haloum

he's not ruthless but I think he's much more likeable than the usual ceo character

yeah the title's a bit misleading, but maybe in her past life the masked man (/his past self) ended up becoming her enemy

thoughts so far:

● I was hesitating to start this bc I have one sided beef with the actress lmao (I could go on for paragraphs about this but I doubt anyone wants my negativity so I'll spare you) but I'm short on things to watch so I started it and it's genuinely hilarious; the scene of them fighting with plants had me silently shaking at 3 am

● I didn't watch any trailers or anything so I had no idea what the premise of the show was, and from the first scene I thought they were gonna do a body swap and already prepared myself to be annoyed but I'm soooo glad it wasn't the case

● I think this is my first time seeing the actor playing the ML and this man is fIINNNEEEE

● I really liked the scene of her being baffled at the girl dreaming of being a housewife. motherhood is totally a valid dream but considering the constant subjugation of women that we see in tv shows (especially romance) it's nice to see that reaction

● overall it was really entertaining, the only scenes that I found boring were the ones with his family, but ig they're just setting things up for something more interesting (hopefully)

for other genres, I mainly enjoy historical romance (I lean more towards the action side like legend of the female general and pursuit of jade.. but I still like some of the political intrigue/laid back ones like story of kunning palace and currently a splendid match)

I'm totally considering LBFAD I heard really nice things about it thank you sm for the recommendation!!

thank you so much!!!

oh I really hope they do deviate then 😔

My Dearest

it's a kdrama and it's very much a slow burn and the themes are much darker than this one

it's extremely well written too (it also happens to be my personal favorite but im not biased at allll *laughs nervously*)

I mean his entourage does keep pointing out that he needs to hurry up and get married

lmao I kinda like the bridgerton-y moments but it's the modern score that I found startling, like when he asked her to marry him, the moment he held her hand, a random song got turned up and it was loud and modern and sooo out of place

I'd rather victim tbh. I'm sick of the jealous female villain trope, I think we're starting to grow out of that as a collective... male characters get redemption arcs after doing much worse things, but female characters always end up being thrown down the villain pipeline out of jealousy of the FL

right 😭 but lowkey I kinda like it... give me all the angst

I don't entirely agree with the reply saying that she's just a trusting person

I think the decision to make that maid serve the other was genuinely stupid. you don't have to be scheming or manipulative to know it's the wrong decision. It's actually quite inconsiderate and unkind (but I don't think she was an unkind person, just inconsiderate and a bit slow)

yeah I do think the writers are setting something up between them. It's giving enemies to lovers and I like it. I hear that a lot of people loved Ye Xian in the books so maybe the screenwriters wanted to take advantage of that and decided to give him his own romantic arc since he's obviously not gonna end up with Jinzhao

It's really good.. I was neutral about it in the beginning but if you like this genre then it's amazing. the pacing and the characters are really interesting, and you won't find yourself skipping or wanting to skip scenes

thoughts so far:

● alright I'm hopping off my Gu Lan/Ye Xian deluluship and I'm hopping on the Qinglan/Ye Xian (hopefully not delulu) ship. she's just dominant enough to put him in his place.

● but I will be holding on to my hopes for a Gu Lan redemption arc. I like what they're doing with her wanting to get into business. Jinzhao had a good reason for refusing her but I hope that won't be the end of it, and I REALLY hope that won't be another weight that would tip Gulan into hating Jinzhao and plotting some stupid revenge. I also appreciated jinzhao standing up for her when she got the invite

● I really really really love the amount of strong female characters we're getting on this show. I have noticed that it's kind of a regular occurrence in cdramas and I appreciate that, but in this one specifically, I think they dialed it up a little bit and I couldn't be happier about it

● I'm wondering when Chen Yan Yun will find out about jinzhao and his nephew, bc it feels a bit awkward for them to get together only for him to find out later 😭 like really awkward...

● I really like the dynamic between jinzhao and her cousin, I really hope it's only platonic, I think he could be the brother she deserves. I hear it might've been different in the book but pleASE

● I love what they did with them tying for most of the game. It's much better than her winning or him letting her win. I do think her win at the end was deserved and I refuse to believe otherwise lmao

● can we talk about how absolutely beautiful she looked in those red and blue robes during the contest?!!! my god I was entranced

● How no one guessed that CYY is madly in love with her is baffling to me

every few episodes, one of the characters would mention the passage of time. it's done really subtly and kinda easy to miss

oh then I guess it's just me who's still unfamiliar with the genre

thank u sooo much I really appreciate that you took your time to recommend all of these 🥹🥹🥹🥹

How does the actor have that much influence on the writing? 😭😭

the last sentence is exactly how I felt during a lot of this 😭😭😭