Middle-of-the-road for me

I love actors Park Hae Jin and Jin Ki Joo. Park Hae Jin normally plays a pretty stoic character, he was a lot warmer (and smiled a lot more in this one). Jin Ki Joo is just sweet and easy to watch.

I didn't find it to be an original storyline and it suffered from lack of direction. Is it a comedy? Is it a mystery? Is it a thriller? Is it a romance? All of the above, but it doesn't do any of the genre's justice. The pacing was pretty uneven and too quickly tried to slide from one thing to another. The romance was developed quickly and quickly became boring, possibly because there is so much other stuff going on. I'm gonna be honest, romance is normally the most important aspect for me in the things that I watch, and I could not really understand how these two got together, other than the fate aspect.

I'm going to say that I really enjoyed the ghosts. They were my favorite part of the whole thing. It wasn't a bad watch by any means, but I did fast forward through quite a bit of it.

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Never answers the question, is magic real or not?

The music and the singing were very good. That, for me, was the highlight of the whole show. I felt as if they wrote the songs and then thought, "wait, now I have to write a story around the music" and didn't actually know where to take it.

Watch this in a dark room, because it is filmed in a very dark way. Actually, the whole story, as well, was a lot darker and more disturbing than I thought it would be, especially just basing it off watching the trailer. There's quite a bit of sadness and evil in this.

I had a difficult time believing Choe Sung-eun and Hwang In-Youp as high schoolers (of course, I'll always suspend disbelief for him!), and really, neither of their characters were very likeable. Ji Chang Wook as the magician - I'll admit I was glad to see him again, especially since I haven't cared for his last couple of dramas. He did what he could with the role, but I didn't find it well-written. He wasn't mysterious as much as we never knew what his deal actually was.

I'm glad it didn't have any more episodes, because I was glad when it was over. I'd suggest giving it a try though, because most people seemed to like it a lot more than me.

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Easy to watch

If you're looking for an enjoyable watch that doesn't take too much thought, this might be for you. I didn't love it, but I also didn't feel that it was a complete waste of my time. I appreciated that the FL was not a typical doormat and that she spoke up for herself. The ML was a tortured soul, reflecting on a tragedy in his past and unable to move forward. They were cute together. I certainly wouldn't say that their chemistry was off the charts, but I could somewhat believe in them as a couple. I do have to say I was bothered by his constant referring to her as "idiot", and that she was willing to put up with it. The whole thing was pretty "fluffy", without angst, and the fact that it was only nine short episodes was a bonus as well.

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One of my absolute favorites

This was an exceptional show. This is the only show that, while I was watching it, kept telling myself it was practically perfect in every way. I don't rate very many shows a '10' and one of the criteria for a 10 is my ability to re-watch the show. This is the one I keep going back to, especially after I've watch a disappointing drama that's full of all the Asian cliches. I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed with the ending, but even that couldn't lower my overall rating for this show.

Story/writing: This show was unbelievably well-written, with a unique storyline. My emotions ran the gamut throughout the series, one minute I'd be laughing, the next I was in tears. This had SO MANY of those wonderful lines that made me think, "Boy, if a man said that to me, I'd totally fall for him!" I loved the nod to Secretly/Greatly and the cameo of Kim Soo Hyun - so clever! The director/writer must have some kind of mind meld going on, because this show was so well-executed, one scene flowed wonderfully into the next. I loved how they had the extra, different scenes at the end of each episode. My favorite was in Ep 1 when he saw her in a tree and was listening to her talk. That small smile, you could tell he was already smitten. The scenery was spectacular (especially in Switzerland) and I loved how the destiny aspect of their relationship kept being revealed, a little bit at a time

Acting/Cast: Everyone owned their role. I could not imagine any actor doing a better job in any of the roles. Hyun Bin and Son Ye Jin - their chemistry was palpable! Their chemistry was so good, it's going to be hard for me to see them in shows with someone else! Hyun Bin - At the beginning, he was all about being a soldier and I liked the softening of his character once she came into the picture. Son Ye Jin - her character could have been someone completely unlikeable, but the way she played it, I could see how her family background/dynamics had colored her life and it was such a treat to watch her become more human and playful. Seo Ji Hye as Seo Dan was beautiful to watch. So cold and unapproachable, but there was something that you just had to like about her. Kim Jun Hyun did an excellent job as Alberto, another person that redeems himself as the story goes along. The soldiers in the platoon - what a treat! They each had their own personality trait and they melded so well together. I think the majority of the comic relief came from these guys and they were a hoot. The North Korean ladies - wow, between the script and their acting, they moved from being ancillary secondary characters to being pivotal to the story. Their communications with each other, their strength in adversity and their growing in closeness with each other as the show progressed was a joy to watch. I MUST give a special shout out to Jang Hye Jin, who played Seo Dan's mother - she was spectacular and brought so much humor and heart to the part.

The OST was perfect. The piano music, the songs that sometimes were just the music, sometimes with words. I've always known that music connects with our emotions, but never more so than in this show. I think we have to give a lot of credit to the music for drawing out our emotions, because without it, I don't think I would have cried nearly as much!

My only complaint about this show was that they made such a big deal about their couple rings and never taking them off, then when they found each other at the end of the show, they weren't wearing them. I realize that those scenes were shot first, but with CGI the way it is, you could have just added the rings.

I think the biggest testament to how much I liked this show, other than how many times I've watched it, is the number of times I've recommended it to others. Everyone I know is always looking for something decent to watch, and I tell them, if they are willing to read subtitles, they absolutely cannot go wrong by watching this show.

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For me, editing was the issue. No, maybe it was the relationships

This was a slow drama, which here was a good thing. Some of the scenes were just beautiful and you could feel the emotions of the characters. The music was lovely, and the use of silence, was, overall, very effective. The acting was, for the most part, understated and not overacted as can be seen in a lot of Japanese shows.

However, the timeline of the script and the way it was edited decreased my enjoyment of the show. This story would have been more effective if it had been told in a more linear fashion, rather than the heavy use of short flashbacks. As I watched this, my mind was busy seeing what I would have done differently when making this show. There wasn't enough of their high school storyline to get me to feel and understand their relationship. As a result, their relationship felt superficial, and I had a difficult time seeing what all the fuss was about. They loved music and the sound of each other's voice, but what else?

Also, I have a difficult time feeling that theirs was a great love, when she was, to all appearances, living her best life getting ready to move in with her boyfriend. Consequently, she felt like a "love the one you're with" type of person.

Then, there was the editing itself. Numerous times I thought there was something wrong with my tv, when the scene cut at a strange place and the screen went white or black. Was that supposed to symbolize time passing? I don't know, but it was jarring.

Apparently, I'm in the minority for not loving this one. I wouldn't recommend this show, but I wouldn't tell people to run away from it either. Some of the scenes are very effective, but since I couldn't see the love between the main characters, and since so many of the choices they made would, on the surface be noble, but on closer look I found their choices to just be selfish.

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Watch it for the main couple! Seriously!

I've never seen Jing Bo Ran in anything before, but as ML Lu Chen he was excellent. He wasn't cold, he was stoic. But his heart was on his sleeve for Gui Xiao from day one! Okay, you can never go wrong with a man in uniform, so that was bonus. His stature and demeanor were such that you totally bought him as soldier/police. But being the romantic I am, I loved all of his scenes with the FL. The small gestures were a testament to his love for her. Closing his eyes when hugging her, burrowing his head into her neck like he just loved the essence of her, the kiss in her hair when they hug. Every action was butterfly-inducing.
I love Tan Song Yun and she was lovely as Gui Xiao. She is a good actress, she's so beautiful, she is a beautiful crier.
Their chemistry was amazing! Bo Ran has very expressive eyes and manages to convey so much love using just his eyes. And when he smiles, my oh my! Lots of wonderful kisses and hugs. The scene where his back is to her and asks her to take his hand - beautifully filmed and so tender. They were yin and yang. She was so bubbly and effervescent, and he was serious. I can't stress enough how much I loved this couple together.

Big bonus - thank you SO MUCH for not adding the conniving female trying to break them up, or the sad/morose male that loves her from afar. This truly was a drama about them and the strength of their love.

The second couple was cute to watch.

So why is my score so low, after waxing poetic about the strength of the leads?
1) There is SO MUCH filler in this drama!! They spent an inordinate amount of time showing the training and the missions of the SWAT team. I couldn't quite figure out if it was patriotism or propaganda. All that extra stuff took up at least half of the drama.
2) The flashbacks. There were, I think, three different years that they kept flashing back to. I didn't think that the flashbacks were used effectively, especially since the actors pretty much looked the same once they got out of school. The last episode's flashbacks finally gave us the whole history of their relationship, which was nice to see, but then the drama just ended!
3) This might be just a translation issue, but she asks if he still remembers her and he says, "I'd still remember you if you turned to ashes." They showed this a couple of times, and the wording is just a little creepy to me.

I can highly recommend this drama for the main couple. Plus, you might not be bothered by all the time spent on work stuff, but I didn't find it interesting.

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Frustrating watch for me

Personal opinion here. I say, give the show a try for yourself, because I am definitely in the minority here. The storyline had potential, but there were so many red flags that I couldn't get past. Plus, I felt like the writers threw a bunch of stuff in and didn't develop things fully. My biggest problem was the ML. Immature, petulant, rude, obnoxious, violent, disrespectful, angry. It was toned down by the end of the series, but I didn't see growth in him. Cursing at his grandmother was what put his behavior over the top for me. Being mean to others because he was "bored". I lost count of the number of times he called the FL stupid.

The older brother, first love story didn't really have a place, especially with him currently being involved with the villain of the story. If someone is going to be stuck on his first love, I'm sorry, I want him to be pining for her.

The ex-husband. No backbone and he was just a little on the creepy side.

The villain. Let's be honest, she was a cheeseburger short of a happy meal and all was forgiven at the end. She needed to be locked up.

The FL was gorgeous and spirited. She didn't put up with any bunk from anyone yet let the ML walk all over her. Why did she like him? He had done nothing but be mean to her. I just felt like she had a glaring blind spot concerning him.

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Loved it!

I didn't read anything about this ahead of time, and I'll be honest, I've no idea why I suddenly decided to watch something about traffic cops! I am so glad I did, though. I watched it on Hulu in the US.

First, there were multiple different cases in every couple of episodes, with an overarching mystery that is woven through each episode and finally solved at the end.

I LOVED the TCI team! They all made significant contributions to each of the cases, and you could tell they had a lot of respect for one another. I'm not a big fan of Lee Min Ki - he's the same character in each drama of his that I've seen. He did his usual job, and I really liked each of the other characters. They managed to make the two women smart and competent without being witchy. There were three actors that really departed from other works I've seen them in - Kang Gi Doong, Oi Eui Shik and Lee Yoo Joon. Hats off to them, especially Kang Gi Doong - wow, he was a piece of work!

I found the public service announcement at the end of each episode very interesting, with statistics about hit-and-run, drunk driving, etc.

The car chases were excellent.
No romance - thank you!
I'm not a big fan of shows that have a second season, but I'd be up for a season 2 from this show!

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Heavy on friendships, kind of light on romance

I'm just going to say that this show made me smile a lot. The FL's character was a walking, talking disaster and got into the funniest predicaments. Going into college in her 30's and realizing that it's not like she imagined, until a rag-tag group of young adults invite her into their circle. I loved watching all of them together.

Hirose Alice as Sayako was wonderful. I loved watching her character grow into herself, becoming someone she always imagined she'd be.

Michieda as Shunsuke as Tako was very good as well.

As for the romance, the two of them were so cute together and my heart cried when they broke up. I thought the breakup went on entirely too long, but they moved naturally back into their friendship/relationship after years apart.

It's only 10 episodes, and the time flew as I watched. Give it a try, I bet you'll enjoy it.

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So many twists and turns

I'll start by saying that I'm not big on corruption stories. Give me a romance and I'm all over it, but watching a show about many, many people being bad and doing bad? Not so much. However, for me, this show was excellent. It requires a lot of attention, and I wouldn't advise binging it. I was exhausted and my brain hurt after every episode.

ACTING: Excellent! I have to call out Cho Seung Woo especially, as prosecutor Hwang Shi Mok. He had brain surgery in the past to control his violent temper and now doesn't have the capacity to feel emotions. We've all watched actors where they have to convey emotions only with their eyes or their body language. Here, he had to display NO emotion. I was fascinated by this character. I could feel his loneliness from being out of step with absolutely everyone else. Everyone else was good as well. There were some obvious villains and some surprises as well. The relationship between Shi Mok and inspector Yeo Jin was really interesting to watch, and I liked how they worked well together and came to depend upon each other. And, I don't say this often, but THANK YOU for leaving out the romance!

MUSIC: The music was good, there was music that really brought out the tenseness of the scenes, but it didn't crowd out the dialogue or the action.

CAMERA AND MAKEUP WORK: The coloration they used was slightly blue, which really gave the impression that these people basically lived in the office and had no lives. They also showed a lot of closeups, and they didn't make much of an attempt to cover up flaws. That contributed to the gritty feel of the show.

I can highly recommend this drama. Just when you think you've figured it out, in comes someone else that's corrupt!

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Inspiring

The man is so talented, and he absolutely glows when he talks about dance and what it means to him. This documentary about J-Hope's dance journey was very well-done, old footage interspersed with the new, hearing from him about what dance means to him, him working with many of street dance's famous people, and Hope on the Streets filming in iconic neighborhoods around the world.

I turned the sound of during one of the dances, and his artistry and power seem to shine even brighter without the distraction of the music. His dancing is so grounded, yet he seemed to hover above the ground as he moved. He was born to dance.

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Getting to know BTS

This documentary was full of information about the things that BTS have gone through and continue to go through. I'm glad they made this, it's a chance for those new to BTS to know more about them. When watching it, it's hard to relate to their discussions about their struggles, but I can't even imagine the feelings that they must have, wondering if they can keep up the momentum, or if they even want to.

The only thing missing, was more about their friendship and camaraderie together. Also, more about how they lived at the beginning and how much they practiced. They are an amazingly talented group, but, for me, what draws me to them even more than their performances is how they are together. After living together and practicing together for years, their bond is tremendously strong.

They acknowledge that it's time for the next phase in their lives as they prepare to enter the military. That being said, I so appreciate the fact that they all stated numerous times that they hope BTS stays together for a long time.

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Started out great

I'm not a big fan of historical dramas, but the trailers made this look like it would be more comedy than melodrama, so I thought I'd give it a try. I liked it a lot...until I didn't. Unfortunately, they took a show that was really working as a comedy and switched it to palace intrigue/kill the crown prince/don't trust anyone in power/melodrama about halfway through, and it became a different show. Did they switch writers halfway through or something?

What I liked:
-the comedy in the first part of the show.
-Rowoon's (as Jung Woo) comedic timing, goofy facial expressions
-Jun Woo's servant. He was excellent and so much fun to watch!
-a good king
-beautifully filmed. The sets were beautiful. The camera work was interesting. I especially liked the filming of the wedding of the multiple couples. Filmed from overhead so it reminded me of a game board, which was appropriate with all that was going on.
-The costuming was good as well, other than the front of almost every dress the FL wore. The top layer of her dresses were gathered and shorter than the rest, probably so you can see the layer underneath. But it just looked like she got part of her dress stuck in her belt and she needed to pull it down.

What I didn't like:
-the whole melodrama aspect. Does every historical have the storyline of trying to kill the king or prince? The murder plots were messy and took up too much of the show.
-Rowoon's constant throat clearing. Give the man a lozenge!
-no chemistry between leads. I mean, seriously, no chemistry.
-one REALLY bad kiss in episode 12. I couldn't get over how bad it was. Their lips weren't even aligned correctly, no movement, no feeling, no chemistry.
-There's a lot said about the fact that no one recognizes the FL without makeup, even her brother. That was so unrealistic, because they didn't recognize her voice either?! There was virtually no difference between how she looked with and without makeup. Gorgeous either way.
-Did I mention no chemistry?
-A few of the bachelors looked alike, as well as some of the potential brides. It was hard to track who was who.
-Too many storylines to do any of them justice.
-A 14-year-old marrying the oldest of three daughters. This was just all kinds of no.
-Each episode had either the ML or the FL talking about why they couldn't be together. One episode it was him, the next episode it was her. Due to their lack of chemistry (have I mentioned that already?), I didn't think they should be together anyway, so this just made the show more drawn out.
-The evil mother-in-law. Excellent acting. But everyone knew that she had not only been part of the planning to kill the crown prince, but she actually murdered her husband and her brother, and the only thing that happened to her was she lived alone at the end of the drama!?!?!? And she told her daughter-in-law to kill herself? This woman was obviously a burger short of a happy meal and shouldn't have been allowed to roam free.
-The whole multiple people, convoluted mess of a wedding.
-The FL going on and on about how much she had loved her husband. It was talked about so much, but the FL's actions didn't line up with what she was saying, and I felt that this really diminished the feelings that the ML and FL were supposed to have for one another. But since they had no chemistry anyway... (sorry, I digress.)
-The whole storyline with her supposedly being dead. I didn't feel the emotion of loss from him, she just shows up out of the blue, and his non-emotion continues.
-The ending. Lackluster is the only word I can come up with. He almost died, he thought she was dead, we've spent 16 episodes watching them try to get together, and they stand there talking about whether they should get married or just date?! As I watched the ending scene, all I could think was that the actors actually hated each other and were agreeing to the ending as long as there was no emotion, and they didn't have to touch each other.

If you are a fan of historical dramas, you might have the patience for this one. As for myself, if I'd known my feelings were going to change so dramatically by the end, I would have dropped it halfway and given it a higher rating.

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