monstersnroses

At least the "boring" sequences in SoKP are so beautiful and full of gorgeous people and great fight scenes, so that does help. The aesthetics are rich and lavish considering the budget they had to work with, which I've heard was a moderate budget. It looks kind of high-end.... pretty nature and interiors and costumes. So it's not the worst torture ever. But it is admittedly an investment of time and patience. It's just the payoff is really amazingly good.

TTEOTM comments section has a bunch of really nice diehards in it who can answer your skip-questions for that show for sure. I swear there's some people who've rewatched that at least ten times. I have never done a rewatch but I know I will at some point it's one of the best things I've ever seen. Soooo angsty and fiery omg. Not a lot of actual spice, but that's just wuxia for ya. Whatchagonnado. Theres plenty of other stuff that makes up for it in that one.

strong woman do bong soon = Dude, the best part about that show to me was the stuff with Kim Won Hae and Im Won Hee, I loved the humor in that one, and it was FULL of cameos and inside jokes references from other dramas that just cracked me up. I never thought I'd see Won Hae and Won Hee in the same drama, and I totally loved it. Probably a siginficant reason I rated it higher, I liked the silly business in it. When he gives her the desk that's like a little dollhouse inside his office, omg that was hilarious to me.

My Fated Boy, Falling Into You, and Lesson In Love are full of prooooobably skippable parts without ruining your viewing experience. With TTEOTM, that's a harder question to answer because there were some parts that I was so frustrated with the drag like "come onnnnn lets go", but it was hard to predict what essential plot bits you might miss by doing a bunch of skipping.
For SoKP, hooo boy.... it's a tricky one. I think you can skip whatever you want to skip from ep 1 and 2. But after that I would NOT skip anything. However. However. Mkay. The story is like pretty fucking boring on the romance angle for the first thirty episodes. Yes, I said THRITY episodes. But the last 8 or maybe 10 episodes are straight FIRE. So then, why can't you skip a whole bunch of shit from the first 2/3rds of the show?? Because it will RUIN the last 8 episodes. You'd be totally in the wrong frame of mind, probably plot-lost, and it wouldn't have the impact that it's supposed to have.
So you have to save SoKP for when you are totally cool with having a fully immersive experience, and feeling very patient and receptive to wherever the show is going to take you. It's all about delayed gratification on that one. I'd cry if you skipped only to the ML/FL parts and chopped up the show. The first watch through is MAGICAL. If you kill that magic by skipping and being impatient, you can never get that first-watch magic back again. It's like lighting all your presents on fire the day before christmas and ruining the surprise. Once you've done the first-watch.... on your rewatches you can skip whatever you want.
SoKP just goes boring, boring boring boring, BAM! Raging wildfire, the end. But if you don't go through the boring, boring, boring boring, then the "BAM!" loses all it's effect.

I would ask the fans on the TTEOTM page how much of that is aaactually skippable, they would know best. Like, I THINK there's skippable parts, but I don't know where and how to skip so as to maximize your experience and minimize your time commitment. They would know, though.

YES it gets better. You have about 10 more episodes left to go before it starts getting REALLY really good. So.... the exact opposite of most asian dramas.

But just fair warning, this show is for Dark ML lovers. If you require a green-flag ML in your romance stories, then this drama is NOT worth your time investment. If, however, you don't mind red flag or gray flag ML's.... then definitely keep going. The last 8 episodes make the first 30 episodes completely worth every minute of your time.

Me for the first 30 episodes: "What am I even doing here, why do ppl like this drama so much"
Me for the last 8 episodes: "AAAAAAAAAAAGH OMGGGGGG!"

...not a dostoevsky reader then.

It was a so-so story with cute/sexy actors and a slightly better than average level of spice. I give it 7.5

The opposite is equally true, if not more.

I think it might have something to do with the director, because every single actor in this that I've seen in something else, is doing their best acting here. Even BaiLu, who I think **sometimes** can lean toward overacting, is doing what I think is one of her all-time top performances in this drama. So maybe the director is bringing out their best?

I'm glad to hear you're having fun watching it! <3 <3 <3

Started off fairly well, if you look past all the cliche moments. The chemistry was there... it wasn't super fiery, but it was hot enough. Then at about the halfway mark after the ML and FL enter a relationship, it just slides totally downhill into a mess of tired recycled ideas, melo plotlines that drag on and no one cares, the awkward appearances of the "spunky 2FL", completely hideous clothing, total lack of spice or kilig. It's too bad, because ML, FL and 2ML are excellent actors, and their talents were wasted here.

Giving it a 6.5

It was great while it lasted. Unfortunately, tragedy struck and we are no longer together, but if I had the chance, I'd still definitely take a XW over a ZZ in RL.

I feel like when a man defers to his woman in everything, it's a passive aggressive way of saying "if anything goes wrong, I can blame you for it, but you can't blame me, I didn't make the decision!"

Did you finish it yet? What ep are you on rn?

ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ!!! It's contagious!

Well, i don't know. But my theory is that she'd always said she wanted to be "free" whatever that means.... just free from palace life or her family.... she doesn't like being confned and controlled. She probably saw marriage as going from one claustrophobic environment to another.

Another possibility is that she's purposely trying to get a rise out of him.

Possibility 3... she's just kind of a dingbat about practical matters and doesn't see any immediate need for it.

???

If he said to me "You're mine" I would be like "Okay."

"Please lower your standards. Thank you."

Your comments present a false dichotomy between viewers who don't like this drama, and viewers who don't like fluff. I like fluff. But I don't like this drama. It's like if someone said "I don't like Little Debbie snack cakes" and the other person said "Oh you must just not like sugar." It's like "No, like sugar... I just don't like shitty tasting crap."

Also, it's Dostoevsky, not Dostoyevsky. And he kicks ass.

Not technically, but he acts like one to the point that i'd call this drama "vampire-adjacent". There's no fangs, no blood craving. But yet

I mean you could just pretend h's a vampire and the whole story still works, as-is.

You can't leave a comment on a public forum and then be like 'don't comment back ok'....

Indian says 'total junk', he's talking about the drama. You say 'i guess you are some jobless little shit', and you're suddenly making it personal, no longer just talking about the drama but slinging feces at other users. This is the opposite of intelligent conversation, you're bringing the comments section down to your level, which is pretty base. You're just spouting off sensless vitriol. Do you think that makes you look good? Or make him look bad?

Indian is right, it takes like 10 seconds to make a comment on MDL, running to "you must be jobless" as a go-to way of trying to bully other users and silence their opinions is completely cliche... and as an argument, it's devoid of any logic.

tsk-tsk.

<3 <3 <3 <3 anytime!

Nothing's as good as SoKP.... but My Fated Boy is a secret spice trove. ML and FL both have kind of unconventional looks, so as long as you can get over that, I think you will really like it. There's a kiss in the last episode that's so fire.... I'm like 50% sure it was a french kiss, but idk. It's hard to tell.... that's how good it was.

And unlike Legend of the Blue Sea, the entire rest of the drama isn't crap, in fact it has some extremely excellent scenes in it that make it worth the watch. I'd go for that one first personally.

I just looked over your watchlist to see what to recc you that you might like. I think you should try My Fated Boy and Falling Into You. (Not falling into your smile, that's a different drama)

Neither of these are dark ML, but based on your ratings and watchlist, I think you might totally enjoy both of those. They're both noonas with clingy ML's.... not usually my genre either, but trust me. They have the spice you seek without any of the cringe. Both are full of kilig too, so double bonus.

For dark ML, you haven't seen doom at your service yet.... you could try it. I just did a rewatch of it to TRY to cure my SoKP withdrawls, and it didn't work, but it was ok.

Also, A Dream Of Splendor. It's not as dark as SoKP or TTEOTM, but the ML is like the head of the torture department or something (?) and everyone calls him "the devil". The plot had some meat on it.

Another dark one you haven't seen yet, The Smile Has Left Your Eyes. That's a good one. It's a tragedy... I personally DESPISE tragedies, but I make an exception for this one because it's super poetic like Romeo and Juliet. So it works. The double bonus of watching that one.... is it's a remake of an old j-drama that was ALSO pretty kickass. So if you like TSHLYE, you can then go straight from there to 'A Million Stars Falling From The Sky' to check out the original, and that's really a fun thing to do.

OR! Take a trip straight to crazytown for the most toxic ML's c-dramas have to offer with Well Intended Love, and I Love My President Although He Is A Psycho. They're both badly dubbed, cheap pieces of crap, but it's QUITE a thrill-ride. I like both of them, althought ILMPTHIAP is pretty much way more batshit crazy than Well Intended Love.

Hopefully there's some stuff in there you might find fun.

I'm mon ep 18 of EF and I'm not enjoying it. The story itself is awesome, has a lot of potential. ML is not spectacular but not bad either. FL is atrocious. She's cute. And she does a semi-decent job of her role pre-ML-relationship. But as soon as the relationship started, she showed how one-dimensional and unsophisticated her acting is, and now it's finally driving me crazy to the point where I'm outright annoyed. She's stomping all over this drama. She reminds me of a literal junkie, the way she cannot sit still to save her life, her head bobbles around everywhere, she overacts/overreacts to everything.

And then the horrible cherry on top is that they break the 4th wall, and they do it so badly and randomly.

I'll finish it, but aigoo I can't wait for it to be over. I'll probably give it a 7 or a 7.5 depending on the ending.