Addictive murder mystery period drama with complex characters

This show had me hooked from the beginning! It had so many of my favorite TV elements: a slow reveal of characters' complex backstories, a murder mystery, glamorous period costumes, and a variety of badass female characters. Also, compared to Taiwan's normal campy, cutesy TV fare (which I do love, to be clear), Light the Night is a huge step up in production quality and story.

The show revolves around Rose and Sue, two best friends and house mothers of a 1980s Taipei nightclub. As the episodes unfold, we learn about each of the supporting characters and the drama leading up to the pilot episode's murder. We don't learn the murder victim's identity until the very end, setting us up for Season 2 to investigate the murderer's identity.

I would highly recommend watching this show not just once but multiple times; it's definitely the type of show where you'll pick up subtle details during a rewatch. An artfully crafted story, superbly acted, scored, and production designed, I can't wait for Season 2!

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Adorable, wholesome, melodrama-free show

This show is so refreshingly sweet and escapist and revolves around a group of soon-to-be college graduates as they navigate friendship and love. The main storyline follows Gu Wei Yi, an introverted physics student and Si Tu Mo, a bubbly accounting-turned-advertising student as they accidentally move into together and fall in love. There's very little drama so no breaking up of the main couple for stupid reasons or stuff like that. You just get to watch the main couple be cute together, which is nice. The second lead couple, Wang Shan and Fu Pei, don't have as developed of a storyline, but that's all right, because I was mostly watching for the main couple anyway.

The show has similar vibes to A Love so Beautiful (unsurprisingly, because they're both based off books by the same author). Both shows revolve around a young student couple where the girl is super bubbly and the guy is very introverted, and there are a bunch of love triangles. But unlike in ALSB, in Put Your Head on My Shoulder, the main couple meets each other for the first time in the pilot episode, there's not as much one-sided love, and the love triangles fade fairly quickly. Also, because the characters are in college, not high school, they're a bit more mature, and obviously, the individual plotlines are very different.

Music: I love the opening and closing credit theme songs!! They're so adorable and perfect for the show's tone. The rest of the soundtrack is good, too.

High rewatch value because it's just such a happy, feel-good show :)

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Wholesome, humorous, and realistic

What a lovely, comforting show.

I gotta admit; the first two episodes are super confusing because there are so many characters (including the five main leads and all the residents/nurses/interns) and they're all in different medical departments. BUT KEEP WATCHING because by episode three, you get a clearer grasp on everyone's character motivations and backstories and it's so worth it.

I loved the relationship between the five main leads; they have such a cute origin story and their relationship felt so funny and authentic. All the show's romances and ships draw you in and make you root for them. Hospital Playlist does a great job balancing serial and procedural storylines; there are the usual medical cases of the week along with compelling season-long arcs. Be prepared to cry, particular with the cases of the week; this isn't one of those doctor shows where the patients always survive. But also be prepared to laugh and swoon as the main characters joke, fall in love, and find themselves. (Side note: the kid who plays U-ju is seriously the cutest child ever).

Definitely well worth a binge-watch!

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An equally humorous and heartbreaking story of resilience, redemption, and justice

Dying to Survive is one of those movies that will make you laugh out loud one moment and then punch you in the gut during the next. The central (based on a true) story revolves around a struggling Shanghainese shopkeeper who decides to smuggle cancer drugs into China and sell them at a discount to leukemia patients. As he sets up his business, he recruits a rag-tag band of helpers who provide some of the movie's best moments of comic relief as they fumble their way through establishing the operation before finally hitting their stride.

The movie does a good job balancing lighter moments with the inevitable heartbreak, because when the latter comes, it hits hard. Tensions rise as a looming band of government regulators threatens to close in on the central, illicit operation, bringing dire consequences to all the key players involved. The lead actors play their roles exceptionally well, drawing the audience into the injustice of their lives as cancer patients under a rigged medical system. The screenplay is also raw and powerful, leaving the viewer just as outraged and devastated as the characters on screen.

Is Dying to Survive perhaps overly sentimental at times? Yes. 100% accurate? Probably not. And yet, it's still a well-done film carrying a vital lesson about healthcare and moral justice.

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Cold-Blooded Political Drama

The premise of Chief of Staff is that pretty much everyone in politics is ruthlessly ambitious and willing to put aside any morals to achieve their goals. That's kind of all you need to know, lol. It's cynical but probably fairly realistic. At least all these politicians are super attractive!

In general, the show is very well executed and well worth a watch. (Although if you're looking for something light and feel-good, I'd steer clear). The show's strongest assets are its characters; while there's a mid-sized ensemble cast, all the main players are complex and fully formed and their personalities are easily discernible within the first few episodes. Standouts include Lee Jung Jae as leading man (and Chief of Staff) Jang Tae-jun. His facial expressions alone are so telling; you can immediately feel his constant struggle between doing the right thing and advancing his political goals. He's one of the best anti-heroes I've seen in television. Another standout is Shin Min Ah as Kang Seon-yeong; she's a political badass who you'll constantly root for as she strives to be one of the few uncorrupted politicians. I love her and Tae-jun's chemistry; you can tell how much they care about each other even as their political careers keep jumping in the way. The show also does a good job establishing the tangled web of relationships; you can immediately tell who is loyal to whom, who has beef, etc. The acting and character building is excellent on its own.

Chief of Staff is super plot-heavy; the first few episodes are more slice-of-political-life as Tae-jun grittily handles crisis after crisis. Just when it's starting to get repetitive, the latter episodes start developing more of a seasonal arc which ends in a dramatic season finale. There's a lot going on and tons of side characters and political scheming, so it can be easy to lose track of some of the moving parts. Even so, you don't have to remember every detail to enjoy watching how the drama unfolds.

The soundtrack is fun, too; the dramatic underscoring matches the premise' tone and urgency. I'd recommend Chief of Staff if you're looking for something a little serious/dark with a standout cast of characters.

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Cute show, not the best executed, but sweet

In general, Attention Love, is a pretty light show that fits well into the high school/college opposites-attract rom-com genre. Joanne Tseng and Prince Chiu are well-cast as the scrappy, energetic heroine and brooding, serious male lead, respectively. But I agree with other reviewers that the second couple steal the show. There's definitely some second lead syndrome with the second ML and even though the second FL, An Xiao Qiao/Angelina, starts out kind of annoying, she will quickly steal your heart too, through her adorable persistence and cleverness. The supporting characters are sweet and hilarious too; special shout out to the FL's parents who are hysterical and my favorite parts of the show. Honestly, a lot of times the supporting characters were more interesting to watch than the leads.

The plot is your pretty standard "waiting for the leads to realize they love each other" fare. I had some issues with the pacing; there are definitely conflicts that dragged a little and then got resolved surprisingly quickly, as well as conflicts that were raised early on and then basically ignored for the rest of the show. But the whole series is only 15 episodes, so it's pretty easy to watch in a short amount of time. The OST is fun, with a lot of classic hits from Taiwanese singers. Overall, if you're looking for something light and frothy, I'd say Attention Love is a nice to show to unwind to.

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A zany and enjoyable adventure

Watching Secret Garden is a great time. At times hilarious and adorable, at times devastating and intense, incorporating elements of magic, action stunts, family drama, and long lost secrets, Secret Garden runs the gamut in TV storytelling and character growth.

The plot is 80% comedy, especially in the first 10-15 episodes, as the Gil Ra-im and Kim Joo Won meet, stumble around each other, and try to figure out the other's lifestyle. Hyun Bin is hilarious as Joo Won, strutting around in his fancy Italian tracksuits and trying to keep up with Ra-im's badass action woman stunts. Then, in the last five episodes, there's a lot of melodrama; think a bunch of classic Kdrama tropes all piled together (ie. car accident, coma, amnesia). But there's a good resolution that maintains the earlier episodes' lighter tone.

I LOVED the cast and characters. The two leads are excellent. At first, the two second leads annoyed me, but both of them went through some satisfying character development, and I really felt invested in their storylines by the end. (Kind of reminded me of Seo Dan and Seung Jun from Crash Landing on You). Honestly, everyone should have a friend like Oska; he was so sweet and hilarious to Ra-im and everyone else. Even the other supporting characters were great :)

The one drawback is, that like with many East Asian Dramas, there's always the disapproving mother-in-law character who relentlessly tries to keep the main couple apart for NO GOOD REASON. There was definitely a lot of that in Secret Garden although the leads are able to stand up to her.

The soundtrack is ON POINT. Doesn't hurt that one of the main characters is supposed to be a K-pop star, so there are a lot of great bops as well as more soulful music. Hyun Bin even sings a song or two!

In conclusion, I recommend this drama; it's a crazy adventure and ultimately a fun time.

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What happens when you try to cover 12 different genres in 1 movie

No one:

Absolutely no one:

Frankie Chen: What if I took 20 minutes from 12 different movie genres and smashed them all together into one film?

Watching this movie gave me such whiplash because it hurtles without warning from satire to teen romance to family drama to coming of age story to horror movie.....Not to mention the countless movie cliches like "prodigal son breaks from family to pursue his dreams," "student tutors classmate and they fall in love," "girl and boy have a romantic boat ride on a lake and of course both fall into the water," etc. Thought this was gonna be like Our Times but the male lead is even more problematic and the female lead even more hopeless. :(

It's entertaining to watch, but that's pretty much all the positive I can point out.

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More layered than I was expecting

Alice Ke, Roy Chiu, AND Joanne Tseng? How could I resist?

I first started watching this drama mainly for the star-studded cast. The first episodes are pretty soapy and catty, but around episode 6, the plotline and characters develop much deeper layers, and things evolve in more interesting ways. In the end, I was impressed by the show's quality and was surprised by some of the twists and turns.

The cast was great; Joanne Tseng and Roy Chiu have such cute sibling chemistry and an authentic, complicated relationship. They fight, they scheme, they commiserate...I loved watching them on screen. And after finishing Office Girls, it was funny to watch Roy Chiu and Alice Ke star as love interests again, only this time with a whole different dynamic. Alice Ke plays the complete opposite of her Office Girls character; as Huan Zheng, she is super confident and powerful. In the first few episodes, she's pretty annoying, but once you see her layers under the surface, you start to root for her and her romance with Hao Meng.

The storyline itself, while nicely layered, wasn't without its soapy or unrealistic turns. I liked that they included a storyline for the parents and made them more of three-dimensional characters than usual, but that whole plotline also seemed really uneven and half-baked. Like the parental storyline would pop up in some episodes and then disappear again for a while.

Like with most T-dramas, the theme song and soundtrack are pretty fun. The production design actually seems a lot higher than most T-dramas.

Overall, a fun, worthwhile drama. Good if you want to practice your Mandarin listening skills because they use a lot of fun, colloquial phrases. Also, some of the older characters speak in Hokkien too, which is always nice.

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Come for the cute couple....and watch them carry this show on their backs

I have so many thoughts about this show.

The lead couple (Song Yan and Xu Qin) is really its main strength; they have adorable chemistry and a worthy "thwarted young lovers find their way back to each other" arc. I love how naturally SY and XQ's relationship progresses; they don't immediately reconcile or go from haters to lovers in an instant, but rather gradually forgive each other and grow closer before re-committing. It is a rewarding slow-burn with still enough time to enjoy watching their renewed romance.

Other positives include the funny and lovable firefighter ensemble and Song Yang's family, especially Zhai Miao. I also enjoyed the firefighter/medical action sequences, in particular, the multi-episode earthquake arc, which is perhaps the best part of the series. As the show becomes more about the characters' relationships and less about their careers, we see less of this type of action, as well, which is a bit disappointing, IMO.

Unfortunately, the side characters and plots are not nearly as fleshed out as the two leads, with some uneven writing hampering their development. The plotline between Meng Yan-cheng and Ye-zi is so irregularly looped in and then takes a bizarre 180 turn and abruptly ends without a satisfying conclusion. Jiang-yu and Li Meng should really have been the second couple.

And of course, there are the classic drama tropes, like an evil, classist mother and innumerable plot points revolving around characters accidentally bumping into each other, which is hard enough to believe without a setting as massive as a major Chinese city. (Are we really supposed to believe that the same firefighting unit responded to all of these incidents and always brought their patients to the same hospital)? But ah well, such are C-dramas.

Anyway, if you, like me, love dramas centered around a cute couple with not a ton of other plotlines, then I'd recommend Fireworks of my Heart. While initially daunted by its 40-episode runtime, I found it quite easy to get through (okay I may have skipped a few of the slower moving scenes) and a lovely show about love and friendship.

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A wonderful balm for the soul

During these rough times, what a joy it is to have a sweet, wholesome show like Hospital Playlist. Where Season 1 introduced us to the lovable main cast and their charming sidekicks, Season 2 builds on those relationships to complete a thoughtful and engaging portrayal of hospital daily life. While the main cast's group chemistry and antics continue to anchor the show, some of the more episodic subplots also captured my attention this time around. I liked how this season featured more multi-episode patient arcs, as opposed to one-offs. And I loved getting to know more of the key supporting players, especially Chu Min-ha, Do Jae-hak, Jang Gyeo-ul, and Rosa.

As a slice-of-life drama, HP does have its fair share of slow-burn romances and plotlines, but they never feel dragged-out thanks to the captivating on-screen action and chemistry. Additionally, Season 2 adds many first-rate tunes to its "playlist" by effectively showing off its main cast's impressive vocal talents.

My only main criticism is that the season (and I'm assuming series) finale felt a little unsatisfying. While the main couples had all more or less gotten together, I would've liked to see a more concrete send-off to some of their stories. For instance, there were hints of a showdown between Seok-Hyung's mom and Chu Min-ha that never materialized (possibly for the better--goodness knows the disapproving mother-in-law is a tired K-drama trope) But seeing Seok-Hyung confront his mom in-person would've been nice. And after Jeong-won's incomplete first proposal attempt, I kept waiting for him to propose again, but it never happened; instead the show abruptly sent him and Gyeo-ul to America. (Well, at least they stayed together). Like many lesser shows, when it came to the newer pairings, even HP fell prey to the old pattern of killing a couple's screentime once they get together and hardly showing them actually be a couple.

Oh and this season had entirely too little screentime for U-ju. Where did he go? What a missed opportunity for cuteness.

Nevertheless, overall, Hospital Playlist is excellently executed by the actors, screenwriters, and directors. Not only is HP one of the best K-dramas out there, but watching it is definitely a form of self-care.

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Very cute rom-com

This show is super wholesome, sweet, and romantic. Looking for a show without a lot of melodrama, just the chance to watch the main couple be cute together and hang out with their fun friends? Then Love O2O is for you!

The plot revolves around two college students who meet while playing a popular computer game and quickly fall in love IRL. The main couple's chemistry is pretty cute and fun to watch. They also have a great group of friends. IMO the second FL and ML aren't as compelling; the 2FL can get a little annoying although her character does grow over time.

A lot of the show's first half takes place inside the video game that the leads play while the second half takes place more in real life. In addition to the romance plot, there's a parallel storyline of the main ML trying to get his video game start-up off the ground, which is pretty entertaining to watch, too. There are a couple villains, but they're generally pretty tame. In fact, compared to other C-dramas where the villains are always stirring up misinformation, these ones mostly just pout in the corner, lol.

I would recommend this show as a very light and wholesome watch :)

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Great FL, Frustrating ML and other characters

Kim Sun-ah basically carries this show on her shoulders as protagonist Kim Sam-soon. She's a great character: very blunt and witty and always standing up for herself instead of cowing like a lot of Asian FLs. She had many enviable comeback lines and I loved watching her on screen.

As for the ML? Not so much. I watched this drama largely because of Hyun Bin, but his character did so many jerky things that honestly, I don't know if he deserved redemption in the end. It was super frustrating watching his character go back and forth between the two women. Also, I felt like the Hee-jin and Henry were pretty one dimensional characters. My favorite supporting characters were probably Sam-soon's sister and the cook; their relationship was cute.

In sum, the drama is pretty entertaining when it focuses on Sam-soon and her family/cooking antics but gets frustrating when it devolves in to the central love triangle (square)? The music is fun, too.

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