is this show wants to make social commentary while being a comedy and the people behind it don't have the courage or the skills to make that social commentary within a comedy.

The comedy is obvious. Staking out parking lots to catch embarrassing moments, the ridiculous dialogue. The huge team to investigate flirting at the workplace and other stuff. The female lead punishing the male lead for being flirted with in the stairwell. It is ridiculous, unserious and supposed to be funny. Okay. Fine.

When you want to deal with sexual harassment and violence at work in the direct way this show did in Episode 4 you need to show some care. A goofy man flirting with the lunch lady is one thing. An affair at work with the implication there could be more to the story is another thing. A junior female employee being sent to the room of some man to be pressured into sex is much more serious and a real scenario that happens in Korea and throughout Asia. And that's what the director and writers wanted to do with Episode 4. And we got "James" and it was all the dirty foreigner's fault and problem solved. Don't look any further!

And for all the sexual liberation and grace the female lead gets (it's not much) we have the white girl working at a convenience store who has been judged repeatedly and berated once for the mere implication she likes sex.

You do you but there are very valid reasons to dislike this show and where it is going. If all someone cares about is the romance between the leads that's fine by me. But I'm disappointed in how they've introduced serious topics to then not treat them with the seriousness they deserve. If they had stuck with flirting with the lunch lady, embarrassing work affairs I would have been fine with it.

I've really enjoyed lakorns over the years but it's been tougher to find subtitles with stuff moving to places like Telegram and invite websites. Hopefully we see a resurgence in subtitled lakorns. They can be a fun watch despite the flaws.

I'm all caught up and lol this is a tire fire but I'm here to watch it burn.

Talented leads making the most out of the romance scenes to make it believable but the script surrounding them is so ridiculous and so bad. I think I'll give it next week but this is turning into a probably-drop for me.

Are the subtitles from previous episodes wrong? Jun Ho has had multiple monologues whining about how Baek Ho is the biological son and he is not since the earliest episodes.

I think they made a huge mistake in the first few episodes being too casual in introducing characters like everyone would remember Princess Agents in detail. It makes it difficult to care about any of these characters and why they do what they do. There should have been more effort to build characters and connections and not just slam conflict after conflict, what's real, what's not at us in the first few episodes like we'd be able to connect the dots using a character map & allegiance map of Princess Agents in our heads.

The female lead struggles to escape the blank stare. I've seen multiple other women in the show so far I would have preferred to be lead. The Chinese reviews seem to largely see the same thing I do with that facial expression/stare. The only reason it looks like she was cast is because she looks like she could be the daughter of Zhao Li Ying (actress who was the lead in Princess Agents). It was too early to cast her as a lead despite the resemblance.

Episode 1 was okay. It still has the stage style acting that is over-the-top exaggerated but it's not as bad as many other Japanese shows. And of course the acting isn't helped by the stilted abrupt dialogue and scene choices (again, not as bad here but a common problem in Japanese television)

It's enough for me to give Episode 2 a chance.