Shiro

Smile Code to Bug Code

This drama has a great cast, an interesting premise and a bunch of representation that could have made this a masterpiece...

It starts out pretty fun but then it just takes a huge dive in what I assume a search for depth but just ends up boring, packed unnecessary never ending monologs and gestures that had me ruling my eyes over and over again... making it almost impossible to finish .

the story could have just ended after 15 great episodes but no they had to go an try to find some kind of justice balanace whatever thing to it... Girl chased biy, now boy must chace girl... Boy was broken and depressed, now girl must be broken and depressed... full circle nonsense annoyance...

But i made it to the end...

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It is all in the shades...

This is a morally ambiguous story about a naive man who moves to Hong Kong to seek a better life for himself and his girlfriend but finds himself changing as fast as the city and well... ends up taking all kinds of turns that may or may not give him and the girl a better life but also throw him on a journey of change, lust and falling in love with someone else than the girl he was supposed to seek a better life for.

There is a strange realism to this story playing with shades of morality and taking us away from the one true love many seem to adore.

Our female lead is really fun, cool and great at speaking her mind while still showcasing some kind of voulnarabilaty and the ability to keep two ideas in her head at the sam time.

There are some interesting lines and schenes that show about relativity and change.

A pretty decent film

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"Lust awakens the desire to possess, And that awakens the intent to murder"

This is a movie that basically teaches the audience to stay away from Buddhist Monasterys, even if it may be placed in a beautiful location, the boredom they feel leads them to do the strangest things...

This movie did a great job inviting me to feel the boredom of the life of a monk (or several monks), i could truly feel the boredom take over me in this pretty as it may be sloow, depressing movie with less actual dialog than there is in page of a children's book. As the people here seem to speak with actionsand gazes instead of using actual words.

The whole movie is filmed in the same location, different season, same little (gorgeous) lake, surrounded by mountains and missplaced doors making me want to google a bunch of stuff about buddhist as I feel like this movie has a lot more to it than I actually understand. The little I do know or think know about buddhism the lives of buddhist monks is portrayed rather well there is a lot of silence, as well as nature takings its course, as well as how one thing leads to another, one moment the male lead sneaks a peak, the next he sneaks out, and before we know it he loses all interest and respect towards his master and spines out of control...

So while the pace was slow, there was a complete lack of dialog and I was bored at times I could not help but be fascinated by the few words I did get to hear, I am not going to say this is in nay way entertaining but I get why it is used as study material, it is artsy, it has depth, it seems to try to says a bunch of stuff and it makes me understand that I do not understand squat about it making want to google stuff. Therefor it gets a 8.


P.s "Lust awakens the desire to possess, And that awakens the intent to murder" seeing those words come out of the same mouth as the guy who later had a very interesting role in Squid Game was a probably the most fun part of the movie

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A Cute Guy, Cringe and an annoying Female Lead

This is one of those dramas that is kind of hard to rate... as it is an easy binge with a whole lot of good, humour (or parts to laugh at) and fluff in it but also a whole lot inconsistencies, second hand embarrassment and cringe (and not in a good way), at least in the first and the last few episodes. The middle is however lovely....

As we meet the slightly insane (not portrayed in a good way) comic artist, her awesome friends, the emotionally lacking with amnesia, his pet alpaca and a bunch of med students. As these people get to know each other thy seem to eat a lot of food, and create a whole lot of love geometry in the most beautiful fluffy way...

Giving us such great scenes as:

Girl thinks she is invisible whenever she covers her face and turns her body to face the handsome male lead...

People who study together get to play together

And fluffy supposedly evil alpace with odd haircut eats grass, carrots and grapes.

Though our female lead is not the stupidest I have seen in all of dramaland, I found her character hard to love... she has a lot of good friends (one of them would have made a much better female lead), and she has some good moments but overall this gal is selfish, self absorbed, and honestly not that talented... she is not a good friend to her friends.. at all...

Our male lead is just a little bit to innocent and does not seem to have a mean stoke at all, he is school smart, caring, maybe a bit too clingy, but otherwise pretty much a nice male lead and not at all a bad one.. as one may hope for considering the title of the drama.


All in all a decent watch with lots of gif material. You just have to overlook the bad parts.. And should be an ok pick for all those looking for something light and do not mind the female lead and the inconsistencies of the plot.

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Unfinished but Fun

This is another story of a writer who is sent in to their own story and did what they could to try to survive alongside the male lead who at first wants her dead.

However while I did get a husband, I am missing the bossy and also am not 100% sure where is the love...

The female lead is supposedly smart and thinks she knows the plot (since she wrote it), the male lead has gained the ability to read her mind which not only pretty much levelled the playing field between the two, but also made way for some interesting slightly low humour. However it also made me question the female leads intelligence as she had to understand that not only had the plot changed but the male lead showed very clearly that he indeed could read her mind. So yes I was bothered by the way she did not catch on to it.

Since this is a short web drama I was fully prepared for things to be under developed however that was not really the issue here as they seemed to get in deeper in to the plot than the time slot allowed for leaving me with the feeling that the story has just begun and that I should expect another season or 10 to finish it. Something that did indeed lower the score.

So basically this is a fun palette cleanser between heavier dramas, and I am sure to keep on watching the next season if and when it will be made.

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Good story, but there aint no glory in splitting it in two

I do not know how much glory there is in here yet, but there is a superwoman who is obsessed with revenge (for good reason), and a whole lot of people who will indeed help you loose all hope in humanity and very few people to restore that faith.

The drama offers us a whole bunch of good lines, decent acing a good OST and a whole lot of chemistry... and tension. But do not for a second think this is a romance, nor expect a of of screen time for Lee Do Hyun as it is very clear that the main character of this drama are Moon Dong Eun (Song Hye Kyo) and Park Yeon Jin ( Im Ji Yeol the rest are just there to support them. Some characters were more well written than other but in general this is a good drama with good acting and people who know what they are doing. There is also a lot of attention to detail, and scenes that may put you off frying, bbq... Or basically anything that cooks meat...

Our heroine gives off a calm patient vibe, with great build up making me wonder what she has in store for these people. She is smart, focused and most definitely has a master plan, or so we hope. And would rather share her time with an executioner rather than looking for a prince. And though all she has in her mind is revenge it is hard not to fall for her, as she has a lot of charm to accompany the empty slightly evil calculating look in her eyes.

The drama is also highly binge-able and ands with a cliffhanger, which bothers me quite a bit, as I honestly can not see any reason other than annoy the audience to split this drama in half. As I may only have a few days till next season, but had I watched it at time there would be a risk that I would have forgotten or lost intrest with time, which is a shame since it is a really good drama. It may not offer a lot new to the table but it is still a good drama, just slaughtered to be split in two halves.. But I am not bitter... not at all..

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Nicely Balanced Slice of Life Murder -Mystery with a Dash of Romance

This is a story about a girl who got tired of exchanging her time and self respect for money and honestly just needed a break... So she sold pretty much all she owned and decided to take a much needed break acting pro actively before it would have been to late and she would have hit a wall...

Having pretty much 0 obligations (ok one annoying older brother), she could basically go wherever her very tight budget let her and ended up in a town by the sea with a library and a mystery to solve... It was of course not her job to solve that mystery but living in a murder house for the sake of being able to live on her budget kind of put her in the middle of things.

On her way to figure out just how little she wanted to have in her life she found a family, friendship a running partner and some slight romance.

So if you are looking for a bubbly, steamy romance you may want to look pretty much anywhere else with the genre romance... as the most intense romance is probably provided but the teens in this show and not by the leads. However if you are looking for some really good friendships, growth and life is neither black or white and definitely not always easy... truths can change, trust is complicated and domestic violence is also complicated. And a slight murder mystery that is highly predictable but will keep you on your toes... This is a good place to find it.

I must warn you thought that there are a bunch of cringey monologs, annoying elements here and there, loud crying and drunken scenes that are just off... There is however also a really cute dog, Im Siwan running, a lot of running as well as him in a wet t-shirt, as well as great umbrella and rain scenes all around it.

There is also a decent message telling viewers that what is good for you may not be good for the next so stop judging people by your own standards... The drama has a pretty good balance between entertainment and quality so it is an easy binge with lots of lovable characters.

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Reply 1988 meets A River Runs Though It light...

This was sweet and kind of innocent showing a beautiful friendship, lovable characters and parants that are not as awful as many other C-drama parants... Actually the fathers in this are even really nice most of the time. Giving me a bunch of beloved cliches and a lot of things I like but also a bit too many monologs and things I have seen done better to get up the score to a full 9 or 10.

What bothered me the most was one of the moms who was just annoying and the way 5th wheel/ fat brother was portrayed making me want to skip-watch whenever those two appeared.

What I enjoyed the most was the friendship, the duality and the chemistry between the other 4 leads. the playfulleness.. even If I am compelled to say, that jealousy teasing and hitting each other is not a good basis for a relationship but indeed a lot of fun to watch. That said the male lead does not force himself on the female lead even once... The other male lead is so sweet, he does need to learn to use words and speak up for himself but he is just such a cutie, smart, fun, the type to read the room... while both are lovely, supportive and a lot of fun to watch that guy is just a little bit better then the main lead in the main couple.

There is one scene, that can be interpreted as either an attempt to add trans representation that can pass though Chinese censorship or an act of yet again making trans people invisible. So to those watching you I would like to say people who are assigned one gender at birth can very much change both geniteailia or discover that they indeed are do not belong to the gender assigned to them at birth.

The is definitely one of the smoother, less angsty youth dramas out there, easy to binge, easy to laugh, easy to fall in love with the characters. just remember that fat people are humans too and all will be well...

P.S. the use of umbrellas is pure magic

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Unique and interesting story that could use a remake to take out all the annoying elements

This story is unique and objectively really good as it deals with several subjects rarely to be told. There is depth, complexity to the situations and some really well written lines here and there, and though I did enjoy many of the scenes I did find this drama cluttered with never ending boring conversations, people shifting blame, people yelling at other bring back my... Whatever they want back at the wrong person + asking someone to bring back their whatever, you should have died instead and how dare you breath when your kid died/killed someone just does not make any sense to me. Making me feel bad for judging their way of dealing with this. But also kind of want to choke them all...

The story itself id you turn off all the (way to many annoying and draggy elements ) is really good so for those of you not sensitive to this behaviour and that do not mind the tag healing, go for it you may really enjoy it, as I am sure I would have rated it a lot higher if I could just pick those elements out of this. So I am for a remake!

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A Heteronormative Life in an Electric Car

This drama is a celebration of heterosexuality as it shows a whole bunch of heterosexual couples... young, old, age gap... And so on and so on... They seem to be trying to have a somewhat taraditional meets progressive approach, gender role reversal, Woman Can! Heterosexual Love is Love... A real man can appreciate a successful woman and so on and so on... As it is not easy to be a woman in a Mans world... where woman are pressured daily in to marriage or even worse children... this drama starts off telling the viewers that it is okay not to get married and have kids, let the women choose for them selves... while still showing that at the end of the day woman can not resist marriage and kids... But sure the pressure women meet is not ok.They will inevetebly make the decision to get married and have kids on their own.

The female lead is a strong, rational woman who does not budge while facing som pretty awful sexism, gaslighting, and flat out bullying in the workforce. She keeps her calm, is strategic and has a whole bunch of qualities etc. I admit I actually liked her, she did not annoy me and had a whole bunch of rational things to say thru out the show.

The male lead is Dylan Wang, the main reason I watched this, he is the sweetest guy ever, supportive, patient does not force himself on the female lead even once, though he does make some questionable choices here and there... Id say he is 90% progressive dream guy dripping honey 10% sexist. Nobody will of course notice that since compared to the rest of the men portrayed in this drama he is pretty much a saint.

The other suiters range between toxic, to privileged but decent, to flat out abusive... and show a hole bunch of red flags... The best friend is bad ass but married to a chauvinist pig. The other friends are pretty cool, especially the second couple who shoed the biggest character growth of them all. The Male leads mom is one of the best moms in all of dramaland, I loved her so much. the female leads mom was not as bad as the female leads mom in Something in the Rain but at times she did get close...

This drama also serves as a looong commercial for "new Power" cars (electricity), the struggles of the industry against back wards striving gasoline lovers who seem to do all in their power to cut the power... While empowering women at the same time.

All in all a decent watch, not amazing but good at times. and easy to binge.

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Plus Kisses Minus A lot

This drama has a lot of potential as it has pretty ok actors, nice cameo, sweet second couple a decent story to tell and not an overly annoying character in sight...

However instead of communicating with each other most characters seem to choose kissing. As in some dramas you find yourself thinking now kiss... this is a drama where you find yourself thinking now talk... And please say something else then " We Will Always Be Together" as I kept wondering when - We'll Always Be Together from Grease would start playing. FYI - It didn't.

The story development is more or less non existent... Kiss I like you( for some after 20 years) Poof that person is dining - kiss, , poof that person died- kiss, poof we are camping-kiss, kiss- lets break up,I hate you-kiss, I love you- kiss, the world is ending-kiss, you do not respect me- kiss, lets get married-kiss, lets get a divorce- kiss, and so on and so on.. First or second couple other couples doesn't really matter everything seems to come out of nowhere and you are never more than a scene away from a kiss or make out session. The kisses where the type where they look like they are trying to eat the other persons face better than dead fish but not really as fluffy as other kisses can be.

Still it was an ok watch, nothing I recommend but nothing I regret spending time on either.

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Great male lead but to many annoying elements.

This drama has some good points but they are overshadowed by the presence of annoying side characters, annoying scenes seemingly never ending monologs... Flashbacks, montages, and the extreme over use of the words: "from this day on... " over and over and over again... Accompanied by lots and of second hand embarrassment...

The female lead, is very much an overly timid scaredy cat who is supposed to be bad ass and act tough, stronger, faster than most men and what not she comes off strong as a person who does not really care much about gender, saying that the only difference between her and a man is the lack of penis...(which is kind of a problematic way of saying it). I think it is supposed to be progressive but it ends up a bit of a mess and can be interpreted as both pan, trans, bi, etc friendly but it can also come off as the opposite depending on who is watching and how the dots are connected. There are definitely ways of interpreting this as very lLGBTQ+ friendly, but also spaces that can be interpreted either way.

The Male lead is however perfect in every way sweet, lovable, charming, kind. smart and definitely stands some good pan representation. His parents are pretty lovable too and so is the female leads cousin. But there is where the lovable characters end.

So in conclusion, not very good, not very entertaining, but the ML and fighting scenes do make it an ok watch. and stand for all the stars for this drama...

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Breaking up is hard to do...

What do you get when you take a narcissistic social media addict and pair her with a spineless gal who has an affair and tries to break up with her?

A whole bunch of guilt tripping, tricks and some oddly entertaining plots and personalities... The execution is not really good, but they do have their absurdly funny moments. Making you go WTF? They are both fun, lovable, flat and not very lovable at the same time. There is more or less 0 character development and it is more of a laugh at and come on kind of entertaining then relationship goals type of drama (as it was probably was intended), It does however show duality in trying to let go and difficulty moving on whole heartedly after a long and toxic relationship. That part was actually done pretty well...

The high score is more of a this is rare, and oddly entertaining kind of high score not a oooh this is good go watch it... That said it is good enough so for the sake of supporting some GL, you may just want to give it a view.

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Interesting twists and well casted

This drama start off pretty mediocre having not much interesting happen during the first episode, not really reeling in the viewers, but as the story unfolds it becomes more and more interesting and less and less predictable leaving each episode with the feeling of wanting more, and not having the slightest idea of what is to come, ok some parts where a bit predictable, like pateley order of death but the rest seemed to literally jump out of nowhere. Keeping me on my toes from episode 2 and on.

The story is certainly interesting to watch and had my otherwise heard to get to watch dramas husband taking initiative to both start watching after we left off and keep going in to the night.

The cast here is plain brilliant, all do their job well, the characters are over all well written, no one is just there as comic annoying type comic relief. The main characters are complex beings allowed to show both a tough and soft side to them making them more human. There is a slight mix of issues, cuteness, ethics, politics, and dooms day feel to it mostly well balanced adding to the plot without making it too confusing (with a few side steps but they are forgivable) . The cinematography is also beautifully done. but I must warn you there are some pretty grose scenes as well...

So all in all this drama worth a watch for those who want to be kept on their toes while enjoying some pretty good acting and visuals.

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Soju wrapped up in a show...

This drama is about 50% drama, 50% soju commercial. Sometimes Soju will be fun and sweet while other times it will taste bitter and if you drink to much at once it will just not be fun... But this will not give you a hangover so it is a lot safer than actually drinking soju.

While the bingabilaty is low and there are a bunch of annoying high pitched elements, and some really awful crying scenes the show is fun, has great food shots, it is fresh shows great friendships while sneaking in an issue or three to the mix of episodes without having to much depth...

All in all an enjoyable watch and I am in deed looking forward to seeing a season two of this. I hope they will talk a little bit quieter and not have to cry as much in the next season though.

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