Underwhelming
Well this was bland... really really bland.It starts off kind of funny with some relatable lines and and a nice cold meets shy and sweet, office friendships and some kind of helping each other out spirit but then it just goes flat predictable and lacks that spark to keep it interesting.
Those who are in it for OffGun do get to see Off and Gun interact but without anything to actually set Off Gun to create the fireworks we have been spoiled by in the past. I am not saying their chemistry is Off, it is more of a lack of processess in the story telling than an acting issue.
There is a side couple part stereotypical dumb girl, part geek inspired by a Bruno Mars Song that gives us and okay plotline with interesting development, but that too takes a turn to the meeh leaving me with a feeling of what a waist of time and cast. That said it is not a bad drama it is just not very good.
So if you are in the mood for Off Gun I sugest you go watch/rewatch pretty much any other one of their dramas. If you still want to watch this after reading this, go for it just be set your expectations low and prepared to be underwhelmed.
P.S. there is also this cringe educational theme to it... especially at the end of each episode that made me role my eyes... Sorry
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The story is not as beautiful as the leads but ok
This is one of those dramas that offers great leads, amazing chemistry, golden light for as far as the eye can see making you feel all warm and gooey inside... All with the added bonus of a fluffy can and a fish tank that reminded me of dramas past...It is also one of those dramas that you just you know got though censorship without a hinge, yet managed to keep it kind of subtle compared to others (focus word kind of) somewhere right in the middle of a scale from Road to Patriotic bordom (or Home) to Addicted heroin.
The friendships and side characters to their jobs without becoming to annoying, some twists or moments of affection are hinted just a little bit to much by bad directing. But other than that the sides even have some really good moments.
However I could not have cared less about the business slightly preachy (hens the I am sure it passed censorship well). It just prolonged the episode count and had me lower the score as some of those parts where so boring i almost fell a sleep. Luckily interactions between the leads where never far off.
So a decent watch that made me want to press that next episode button from start to finish, but also had me wanting to skip some scenes.
P.s. I am reallt bias about the two leads, but then again how can you not be with those smiles, abs and delivery of lines.
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The truth doesn’t matter, what matters is what people believe + allot of death and cuteness
I don’t think I have ever felt the need to show screenshots as much as I have for this series. The first 30 episodes or so where not really that interesting some parts where sweet, others where funny. some where weird, some scary, some touching, some really disgusting all in all not bad, but not really something that lived up to the hype of this drama. It was a story about war, taking/changing sides and dehumanization of the enemy with monsters that you may or may not want to tame into pets.But then came episode 32!!! This was just epic in every single way and I finally understood the hype, so if u find it boring in the beginning, hold on, it will be worth it ones you get to episode 32. The hype is episode 32 then it steps up a notch from episode 1-31 just to completely explode in episode 46. All surrounded by an amazing scenery and one of the sweetest (unofficial) couples in all of drama land with cute bunnies, the prototype for the ginger bread cookie cutter from Shrek (so cute) the sweetest donkey ever and occasional visits by a dog.
The acting in this drama is mostly great, there are no truly annoying characters but you will want to harm and knock some sense in to quite a few of the side characters as well as want to hug other characters (not the same ones). The main leads acting and characters complement each other extremely well, their chemistry is amazing and you can really see how they care for each other.
This drama also has a great take on the art of war. And truly shows the less beautiful and more complicated sides of human nature during conflicts. Who has the narrative, who has the right to protest and can how far will you go to protect the people you love? What can make you turn your back on your best friend and how about those who stay silent. That and no drama is complete without the fragile male ego, who is of course also represented here.
Definitely worth a watch but I warn you some parts are a drag. I will however leave you with words similar to the ones said in this drama:
- The truth doesn’t matter, what matters is what people believe
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Goblin of the Stone?
This drama has a little bit of everything and nothing at the same time. some moments of sweet, some moments of predictable oh so predictable and some moments of oh these affects are so bad they give it a retro feel...I find myself loving the godess a bit more than I probably should and probably enjoyed some of the side characters more than the actual leads but all in all the chemestry is decent, the story is fine and the found family friendships are all top, top, top.
The vilanis however are just lazy writing at its best, bad directing at its worst.
An okay watch but not much more...
P.S. there may be a plot hole or ten so beware and do not expect everything to make sense...
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Meeh
The characters and friendships in this drama are lovely but the story is draggy, boring, inconsistent, badly wrapped and makes no sense what so ever.While some of the twists are more predictable than others, and I will give them that I did not expect one of the twists at all most of the twist where not very interesting, actually the story here is just meeh with never ending healing schenes.
For those of you who enjoy healing , missed opportunities getting in touch with ones feelings mumbo jumbo this might just do the trick for you, it is also a drama that should work for those who do not really care about logic as long as the characters are sweet.
It is a lso a C with very little propaganda in which is kind of nice. But while the characters are lovable most of the time, they are supposed to be almost 30 but act and give of the vibe of 10-20 year olds...
For those who need some kind of consistency, logic and story, I say walk away there is little to nothing to see here.
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Queen of Ks
The K for K-drama is strong in this one.... offering us everything K- from the Cheobols, psycopaths, revenge bickering, hate to love, love to hate, amnesia and leads who are willing to take at least one bluet for the other.... Illnesses hidden, murder... countryside folks, evil parents, kind parents, soft tears, screamy tears You name it if it has been seen in a popular K odds are you will find it in here somewhere.While I do love my K's it also has my old nemesis healing, leads talking about stuff as one making me cringe just a little bit too much so though I did enjoy the story with all its more or less predictable twists it is the cringe that had me lowering the score but for those who can handle the cringe all the power to you!
Enjoy, for those who rather keep things clean and fluffy without the regular K-drama mess this is not a drama for you so I advise you to watch something else.
I also have to mention that Kim Soo Hyun and Kim Ji Won make a great hot and could couple and that Lee Joo Bin was phenomenal in this. The rest of the cast was pretty decent too.
P.s. None of this should be a surprise considering who wrote the script....
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Kind of meeh
The male lead and his ax are really really cute the rest of the cast is kind of sweet, the food is mouthwatering lovely and there are a lot of scenes with half naked sweaty men in a sauna but that is about it.The acting: over the top from most
The kisses: meeh
The build up: meeh
The chemistry: better with the ex than the ml
But it is an easy watch that can be easiely binged in a the asame day
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I can see why everyone would love this
This is a sweet, fluffy, easy watch that offers so many miss-understandings it becomes ridiculous yet stays oddly entertaining. If you are looking fo r any kind of substance, realism or I don't know healthy relationships... This is not the place to find it but if you can overlook a bunch of stuff and can enjoy predictability, cliches, misunderstandings and bickering this is a really good place to find it.While the misunderstandings are never ending, and here seem to be a few attempts of including depth as well as a lot of, lets show the world that China can create... with its own culture... You know the usual patriotic stuff us c-fluff viewers have learned to ignore most of the drama is a easy watch and a display of people playing with gender roles, double standards and damsel in distress vs. volgar bad ass like it was 1995... Making me feel all nostalgic inside.
Our male lead is another guy who at times lacks communication skills, and indeed can get a bit macho over protective at times while being the type that can appreciate having smart active women around him... which is kind of nice. He is also portrayed by Lin Yi with all Lin Yi has to offer so for all those who can appreciate Lin Yi this is not a bad place to watch him.
The female lead has more mood swings than number of clicks a on a keyboard in a gaming tournament. And while her characters action should lead to a bunch of second hand embarrassment, she did not really get on my nerves even once (wich is really rare),
The side couples and side characters (including the parents) are lovely too (most of the time).
All in all making this an entertaining watch... Or at least the first 19 episodes or so, the attempts of plot and depth towards the end where kind of meeh...
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Dark and Disturbing... When Parasite met Poetry....
" As I watched the sunset in the dessert, I felt that I too would like to disappear as if I never exist"This movie on the other hand is one of those that will most certainly not disappear silently, and makes sure you know it existed. As it is a highly acclaimed movie and it did have me thinking what am I. missing here, what is actually happening and will I understand this better if I watch this a second time? As there are quite a few moments of confusion planted there to make you question pretty much everything in this movie, including the meaning behind it. making my mind make loopholes so much my head hurt.
There is quite a bit of absurd extremely dark humour here and there .Some pretty deep lines and extreme tension in silence.
I also feel like i must warn you that this movie gives new meaning to the word greenhouse and you may have trouble looking at the Nam-sham tower (or any tower) the same way again.
And while some parts are kind of extreme, there seems to be quite a bit of social criticism, if I was to compare this to Parasite I would say that they share some of the same issues but this one is more psychological, young and most certainly more raw than Parasite. Catering to the critics rather than to the popular audience, something that adds brilliance and depth but removes some of the main stream entertainment value that i must say a peasant like me can adore.
However compared to Lee Chang Dongs (the director of this movie previous movie Poetry, this one has more action and entertainment value making me understand that a lot can happen to a director in 8 years... So on a scale of Mainstream/entertainment to Artistic depth this move is right between Parasite and Poetry
Defiantly a movie worth a watch and worthy of all its praise
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Falling off a roof vs. Falling (being groomed by) ones teacher?
This is is a slightly confusing drama that tries to ask some pretty bizarre questions and puts things in to all kinds of interesting contexts, playing with perspectives and the viewers minds,Are they playing with or trying to blur the lines between what we see as right and and wrong ? Or are they actually trying to say something about society? Is this a drama about keeping- braking rules? Or is it trying to teach us how the best ways to die or maybe how to save a person from jumping? Are they trying to make the viewers uncomfortable? Or am I reading to much in to this as they are just trying to make us laugh while we look at pretty faces and banter?
Honestly I do not know... What I do know is that the dynamics between the leads is phenomenal. The characters are complex (slightly confusing) but extreamly enjoyable to watch. I love the leads, I truly do both characters hot n cold types. ANd even though the female lead is supposed to be this week low self asteam typical I just want x to be happy... soldering the worlds problams... she does not come of as pathetic at all she is even the mature one of the two and kind of bad ass cold. Both have a whole lot of amazing lines and oh such self aware dialog with dark humour for as far as the eyes can see... This was a pleasure to watch and indeed very highly entertaining.
I am however bothered by the last episode as it feels unfinished, left me with a bunch of theories in my mind and made me desparetly want a season 2, and I hate it when they split things up in to multiple seasons.
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Oh My Cringe!
This was a quick watch, boys over whatever meets 1.100000, meets BL. An inspirational, be positive quote fest of the worst type in some ways yet adorable in other ways... Making me both mad, sick to my stomach but also kind of fall in love with the leads (thanks to a few added bonuses).The good: The leads opposites in every single way, and adorable each in their own way. Giving us a whole bunch of romantic, humorous, positive scenes. Had it not been for a bunch life lesson mumbo jumbos that ruined it I would have loved them even more. At the same time I could actually kind of relate to Nikko, as he is the type to laugh off all the crap. Elis character was a bit ruined by the bad boy to get attention cliche he deserved a better story! Also Nikkos acting was spot on! I am impressed.
The other people around them are pretty decent, they could need a lesson or two in acting, But they ended up lovable in a way and being a fan of clices this kind of works even with the bad acting.
Though the ending does not necessarily call for a second season, I am hoping for one that will save up all that will take a better turn from using people with illness as inspiration to showing them as equal humans...
Here is for hoping!
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Oddly entertaining but bad
This is one of those dramas you will have to switch off your brain to watch as nothing what so ever makes any sense at all. As it fall in to the category so bad it is oddly captivating and had me pressing that next episode button.The female lead is not stupid, the male lead is cute. none of them can act and their kisses may have some kind of movement but lacked all passion. Still the male lead is cute which has to count for something. The second male lead is also adorable.
The predictability is high and the dubbing bad...oh so bad.. especially the dubbing for the kids for the love of Bart Simpson, please let kids dub kids.
The way the female lead is treated and styled as a kid is very troublesome, she is clearly one of few pretty smart female leads in the industry why did they have to devalue her that way... are they afraid the lack of obvious propaganda + smart female lead would bring backlash to them? So they had to cut the female empowerment out?
Other than that there is not much to say... Was this a good watch? NO did I enjoy it? not really? Do I regret watching this? No... But do I recommend it? Nope, not really
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More about the Queens than the Umbrella
If you are in it for the Umbrellas chances are you will end up disappointed as the drama starts off showing amazing umbrellas during the first episodes but after that they are pretty much no where to be seen. However that does not make this drama any less good.The drama itself has a very much female centred plot as the boys lovely as the may be are more or les there to give the viewers interesting side stories that support the development of the plot but are not the main attraction of this drama. As the name may entail the Queens are the main attraction, while not so much the umbrellas but the queens and concubines of this drama are what makes this drama stand out. The woman's interactions, scheming, ways of figuring out stuff will keep you guessing, intrigued and make you feel a bunch of stuff.
The story is indeed deep, dark and complicated just like any other political historical drama. However the princes and princesses existence make way for a lot of humour, eye candy and soften the pain every step of the way. Giving this very much political drama the balance it needs to keep you from going under in complicated plot twists, darkness and what not.
Through the show of extreme parenthood of trying to raise kids in a palace setting, we are invited in to timeless parenthood issues (and other issues), tossing us from hating the parents of this drama to loving them back to hating them to loving them basically teaching us that parenthood is tough... Luckily most parents do not have to be terrified of others trying to kill their kids at any given time, however finding a good balance between pressure, caring, paving roads (over others) and survival is indeed a task most parents will probably be able to relate to.
The drama also teaches viewers not to trust anybody especially not to trust your grandparents, doctors, schoolers, maids, politicians, siblings, parents... And be careful what you put in your mouth too...
Making this a drama with a little bit of everything, there are even some tiny (focus on the word tiny) pebbles of romance... that the romance lover in me would have wanted a lot more of as all the potential romance side stories where really good leaving me wanting more of them and less of other stuff...
The pacing is decent while the first episode did not captivate me the second one got me hooked, making way for a good pace of escalating interest for the first half of the show or so before we reached a plato of still interesting pace but just not as interesting or with the added interest the previous episodes had. Giving it a slight down hill before it got back up to captivate me again.
The plot twists in this actually did take me relatively by surprise, I admit some where more more obvious than others but over all most of them took a while to build up to keeping me on my toes for most of the drama. The cinematography is really good! the amount of beautiful shots is almost overwhelming at times.
Bingabilaty :high,
Feels: Medium to high
Quality: High
Annoying characters: not really but a few to many annoying "ooh choohaas... " that got on my nereves.
Cute and lovable characters: a lot
Characters you will want to choke or shove of a cliff: a lot so well balanced
Relevant issues: yes and done well
Humour: not as dark as I had hoped but I did laugh a few times.
What keeps it from reaching a full 10 is:
1. It lacks some closure, as some parts dragged out others where rushed.
2. The middle parts where just not that exiting
3. Some of the logic did not really hold up all the way thru
4. Lack of umbrellas, I felt like the name of the drama and first episodes gave me high hopes that where not completely fulfilled
5. A few to many flashbacks
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Decent but draggy second part. to a decent but draggy drama
The second part started off very promising, the female lead felt all grown up end empowered the male lead had also gone through a whole lot of character growth and the slightly annoying characters had little to no screen time...While most of the characters seemed to have more lives than Bruce Willis in Die Hard there seemed to come a point where peoples who died actually stayed dead, and unless there is a 3ed season the meaning of life and death may actually seem... well meaningful... odd for this type of drama but it could actually happen here (I am not gonna tell you who though because that may actually spoil it). There are some really good scenes here and there, great lines about catered and power..
Such as " The more you hate Spirits the more you can do for me"
All very good indeed...
However some of the twists were a bit too predictable (even for the inexperienced viewer), there is a lot of unnecessary draggy dialog, boring fight scenes... poor graphics, the type that look like an old computer game from the early 00s and while the syrup kept flowing, there was some point where it felt like someone had a thing for vampires, as most of the looked like newly fed vampires just a little bit to many times...
Still I did love the leads.. could be a bias towards the actors, could be that they had lovely chemistry and nice dialog between them, So I guess they are the reason I kept watching and rated it an 8 instead of lower. I wish the plot would have focused more on them and given them more playful and romance time for these two, I also wish the plot made more sense to me...
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Obsession, Deception, Love and Redemption...
In a fantasy world more or less anything can happen and I mean anything... As I started this drama the 59 episodes felt a tad overwhelming and to be honest while it had several interesting characters to catch my interest right from the start it did tend to be a tad draggy, extremely aggravating and annoying at times making me wonder if I could actually finish this.As time/episodes went by my interest and aggravation came and went... Besides suddenly craving cranberry juice I was pretty intrigued and though some twist where annoyingly easy to figure out most of them where not and quite a few of the twists/ new directions of the plot where fairly interesting making the last part of the show captivating making me even long for more odd but true...
If you look closely you can probably notice quite a few rainbows and LGBTQ+ storylines in disguise (for obvious reasons), playing with both gender identity (I am pretty sure one of the characters is gender fluid), sexuality etc.
The casting of the Male lead (and most of the others too) probably went something like: Here is some cranberry juice, try to spit/drool it out slowly... As the amount of fake blood/cranberry juice like substances where overflowing in each episode...
For the female lead it was more: cry out Sifaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang in desperation...
The chemistry between them is pretty awesome, and their acting and characters give you 2 or 3 personalities per beautiful body... Most of them lovable and fun to watch, Not bad right!
The main villains are so annoying you may want to see them crushed, tortured and turned in to fountains off cranberry juice.
There are a lot of thought provoking scenes about, evil, power, corruption, sacrifice, looking at the whole picture. the whole going beyond he is mean type of deal... As well as doing things for the greater good... Is there a greater good and will solving things with violence only lead to more violence or is there violence that is justified and could lead to peace, love and fluff? Any way you name it, this drama probably has it... Also some people just need to shut up and let people think...
There is a lot going on in this drama making giving you not only several personalities in each character but also give the feel of 3 or 4 dramas in one, the CGI effects could be better, however there are quite a few gorgeous scenic shots here and there.
So... in numbers:
Aggravation: 5-999999
Bingabilaty: Low first half, High second half
Lovable leeds: 9
Chemistry: 2-999999
Cranberry juice: 99999999
If you chose to watch it, you should prepare yourself for frustration, but if you can handle it i
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