Reviews

Not too bad a series but some sub-plots are quite ridiculous

2 out of 5 reviewers on Douban gave “Weaving a Tale of Love” (WToL) rating 1 out of 5. That is harsh because essentially nearly half of the reviewers felt that this show is absolute trash. However, during its TV run, this series is ranked 3rd among the TV viewers behind only Douluo Continent and Fighting Youth. Granted, Hunan TV always attract higher viewership but that shows this historical costume drama has its share of fanbase, and those who enjoy this drama despite all the negative reviews and disjointed logic and common-sense in its plots and storyline.

How did I get into this c-drama. I was searching for a 2nd c-drama to fill-up the gap left by Douluo Continent, and checked out all the newly premiered costume c-dramas. Dropped Blessed Girl, the Rebel Princess, The Wolf, and A Girl Like Me after a few episodes. This series intrigued me, and kept me watching the next episodes. It is entertaining even though at times, some plots could be downright idiotic. More later on this.

Now, to the positives. Beautiful costumes, props, settings, and color-palette. Watching this c-drama, you can’t but admire the color palette that stimulates you visual enjoyment. It is bright, vibrant, and very discerning and easy on the eyes. The color-palette and visual stimulation was much better than that in Douluo Continent. Incidentally, I was re-watching Nirvana in Fire at the same time and could not help but notice the huge gap between 2015 production and WToL. While Nirvana in Fire is better than WToL in almost all aspects, it pales in comparison in color hue and palette post production aspect. The costume is simple yet beautiful especially on the Female Lead. Then again anything would look good on Gulinazha whether she is dressed as a female or crossed-dressed as a very effeminate young physician. The series setting is also beautiful, even though it was filmed primarily at Hengdian World Studio. At least the Director/Producer did not use the shot of the Qin Shi Huang palace as the backdrop for this drama as this is set during the Tang Dynasty. Nevertheless, it is refreshing to see lesser known buildings at Hengdian WS because they are just as beautiful as the main attractions of Imperial Palace, Forbidden City, Palace of Ming & Qing Dynasties, the capitol of Song Dynasty – Bianliang, etc.

The only CGI in this drama was the opening overhead shot showing the capital, but it looks kind of fake especially those city folks roaming the streets. This shot was replayed time and time again throughout the 40-episode series. On the action front, there are not much fighting scenes in this series because the storyline is geared more towards revenge and palace politics rather than wuxia and adventures in the jianghu.

I especially enjoyed the closing track by Zhou Shen – Moon Legend. This is a guy with a girl’s voice. There are just a few c-dramas which I really enjoyed the sound tracks like Chi Sheng Wei Ni in the Heavenly Sword & Dragon Slaying Sabre, Yisheng Deng Ni in Bloody Romance or Mo Wang in Ever Night 2. But the rendering of Moon Legend By Zhou Shen is hauntingly beautiful. When you like the song, ultimately you will love the series as well.

Now to the negatives. While the story line is generally your typical palace politics coupled with revenge and past injustice subplots, some of the story details are just plaindumb. This is probably why many viewers gave it a bad review. Some of the “idiot sub-plots” are :-

- Nobody knew that the FL was a girl even though while cross-dressing, she looked more beautiful than 99% of women on this planet;
- Despite the need to remain low-profile, the FL time and again showed her embroidering skill to the public which linked her to her disgraced mother;
- Despite jumping off the cliff into bottomless void to survive an assassination attempt, the two fellas entered the palace hours later without as much as a scratch;
- Having a Mei Chang Su like character in Concubine Wu assisting the Crown Prince at every opportunity against 14th Prince scheming and dealing;
- FL surviving an attempted fatal poisoning in jail because the guard was too hungry, and could not take his hands off free food;
- ML saved FL from death by hanging by shooting on the rope. FL would have been dead if the ML was a second late and the assassin conveniently left his badge for ease of identification;
- The Emperor easily believing in a quack who predicted Concubine Wu would be a female emperor of the Tang Dynasty after 3 generations;
- Crown Prince bringing a hired help in the form of a single person knowing that the 14th Prince would try to assassinate him;
And the list goes on and on and on…..

I had seen Guli Nazha in previous c-drama, so her acting has never been an issue – she is a terrific and talented actress. However, for some reasons, her acting here is a bit out of place especially when she is portraying an innocent and naïve FL.

Nevertheless, despite many shortcoming of this series, I managed to complete all 40 episodes. 7.0/10.0 score from me.

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This drama has all the elements of a very successful show. It's aesthetically appealing, one of the best in the world of Taiwanese dramas. The storyline and characters were very complex and intriguing.

The story itself, although seemingly cliche, was done very realistically setting it apart from other dramas with similar concepts. You won't find this drama to be a repeat of things you've seen before (I would know I've watched over 130 lol .-.) The story flowed smoothly and until the last 3 episodes, I had absolutely no complaints. Although the ending was a bit iffy for me, it still produced lots of feels so no worries there.

The characters were so refreshing. The wit in this drama is just AMAZING. The main female lead is so strong and although may seem bitchy at first, you'll definitely warm up to her. The dialogue between the characters are extremely intriguing, and their relationship develops very smoothly. There is sooooo much chemistry, I can't believe they're just acting. It's that good.

The music is really great, maybe because I've liked Yoga Lin songs for a while, but the other songs are really good as well.

Overall, I loved it. It was one of the best Taiwanese dramas I've seen in a while. It'll literally take you on a roller coaster of emotions (that's a good thing). I highly highly highly recommend this show!

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-Note: contains minor spoilers, read at your own discretion.-

I was a little disappointed with this drama mainly because it started out very promising. The beginning episodes were perfect in every aspect possible, but unfortunately, the story just dragged on. We had the same premise for 12 episodes: boy and girl have been best friends for years, boy is secretly in love with girl, girl is in a relationship with someone else... nothing more. While I was ok with this premise, I did not expect it to be the ONLY aspect of the entire story, which is how it turned out to be. But this is my biggest complaint about this drama (granted it is a very large issue).

The three things I look for in a drama are story, acting and directing. I have discussed my issues with the story, but there are also praises to be given. There were many deep messages and metaphors hidden in this drama were very well though out. I was enjoying these but they started to become scarce as the story progressed.

The acting was exceptional. Ariel Lin never disappoints, and while I have never seen any other work Berlin Chen has done, he was very well suited for the part of Li Da Ren. While Ariel and Berlin had great chemistry when they were just friends, that chemistry didn't extend to when they were a couple. It may have been due to their being friends for nearly 13 episodes, but I just couldn't see them in a romantic relationship.

Now for the directing... The directing in this drama was beyond brilliant for the first 5 or so episodes, and again, it began to get a little lazy, though never bad. I loved the whole clocks appearing everywhere for a woman who is obsessed with time and aging. The dream sequences were also filmed nicely, but my favorite part of the directing was the phone calls. I absolutely adored how the director portrayed Da Ren and You Qing's close relationship by having them appear to be so near each other, when they were actually cities, or even countries, apart.

My final evaluation of In Time With You is that it is a very enjoyable drama. While not perfect, I do not regret watching it nor do I think anyone will. If I were to review this drama based on the first half of the series, this would be a very different review, but due to the laziness of the second half, these were my overall thoughts.

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109 Average Things

Overall, it was pretty average.



The story focused on some basic philosophical questions about robots (do they have feelings/free will/whatever?) but didnt really offer any deeper/surprising/more complex thoughts or ideas. It also was about struggle of 90’s kids/millenials who cant find jobs because they studied arts/humanities but again, no realistic outcome came from it.



Main characters were pretty okay but all of the side-characters were extremely annoying. And we still dont know if is Jung Chaeyeon good actress or not because she played basically same character as in Drinking Solo (finding out if Chaeyeon was good/decent actress was main reason i wanted to watch this).



There were some plot holes but at least this webdrama wasnt incredibly stupid. And it certainly had some idea behind it but it could be handled a bit better.



Watch it if: you are a fan of Choi TaeJoon or Jung ChaeYeon (she is incredibly pretty).

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Kids always pay for adults' mistakes

My review will be all over the place just like this drama.

Everyone is trapped in their own prison and they only freed themselves in the very last 30 minutes.

This drama started great. No sugar coating, just the reality of this industry(at least for a few episodes) then it was about revenge for 2-3 episodes and then the story-wrapping time came.

IN ORDER FOR SOMEONE TO FLY, SOMEONE ELSE MUST EMBRACE THEM. Kang Su Hyeon only said this but her actions said otherwise.

Yoo Jin Woo-
I think they mostly focused on Yoo Jin Woo’s past. I wanted to see more of his career. Character development and how he overcame from harming himself to loving himself. Starting was bang on and the plot was so good. This drama could’ve been on my top list but after episode 5 it lost its charm. The writing was all over the place. When he said CEO please don’t abandon me, my heart cried. It broke into a million pieces. It was like he barely came in episodes after entering TA Entertainment.

Kang Su Hyeon- I did understand this character a little bit in the beginning. She was doing everything because she felt guilty towards her son. Then she gave hope to Yoo Jin Woo and used him and sold him. She knew his past. She knew what he could do to himself. She was selfish till the end. Did she think her son would be proud of her after knowing that she sold his friend for that factory?

Chris- I wanted to see more of this character. Why did Kang Su Hyeon let him leave the company? At first, I thought he was only keeping Yoo Jin Woo by his side to remind himself that it is okay to give up on your dream but then it was all to protect him from this industry. But making an underage work in a nightclub was also wrong.

This drama is about the music industry but the OST was mediocre. It could’ve been so much better.
I still don’t know what message they wanted to give and what was the conclusion of this series. Revenge? Yoo Jin Woo’s singing? Shim Jin Woo’s dream? Where is it?
They started everything but they didn’t know how to wrap every character’s story.

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First let me give you my honest overall thoughts on this movie : even after several rewatches it remains one of the best thrillers I've seen. It's dark, it's brutal, and you will never get tired of Ji Chang-wook, because he's perfect for this role!

This movie was so gripping and real adrenaline rush the whole imprisonment aspect (for angst lovers this movie is a must watch) especially how dark they got at times it was all excellent, even the hallucinations.

I liked the premise, a bunch of gamers, of different ages and genders band together to fight for the main lead, who is wrongfully accused of a murder. But the thing is the first part feels different from the second half almost. I feel like they were trying to get the feel of shows like Gotham because the villain was clearly Penguin inspired but it wasn't executed as well.

And it's not exactly realistic because the hero will frequently do insane action after getting the kind of injuries that should have got him completely unable to do anything. But Shim Eun Kyeong looks hot!!! But MOST action thrillers movies or books, Hollywood or otherwise, do this, they don't do realistic injuries or realistic anything, and this is one of those. My point is I'm not an idiot lol I see plot holes and other issues but for movies like this where they cast my favorite actors, I can easily overlook all that. Every movie is different.

But I have to say that prison part was very messed up, so might not be for everyone.

Anyway, so yes, if you can deal with the darkness, this is an excellent watch.

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Communication is key

The Effect of a Finger Flick on a Breakup (2021)

This is a KBS Drama Special about a couple who breaks up after a finger flick game.

I liked the story, I just felt that the story focused too much on the girl's side and not the guy. The entire time we see the girl is lonely and feels that she was taken for granted in the 3 years they were together. It took a finger flick to realize all these and broke up with the guy.

Of course the guy is confused. They were very fine the night before and suddenly she went cold on him and wouldn't explain why. She just kept saying they don't love each other. I felt that the girl was insisting how the guy should feel and we never knew what the guy really felt about her.

Her outburst in the garden finally told the guy what he hasn't been doing. Girl also said it's also her fault but I never heard her say what she didn't do for him. I thought it should be both ways. And she should have said something earlier on, maybe they have saved the relationship.

I loved the rainy scene outside her house, when the guy gave the umbrella back to her. He still wanted to try again but it was too late. The girl didn't want to anymore.

Mixed feelings with the ending. I still wanted them to get back together coz it looked like the guy has chanhed. But i also liked the PE teacher who looks like he will treasure her more.

Rating: 8.5/10

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There are a few topics one doesn't talk about at social gatherings. One of them is language. I myself have tried a few times but, in front of a pizza and coke, people are ready to talk about almost everything except their means of expression. Language is used, not pondered upon, unless one wants to be labelled the smart aleck of the party and be thrown out with the half-eaten pizza. Why? Because our mother tongue is perceived as a given, a common possession whose technicalities are learnt and then put into practice by everyone, well or not so well. We live in a society where illiteracy is almost unheard-of and have therefore forgotten how huge a power is held by simple education. This is exactly what Tree With Deep Roots is about: the power of knowledge.

So this drama is, first and foremost, very brave: it takes a topic generally considered yawn inducing - and conceited - and builds upon it one of the cleverest, suspenseful plot I've had the fortune to watch. Because the topic intrigued me, I approached this drama expecting to be intellectually swept away. What I wasn't prepared for, was to have my feelings deeply involved too. This drama is clever, yes, but it's emotionally intense and moving too.
Truth be told, in the beginning I was so confused by the trillion characters, names all sounding the same and genealogy tree that for a moment I thought I had suddenly become an idiot. Should you happen to experience the same, please don't despair: this is like a pile of jigsaw puzzle tiles thrown at you all at once that you start putting together. Once you have glimpsed the main picture, the rest follows on its own. I haven't found a single dull moment in the 24 episodes. I enjoyed the sometimes long political dialogues and didn't want to miss a word. I enjoyed the steadfast growth of each character and the relationship between them all, the marvelous setting, the wuxia-like sword fights.

Mostly, I enjoyed the portrayal of a great King, which naturally leads me to the acting. Among the brilliant performances of all, Han Seok Kyu shines his own light. I was sad to see Song Jong Ki go, as he delivers a great act of a young and fearful king who grows a backbone, but it's his older version I came to love, admire and enjoy the most. Second in my personal enjoyment chart is, hear hear, So Yi/Dam. By general consensus, a female character is considered strong when she opposes the rules, or when she can kick and fight. So Yi's strength, however, is in the brain, which she uses to comply with the rules, instead of opposing them. Shin Se Kyung embodies intelligence and courage in a very calm and effective way. Loved her to bits. Our third lead is the bridge between the passionate vision of a King and the idealism of the woman he loves. His common sense and simple views on life are a paramount addition to the dynamic and while he undergoes a major change throughout the drama, he stays consistent to his nature till the very end.

A character/actors review would be incomplete without the villains. There are moments when you may question who the villains really are. Their motives aren't wrong in the grand scheme of things, but idealism alone won't win a war and their methods go from arguable to unacceptable, mixed as they are with political greed, blind loyalty or personal grudge. Kudos to all the actors, though, for making me love to hate them.

I don't think the music is the strong trait of this drama. It has a few instrumental pieces and a couple of songs which are neither a disturbance nor a feeling magnifier. I must admit, however, that a couple of pieces are quite haunting, as I found myself humming a tone or two while doing totally unrelated things. Whether this is because they were used too often or because they were good, I don't know.

I've long debated about the re-watch value. I don't see myself sitting through the whole drama again in the near future, mostly because a well crafted thriller lingers in the memory much longer than a simpler plot. Ironically, its high quality makes this into a one-time experience. Which doesn't mean I won't go back to it when a considerable time has lapsed. It's an intense journey I recommend to everyone who's ready to invest a good dose of concentration in a drama.

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Loved the individuals, did not like the couples.

Am I the only one who was far more happy and entertained when I was watching the group moments and interaction between participants that were completely not romantically involved? Too many times I wanted to skip the dates and just watch them hang out in the house. I like them all as individuals, I like them all in the group setting, but I could not vibe with any of the couples at the end.

And I feel like this is why the show failed me - I had no pair to truly root for. I felt like none of the exes would work out, since they just danced around each other, but never truly try to solved their previous issues. The new couples were easily shaken by the past relationships, which made me think they would not last anyway, so what's the point?

I actually loved first few episodes, but the more romantically involved everyone became, the less I cared. That said, I still like the whole cast a lot, especially the best girl Da Hye. Wish her all the healing and happiness she needs.

Overall, I have barely any thoughts. I think I just truly don't care.

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Ojakgyo Brothers is one great drama that brought me on a rollercoaster ride! Cried, laughed, smiled at this drama. I was pretty discouraged to watch this drama at first because of the number of episodes.. But I'm glad I went mad and decided to start on it.

To be honest, I usually got bored when the main couple finally got together and I would actually fast-forward the drama. But ojakgyo... I did not. Because it's like so pure and innocent love and it will just make you keep watching on without fast-forwarding it.. (At least for me!)

I love the characters, there aren't any for you to hate actually. Except the usual antagonists but oh well our focus are on the ojakgyo family, isn't it? :)

I love ajumma a lot in this drama, she acts just like a child when she's happy! The way she laughs and smiles is just so cute and I can't help to smile along as I watch the drama.

Just watch it if you haven't, what's more there's joowon :3

I might re-watch in the future just to relive all those feelings again, I'm not the type of person who will rewatch drama anyway! But its always nice to watch these kind of family dramas, its just so close to us and heartwarming. :>

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I've always disliked watching historical dramas because I found them to be boring. Silly me. I finished this drama so fast because it was so good and all the cliffhangers made me want to die. I heard this drama was really good and Kim Soo Hyun was the main character so what the heck why not! I have to say this drama is sad but VERT BEAUTIFUL. This drama has a fantastic cast. A round of applause to the child actors for doing an outstanding job. They can sure move me to tears. My heart was constantly broken for Yeon Woo and dang I thought Kim Soo Hyun already acted terrific. He takes it to a different level as being King. My heart also goes for Prince Yangmyung ): I thought every supporting character had some light and story and it contributed well to the plot. Character development and chemistry between all the actors were simply beautiful. This drama basically played with my emotions LOL but I for sure will be watching more periodic dramas from now on!

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Just go and watch it!!!

I am a sucker for thriller/crime/mystery dramas. I especially enjoy the Taiwanese ones, because they are always creative and graphic (all the props look so realistic!). This drama isn’t an exception. It is visible that the team creating it spared no efforts to provide us with a very high quality production.
The acting is amazing, but I expected nothing less from this talented cast. The story is thrilling, I just couldn’t put my laptop down after starting it and I ended up binging the whole thing (never mind that I have exams coming lol).
I kinda knew who was going to be the killer, but this is only because I’ve read too much crime novels.
P.S. I sooooo hope there’s going to be a second season, because I just want to see these actors working together again, but in my heart I know that with this drama it just made sense to end the way it did.

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"Grab Your Love" is a period romance drama done with excellence!

I was waiting until this drama finished airing because i knew after i read all the positive feedback that this would be a hard drama to watch and wait for. I am so glad that i waited because i binge watched all the episodes in one day!
So much fun, sensuality, charm and excitement Grab Your Love brought to me. I mean just wow! I haven`t seen a mini drama done this way at all and i am still quite stunned by how amazing it was!
The "Villain" of Shencheng Qin Zhan is a cold-blooded and very ruthless businessman. He is notorious for having no mercy over his enemies, i mean the way he punished them made even me quite scared of him! But we see his warmth and soft spot for his nephew who he frequently bickers with and the way he falls irrevocably in love with his nephew`s tutor Min Jiang Xi who has a lot of sass and bravery. I love how she has both Qin Zhan and his nephew on their knees for her. Her step-brother was such a fun character as well! The chemistry people is out of this FREEKIN WORLD! So many memorable scenes between Qin Zhan & Min Jiang! I found the OST beautiful as well, i literally danced to the ending OST everytime,LOL!

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