Women, are we looking in the mirror?

‘Nevertheless’ is one of the dramas, Asian or otherwise, that makes women take a good look at themselves. You have one job. Just assess if this guy is for real or not. And he just gives you that certain glance, and all common sense goes out of the window. I am viewing ‘Nevertheless’. I am use to siting on the edge of my seat for a Thriller, but for a Romance Drama?

Standing ovation for Song Kang’s performance of the mysterious lady’s man Park Jae-eon, who at this point knows all of the girl lead’s (Nabi) weaknesses. I have seen the main Lead actor, Song Kang, graduate from playing a High School heartthrob in Love Alarm to a bonafide Leading Man in ‘Nevertheless’. Song Kang even has the sense to lower the register of his voice to a sultry level. (Ah Yeah, I am paying attention)

When the series has the entry of the Second Lead, that face off stare down between the First and Second Lead is beyond classic. I feel for you Nabi. The left side of the brain, the logically side, is telling you all the ways this relationship with Park Jae-eon is going to go south. Grab the Second Lead and run with Steady and Ready. Then the right side or creative sensitive side of your brain just tells you . . . Nevertheless.

Female Lead— (Nabi played by Han So Hee)

Male Lead—(Park Jae-eon played by Sang Kang)

Second Lead— (Yang Do-Hyeok, played by Chae Jong-Hyeop)

Great cast, great script, and great acting


Pretty soon, you will look up the word swoon and see as a definition Song Kang.

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The “Good” Bad Mother or The Good “Bad” Mother. Life has its turns.

The word has been out for a little while, that The Good Bad Mother is a super hit. I will just add my voice in affirmation. This drama is a must see, especially for parents trying hard to master this parenting thing, and having to listen to their children tell them that they are not getting it right. You become “the bad mother” in their eyes of misunderstanding. Anyone with kids knows that children never see the real you, the real parent, while they are growing up. Children just misunderstand the protective you, the parent who tries hard to sanitize their world. And yes, at times as parents we can be overbearing and we don’t get it right. This drama gives you the prospective from both points of view and how both parent and child are forced to recognize each other, through a shared misfortune. The “Good” Bad Mother is appropriately titled.

The Story

The Good Bad Mother is about the struggles of a mother to raise her child on a family run pig farm, after the murder of her husband. It is a story of a mother’s revenge on the perpetrators of the death of her husband, as she recognizes that power brings results. Therefore, she strictly raises her child to be powerful, so that he can be the one who gets justice. She becomes The Good “Bad” Mother.

Nonetheless, her son faces adversity, because of a car wreck which leaves him with the intelligence of a seven year old child. She is left to start all over again raising her son. Through this adversity, both parent and child come to recognize the full intentions of the other. The story is well intended, but at times the story becomes predictable, even following illogical paths. That is a writer’s issue. However, this will in no way take away from two of the most outstanding acting performances of the year for 2023 for the mother and son.

Note: In the drama series Extraordinary Attorney Woo, we got Whale Moments. Be on the lookout for our cute Pig Moments in this drama series.

Quote: “Pigs use to roam free, keeping clean bathing in mud. People started to lock up in tiny pigsties. The pig could not bathe in mud anymore, so they began to rub their bodies in their own excrement. That is how they grew dirtier and more aggressive. However, what is really sad is that pigs cannot lift their heads, so they live their entire life staring at the ground. There is only one way for a pig to look up at the sky and that is to fall down”. The “Good” Bad Mother.

Acting Corner

The Mother—Ra Mi Ran (Black Dog) is outstanding as the misunderstood mother, whose sole aim is to protect her child. It would be no surprise to me if she gets a nomination for a Baeksang Arts Award (Korean Oscar) for 2023 for Best Leading Actress in a Drama Series.

The Son—Lee Do Hyun (The Glory) is the son who balks at the tiresome drilling of his mother, as she tries to produce a powerful man. After the accident, this powerful intelligent man is reduced to the mind of a seven year old. This character has super range, from acting as a seven year old to assuming the power behind revenge. Lee Do Hyun gives another outstanding performance. Again, it would not surprise me if Lee Do Hyun gets a nomination for a Baeksang Arts Award (Korean Oscar) for 2023 for Best Leading Actor in a Drama Series.

The Love Interest—Ahn Eun Jin has become an A-List Actress. I picked her up in her early years in the drama series ‘More Than Friends’, recognizing this acting potential. Ahn Eun Jin has two super hits in 2023 in The Good Bad Mother and My Dearest. Her star is being planted in the sidewalk.

The Good Friend and Second Lead— Ahn Eun Jin (Alchemy of Souls, The Uncanny Encounter Season 2) is the scene stealer, with his big personality. Ahn Eun Jin is a rising star.

Be prepared to have a solidly fixed smile on your face, because of the two outstanding child actors, Park Da On and Ki So Yu. The whole acting posse is stellar

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One of the best Time Travel dramas, Korean or Chinese.

Shining For One Thing (2022) is a Time Travel School Life Romance Drama (contains no spoilers).


Qu Chuxiao (Wandering Earth) and Karlina Zhang (Tang Dynasty Tour)

Short Review

Sometimes you pick up your next drama by following a favorite actor from the previous drama that you watched. I followed actor Qu Chuxiao from ‘Wandering Earth’ to ‘Shining For One Thing’. This Chinese drama is a Time Travel Drama which is very technical and science rich in story construct, but very romantic. The Chinese are often sticklers for technically sound plotlines. The writer was very careful to try to stick to the modern Scientific constructs of time travel/displacement thinking. I have covered the different modes of Time Travel in the past, like the differences between Time Travel, Time Slip, and Time Blend as a writing style for a story. ‘Shining For One Thing’ goes one step deeper, to try to explain Time Placement. It covers which timeline you are breaking, the possibilities of where you end up and the consequence possibilities when you travel into different Time Displacement zones. While this may sound too scientific for some, ‘Shining For One Thing’ really breaks through by making the explanations uncomplicated and informative, producing a very entertaining Time Travel drama. Shinning For One Thing is a “Time Travel” drama, because the mode of traveling through time is a definite object, an outdated phone. Great OST! Great love story. Although many time travel dramas use time travel only like a cab ride to the past, Shining For One Thing uses great writing, great concept, and a great use of time travel itself, to produce a great time travel story.

The female protagonist in this drama uses time travel to go back and forth in time to change her dismal future/present. Through it all, she gets hooked up with a young male student whom she knows (in the opening segments of this drama) dies in the past. She then makes it her mission in time travel to change her future/present, but also try to save this boy too. Along the way, she falls in love with the boy. The story is complicated, but totally intriguing. It progresses very slowly, I suppose this is so that the viewer can keep up with the action and the science. You have to sit with this one. However, there is a grand payoff in the back half of this drama.

Time travel is a modern construct, which is not believed to be naturally occuring. It has been given meaning by humans who believe that time travel is a definite possibility. In Shinning For One Thing (2022), the time travel was caused by the inexplicable use of an old phone and by deleting the messages to cause time travel to that point in time of the deleted message.


Extended Review

The female protagonist traveled to a new past each time she attempted to go back in time. She kept failing to enter an open loop of time where changes could be made to the future. To fix the future she needed to enter the right alternative universe.


Quote

Scientist in the Drama—We can go back to yesterday or even the distant past. But it is unlikely for humans to open the wormhole. Most travelers who claim to go back to the past did not enter the closed structure of the wormhole universe. Instead, they enter the crack of a parallel universe. The crack of a parallel universe takes place in every time and space, without affecting or changing each other.

Female Lead—So I did not travel to the past. I went to a new time and space (parallel universe). No wonder nothing changed (when she traveled through time).

Unquote

At the end of the Korean drama ‘The King: Eternal Monarch’, the male protagonist had to search through many alternative universes to find the right one which held the right circumstances and the woman he loved. This became necessary after his mode of time displacement (That family heirloom) was broken. The Wormhole had to be manipulated manually in The King: Eternal Monarch. In Shining For One Thing, the girl knows the outcome, the death of her schoolmate. We find that out in the opening minutes. She makes several attempts to enter the right time wormhole universe, which would allow her to change the past, but she keeps failing. She needs to enter the time and space where changes are possible. She must find the open time loop, instead of the closed time loop where changes can not be made to what has happened already. Along the way, even with all her course corrections, she finds romance.

This is time travel with a definite mode of travel, the outdated phone. With some travel, you are just an observer and can change nothing (closed time loop). With some time travel, you can change the outcomes (open time loop).

The female protagonist keeps failing, because she is not entering the open time loop section of the time wormhole. She is entering the crack of a parallel universe and is not able to change anything in that future. Same with the Chinese Drama Someday or One Day (2019), you must find the right time wormhole with the right set of circumstances, before change is possible. With the Korean Drama A Time Called You, the right time wormhole was entered on the first try in this time travel Korean drama, using a Song Cassette and Walkman as the means of time travel to the right alternative universe.

Cast

Qu Chuxiao (Wandering Earth) and Karlina Zhang (Tang Dynasty Tour), and Caesar Wu (Meteor Garden)

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Smoking OST and great concept drama journey

Chae Jong-Hyeop (Nevertheless), Park Sung Woong (Snowdrop), and Seo Eun-Su (Dr Romantic)

This is an unusual Korean Drama starring Chae Jong-Hyeop (Potato Man from Nevertheless) as Park In Seong, who is putting out multiple Korean dramas a year now. I suspect that he is trying to catch up with Song Kang.

With radical music as a backdrop and the best OST of the year (2022), this high tech Light Comedy Thriller is a body switch drama. However, this time the body of an AI Corporate CEO is switched into a smartphone. This is an interesting concept, but the premise is not any harder to accept than the premise that men in red capes can fly. The drama character Park In Seong (Chae Jong-Hyeop) is a failed actor who ends up with the smartphone. The CEO in the phone (Park Sung Woong) solicits the help of the failed actor to get the personality of the CEO out of the phone and back into reality, as Park In Seong substitutes for the CEO in the Company for a time . Unlock My Boss is a lighthearted Comedy Korean Drama Chill Pill and a great down-time drama. This drama keeps getting better and better over viewing time. I loved it and loved Chae Jong-Hyeop in this Korean Drama, Unlock My Boss.

Unlock My Boss PG 14 is based on a Webtoon by the same name. While this drama is not a slow burn, the super action does start in episode four. The drama has twists and turns as well, which keeps you guessing.


Quote: “People say, “”Time heals all wounds”. But this is half right and half wrong. Time does not heal anything for you. It is just during that time, you learn how to endure and deal with the pain until you get use to it.” Female Lead Unlock My Boss

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Finding yourself through another person’s eyes.

Shorter Chinese dramas are becoming a stable. Also, some of these shorter dramas give new comers, who are not yet proven, a chance to act in dramas before they are called up to the Epic Dramas. What makes the Chinese Drama ‘When You Be Me’ a special gem is the writing. The writing of Pei Li and Hua Qian Ci nail this double body swap of a girl transferred to a male body and a boy transferred to a female body and the learning experiences they get because of it (This writing team also wrote A League of Nobleman). How do men relate to women? How do women relate to men? What are their differences? The drama When You Be Me has unpredictable outcomes that should keep you engaged, unpredictable to the very end. Unlike some Chinese dramas where the writers lose their way towards the end of the drama, this storyline is consistent and has logical order all the way through. Explore unique possibilities in this new Chinese double body swap drama ‘When You Be Me’.

There are so many little things that are great about When You Be Me, besides the two leads (Zhou Yi Ran as Mu Xiang Xiang and Kido Ma as Qiao Nan). It depicts teens in leadership roles, camaraderie among peers, bullying, good parental guidance, good and bad family dynamics, a slew of talking points that will keep your mind occupied for days. You can tell that these young inexperienced actors had a great director (Chen Chang) with great ideas on how to interpret their characters. The writing was believable and inventive, but so in tune with the possibilities of an actual body swap. Both young actors locked in on their character and neither one abandoned it during the body swap scenes, which added to believability and escapism. The male and female characters are polar opposites. Qiao Nan is a brash athletic spoiled second generation rich Plutocrat (Chaebol) boy and Mu Xiang Xiang is a top student who is a timid and introverted girl, and comes from a poor family. This swap makes for hilarious antics, nonetheless.

Ladies, what would be one of the first things you would give into, if you inherited a male body with little fat? I could have just died with laughter when the first thing the girl in the boy’s body did was to go buy a really expensive fancy decadent desert and eat the whole thing, not having to worry about calories. Men are so fortunate to burn calories so quickly. Even as funny was that the boy (in the girl’s body) learns how to use emotional guilt, utilizing the emotional cry to get his way. Nothing beats a try, but a cry.

When You Be Me is a great fantasy body swap drama to add to your binge-watch list.

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This is about Social Media and the ‘New Money Celebrities’ and a thrilling ride.

The 12 episode Korean Drama ‘Celebrity’ is ready to binge. This Korean Drama is a commentary on the lives of the rich and famous, but with new school money garnered from the digital media platforms, “Internet Celebrities”. Celebrity is about how anyone can become “famous” overnight, with the right knowledge of how Internet tools work. Becoming a Top Influencer in our modern age, the new Celebrity is based on accumulating high numbers of organic or invested followers. One surrounds themselves with the rich and Kardashian. Other Korean Dramas have tried to explore the “snoop appeal” of the digital media celeb, but they were not that interesting to me. ‘Celebrity’ reaches a high level of entertainment. It is about a girl is not trying to be like the Glam Snobs. She is just trying to reach a level of success to get her brand known. Along the way, you get a backseat look into the world of the media influencer and the Media Influencing business. There is an excellent posse of women (Social Media Influencers) you will love to hate, who tear down each other as only women can, as they seek to gain ‘Best Celebrity’ status. The one flaw for me for this Korean drama is that is had an unnecessary level of cursing and we did not get a kind translator to edit this out. Great storyline and storytelling, with a throbbingly, smoking OST.


Quote: “Revenge is a dish best served cold”. Heroine of ‘Celebrity’.


NOTE: I finally get what the word Chaebol means, by looking at the Korean Drama Celebrity. Watch for the “taking off the shoes” scene and the excellent explanations of living that lifestyle. That scene explains what a Chaebol is for me.


Celebrity stars Park Gyu-young (Dali and the Cocky Prince) and Kang Min-hyuk (K-pop Idol from CNBLUE and KDrama The Heirs)

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This one is a hidden gem. Great concept story.

‘All That We Loved’ is a hidden gem for me. It is complicated without appearing to be so. ‘All That We Loved’ has a unique storyline for the youthful School Life Romance drama. There are two teen best friends who are the exact opposites. One is gregarious, comedic and athletic. The other is seriously studious, shy and withdrawn, and sickly. They are brought up like brothers. When one needs a kidney transplant, the other does not hesitate to share his kidney with the other. During this experience, both begin to share the same emotions, even falling for the same girl. The two best friends have an interesting backstory and the drama covers the years 1996 as kids, 2006 as teens, and 2023 as an adult. This may confuse some at first, because of the flashbacks, but everything gels together by episode 3. I really loved this story and the story telling was stellar.

‘All That We Loved’ reminds me of the Korean School Romance Drama ‘Dear M’ in its relevance to youths, but is a drama for all ages, when considering its message. ‘All That We Loved’ has a high recommendation from me and it is ready to binge. With only eight episodes, this is a great choice to view.


Actors Corners

The teen actors are the following:

Jo Jun Young is a new kid on the acting block and is just starting out in acting. He was in Dear M. I thought that he was a star in that drama, and I actually followed him to this new Kdrama. Tall with good looks, Jo Jun Young is nailing the soft timid friend Go Joon-Hee, who is about to come out of his shell.

Another fresh new comer is Jang Yeo Bin from Our Blooming Youth. She plays the love interest Han So-Yeon and she plays a most interesting character, because this character can’t be categorized.

K-pop EXO band member Sehun (The Pirates: The Last Royal Treasure) has been taking on more Korean dramas of late. He plays the gregarious funny guy Go Yoo and has natural appeal as an actor. Sehun is finding KDrama life outside of EXO.

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Medical Action and Romance, STAT delivery.

How do you watch Doctor Romantic 2? Just hold your breath for 16 hours. It is that exhilarating. While with Dr. Romantic 3 I did not need to hold my breath, nonetheless, I could not hold back the tears as I watched compelling heart tugging medical situations being portrayed .

Every Doctor Romantic series in the three seasons has had stellar cast members, including well seasoned actors. However, the main component of the Doctor Romantic series is the medical thrills received from watching the deep dive into new and unusual medical cases. My favorite to date in the series remains Doctor Romantic 2, but Doctor Romantic 3 delivered the K drama goods, with two additions to the Doctor’s list of characters. With a series like this, lasting over 3 seasons, it should become harder to invent new personalities, each character with their own little quirks and and gifts. Nonetheless, our new additions have their own entertaining personality strengths and failures. I took a week and finished all 3 in the series and enjoyed every minute. I think that Doctor Romantic 1, 2, and 3 should be added to everyone’s Korean Drama playlist. There is a smoking OST, featuring Baekhyun from EXO and Seungkwan from Seventeen. Add these to your “playlist”. Pun not intended.

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This Great Drama Just Gets A Bad Rap.

ML Gu Jun-pyo (Played by Lee Min-ho from The King: Eternal Monarch)

Boys Over Flowers (2009) has a character which some feel is a most alienating figure in all of Korean Drama Land. I must confess that I don’t understand why. Gu Jun-pyo is self-centered and a pampered chaebol. His is pampered by his mother, his friends, and classmates. Everyone lets him have his way, that is until he meets a girl who kicked his rear end and knew how to say No! to him. He fell in love instantly. Gu Jun-pyo really did not grasp the gravity of his bad actions. This was the life-style he was given, and it had its perks. However, as soon as he met this girl that put him in his place, he allowed himself to be trained for the good. Bad Boy turns Good.

One of the most special scenes was when he almost froze to death waiting outside for this girl to arrive. She asked him why he waited for her outside instead of getting in out of the cold? He said to her that he had never ever had to wait, and he kind of like waiting for someone. The transformation of Gu Jun-pyo is iconic Korean drama. However, this drama is very polarizing in so many circles of friends, but without merit.

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To understand the Korean movie Dream, you have to understand Dark Humor.

The movie ‘Dream’ is a comedy that uses Dark Humor for laughs. Your brain has to have a reset for this movie, adjusted to humor that pokes fun at subjects normally excluded from comedy, because the subject is considered sacrosanct. The subject matter for laughter is serious, but the Comedy pokes fun at the nature of things. Dark Comedies may not do well with some audiences, because some may not get the jokes or some may not see these serious matters as something which should be used for humor. I hope most get the Dark Humor jokes and accept it’s intended hilarity in the movie Dream, because Dream is an upbuilding and motivating film which will have you cheering.

The movie Dream stars IU (Hotel Del Luna) who plays Lee So-min and Park Seo Joon (The new Captain Marvel movie) who plays Yoon Hong-dae. The cast entourage is great.

This movie ‘Dream’ is based on a true event of the “Homeless World Football (Soccer) Cup” held in 2010, and covers a documentary being made for it. The documentary has the main purpose of bolstering up the flailing careers of Soccer Player Yoon Hong-dae (Park Seo Joon) and Videographer Lee So-min (IU). The intentions are to make a tearjerker documentary, which will garner viewership and public attention to themselves. Along the way, their selfish quests becomes a quest to help the homeless achieve something important.

To be successful with Dark Humor, you have to deadpan (be deliberately impassive or expressionless) Dark Humor. You play it like it is not funny, but totally serious. Park Seo Joon deadpans his character so well. Who knew he could play Dark Comedy? The movie Dream left me belly-aching with laughter. It is certainly a movie to add to your Korean Drama list. The more you watch Dark Comedies the better you get at watching Dark Comedies. I was crying ‘Mr Queen’ tears of laughter. The movie ‘Dream’ eventually becomes a serious commentary on life as we know it. The homeless are real people too.

For me, and I know this will set off people questioning my abilities to judge, but this movie is a 10/10, and that is my final answer.


Note: Korea is becoming the nation putting out great Dark Comedies in film and drama. Here are other Dark Comedy films and dramas from Korea.

Korean Movies

Oscar Award Winning ‘Parasite’

International Award Winning ‘Decision To Leave’

Baeksang Arts Award winner for Best Actor ‘Sound of Silence’


Korean Dramas

Oasis
Snowdrop
Vincenzo
Prison Playbook
It’s Okay Not To Be Okay
Bad and Crazy
Gaus Electronics

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My Perfect Stranger was perfect to me

My Perfect Stranger mimics the American Movie series Back To The Future. Therefore, first take note that many teenagers and adults you see in the past in 1987 (the drama’s main time destinations) are people you see in the present/future before the time jump, only they are 35 years older. The common thread between those in the present/future and those in the past/1987 are our time travelers, who are our male and female leads. They remain their same age.

The Male lead is a famous News Anchor in the present who starts the Korean Drama journey by finding a car that is a Time Machine. As he jumps around time on joy rides, he discovers something important about his future. This takes him back to 1987 to find out more. Along the way, inadvertently, a perfect stranger is pulled into the past with him. Why is she so perfect for these strange happenings? There is a rocking OST as well.

My Perfect Stranger has a rich powerful approach to the theme of the little used concept of Back To The Future. Solving the many mysteries in the past is the driving force of what happens in the present/future, and puts the outworking of the story in overdrive. The powerful automatic steering from the acting, uses the coasting setting to build the storyline into a profound slow crescendo of the action. One will not easily guess the perpetrator of this Who Dun-nit and the Big Reveal will make you put on the brakes for a hard stop of disbelief. Go with this one. It is a Korean Drama that you should not let pass you by. My Perfect Stranger is My Surprise Hit thus far this Korean Drama Season of 2023.

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There is a hidden beauty in the symbolism of this drama and the nature of relationships.

The Story

Some people are missing the point of this drama, big time. This drama is about interpersonal relationships between men and women and how they communicate with each other differently.

When one interprets, be it foreign language or sign language, the interpreter has to break up the conversation into short segments and release the information they just heard into the language of choice. The interpreter in this drama could listen for three minutes of conversation and repeat back the whole conversation in the language for which she is interpreting. Her record is interpreting 10-12 minute segments of spoken words. That is remarkable. Most people can interpret only 30 seconds of conversation accurately.

What gets lost first with long segments of interpreted conversation, is emotions and intent. I have studied why the mother tongue is the language of the heart and why love and attachment is best perceived when listening in one’s mother tongue. To be able to transfer emotions and intent to another language, after listening to long segments of conversation, is close to impossible. I am intrigue by this subject material. The Chinese Drama ‘Our Interpreter’ sure makes this occupation of International Interpreter look very glamorous. The drama pits a high tech CEO launching a new interpreting application against a real live interpreter. Machine against Human. Who will win? The two were once lovers and they have not seen each other for eight years. Can love be reinterpreted?

What some may fail to grasp with this drama is how normal communication between men and women can get lost in translation. We blame it on the “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus” syndrome. However, the base root of the issue is how emotions and intent are conveyed. Are matters made even worse over time? There is a hidden beauty in the symbolism of this drama and the nature of male and female relationships.

Quote: As a philosophy, it’s impossible for (emotions and intent) to be completely expressed and conveyed with words (When Interpreting). It requires one to feel, understand, and think about it with the heart.” From Our Interpreter.

There is an interesting side note to the Chinese drama ‘Our Interpreter’. There is a lot of English spoken in this drama, as foreign language is rendered into English. For fun, the viewer can listen to the Interpreter interpret the Chinese into English and compare it with the interpreted material in the subtitles. The human interpreter does a way better job, since she is touted to have the ability to interpret from the heart of the language she is interpreting. Someone should have been alert to make sure that the subtitled text was as good as the Interpreter.

‘Our Interpreter’ had me with their opening quote by George Gordon Byron. My mind realized that it would be stimulated. It is an intelligent drama which may not be everyone’s taste. However, this is my kind of drama, pitting two overachievers against each other and giving each a chance to make their best corrections.

Quote: “If I should meet thee after long years, how should I greet thee? With silence and tears”, George Gordon Byron.


Actors Corner

Victoria Song—I have compared her to the Korean Actress Jun Ji Hyun in the past. Her acting skills are most spontaneous and creative. I loved her in Find Yourself.

Chen Xing Xu—Acting since age three, Chen Xing Xu is a veteran actor. He also starred in The Starry Love.

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Uniquely satisfying Fantasy Chinese drama with a huge twist (a twist which I won’t reveal)

Costume & Period, Romance, Time Travel Fusion, Gaming Drama

Unique Lady is about a young lady whose life amounts to only playing video games and studying. She is distraught over her pathetic love life, and gets trapped in a video game about “finding your person” in the Sheng-Yuan Dynasty. She has to cosplay play this video game all the way through, before she can exist. She is surrounded by gorgeous men all over the place, falling in love with her. So I thought that this would be a perfect brainless down-time Chinese Drama, with the emphasis on brainless. However, surprise! Unique Lady actual has an extremely engaging and intelligent storyline, which is well written and acted. I should have known that this drama was not run-of-the-mill when I saw the Chinese actors’ firepower lined up for this drama. To add to this viewing pleasure, Unique Lady also has a Season 2. In the 24 episodes for seasons one and two, there is a fan viewing commitment time of less than 18 hours. The same goes for season 2. Therefore, the Chinese Drama Unique Lady is Korean Drama Fan Friendly.

This Drama is taken from Lascivious Lady by Orange Light Game: Adapted from the novel Haose Qianjin by Qing Lanlan

You will get massive Dual Lead Syndrome with these main suitors. I could not choose.


Actors’ Corner


The heroine of Unique Lady is Lin Lou Jing (Played by Zheng Qiu Hong or Jade from Fairyland Lovers). She has four suitors in this dating video game, all four with totally different personalities. There is a digital System Conductor, which helps guide her through her game choices. Lin Lou Jing has only five attempts at finding Mr. Right and she must find someone whom she loves and who loves her, before she can exist the game.

The main suitors for Lin Lou Jing are Zhong Wu Mei (Played by Gong Jun or Simon from Begin Again) and Liu Xiu Wen/[Prince of Qiyu] (Played by Fang Yilun or Alen, who is dead ringer for Hyun Bin and appeared in The Long Ballard).

Gong Jun has an interesting backstory. His first day at University, his teachers took one look at him and told him he should be in Chinese dramas, because of his look. He was able to change majors and was sent to acting school. And the rest is history.

You can include in the mix of people with whom to fall in love, the Third and Fourth Leads.

Jiang Xuan Yu (Played by Yu Kai Ning from Cute Programer) and Hua Ying Chi (Played by Li Hao from Douluo Continent)

Have fun.

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Okay, let’s just try something new. So far a real blast

Great OST. You are 29 and still unmarried. What to do? This Japanese Drama is so unusual and the premise is so far out, I want to say as little as possible, otherwise this drama may be spoiled. The drama challenges the boundaries of marriage and reality and our Plans of Life. Only the first episode is out as of 6 August 2023, but it may be worth your time to check out the first episode to see if this Japanese drama is something you want added to your list for future binging or you find that this is a crash and burn. For me, I am going to view this one real-time. I am interested to see what comes next.

It is funny that this drama picked me. I just tried to watch a trailer and Episode 1 started playing. So I just watched the first episode and it seemed interesting enough to watch the whole series. The series is on VIKI. Each episode is 30 minutes.

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The Adam’s Family Meets The Hallyu Wave (Everything Korean)

All the up front synopsis for the new Korean Drama Atypical Family that I read on the Internet seems to be wrong. The story is not outlined as projected by news sources. Atypical Family did not meet my 15 min “love it or leave it criteria”. However, there certainly was enough hidden back story revealed to let me know that there was enough paint on the canvas to make me stick around. This story is so very complex.

Revealed in the first episode, therefore, these are no spoilers.

1. The male lead has superpowers which he feels are a curse.
2. The male lead was married to his wife, who gave birth to their first child.
3. She died in a car accident, which appears to have been caused by her.
4. He could not use his superpowers to save his wife.
5. His mother forewarned him of this pending doom.
6. The death of his wife caused his depression, which caused him to loose his superpowers.
7. The whole family has superpowers, but they all have lost them, because of modern medical diseases.
8. The female lead is actually a grifter. She has been planted into this family by a thievery gang, because the family is rich. Her sole purpose is to steal money from this rich family and to give it to the thievery gang for which she works. She thinks that the information about the family is nonsense.
9. This drama is so weird. It is so atypical from the typical Korean Drama.
10. I see the paint on the canvas and it looks like an evolving masterwork.

Mind sufficiently blown. I can’t even figure this one out. Left very intrigued. I am so excited. Episodes post Saturdays and Sundays.

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