Reviews

Very touching movie told in compact episodes (i.e. events seem to be left hanging and then you find out how you got to the next bit by the use of back story, so you have to just carry on watching even if it may seem confusing) so it's all very well pieced together into a tight organic whole. Interesting background issues with China's modernization, Tiananmen etc. If you don't like movies with sad parts this, this may not be for you. I don't either, but of course I didn't know how the movie would turn out. But it's worth persevering for the moving story of how a relationship develops and is sustained over a long period. Fine acting and directing. I give re-watch values based on whether it justifies re-watching, although I must admit I'm inclined to skip sad ones - life's sad enough as it is!

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A Refreshing Dive into Teen Romance

"Our Secret Diary" is an emotional rollercoaster that begins with a bit of a shaky start with too much music and an initial awkwardness in acting. However, once it hits its stride, it becomes a compelling journey. The characters feel remarkably genuine, breaking away from the cookie-cutter molds often seen in these films. The absence of prolonged tearful scenes and sudden villains is a welcome surprise, making the high school romance feel more authentic. The imperfect yet honest portrayal of the main character adds a layer of realism, and the evolution of the initially shy heroine is a standout aspect. Despite being rooted in the familiar, the film manages to keep viewers engaged for almost two hours, turning a basic romance into a captivating movie night experience.

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The Flame's Daughter really had so much potential going for it. An AMAZING cast, good production team, potentially great story, etc; but overall it just fell pretty flat for me and didn't have that pull and attraction that others (namely TMOPB) of it's type were able to give.

STORY:
The story itself was a fairly basic one (with a few twists here and there). The young and innocent daughter of a powerful sect for various reasons has to take up the responsibility that goes with her birth right. There are people who think she's incapable or think they would be better. There are those who side with her and want to help her succeed. There's the Big Bad who is the root cause of most/all of the problems that the characters go through. As fairly basic as the story was, that wasn't really my problem with the drama. Maybe it was because I didn't super binge watch it (mostly because I couldn't get invested in it enough to watch it endlessly and partially because it wasn't fully subbed when I started watching), but I found myself just coasting through watching it half the time - not really paying attention to what was going on because I wasn't that interested.

A lot of it also was probably that I didn't necessarily feel like the main leads had great chemistry together (and I love both Dilraba and Vic) so I didn't get invested in the drama because I didn't particularly care for the main romance.Nothing in the drama was particularly mind blowing or exciting. There were a few "Oh wow" moments, which thankfully they had or it'd be even less interesting, but overall I just really didn't care for this drama all that much.

ACTING:
Dilraba Dilmurat - though she's actually a favorite of mine, I'm starting to really agree that she's really only good at playing that cute, young, innocent girl character. This drama was focused on Lie Ru Ge growing up and taking over the reins of Lie Huo sect, but her character never really seemed to change for me. There was never that moment that I was like "oh snap, here's Ru Ge." Especially for her being so heavily associated with fire, her personality definitely never really moved past that young, naive girl for me.

Vic Zhou - probably one of the highlights of the drama (and being one of his returns to acting) but even so, I had mixed feelings about his character at the beginning (though I'm not sure if it was an acting choice or if it was because of how his character was written, While his playful personality was a good contrast to Zhang Bin Bin's cold personality, it just felt like a weird choice for a character who was supposed to be part of the immortal sect (and who had previously been a part of the Dark River sect). Might have just been me though.

Zhang Bin Bin - I always think Zhang Bin Bin does a good job at playing the character he's given. That being said, the actual character of Zhan Feng was definitely pretty one note the whole drama. He was just the quiet, cold "hero" type.

Overall:

I really just had very "meh" feelings about this drama. The story wasn't exciting enough to keep me intrigued and the chemistry between the actors wasn't intense enough for me to really invest myself into the drama. I wouldn't call it a bad drama, but it's a very unmemorable one for me.

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Didn't Work For Me

I didn’t like this, unfortunately. It just didn’t work for me. All it really had going for it was the great acting, some nice visuals, and solid chemistry between the leads. That’s it. The plot and story were just bad. I found myself skimming through a lot of it, to be honest.

The first episode was intriguing and gave me some hope, I was actually looking forward to the next one. But it just went downhill from there. Each episode got worse plot-wise. I don’t mind men crying (actually, I like it), but I do mind the main lead going through some new trauma every single episode, over literally nothing, and then the issue just gets dropped like it never happened, just to make space for the next. It got tiring. I considered dropping this way too many times but stuck around purely for the leads.

And seriously, if your NC scene is the best scene, that’s not a good sign.
Speaking of, the way this show handled sexual assault was disgusting. It was used as a plot device and then brushed off like it was just cheating??? No. That’s not cheating — it’s rape. Whether they end up sleeping together or not doesn’t change that. And of course, like always, the predator faces zero consequences. The whole Johnny arc made me so mad I literally dropped the show when it was airing. I only came back a month later because everyone kept calling it a masterpiece. (and too many smart boom videos on my fyp)

Also, sorry but… I found Jin a bit creepy too.

So yeah, all I have to say is: the plot was TRASH.

But, credit where it’s due: the acting, especially Boom was great. The leads had really good chemistry, like they genuinely fit. The visuals and cinematography were mostly nice. Some of the outfits were nice.
And Naru was an absolute cutie. I just had to say it.

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STORY: This guy has always thought he was ugly and accepted himself this way. Then he falls in love with a guy and the situations lead them to start a relationship, but his insecurities keep him from being happy as he overthinks about everything. Typical BL format with a lot of communication issues between the couple. Good part is that they fix their problems right away and manage to get some good interactions. Their relationship is sweet and they do get a happy ending.
ACTING/CAST: They managed to make the characters seem as they should, although the supporting characters were really shallow.
MUSIC: Regular
REWATCH VALUE: 6/7
OVERALL: I liked it and the story was pretty consistent. It's a typical japanese BL and the ending is quite warming.

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Twinkle, Twinkle But Not A Gem..

The Story; Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol ( roughly translated to ‘ Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ from Romanised Korean), tells the story of an affluent girl who is a dreadful pianist, Goo Ra- ra ( Go Ara). When her life hits rock bottom, she ends up running again into the mysteriously hardworking Lee Jae- wook (Sunwoo Joon). Together with Jae- wook and her new friends, Ra- ra might just find the answer to getting her life back on her feet through the kindness of strangers and new love.

The Characters; The show offered an odd mix of characters both endearing and lacking characterisation. As our main protagonists go, Ra- Ra was mostly driven as a weeping heroine with little emotional depth. Considering Ra- Ra lost her mother, father and has gone through Hell and Back, there was so much potential for the scriptwriters to induce a level of pity or teaching her character about the realities of life. Instead, any hope for Ra- Ra to be a realistic female lead is thrown out the window in pace of her romance with Jun. Even small actions regarding Ra- Ra by the scriptwriters such as her mysterious multitude of outfits ( and not considering even in the beginning of the show to perhaps sell them to help pay for Jun), the expenses of her hospital fees and her seemingly remaining oblivious to the Doctor and Jun’s secrets, added little to her character. Moving on to our main lead, it’s fair to say that he was perhaps slightly more tolerable for audiences as he seemed to realistically carry emotional burdens upon his back as well as mysterious secrets. Sadly, rather than trying to allow Jun to face his own demons by spending time with Ra- Ra , the scriptwriters tried too hard to add obstacles within their relationship through the strange plot twist near the ending of the show. Whilst this did help for Ra- Ra and Jun to explore their relationship, it seemed just to point out that none of the characters in the show were truly grounded in reality.

Relationships between characters; Perhaps my one appraisal for the show is the Mother- Daughter bond between Jin Sook-kyeong ( Ye Ji- Won) and Jin Ha-yeong ( Shin Eun Woo) . For a show grounded in romance, there was a surprisingly familial turn upon learning that the seemingly daft and flirtatious hair stylist , Jin Sook- kyeong, got a surprising moment of characterisation through learning of her hardships and her actual affection as a single mother for her daughter. Similarly, it was equally sweet that Sook-kyeong, Ha- Yeong and Ra-Ra developed a strong bond between one another as the show progressed. I have a couple of complaints, however, about the need for Sook-kyeong and Ha- yeong to have romantic interests in the show. Whilst there’s obviously nothing wrong with either character having their own love interest, it seemed out of character at times when there could have been more focus upon the characters as individuals. For me, this was seen especially with Ha- yeong. Whilst the scriptwriters dropped the hints, the ending seemed to deny a lot of Ha- yeong’s potential to continue with a successful career.

On other notes, there were other signs of familial love within the show such as Jun and his mother ( Seo Yi Sook) and , the child prodigy, Jae- Min who develops a familial bond with our characters. On a romance level, the show was a bit of a mixed bag. Once Jun’s secrets were exposed it did put a bit of edge for viewers between their relationship, but, perhaps one of the things which didn’t entirely add up for us as viewers, was the revelation towards Ra- Ra not recognising Jun from the past. Whilst it’s natural her memory might’ve been a bit hazy, it seemed a little strange that she didn’t even mildly recognise Jun at the concert hall or at the wedding either. Naturally, there is of course the ‘ second Male lead syndrome’ of the tired Doctor Eun- Seon ( Kim Joo- Hun) . Whilst there were a couple of factors which made Eun- Seon a little more appropriate for Ra- Ra, Eun- Seon came across as a little too forceful of Ra- Ra’s privacy at times, something which struck a nerve with me. The other evident factor was that once Jun swooped in, his “ fanatic feelings” seemed to mysteriously disappear. Whilst the scriptwriters evidently didn’t want to spend hours upon Eun- Seon falling out of love, it was another case and point of bad characterisation that we didn’t get to see Eun- Seon’s reactions as a human being.

Acting; Go Ara struck me as an unusual choice to play a romantic female lead. Typically taking on more gritty or melodramatic styles such as Black and Haechi, it wasn’t that Ara was necessarily bad within playing Ra-Ra, and in fact, exposed herself as an actress by not being typecasted as the action heroine. ( An ironic reversal for most female actresses). On the other hand, to put it simply, , she just didn’t add anything new or illuminating to her role. (Admittedly, this was also the fault of the scriptwriters as well) Moving onto our Male lead, Lee Jae- Wook has really been rising to providence as a romance actor after his appraised role in Extraordinary You. Whilst I wasn’t a great fan of the show, Jae- Wook’s acting did peak my interests as a potentially good actor. It was clear to see that Jae- Wook put his heart and soul into the drama within his role as Jun, however, in a similar manner to Ara, Wook didn’t bring anything new or exciting to his take on the Male lead. (Perhaps a personal thought upon Jae- Wook is that whilst he took the role on within the popular genre of romance, he should explore outwards into different genres in order to explore his boundaries of acting).

OST/ Cinematography ; Whilst the show plays upon classical music and standard panel shots, there was a lot which could’ve been explored with the usage of music and cinematography hand in hand.

Plot thoughts; In all honesty, the actual plot of the drama isn’t terrible. What it certainly isn’t is overwhelmingly impactful, original or intriguing for audiences. The cliches have simply been seen and done before; the sanguine and dippy rich girl who learns life lessons, the hardworking Male lead , illnesses and hidden pasts as well. The biggest fault within playing upon these cliches is that the audiences rarely get to see the characters as human beings, rather than merely plot devices. As a consequence, whilst sugary sweet with a bittersweet ending, the drama was overly unrealistic and easily forgettable for the next Korean Romance Drama succeeding this one. .

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In a word, "Another Parting" was weird. A good type of weird, but still weird. In fact, that's pretty much the only way I can describe "Another Parting".
Story: I felt like this could have been longer- if there was more plot and back-story involved "Another Parting" could have definitely been a normal 16 episode drama. AP felt too short and choppy- there wasn't enough reasoning behind certain events and actions, and it felt like I was being jerked around. The overall effect was entertaining, but the whole thing gave me whiplash. The story itself was original and new, with surprising bits of comic relief thrown in.
Acting: No surprises as far as Seo In Guk was concerned- I already knew he could act. I've never seen Wang Ji Won before, but she had nice chemistry with him and carried her character well. The other characters had so little screen time they were practically nonexistent, so I don't think I need to comment there.
Music: Since this drama was less than an hour long, total, the music wasn't really a huge part of it. I can vaguely recall some ballads, but that's about all I can remember.
Rewatch Value: As of now, I don't really have much reason to, but I definitely do want to skim over it again in the future.
Overall: A bit strange and choppy, but still interesting enough. I'd recommend "Another Parting" if you have some spare time or really love the cast.

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just confusing and terrible

I absolutely adore Becky and her previous works, i have no complaints about her acting as Nanno, but it just didn't hit the same as before. The acting was great from everyone but the story just wasn't it.

Each episode left me confused and bored. Half of the times i couldn't even understand why the characters deserved Nanno's punishment. For example the last episode.. The guy didn't even do anything wrong before Nanno came into the picture.

As for Sky, i really liked his character, but I feel like they could have done so much more with him. Really disappointed that they killed him off.

Overall this drama left me very confused and disappointed. I expected a lot more from it.

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Did not get the attention as Double Helix and Sammy's Children Day

While we were in a slump with most thai BLs, China got us three good shows. Sadly for this show, it was overshadowed by Double Helix and Sammy's Children Day even when in parts it was much better than the other ones. First of course there is the historical settings, gorgeous costumes and a budget which got strained, so we only have two nice fighting scenes.

While the script was not as polished as it could be, the actors compensated for most of it. Especially the scheming crown price was a delight to watch. Of course it was a bit too gay. 🤣 We not also got a BL we also get a GL but in subdued undertones but very obvious. Combine this with great cinematography and you get a good show.

You get the scheming, the fighting, the fluffyness, tasteful nc-scenes and a bit of sillyness (6th princess). Of course, they could not go with a sad end, because it's a BL after all. You get everything you can wish for in a setting which is interesting with a story-arc which made sense and compared to most other chinese BLs a story without toxicit., Just a fairy tale where the good gals/guys win. For me it was very entertaining, everything is like a small river flowing evenly and then comes the thunderstorm and water is cascading down the hills and flooded everything in it's way. And after the flood comes the time to rebuilding, in this case the search for a cure for Yanzhi with an happy end. So, this is definitively worth a watch!

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Don't watch it, just read the original novel

This movie is god awful and if I could, I'd give it a 0/10 but alas, it has to be a 1/10.

They changed the very core of the story AND the characters. Like, if you just wanted to make a loose adaptation of the original, then at least make it better? It's not even good as just a standalone film with cheap looking CGI and poor acting. Money was definitely spent on just getting big name actors.

They took out everything that ORV stands for. Changed SO many backgrounds of all the characters. Like Kim Dokja is not a savior. He's a suicidal calculative guy who will do this to his advantage. And then them completely changing his background just to fit their own narrative? Way to take away from who he is. He's a lover of TWSA, a fan of this book and literally survived for 13 years because of this book! It's what kept him going through life. I mean the start of the opening was already b ad so I'm not surprised it's just trash.

Anyways, don't waste your time watching this or spending your money on it. Save your money, let it go to doom so they don't even attempt a second movie.

Read the original source.

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The King: Eternal Monarch was everything I could ever hope for in a drama. *chef's kiss* A masterpiece. I wish I could rewatch it again for the first time

Honestly if I had to recommend a kdrama for someone who had never watched one before, this would be it. A high budget, well-casted, well-written, exciting show that keeps you on the edge of your seat eager for more. It’s too good, too good!!

The romance was top tier. I'm aware it's been a topic of controversialness, but for me - Jung Tae Eul x Lee Gon are one of my new favourite couples. Especially the scene at the end of Ep 11. Had me on the edge of my seat!! That scene >>> any boring love scene ever made

Their dynamic was just so fun. A post to summarize (courtesy of @lavenderbyun):


Tae Eul: take your clothes off

Lee Gon: *undoes 1 button*

Tae Eul: I DIDN’T SAY STRIP YOU IGNORANT SLUT


Lmaoooo, they give me life ♡

And Lee Gon! My man. We love (1) romantic, skilled, handsome science nerd. Someone who travels across time and space for his love, asdfghjkl; A king worth stanning.

One of the highlights in the beginning? When we're in the Kingdom of Corea and people were just shocked cause no one is allowed to touch the king but he lets Tae Eul touch him HAHAHAHA

Considering his well-known 'I don’t like being touched by people', he is certainly shouting out loud here to everybody around him 'I'm crazy about this woman and I just want to touch her all the time!!!!'

I loved all the characters in this drama. Especially Jo Young & Eun Sup, their scenes were always a highlight. Woo Do Hwan has the range, give him all the awards

And his bromance with Lee Gon!! Love them sm

I will admit my brain started to hurt with all that time travel, multiple universes and that place where time doesn't flow. It is a lot to get your head around but just don't think about it too hard is my advice lol

Otherwise, this drama deserves all the praise. I could rave about it forever, please give it a shot!

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This is the worst they ruined a masterpiece

I would like to express my deep disappointment regarding the recent adaptation, which, in my opinion, does not reflect the essence of Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint (ORV) at all. With all due respect to the cast whom I genuinely admire my frustration lies not with their performances, but with the way the adaptation has significantly altered the source material.
ORV is a beloved masterpiece, cherished by many readers, myself included. I first encountered this novel during my first year of high school, and now, as a college student, it continues to hold a special place in my heart. To see such a treasured story transformed beyond recognition is truly disheartening.
The extensive changes made in the adaptation stray so far from the original plot and characterizations that it no longer feels like ORV in any meaningful sense. It would have been more appropriate to present this project as a separate, original story rather than labeling it an adaptation of ORV. Calling it such does a disservice to the original work and its devoted fanbase. Watching the trailer left me feeling disillusioned and upset. This adaptation lacks the heart and integrity of the novel we came to love. I sincerely hope that future productions will treat the source material with the respect and authenticity it deserves.

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