Frustrating watch

I liked season 1 well enough, but this season, for me, left a lot to be desired.

Most of the drama was about indecisions of the ML, the FL trying to move on but not wanting to, multiple other potential couples to fill in the spaces. I still liked the acting of the ML and the FL, but the story just kept moving from one person to the next.

There's a girl that has always liked the ML and she uses emotional blackmail on him. I hate that.
FL tries to date someone else, but the actor that was the 2ML was just too "pretty" and the bob hairstyle didn't help at all.

My mantra while watching this was, "Only two more episodes, only one more episode." I will say, though, since it is short, if you've watched the first one and want to feel like you've completed the series, give this a try.

Read More

I'm angry that they made a second season!

I loved AOS #1 up through episode 19. Then they had to go the historic tragedy cliffhanger route to justify another season. So, I'll admit my review is based upon my feelings. PLUS, I felt the script really diminished Uk's love to "love the one you're with" and that irritated me no end.

As with #1, AOS#2 was well-filmed, though granted, a lot darker than the first one. Great CGI, beautiful music.

STORY: Repetitive, with more of the same from #1. How the evil guy, that everyone KNEW was evil, continued to get away with his evilness was just frustrating. My biggest beef was the way the romance was written. Uk fell in love with Cho Yeong before knowing that she was Naksu. That might have been fine if we had some sense that he was struggling with his feelings, considering that he was supposedly so in love with Naksu. I didn't get that impression at all, though. Also, I didn't particularly care for the way that Cho Yeong/Naksu was written. Her personality was just so completely different than Naksu, I didn't get a feeling for Naksu's strength at all. She just seemed clingy to me, coming up with excuses to be with and touch Uk.

ACTING: So good.
Lee Jae Wook as Uk. I was believing his mourning until he met Cho Yeong and then that went out the window. I don't know if he lost weight since the first season or if it was makeup, but his jawline was so sharp it could have cut glass. It was a good look for him. I also liked him wearing black throughout the drama. It was like he had "graduated" from colors to being serious in black.
Go Youn Jung as Naksu/Cho Yeong. She did a good job with the writing that she was given. She is absolutely gorgeous. I've not seen her in anything else I don't think, I'm going to need to check her filmography and watch her in something else.
Hwang Min as Seol Yul. He, again, was my favorite character in this show. He figured out she was Naksu pretty early on, and you really got the sense that he could just FEEL that it was her. He did such a wonderful job with his longing for her.
Shin Seung Ho as Go Won. We got to see a little more understated comedy from him this time around.

CHEMISTRY: The kisses were so good, but I didn't feel the chemistry between them. How is that possible?

I have to say, I'm not particularly caring for the current trend of making multiple seasons of a show, unless it's an exceptional show like Hospital Playlist. Otherwise, it feels like they are just milking the drama, causing a lot of draggy parts to extend the drama length.

Bottom line: If you like darkly filmed dramas with multiple good fight scenes, good CGI, and you really don't care about the romance anyway, give it a try.

Read More

Blown Away!

Some shows you wonder if you should continue wasting your time watching them, hoping they'll get better. Some shows you are anxious to finish all your chores so you can watch them. I kept vacillating back and forth between wanting to forego my life just so I could watch one more episode, but then being sad in advance, knowing this wonderful ride was coming to an end. I was so thoroughly invested in this show, now that I've finished it, I have to say I'm really sad it's over.

STORY: A new village and a new set of people for our leads to get to know and come to care about. I'll admit, the long hair on Wook in the first few episodes really drove me crazy. But then I realized it really suited his kind of quirky personality. There were some new twists in this season, which brings me to the reasons that I gave this a 9 rather than a 10 - and here are the spoilers:
- Really, the whole thing is a suspension of disbelief, which is what I loved about it, but the reason (or lack thereof) for the captain not being able to leave her village didn't make any sense.
- Too many loose ends at the end. Which is fine, if there ends up being a season 3 (though PLEASE don't make us wait two years!)
- Mentions of other villages. Great concept but again, I didn't like that it was just setting up for another season. Because if it doesn't happen, then we're all just disappointed.
- Main bad guy - he was able to get away?! Please, don't have him in the next season. I don't ever like to feel like the bad guys are untouchable and that nothing can stop them. Plus, one of the things that I appreciated about this show was that the police knew what they were doing - I'd like to feel that they'd plan for any eventuality.
- You had BETTER NOT kill off Detective Shin. A mine field, really!?!
But other than that, I thought that this season was just as good as the first. I'll say again, what I said in my review for season 1, I love found family. Again, it was in the village, with the team, with the detectives, and I loved the addition of Bo Ra, and when Wook was explaining to her what it means to be a family, that summed it up perfectly.
The Oh Il Yong storyline - it was brilliant. I didn't get a good vibe from him in the beginning, which is what was supposed to happen, but his storyline was powerful and surprising. And I loved the relationship between him and Wook.
I loved that Jong A played a more integral role, as well as the fact that she stepped up to make herself more indispensable and figured out how to find more missing children. Gotta be honest, the potential for her to see ghosts is exciting, but there is something to be said for having someone on the team that is a little bit out of the loop. You lose some of the elements of surprise if everyone knows what's going on.
This season, the detectives were starting to figure out that there was something different about this team. I like that Detective Shin knows, but the others don't, but they know that there is absolutely something strange going on. That, to me, was amusing.

ACTING/CAST: Stellar. I was glad to see Thomas, even though it was too brief. I continued to be impressed with everyone in the cast, but this time around I have to give a shout out to Lee Jung Eun as the Captain. She's one of those actresses that I love her in everything she is in. That sweet/beautiful face and smile, her short, round body (I mean that in the best possible way - don't you think that she would give the best hugs?), I'd love her to be my grandma, but then I remember I'm old and she'd have to be my sister, but still. I liked the clothes that the costume designer put her in, Peter Pan collars, knit comfy sweaters, long loose skirts and sensible shoes. She just seemed so approachable. And to have her be the first person you see when you enter the village and have her say that she's made food, come in and she'll explain what's going on - she was the heart of the village. Jung Eun's acting is normally understated, but there were times in this show that her pain, anger and loneliness were almost palpable.

And that was the conundrum for these villagers, especially those that had been there for a long time. You want the children to be able to move on, but it's heartbreaking when they do.

MUSIC: I especially loved the theme song, I found myself humming it - I loved hearing it at the beginning of each episode, but at the end I didn't like it so much because that meant the episode was over.

REWATCH: For me, this isn't the type of show I would rewatch again, because I know what is going to happen.

However, if someone asks me for suggestions for well-written shows, with good character development, excellent chemistry between all actors and that have sucked me completely in, to the detriment of my "real" life, I'd definitely suggest Missing: The Other Side, Both Seasons one and two. You could probably watch only season two and figure out what is going on, but season one really does a good job of laying the groundwork for season two. Really, to be honest, I'm afraid that this show has set a bar so high for me that I'm doomed to be disappointed in other shows, especially since, as a romance lover, there has been so little good to choose from.

Read More

Beautiful actors, but...

For me, this was a long drama with not a lot going on. There is slow in order to build a story, and then there is slow to draw out the episodes. I felt that this definitely fell in the latter category.

Riley Wang as Shu Wei - man, is he ever fine! And those dimples! But, I'm sorry to say, his acting really leaves something to be desired. His movements are wooden and he has basically one expression - he's supposed to be brilliant and anti-social, but to me he just always looked mad. When he was supposed to turn to look at the female lead, it often looked like his neck had some kind of ratchet-gear to make his head turn...turn a little stop, turn a little stop, etc.

Rosy Zhao as Er Duo - I love this actress. She was brilliant in Dating in the Kitchen, and here she has somewhat the same cute, innocent vibe going on, but I got so tired of everyone dumping on her all the time. She was always in trouble with someone.

Chemistry: Seriously lacking. Open-eyed fish kisses, then multiple times that she is trying to keep him from kissing her, like she's scared to death. It's so unrealistic in this day and age. And then they admitted their feelings for one another and I really didn't care.

Second lead couple - they were a big old mess and it was as if the writers had no idea what to do with them. And what they ultimately decided to do made no sense.

Ending - obligatory separation/time jump - stupid, as usual, but since I didn't buy them as a couple it didn't really matter anyway. The ending was very abrupt.

Read More

Lots of laugh out loud moments

Wonderful show. I spent most of my time thinking how attractive both of the leads were. They were both stunning. I actually liked both of the characters. There was quite a bit of physical humor, which was fun, and his facial expressions were priceless! Yoon Kyun Sang played this part perfectly. He was harsh at the beginning, but he did an excellent job of displaying his vulnerability. When he smiled a partial smile for the first time, what a treat! They did a good job of portraying the OCD. I loved her friendships with the rest of the cleaning crew. Didn't like her dad, HATED his grandfather, and I felt the ending was entirely too rushed after spending all that time trying to get them together. Korean shows use that "going away for years" storyline a lot, I guess. Funny, sweet, romantic, low angst, happy, though rushed, ending.

Read More

Slow, and did they get a standin for the ML in the last episode!?!!

The concept was good, the acting was good, but it was just too slow for me. The main actor was awesome, kind of expressionless, but the first time you see him crack a small smile, you are hooked. She was a complete mess at the very beginning, and I was concerned about that, but she finally got a clue. But the ending?!?!?! Did they change the ending and had the actor moved on to another project, so they had to use a stand in? I can't believe how much that bothered me. And WHY do they separate totally? If a man just basically fell off the face of the earth, I'd probably have to think about moving on.

Read More

Slow, rambling story - and not in a good way

I don't mind a story that develops slowly, giving me time to get to the know the characters and their reasoning for doing the things they do. Unfortunately, for me, this show never lived up to its potential. Multiple boring storylines. Multiple unlikeable characters. The bullying storyline was disturbing, the nightmare father was too over-the-top bad, of course they felt like they needed to include a gay storyline and then did nothing with it. As for the two main couples: I could never understand why they would have fallen in love. The main characters were SO different and they never seemed to work to get to know and respect the other's differences. Plus, I found the main actor's acting, as well as his character, problematic. Was he supposed to be on the autism spectrum? Because that's the way he was played. The actor had absolutely no facial expression and his stares were so intense it just looked like he was waiting to say his next line. The second couple had a lot of cute bickering scenes, but really, that's all they ever did.
As I finished this show, I thought that the main goal of the show might have been "keep running forward, don't look back to where you've already been" but who knows, because at that point I just didn't care anymore.

Read More

Short show that really got me in all the feels

Can I just start by saying that the kissing scenes in this were awesome?! Unfortunately, there are a lot of shows with fish kisses/touching lip-not really a kiss, but these were wonderful, the first one especially. That's when I really got sucked into the show, I must say. Superficial I know, but there it is.
Short, lovely show to watch between the more dramatic shows that ratchet up the angst and drama.
Premise: A goblin (Bae In Hyuk as Ban Sook) must kiss 10 girls to become human. He befriends a human woman (Jeon Hye Won as Yeon Ah).
Characters: Ban Sook started out as a flat, emotionless goblin, and with every kiss he gained a human emotion. Bae In Hyuk did an excellent job of not portraying him with over-the-top emotions. You really did see more on his face after every kiss, like he was learning a new emotion and learning how to handle the emotion. Jeon Hye Won was terrific as Yeon Ah. She had so much anger at the beginning of the show, but that was quickly overshadowed by the love and compassion she felt for others.
Story: Addresses the issue of fate. Yeon Ah stating that she didn't believe in fate was an example of not being able to see what's right in front of you. Fate brought her and Ban Sook together from the beginning. The story also addressed love and loss - is it better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all? Would you want to remember an incomplete love for the rest of your life, knowing you would never see that person again?
Writing: I thought the writing was very good, and I really appreciated the abbreviated episodes. If the writing is good, you can pull the audience in without resorting to many long, drawn-out episodes.

Read More

Mature romance without stupid breakups

If you want a fun, mostly light show with a wonderful romance without the usual nonsensical separations/breakups, I could not recommend this show more highly. I'm getting so weary of the shows that go on for 16-24 episodes and the main couple only spends part of one episode together, the rest is filler, and they tie everything up in the last five minutes. This is far from that. That's all you need to know. If you are so inclined and want further thoughts, feel free to keep reading.

There is so much to love about this show. I must say, this is my second time watching it, and I upgraded my rating - maybe I'm looking for something different in my romances these days, but this one ticked all the boxes for me!
ACTORS:
Park Min Young as Deok Mi - I have loved her in everything I've seen her in. She is so classy and beautiful. She has the most beautiful hands, and they take many opportunities to show them. I found her very irritating and immature as a fangirl, but that was necessary for the story. My only complaint was her hair - through most of the show the style they had her hair in was NOT attractive, messy bun, shorter hair hanging down in the front, parted in the middle, flat with no body. But aside from that, her character was lovely. A career woman with a secret life.
Kim Jae Wook as Ryan Gold - I've not seen him in anything before, and I'm going to be on the lookout for him in the future. He was wonderful. His character was strong, yet approachable, with hidden things in his life that you find out later in the show.
Park Jin Joo as Deok Mi's friend Seon-joo was, as usual, lovely. She's so cute and seems to always play the supportive friend. Ahm Bo Hyun as Eun Gi was excellent.
I must give a shout out to Kim Sun Young as Uhn So Hye - the boss that was removed while being investigated for embezzlement. She is such a versatile actress, and she played this part in a way that bordered on charicature. Between her terrible haircut, her breathy/creepy voice and her over-the-top clothes, she was a hoot!
SCRIPT- Wonderful. This is a romance-lover's romance. They start out antagonistic toward one another, with a slow buildup to a relationship. I LOVED that once they were in a relationship the drama came from elsewhere, not from them breaking up for any ridiculous reasons. They had a wonderful, mature, loving, supportive relationship. Their conversations were real, raw at times. Their apologies were heart-felt, short, sweet and to the point, and they were mature enough to move on and not hold grudges. Every character was so well developed that I didn't feel there were any extraneous people that should have been left out. The character of Eun Gi, Deok Mi's long-time male friend, was absolutely wonderful. I just watched this for the third time and realized that his character touched me more than everyone else. I found myself shedding a few tears on more than one occasion when he was involved.
CHEMISTRY- Oh my gosh! The chemistry between the two leads was exceptional. The looks, the almost kisses, the kisses, the hugs (it got me every time they hugged and he settled in and closed his eyes - like he'd finally found his home)
FRIENDSHIPS - the relationships between the friends was a joy to watch. What happens when one friend crosses that invisible line to attraction? This was handled so well!
WARDROBE- Kudos to the people that dressed the cast, especially the leads. She wore classy, sometimes edgy outfits. His clothing especially, impressed me. Loose silk pants, boxy jackets - they really dressed him to emphasize his attributes. Plus, he always seemed more approachable, since he wasn't wearing typical suits.
SOUNDTRACK - there were two songs in particular that I really liked. The music went along well with the storyline.
ASIAN CLICHES THAT THEY DID/DID NOT USE - I don't remember seeing an arm grab. He grabbed her hand a lot, but it totally went with the storyline. Thankfully, there were no evil parents trying to keep them apart. The second leads/romantic rivals were short-lived and made sense. There was, happily, a shirtless shower scene. There was only one drunk scene but he was so precious in it I actually enjoyed it. No fish kisses - their kisses were oh so good! They did do a time jump, which I didn't feel made any sense and they could have done without.

This is a show that had so many scenes that needed to be replayed just because they were so lovely. I'm glad I re-visited this one!

Read More

Please, for the love of all that is holy, pick a genre and stick with it!

I'll start with what I liked:
-the kisses. Let's call them for what they were, "fire"! After watching multiple shows with open-eyed, slack arms, dead fish kisses, these were exactly on point. These are the scenes that I rewatched, and the only reason I actually gave this a rating of 5.
-the acting was good, for what it was. I loved Park Gu Young in Dali and the Cocky Prince, and I liked her in this as well, though I didn't really love her character that much. When she kept trying to get him drunk (I'm so tired of drunk scenes), I found her to be irritating. Cha Eun Woo was basically like he's been in everything I've seen him in. Quiet whispery voice, serious. You could play this show and True Beauty side by side and get what I mean. Everyone else did an okay job.
-family and friendships
-happy ending

Then the stuff that I didn't like.
-Thankfully, I waited for all the episodes to be released before I tried watching this. If I hadn't, I would have given up early on. I think the programmers did a disservice to this show by making it so long to be finished, between an episode once a week, to pre-empted episodes. That being said, this show was entirely TOOOOO long and very repetitive. My Viki showed it as having episodes 0-15. Episode 0 and episode 15 were the same, basically a recap of what the show was about. After watching episode 0, I kept having feelings of Deja vu while watching episodes 1-4. Then there was the recap at the beginning of every episode, and the mini recaps throughout to remind us of what has been going on.
-This show shifted and lost its footing halfway through. Started out as a comedy, with the potential to be cute and quirky. Then it shifted to bullying and its effects, then it went to revenge melodrama with the mountain god. It should have been either a comedy or a melodrama but should not have tried to mix the two. I don't think it was successful.
-The whole mountain god storyline was completely unnecessary. It seemed so over the top melo after watching funny scenes. This storyline took up a lot of screen time, and I didn't enjoy it, especially since he had cursed this family and done terrible things and there were no consequences for him. That REALLY irritated me!
-This scene really stuck out to me, and I had a hard time getting past it - whenever the woman turns into a dog, her clothes drop and she has to have friends get her clothes to her because she's naked when she turns human again. In the scene where he kisses her and lifts the curse, she turns human and is completely dressed. Why?! This would have been a great opportunity to throw in some comedy by having her be naked as usual.

Normally, if I like a show less than others, I'm usually in the minority and say give it a try, you might like it. I have reservations here, unless you make the FF button your friend. I can't remember the last time I watched a show that was so repetitive.

Read More

Seriously, what did I just watch!?!?

Normally I wouldn't rate a show that I had to drop, but this show irritated me on so many levels. I watched a couple of the first episodes and then skipped to the last couple of episodes, so take this for what it's worth.

Female lead was tremendously irritating. Was it a self-esteem problem? An entitlement problem? I found it hard to like anything about her. She didn't appear to be very bright, and I just kept wondering what her deal was. Then there was the male lead. He had an interesting job, I'll give him that, but BOY was he boring. He had no on-screen presence and his performance was bland.

Oh, so very much drinking, and the FL even said that getting drunk is the only way to have fun.

This was filmed in 2016 but it seemed older than that. The clothing and the colors in the clothing were more like the 1970's and the male lead's hair reminded me of a football helmet.

So, if you are a tolerant person, you might want to give this a try. But for me, there was just too much wrong with it.

Read More

Must suspend disbelief

What I liked: DO. I don't need to say more than that, but I will. He is excellent. Intense, focused, with just a little "crazy". His hair is wild, his eyes are wild, you never know what he's going to do next. I've always appreciated his acting, and his acting in this role didn't disappoint. Lee Se Hee as Shin Ah Ra - her character was a joy. She was a hard-working, somewhat hard prosecutor, always in control, until she got involved with DO's character Jin Jung, then she was out of her element. Her facial expressions were priceless and her frustration with Jin Jung was so fun to watch. I really liked that they didn't try to make a romance here.

What I didn't like: The storyline was extremely convoluted and the fact that everyone was corrupt was just too much. I felt like they were just trying to fill time. Bad guy A gets caught, then here comes bad guy B, he gets taken care of and here comes bad guy C. Then there were the situations in which they found themselves. I just found the storyline too implausible.

I'm glad I watched this for DO and Lee Se Hee.

Read More

Take a relaxing vacation with the Wooga Squad

This show had a different feel from the BTS In the Soop. Sometimes, I felt that here, they didn't know what to say and how to act, and that feeling came and went for me. In the first episode when they were talking about showing themselves in a good light on camera, that concerned me. I wanted to see real, not scripted. And I think that is ultimately what I saw. There is something relaxing about watching others relax. In their matching sweats and their matching pajamas, sitting around talking about how they met, what's on their bucket lists, what makes them sad, it really calms the mind and warms the heart.

One thing I continue to be amazed by is the respect that Koreans have for each other. They kid around a lot, but it's always around love and respect. Sharing grocery shopping and housekeeping tasks, each person kind of fell into a perfect place, so they all had a job and worked cooperatively. I also appreciated that they were supportive of one another, praising each other personally and for their careers. In a world that seems to revolve around trying to tear each other down, this was nice to watch.

While in the car, they talked about if they would be able to take a camping trip together. I hope that they can get their schedules to work to be able to do this, it would be a treat for us!

If you enjoyed watching this, I can also recommend Young Actor's Retreat, that Park Seo Joon is also in.

Read More

Watch it for Park Eun Bin's performance!

The story was good, overall. It started out very strongly, but by episode 6 or 7, I felt it had pretty much done all that it could do. I would classify this as a legal drama. There is a hint of romance that takes a back, back seat to the legal aspects of the show. That's not wrong, per se, but if you are coming for romance, you'll be greatly disappointed. Even the legal stories got to be a bit boring toward the end. There wasn't a lot of differentiation/conflict between the cases, they all flowed together.

Park Eun Bin was excellent as Woo Young Woo.

I struggled with the romance aspect of the story, because I couldn't see what made Lee Joon Ho like Woo Young Woo. They were cute together, but they weren't on equal emotional/developmental footing, which would provide significant conflicts in a romantic relationship (maybe they will delve into this in the 2nd season, because I think that would be the only reason to have a second season).

Kang Ki Young as Jung Myung Seok - I love him in almost everything I've seen him in (the only time I haven't liked him is when he's a bad guy - so his acting is ALWAYS excellent, I just haven't liked the character in that instance.)

The music was fun and appropriate, and I liked the graphics with the whales, but this got old after a while.

Read More