Sinasina

The second half is weak!

I enjoyed the first 7 or so episodes, up to that point I felt the ok chemistry & the relatively fun bickerish content carries the show, that despite the lack of a hint of originality. However after that, from epis 8 to 11 we have really hit rock bottom. Suddenly competing love interest are introduced & there is a misunderstanding fueled breakup. Sure everything gets resolved quickly enough, however the *superstrong spoiler* event in episode 11 is just plain weird & their whole relationship dynamic with the new status quo is also a bit of a joke. After e12 everything is resolved of course & we go through the motions. Though as much as love long happy endings, this one is exactly the same as in most mediocre cdramas, presented the most boring way ever, yawn.

There were times when I felt the production team has done a really sloppy job. For instance the show featured yet another $1000 adopted stray cat, gosh is it really that hard to get a perfectly fine and lovable SIC from a shelter? (especially considering the backstory & the name) If the cat is a product placement, then at least don't claim it's a stray, for the love of god this is so dumb. (This is one thing `No Gain, No Love ` did well)
Another is that when they went back to ML's childhood home & they've talked about not finding anything else of value other than a few things in a box, meanwhile the camera has shown tens of thousands of $s worth -or way more- of expensive furniture and other stuff around the house, but dad is losing the house because of gambling woes, ok sure. Also the home itself looked like $3.000.000. It's a bit like how when children put on a play without a set & it's the audience's job to look past the venue's ill fitting features & just focus on the dialog.

Read More

It's a bit bland compared to the Korean version

The leads in this one had great chemistry & especially the ML fit the role better than his Korean counterpart. The production is great, with wonderful cinematography & some very attractive OST songs.

Ultimately why I think the Korean version is better is because outside of the main romance everything regarding the plot is better there. Sure the Japanese adaptation is similar enough, the main plot is still essentially the same, however the excitement & the vengeful plotting is largely toned down in the J. version. The kdrama is a makjang that is unusually tame and tolerable & this one is no longer in that genre. Which is not necessarily negative, but the side characters whether it's the casting or their re-characterization are strongly on the boring side and so is the corporate plot presented this way. So in my mind we went from 50% romance 50% entertaining vengeance plotting to 50% romance, 50% boring filler. Nonetheless this drama is still worth a watch for the leads..

Read More

I regret watching..

From an adult's perspective this drama is very weak. There are lots of dashingly beautiful people on the screen & the cinematography is decent, but everything else is from mediocre to straight up bad.

The show follows the frustrating formula of 15 episodes of high school slice of life where everyone is "friends" followed by a -n awful- transition phase & then university / adult dating in the final 5. While I don't like this formula, I have seen some objectively great dramas based on it. So why is this so much worse? Well for starters the acting is on a very low level, with very little emotional impact beyond some occasional cutesy fluff. 80% of this show is not romance, but that 80% is surprisingly boring most of the time, though the startup related plotline in the final episodes is way worse than boring & it could not have been any less unoriginal. (develop a new kind of fitness bracelet, heavily woo a hermit expert to help you along etc..)
The romance itself is sub par too. It's just difficult to feel the immersion, I'm really not sold on any of it.

The love triangle is not the worst, but it's present for quite a while & all the "let's be friends" talk on the main couple's side made it oh so much worse.

The show has some jarringly blatant social engineering / propaganda messaging. For example there is that scene when the crew talks about what an idol is to them or when ML is repeatedly saying that everyone should follow their on pace, doing that completely out of context, essentially disregarding FL's top level ability & the -oh so dumb & super common- outside factors that led to her having to repeat the final year.

Don't waste your time, compared to I don't know `A Love So Beautiful ` this is not worth mentioning. Yes, censorship limits heavily what a high school slide of life cdrama can be, but here the writers did not even try to thread those limits..

Read More

Feels like a knockoff, but it's not bad.

Another Oh Hae Yong is one of the best kdramas I have ever seen, It has minor flaws, but it's pretty much as good as it gets with some unusual elements for a kdrama.
Unlucky Ploy mostly -especially in the early episodes- is a very accurate adaptation. Most scenes are brought over verbatim, I can almost see the cast watch the relevant Korean scene before each filming session & then trying to mimic as perfectly as possible. There is no attempt at new interpretations here. (they've removed a few scenes related to poop & maybe even pee, it's been a while..)

So why is it a 7? Well it's worse than the original in every single way. The acting is much worse, It's not bad exactly, but it's like amazing acting and chemistry of at least two couples vs. just alright. The music, cinematography, the production & everything else is similar to the original, but clearly worse. Also the second couple's happy ending is mostly missing from this one.
I'm confident that even in a vacuum, where I would only know this show I wouldn't rate it above 7.5..
Oh I'm almost forgot it's not just the meh acting, but also the casting of the FL & second FL are not great. FL is just too radiant for this concept to be anywhere near believable. Second FL is pretty, but the somewhat quirky pretty that the main FL should've been.

Most lakorns are awful, at least in that space this has to be amazing, right?

Read More

It's kind of a Chinese take on La La land with a tremendous amount of filler..

Sure this one is not at all a musical, but the mood, the ambiance and the circumstances felt quite similar to me. Instead of one couple there are two main couples here, but this comparison still fits alright for either of them. What they've shown of Macau is absolutely magical -and probably not all that realistic, but who cares- and in the first half of the show the romance is also mostly excellent.

So why is it only a 7.5? Well the second half of the drama only had like 30-40 mins of what I wanted to watch & there were all kinds of miscellaneous plots. While I knew very early on that we're faced with sort of an omnibus style storytelling & but there was so much there that I found incredibly boring. (Casey + kid | Older Brother + wedding | divorcee parents) The ending here is better than La La Land's, which is honestly not very difficult, however I expected way way more from a show this long & one that had so much filler and I mean SO EFFIN MUCH filler.

The OST & cinematography are top, about as good as it gets in this genre, It's almost worth it just for that.

People compare this to `Fake It Till You Make It`, other than Elvis Han acting in both there are not all that many commonalities I think. Even if we approach this topic with the "mature love" angle, I think everything is just too different..

Read More

It's ok.

This is -contrary to the premise- a very simple feelgood story with very few annoyances. Though at the same time it's super shallow & despite the format it feels too slow as well. Also everything that is typically wrong with Japanese romance content is also present in this show. I watched Shanai Marriage Honey just the other day & that was a lot better, that's what gave me the courage to try another similar Japanese drama after years of avoiding them, but this is super cringe compared to your average c/k drama, which is saying something.

So yes, in a vacuum this okay -not great-, but partly due to my personal biases & jculture fatigue I think I'll continue avoiding these in the future.

Read More

There is nothing new or unexpected here, but the format makes this very entertaining. There is no time for love triangles, or filler, since the whole thing is only like 140 minutes long. The characters are plenty cute looking great together with acceptable chemistry, what else is there to wish for in a show so short?

If you are the kind of drama watcher that is always complaining about not seeing a couple's married life at the end of various shows, this is for you. That's pretty much what these 2+ hours are about and there is also the hide relationship at work trope, which I happen to like.

If I really wanted to deeply criticize this show, I could since there are lots of annoying things in all Japanese dramas that I've seen thus far, but this is certainly one of the good ones.

Read More

If I had to rate the first 15 or so episodes this would be as close to a perfect romcom as it gets in China, i'm not even sure if content like this could even get past the censors these days, there is really just too much emotion and some other things here. Though I do have to mention there are some love shapes around & I'm not a fan of FL's personality 1 & personality 2 loving a different person for so long. Though admittedly if a love square ever made sense, then it's in this drama & I really think they could have made this far more annoying, perhaps the fact that it's only 24 episodes helped a lot too in this regard.

As for episodes after 15, we had the finale of the kingdom arc & it was quite strange & then we quickly transitioned to the immortal world / spirit realm, whatever it's called in this show & that part kind of felt as if I were playing Chrono Trigger, but went to the last dungeon while skipping 2/3rds of the story and game content. However since this is a trilogy & there is a chance it will make more sense in the future. Sure the Demon King is a pretty boring cartoon villain-ish enemy, but very little time is wasted on him & the rest of this arc (4-5 episodes) is not really that bad, well not bad not great, but more often than not xuanhuan show endings or rather the final batch of episodes tend to be worse than what we've gotten here. So I decided to rate the show at 8- just barely - and so onto the next one, so long friends..

Read More

This is basically the reboot of My Girlfriend Is an Alien 1. It's just as silly and the plot just as juvenile as before. A romcom of this genre does not really need a sensible plot, at least as long as the entertainment is steady and up until the last 25% it mostly is, though I did feel it drag and repeat itself, but it's not too bad. ML's acting & chemistry with FL has improved tremendously from before & I found the love triangle less annoying, since the second ML is a straight up cartoon villain in the final episodes & has very inconsequential, skippable scenes until then.

There is a tremendous amount of fluff & fun bickering in this show. What annoyed me though is that the romances -even by cdrama romcom standards- are just too shallow.

The final episodes preceding the 30 min long happy ending were basically trash, but since the entertainment value until then was decent, I decided to rate it at 6.5.

Read More

Enjoyable, but not amazing.

The Good
⌲ The leads look great together visually.
⌲ Puff executed the aloof female lead persona very well.
⌲ The cute second lead noona romance
⌲ The workplace banter up until e9.
⌲ The relatively well executed fight scenes
⌲ Effectively speaking the villainous characters don't get any screen time. (I cannot emphasize how great that is compared to the cartoon villain galore that we normally get in dramas)
⌲ There are no love triangles worth mentioning.

The Average:
⌲ The main romance. (there is just unusually little fluff overall)
⌲ The supporting characters at the company felt too average, kind of like they were drawn from a template or something like that.
⌲ The mom is horrible, but on the flip side she has very little screen time, as such causing fewer than average annoyances.
⌲ Recording conversations left and right.
⌲ The weird 13 episode format, did the bad ratings lead to premature cancellation? (then again it's better then dragging the story to 16..)
⌲ There is very little fun banter & main romance after e9, the focus shifts to other things.

The Bad:
⌲ ML keeps hitting on FL, who does not notice for half the drama & then suddenly they are dating.
⌲ The separate bedroom.
⌲ The plot flows strangely. (it's difficult to explain. There are a large number of very emotionally satisfying scenes, but the whole drama feels a bit disjointed.)
⌲ The final episode is fan fiction tier for a variety of reasons, it's really not a well thought out episode plot wise.
⌲ Redemption arc, redemption arc, everyone gets a redemption arc, yay. (no way forgiveness is justified for these people!)
⌲ Friend & exBF ...

Read More

I have recently watched `It Started with a Kiss` for the first time. While it's been a bit of a lukewarm experience, I had nothing better to watch and so decided to give the sequel a go.

If I only look at the journey and not the destination** than the sequel is tremendously better. It's still a bit repetitive, but ML had real character progression over the course of the 20 episodes & the various plots were more interesting & better written. The leads also warmed up to each other much more, reaching near perfect chemistry. Though `They Kiss Again` is far more of a slice of life/romance drama than comedy, the comedy is still omnipresent though & is rather okay. This one also has a love triangle, but It's rather short lived, it's not nearly as egregious as before. Overall the romance in this one is strong & very enjoyable, with increasing depth as we reach the final episodes. It's good stuff.

**The biggest gripe I have with this drama is the ending, it basically does not have one, not counting a 2 minute long something something inserted into the ending credits. Episode 20 is like any other episode, it's a good one with lots of emotion etc, but it really feels like the team planned for season3..
Endings are really important to me, so this contributed a lot to why this drama did not break the 8.0 barrier in my overall score.

Also I really disliked Christine. Her character is not only really poorly written, but also the whole alien in Taiwan thing is really unnaturally presented. Foreigners are often incredibly annoying supporting characters in Asian dramas in general, but good gawd. (and when I thought it could not get any worse, then her father made an appearance .. )

Overall I enjoyed this, It's really decent for 2007.

Read More

Let me start with quickly summarizing the plot: (I may have made minor mistakes with the numbers here, but the ballpark is correct)

⌲ep1-3: The leads meet and them plus their families start living together.
⌲ep4-25: Nothing happens. (Lighthearted comedy with about as much romantic progress as about 3 normal kdrama episodes would have today in 2024.)
⌲ep26-28: Makjang, SUDDENLY everyone wants to marry someone else. (this is like what the plot of ep10 to 15 of a 2005 era kdrama would be like, but fast tracked)
⌲ep29-30: Happy ending.

So basically anyone who is fine with enjoying an aimless & progress-less and a bit lukewarm comedy for more than 20 episodes straight will enjoy this and this mostly applies to me as well. Though I have been rather annoyed by the final conflicts & how suddenly things devolved into THAT.

This is based on Itazura na Kiss, which I have consumed either in Anime or Manga form almost 20 years ago, I'm not even sure anymore.. Anyway the point is that while I'm not sure how accurately this resembles the original work, I can certainly recognize the plot "progression" of a nineties manga/anime from this. The nostalgia has helped alleviating the feeling of boredom for me, but I somewhat doubt a young person that never experienced that era of j-culture would feel the same way..

Oh I almost forgot, the mom in this drama is an extremely adorable character, at this moment I cannot even think of a cuter mom that I've encountered in a modern Asian drama, it's almost worth watching this just for her shenanigans.

Read More

This show is very 2005 kdrama like, especially the first half. (The Taiwanese flavor does not feel very strong.) In those ancient classics though the final 20-40% always tends to be very makjangish with absolutely insane Brazil soap plots. Luckily in this one the crazy is toned down a lot, so while they set up quite a few of those, they fizzled out every time, the drama does not even feature a breakup. The love triangle starts out as the very annoying friendly `ge` type, but discounting one (or two) three way handgrabs, it's far more tolerable than what you would normally see in a drama of its ilk.
The romance & the main characters are super juvenile as is common in this genre, though 28? yo virgins acting like preteens is understandably not going to be everyone's cup of tea..

Overall this has been solid entertainment for me, though it does get a bit draggy near the finale. (the plot has some really stupid things in it too, like the gangster's redemption ark, I mean what to fork was that?)

---

The repeated anime dancing is so silly that I could just not look away, even after seeing it 20+ times.

Read More

Disclaimer: I have not watched the so called season1, because I have been warned about the terrible plot twist beforehand. (which makes it a 2/10 drama from the get go)
---
This is basically a rather generic cdrama romcom. There is almost not a single new thing here, maybe with the exception of checking marriage license authenticity with amnesia. The chemistry is average, the comedy is average, the acting is average and the plot is average too (which means it's bad objectively speaking). There is also a rather typical semi-weak love triangle, though it ends very peacefully.

What makes this drama stand out a tiny bit from mediocrity is that it's a bit shorter than normal (12ep kdrama length) and so the plot is progressing rather quickly & there are no big annoyances anywhere. It's basically 70% fluff n sugar, which is something I always appreciate, even though the romances could not have been any shallower. While the villains are really poorly written and all, the fact that they barely have any screen time & fail to cause any big upheavals is pretty great.

One thing that somewhat annoyed me is that the drama has several very forceful kisses, but it's played off as successful seduction or something along those lines..
Oh I almost forgot, some of the product placements are just direct ad breaks basically, they start talking about certain brands directly & unnaturally. (Adolph Shampoo & whatever sanitary pads)

Read More

Not as amazing as the original, but it's still one of the better localized adaptations I've seen.

I Hear Your Voice is one of my all time top 10 Asian dramas. Up until a few days ago I did not know this adaptation existed, so I quickly lined this up to watch during my daily workout sessions. Overall I'm glad I did. It may not be as good as the original, but I would say it's about as good as watching that for the 3rd time would be like, still plenty great.

Cdramas are inherently less intense than kdramas, but since this came out back in 2019 it's still far more intense than what we are used to today. So the general mood of the original kdrama is quite nicely transferred over. The writer made some changes, from the second case onward the cases are different, but with one big exception* most of the iconic scenes, moments and even the annoying love triangle (the only bad thing about the original) is there. The casting is good, but of course not nearly as good as in the original, but they picked fitting actors.
There is one thing the adaptation did much better than the original, which is FL is not trying to push away ML nearly as much and she completely accepts ML as her future partner. I'm not a big fan of open endings, this felt nice.

*My favorite part of the original drama was when ML pretended to have a memory loss & that is essentially completely missing from the adaptation. Sure ML does get a memory loss, but the pretending part only lasts for 5 minutes & has no romcom relevance.

Read More