This is a modern-setting c-drama, which I don't like. It has a business setting, which I don't like. There's very little angst, which I don't like. It's relatively spiceless and very low-key, which I don't like.
And yet... this was one of the best romances I've ever seen. This is the first modern-setting c-drama I've seen where the styling, wardrobe, and soundtrack are all totally on point with no flaws. The actors - ALL of them - are phenomenal. The acting has a very natural feel to it that seems raw and real. The dialogue is realistic and interesting, and at times poetic in quality. The direction is fresh and modern and keeps the viewer interested, despite the very slice-of-life storyline.
There is never a false note struck in this show, and nothing feels contrived... the sweet parts are sweet, the sexy parts are sexy, the funny parts are funny, the powerful moments are moving. I didn't even binge this drama because it was so good I wanted to enjoy every moment of it and take it slower like a really good book you never want to end. It was hypnotically good.
It was also interesting how the emotions were so well balanced in this show... it toes the line between sweet and sexy, and between poignant and fluffy til you can't figure out what kind of romance you're watching exactly except that it's a full experience with everything in it and totally unique unto itself.
I'm a really hard grader, and this is not my preferred type of romance, but I'm giving it 9/10 because it's virtually flawless.
I was fervidly befuddled by the fact that this is erstwhile "romance" has very little in the way of actual romance, and much more time is devoted to vile perfidious complots, swashbuckling, palaver, political quandries, and pates hoisted on petards like heinous victuals on cocktail toothpicks. Meseems the ML/FL don't have a lot of screen time together, and don't have a lot of chemistry. Which I find quite understandable because FL bears a striking resemblance to a frog, and can act approximately as well as one. I lost count of how many times while watching this drama I feel asleep perchance to dream of a romance with actual romance in it. And when I woke up I was still watching this tedious drivel. The only redeeming feature of this drama was the absolutely HILARIOUS subtitles which are, methinks, worthy of a Pulitzer.
Racy CDrama = oxymoron in most of my experience… maybe 2 ardent kiss scenes here. The others are very inexperienced,…
it doesn't necessarily have to have a racy component. for instance, ELOD had some very thrilling kilig moments in it and was kind of tame in the skinship department. Some of those chinese short-length are quite thrilling, like Extremely Perilous Love. I loved the kiss scenes in I Love My President Though He's a Psycho. So when I put "spice/heat/passionate/racy/sexy", I mean spice OR heat OR passionate OR racy OR sexy. Any of those things will do.
But yeah it's far too common for c-dramas to be extremely conservative and I'm generally not a fan. I need SPICE. The Taiwanese are really good at spicy.
Why don't you just say what you really think instead of this crude attempt at hegelian dialectic? This isnt debate club or a psychoanalysis session. Your question is framed in an obtuse manner. I'll pose your exact same question back at you, but framed another way: Do you literally think the director told her "close your eyes and your mouth and don't move in this scene"?
I tried watching this a long time ago and didn't like the FL. Then later I saw her in something else that changed my mind about her, and I went back to see if I could stand her in this after a second try. Second time, I binged it and thought it was very good.
I wasn't expecting to cry sentimental tears over it, but I did several times. I don't know if that's a plus or not, I'm not big on dramas that 'tug on your heartstrings', but some people love those, and it is a signifier of a thoughtful and sophisticated script.
The fact that the actor who plays ML's hyung actually has face blindness in RL added a dimension to this drama that I wasn't expecting and that was amazing and excellent. FL's clothes and styling are FANFREAKINTASTIC. I get so sick of dramas where the stylist seems like they have it out for the FL for special wardrobe-related punishment. I liked how all the actors, including the ML and FL don't really look that stunning or amazing on their own, but as a cast together, they were perfectly matched to eachother and perfectly suited to their roles. Everyone gave their best performances and it shows. Sure, ML is handsome, but many actors are more handsome. Sure FL is beautiful, but many actresses exude more charm and spiciness. But put them TOGETHER, and they look so incredble, like they are GIVING eachother added charisma.
The music, ost, and sets were fabulous and added to the story instead of detracting from it. In fact they added a lot to the story.
And the entire final episode is AFTER the story basically ends, it's entirely devoted to the 'happily ever after' part, something most dramas don't give you, or don't pull off well. But the final episode of this drama was satisfying and gave the viewers nice closure, like a little dessert after a really good meal.
I gave it 8.5/10 and I am a pretty hard grader. I didn't give it anything higher than that because there is no spice and no kilig. For me, that will get a romance story points knocked off the score. But the romance is still very nice and has some intensity to it at times. It deals with love and romance in a surprisingly sophisticated way, and I could see lots of people loving this enough to give it a 10.
Jang Ki Yong (Born Again, Come And Hug Me), Choi Jin Hyuk (Devilish Joy), Liu Yu Ning (The Long Ballad), and Wang Zu Yi (Extremely Perilous Love) are all in my top 10 and none of them was even on this list, what the heck is going on here?
An extremely vapid and empty story, lightly peppered with a few racy bits and a few funny bits. Though there are a couple of racy moments, there is zero kilig. I gave it 5.5
This drama was so mind numbingly boring. No kilig. No spice. Lots of cringe, like how the hot shot sexy businessman also happens to be the guitarist in a band in his off hours, or how suddenly they know competitive fencing, or how work just happens to take them on a business trip to a beautiful resort beach, this drama is FULL of that kind of tired crap.
The ML/FL have no chemistry, they get together and then instantly they're acting like a couple that's been married for 10 years, no fire, no passion just a bunch of "sweet domestic moments" like 'oh honey you're so silly you tried to cook me a fish for dinner and it fell on the floor, backhug! Now you just sit by these romantic candles and I will put this apron on and cook dinner for you in a highly proficient and handsome manner while you stare at my flawless chiseled face. Then we can pick at the meal together as I tell you in an intimate serious tone about my tragic childhood that left me with scars only you can heal, and then you can say something sensitive. Tiny kiss!'
Plus it's the same old tired c-drama "business plot". Where you watch the whole thing and you still don't know if there's actually a plot, just a bunch of stressing because of like "the story that got leaked on the internet that's crashing their stock prices and the investor is about to cancel the contract so they have to work late and do Very Important Business Meetings" or some crap.
The 2ML/2FL couple is goofy, and the 3ML/3FL couple is just straight up cringe.
Here are the drama's ONLY redeeming qualities: ML is somewhat handsome... OST/soundtrack are not intrusive.... the FL's stylist did not dress her in any tragic fashion statements... and FL isn't whiney or stupid (unless she gets drunk, in which case she does the 'I'm a little baby' routine that apparently chinese people think is sexy/adorable but the rest of the world thinks is disturbing af, but that's not too bad because she doesn't get drunk more than a few times).
This was a total waste of my time on earth. I give it 4/10.
I can’t believe I managed to finish this. I couldve started at ep 17 and wouldnt of missed a thing.
I'm on episode 22 and I dunno if I'm gonna make it through, this is one of the most boring and passionless dramas I've ever seen. There's not even a plot, which sometimes I can appreciate in a drama, but not this one. Why am I still watching this. It's like sitting in the waiting room at a dentist's office for 16 hours,
I am contemplating watching this, but I have a question.... I keep seeing people say this drama was "cute", and that's fine and good and all, but does it have any spice/heat/passionate/racy/sexy component to it whatsoever or no? Is it just pure sweet with no spicy?
Also, I would love to have that question answered by someone older than a teenager.
OST and soundtrack matched and in many places elevated the drama, but certain songs were intrusively repetitive. Acting was really good. Casting was really good. Aesthetics were fine, not great but not bad either.
It was a really great drama overall, but it had a few problems, the main one for me being... that the chemistry was immense and the angst and tension between them was so thick it leapt off the screen in the first half of the drama, and then they let it fizzle out without even letting them have one passionate scene.
Despite its lack of spicy passion, there is a lot of emotion and romance. They took the first half of the story which had so much potential, and turned it sweet instead of spicy. I would have preferred a spicy-sweet or just an angsty/spicy drama, and didn't know what I was getting into when I started to watch, or I might have skipped it altogether because I don't like spiceless shows.
Even though this wasn't my kind of drama, I think they managed to achieve such an intense chemistry and attraction between the FL and ML in the first half WITHOUT using spicy scenes to do it, that I found it ingenious and artistic. and therefore gave it an 8.
This was terrible. I'm on episode 26 and I'm dropping it, I can't stop falling alseep.
How was it terrible, let me count the ways. The soundtrack is uninspired, it's like the music on a bad generic travel video. The FL starts off okay, a doormat but whatevs... and then as soon as she gets married she turns into "I'm a little baby" it's gross. And speaking of the FL... whoever was her stylist was clinically insane. FL dresses up to register her marraige and get a photo taken in the most GOD AWFUL doggy-shirt with giant google eyes on her ta-tas and poofy doggy ears on her shoulders. It's HIDEOUS. And that's not the only shirt she wears in this show with "eyes" on her ta-ta's. Her hair, m'kay. Her hair looks like peter f**king pan. The best part is, no one else in the show looks as hideously dressed as she does. So she's singled out for this humiliation for reasons I simply cannot comprehend.
There is NO kilig in this show whatsoever. And the best kiss in the drama was done by Luo Yun Xi. The Wallace Chung kiss was allright too, but not as good as LYX, which is hilarious because he's not even the ML. And when I say "The Wallace Chung Kiss" I mean as in there was only one noteworthy one in the whole show. It was a lot like the kiss from Another Miss Oh, only more spazzy.
The storyline itself.... I don't know where it's going and at this point I don't really care because I know there is ZERO spice left for the main couple at this point. They're doing things like picking celery and playing checkers together, so yeah the spice jar is empty. God only knows what the plot is supposed to be.
I'm trying to watch this, and I don't know if I can finish it, FL is so damn ugly and snotty and all around horrible. On top of that, they gave her false eyelash plugs and you can see them clearly in every closeup scene. That combined with her thin hair, and I just... She's just not sexy. Her nose job or unfortunate genetics gave her a piggish nose, and she has a thin cupid-bow top lip and spacey teeth, and she has a habit of sneering when she gets angry with her lips pulled in tight and her teeth showing. It's a truly awful sight to behold. There's flashes of cute here and there, but she spends far more screen time being "indignant and piggish" than "relaxed and cute".
I feel like their entertainment industry must be so brutal about looks that the women hack up their natural faces, starve themselves until their hair thins and they lose their sex drive, and put themselves under so much pressure and stress that their health suffers, and then of course they're not sexy onscreen.
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And yet... this was one of the best romances I've ever seen. This is the first modern-setting c-drama I've seen where the styling, wardrobe, and soundtrack are all totally on point with no flaws. The actors - ALL of them - are phenomenal. The acting has a very natural feel to it that seems raw and real. The dialogue is realistic and interesting, and at times poetic in quality. The direction is fresh and modern and keeps the viewer interested, despite the very slice-of-life storyline.
There is never a false note struck in this show, and nothing feels contrived... the sweet parts are sweet, the sexy parts are sexy, the funny parts are funny, the powerful moments are moving. I didn't even binge this drama because it was so good I wanted to enjoy every moment of it and take it slower like a really good book you never want to end. It was hypnotically good.
It was also interesting how the emotions were so well balanced in this show... it toes the line between sweet and sexy, and between poignant and fluffy til you can't figure out what kind of romance you're watching exactly except that it's a full experience with everything in it and totally unique unto itself.
I'm a really hard grader, and this is not my preferred type of romance, but I'm giving it 9/10 because it's virtually flawless.
Drama: 5/10
Subtitles: 10/10
But yeah it's far too common for c-dramas to be extremely conservative and I'm generally not a fan. I need SPICE. The Taiwanese are really good at spicy.
I wasn't expecting to cry sentimental tears over it, but I did several times. I don't know if that's a plus or not, I'm not big on dramas that 'tug on your heartstrings', but some people love those, and it is a signifier of a thoughtful and sophisticated script.
The fact that the actor who plays ML's hyung actually has face blindness in RL added a dimension to this drama that I wasn't expecting and that was amazing and excellent. FL's clothes and styling are FANFREAKINTASTIC. I get so sick of dramas where the stylist seems like they have it out for the FL for special wardrobe-related punishment. I liked how all the actors, including the ML and FL don't really look that stunning or amazing on their own, but as a cast together, they were perfectly matched to eachother and perfectly suited to their roles. Everyone gave their best performances and it shows. Sure, ML is handsome, but many actors are more handsome. Sure FL is beautiful, but many actresses exude more charm and spiciness. But put them TOGETHER, and they look so incredble, like they are GIVING eachother added charisma.
The music, ost, and sets were fabulous and added to the story instead of detracting from it. In fact they added a lot to the story.
And the entire final episode is AFTER the story basically ends, it's entirely devoted to the 'happily ever after' part, something most dramas don't give you, or don't pull off well. But the final episode of this drama was satisfying and gave the viewers nice closure, like a little dessert after a really good meal.
I gave it 8.5/10 and I am a pretty hard grader. I didn't give it anything higher than that because there is no spice and no kilig. For me, that will get a romance story points knocked off the score. But the romance is still very nice and has some intensity to it at times. It deals with love and romance in a surprisingly sophisticated way, and I could see lots of people loving this enough to give it a 10.
And a singer is at the top of the list of actors.
smh.
The ML/FL have no chemistry, they get together and then instantly they're acting like a couple that's been married for 10 years, no fire, no passion just a bunch of "sweet domestic moments" like 'oh honey you're so silly you tried to cook me a fish for dinner and it fell on the floor, backhug! Now you just sit by these romantic candles and I will put this apron on and cook dinner for you in a highly proficient and handsome manner while you stare at my flawless chiseled face. Then we can pick at the meal together as I tell you in an intimate serious tone about my tragic childhood that left me with scars only you can heal, and then you can say something sensitive. Tiny kiss!'
Plus it's the same old tired c-drama "business plot". Where you watch the whole thing and you still don't know if there's actually a plot, just a bunch of stressing because of like "the story that got leaked on the internet that's crashing their stock prices and the investor is about to cancel the contract so they have to work late and do Very Important Business Meetings" or some crap.
The 2ML/2FL couple is goofy, and the 3ML/3FL couple is just straight up cringe.
Here are the drama's ONLY redeeming qualities: ML is somewhat handsome... OST/soundtrack are not intrusive.... the FL's stylist did not dress her in any tragic fashion statements... and FL isn't whiney or stupid (unless she gets drunk, in which case she does the 'I'm a little baby' routine that apparently chinese people think is sexy/adorable but the rest of the world thinks is disturbing af, but that's not too bad because she doesn't get drunk more than a few times).
This was a total waste of my time on earth. I give it 4/10.
Also, I would love to have that question answered by someone older than a teenager.
Also the 2ML in The Long Ballad
It was a really great drama overall, but it had a few problems, the main one for me being... that the chemistry was immense and the angst and tension between them was so thick it leapt off the screen in the first half of the drama, and then they let it fizzle out without even letting them have one passionate scene.
Despite its lack of spicy passion, there is a lot of emotion and romance. They took the first half of the story which had so much potential, and turned it sweet instead of spicy. I would have preferred a spicy-sweet or just an angsty/spicy drama, and didn't know what I was getting into when I started to watch, or I might have skipped it altogether because I don't like spiceless shows.
Even though this wasn't my kind of drama, I think they managed to achieve such an intense chemistry and attraction between the FL and ML in the first half WITHOUT using spicy scenes to do it, that I found it ingenious and artistic. and therefore gave it an 8.
How was it terrible, let me count the ways. The soundtrack is uninspired, it's like the music on a bad generic travel video. The FL starts off okay, a doormat but whatevs... and then as soon as she gets married she turns into "I'm a little baby" it's gross. And speaking of the FL... whoever was her stylist was clinically insane. FL dresses up to register her marraige and get a photo taken in the most GOD AWFUL doggy-shirt with giant google eyes on her ta-tas and poofy doggy ears on her shoulders. It's HIDEOUS. And that's not the only shirt she wears in this show with "eyes" on her ta-ta's. Her hair, m'kay. Her hair looks like peter f**king pan. The best part is, no one else in the show looks as hideously dressed as she does. So she's singled out for this humiliation for reasons I simply cannot comprehend.
There is NO kilig in this show whatsoever. And the best kiss in the drama was done by Luo Yun Xi. The Wallace Chung kiss was allright too, but not as good as LYX, which is hilarious because he's not even the ML. And when I say "The Wallace Chung Kiss" I mean as in there was only one noteworthy one in the whole show. It was a lot like the kiss from Another Miss Oh, only more spazzy.
The storyline itself.... I don't know where it's going and at this point I don't really care because I know there is ZERO spice left for the main couple at this point. They're doing things like picking celery and playing checkers together, so yeah the spice jar is empty. God only knows what the plot is supposed to be.
Ugh. 5/10
I feel like their entertainment industry must be so brutal about looks that the women hack up their natural faces, starve themselves until their hair thins and they lose their sex drive, and put themselves under so much pressure and stress that their health suffers, and then of course they're not sexy onscreen.
The dubbing is terrible as well.