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The good:
1. OffGun, need i say more?
2. Krist, its refreshing to see him as a loving character, someone who shows his feelings. I wish they used him more.
The bad:
1) i used to like the straight couple before but now they're just whiny little waste of screen time;
2) where are the dogs, its Puppy Honey wihtout the dogs???;
3) whats up with the 5-minute opening credits and 5-minute closing credits, the run is 8 episode and you waste 10min per episode just for unnecessary crap;
4) i almost graded the show higher for not incorporating villains in the show but then come the last episode and that shiity way they treated Din's character. I wish producers will give Sing a better character than just being in the background. This guy is cute;
5) i wanted to jump to the screen everytime the female actress falls or trips. Why are women treated like weaklings, is this what you call romantic trait of a girl? ;
6) everytime there is a fight (in all thai series, not just in this series) the guys always have bloody lips. Its the same in the first season. How weak are the lips of Thai guys? There are 4 or 5 instances in this series alone where the guy characters get beaten up and ended up with a bloody lips. It is just so frustrating to watch;
7) Each episodes felt stretched and they wasted so many time with the slow senseless talking, especially for the straight couple.
They should have transformed this into a full pledged BL series (a la DBK) and gave us 8 full episodes of OffGun cause the 2 main straight leads were just wasted here. The magic is gone from the first season and what used to be a fun series became a sloppy slow soap that you wish would just fast forward and end. It would also be more believable if Emma ended up with Night and Porsche just ended up with Friend.
Would i rewatch. Probably not, not even the BL parts. Tired of seeing conservative BL guys in BL series. Do these producers seriously think that gay guy couples dont have sex and intimacy when they were dating for 3 years already?
Overall im giving it 6.5 but without OffGun would probably rate it lower.
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Story: Simple, comical, romantic and to a point - mature. Love the 4 dudes and their antics. If "I Need Romance" is the female equivalent of "Sex & the City", then this here is the male equivalent of "101 ways of how to get under a woman's skirt - the blokey guide".... minus the emphasis on sex, of course. I love the little 'prologues' at the beginning of each episode. They are proof that men are just overgrown boys and they will always be up to something naughty! A well put together drama that ends well for everyone.
Acting/Cast: Whatdaya expect from veteran actors & actresses? Quality and believable acting of course! Even the young idol actors are not too stiff, but I must say that I am very relieved that they are not the main focus of this drama. They add a comical dimension to the drama without looking as if the writer was trying too hard on the comedy part of things. Well done!
Music: Nice OSTs worth downloading.
Rewatch value: High - simply because the episodes can be stand alones but they all contribute to the overall picture of the story. So, if there is a favourite episode or scene that you want to replay over and over again, you can! Furthermore, this drama gives off a nice relaxing feeling and a venue for women to nod their heads off in agreement at all the silly things and behaviour men engage in! Definitely a keeper!
Overall: Full marks. Highly recommended. Time to fall in love, people!... unrequitted, of course! ;)
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A little Glimpse into the lives of DongFeng QingCeng and Xiao Lan Hua
Two short episodes diving more into the life of the beloved lead after the Ending. The episodes are like mixes of all the scenes we saw so far, but with a different touch.We get to hear DFQC's narration of their married life, and a few new cuts of the lovey-dovey scenes we saw( it will go more in-depth of their kiss scenes too :)
The new angles are shown from different scenes and give us a new perspective of how their life tuned out after being a couple.
Overall, it will melt your for a few short minutes :)
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This review may contain spoilers
Decent, but not a masterpiece or a "rare gem".
Let me begin with saying that I enjoyed watching this show, but after having watched some pretty great and recent cdramas that also had no OTP related love triangles & decent communication between the leads, I just don't think this one stands out. Calling it a clichefest might even be correct depending on one's point of view. I have read many Chinese webnovels over the past 10 years and this one has adopted MANY of the cliche things from those works, especially about doctors & soldiers. Technically the ML is part of a SWAT police unit, he is not really a soldier, but the things they do to train & the moving targets etc etc are the same that every one of those soldier MC novels have. Mi Ka as a doctor is even more outlandish. She is supposed to be a surgeon, or aiming to be a neurosurgeon to be more specific. However not only is she a talented surgeon, but also a diagnostician on the level of Dr House MD. Her goals as a doctor are not exactly consistent all the way through the series and there are lots of crazy things she has done and is expected to do. Mr Miyagi sending her to the emergency surgery department (could be a mistranslation, because that's a strange, but not impossible department for a hospital to have) for her own good is just plain stupid.If I were unfamiliar with Chinese pulp fiction, I would just assume that the medical things occurring in this drama were poorly researched.
All of the above doesn't bother me too much. The reason why I don't think this drama is so great is that that there were quite a few annoying things. The second couple's story makes no sense at all. Not only is their weirdly undefined relationship dragged on and on forever, there is even a pretty annoying love triangle..
The leads seem to have had a decent chemistry, however it took too long for them to get together and once they were together they kept being really awkward with each other for like 10+ episodes.
Naturally this drama too needed to have a 2 years long forced separation plot, because studying abroad as a relatively senior resident doctor is an absolute must.
Episode 6 was so bad that I almost dropped this drama out of anger there and then. (see the end of this review for more information)
3 episodes were wasted on the bitchy Shen sisters, that's 2 hours of my life I'm not getting back.
Calling the overall plot draggy would be unfair, but long action(medical action, or police raids) sequences were frequently used as fillers. These weren't boring too watch, in fact the early ones were quite great, but after waiting for some foreshadowed progress to finally happen sidetracking this way is not what I wanted to see.
The OST could have been more exciting, I would say it's below average compared to other cdramas that I've seen that have come out in the last 2 years.
The good things that everyone is saying about the drama are not all wrong. The leads and second leads were really great at their roles. The entire cast is great, pretty much all the supporting actors were more than on point. The visuals, the cinematography were just awesome. The typical flaws of Chinese cinematography were completely absent.
The OTP did indeed communicate rather well & they had quite a few borderline brilliant scenes. I really liked the FL's appearance. She looked like how a normal (admittedly pretty) doctor would look like, as opposed to the nation's little sister pretending to be a busy resident, while sporting a 2h hairdo.
DotS has its flaws, but I think that's a way more fun drama overall. (not like comparing these two dramas makes a whole lot of sense though)
I thought about giving the show a little higher rating, but decided it's too highly rated anyway and I will never rewatch this, nor do I feel the usual feels after having completed a truly great drama.
This is the comment I wrote while watching episode 6:
I just picked this up. I'm watching ep6 right now. I'm not saying that I don't like the show, but what kind of crap hospital is this. Queue at a lift, so they cannot take a patient recovering from brain surgery to the ICU? Netizens not understanding that brain damage takes priority over a broken arm? Let's not even talk about the transfer. It's just a plain stupid episode so far.
(in a real hospital there are enough lifts and if not people with minor issues can just walk up the stairs.)
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This review may contain spoilers
Ugh
The long ballad was indeed very long and very stale. If you are looking for an epic love story with a lot of romantic chemistry, an interesting plot, and meaningful character development, you won't find it here.The story started out strong. FL and ML met each other under interesting circumstances – playing football. Shortly thereafter, FL lost her family to a revolt and was forced to flee her home. Unfortunately, the story kind of got lost within itself after that.
Changge was like the perfect Joan of Arc warrior princess. As a young woman from a privileged background, she was great at everything, including sports, sword fighting, and military strategy. The fact that she was perfect was her one major flaw. There was no room for growth. I enjoy strong female characters, but Changge's flawlessness and acting superior with mostly everyone made her overbearing. She couldn’t be beaten, making her extremely one dimensional. It was not convincing that all of her superb skills were the result of her uncle training her as a child.
While the drama started out strong, the story later took a strange turn and lost all focus. At the beginning, Changge swore revenge against those who instigated the revolt and killed her parents, but she ended up moving around different places and doing things completely unrelated to her original goal. The fact that nobody could figure out that she was a woman was pretty comical. All it took was for her to wear men’s clothes for everyone to suddenly become blind to the fact that she had a bump on her chest and round hips. What's worse, later in the show the revenge plot was completely abandoned and now we had a brand new end boss completely unrelated to Changge.
Yueyan ended up to be my favorite character because she went through the most intense character development and overcame all the difficulties on her own. Her and Hao Du was also my favorite couple because there was so much contrast between them - he was cold and calculating and she was timid and soft. The show did a good job at showing his growing feelings for Yueyan and his inner struggle trying to deal with them.
Half-way through the show, a slew of minor characters started appearing out of nowhere and served no purpose other than existing for Changge and her interests. Then, everything got really stupid. People kept insisting that women couldn't lead, women couldn't participate in politics, women were fragile, but there was this 14 y/o princess Tujia running around signing treaties and fraternizing with grown men without anyone saying anything. She'er was the leader of the wolf division and a good fighter, but he spent a big chunk of the show crying for mommy and being absolutely useless. Many decisions were stupid and made no sense. The crown prince's friend was a traitor and participated in Changge's abduction, but for some reason that was never addressed. Sun got arrested for killing him and no explanation was given. The fact that a member of the royal family got kidnapped wasn't even mentioned. And this type of nonsense continued until the very end. Nobody communicated anything. The show also didn't do a very good job at juggling between different character arcs. Characters would disappear for several episodes at a time making us kind of forget about them.
Explanations for certain plot lines were mediocre. It was never clearly explained why the revolt happened, why Changge's mom wrote the letter, to whom, and what was in it, or why the uncle killed her dad. The only take-away was that the emperor uncle didn't kill the mom.
The romance was underwhelming. It wasn't only because Changge and Sun had no romantic chemistry, but also because watching them together was like watching two dudes interact. They were just hanging out. The one kiss they shared was blurred out and we were forced to watch birds. I don't care that the writers intended it, it looked stupid.
The acting was very mediocre. Although she is very beautiful, Dilraba does not strike me as a very good actress, and, Leo Wu needs to work on his acting skills. I haven't seen him in anything other than Love like the Galaxy and the Long Ballad, and I wasn't impressed with his portrayal of stoic brooding characters. Zhao Lusi and Liu Yuning stole the show for me.
Bottom line, the drama was too long, the plot was too convoluted, and the romance was too stale.
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It's worth your time
IT'S THE BEST HISTORICAL DRAMA I'VE SEEN (apart from Mr. QUEEN). It basically have everything, action, comedy, mystery, romance, etc. Also usually most of the kdrama's are about romance and romance only, but a plus point in this drama is that it's focuses really less on romance (not gonna say that their are really little romantic scenes specially after what happened in ep 13 ;)) and if you are really into detective stories then THIS is the story you definitely HAVE to watch. I don't know why the international audience has given this a really low rating, specially when it's doing great in Korea. Trust me when you start watching it, you won't be able to wait without watching the next episodes. Since i'm watching it while onging, yes I'm honestly SUFFERING here while waiting for the mext few episodes. IT'S DEFINITELY WORTH YOUR TIME AND YOU WON'T BE DISAPPOINTEDWas this review helpful to you?
Story: What a story! The writer/s of this drama know how to write! This was action, adventure, revenge and romance done right. As you watch this drama, you notice it is almost like riding a ride. Some of the episodes are packed full of dramatic tension and zip by so fast that when the credits roll you sit there thinking "The hour is over already?" There is a depth and smartness to how the characters are written and for the most part, the pacing of the 20 episodes is framed very well. All good stories need moments of 'set-up' and because there are so many bad ass episodes when the action calms and there is a need for some exposition you don't mind...you understand that its necessary and it builds up the tension for the next stage of "The Plan". There are surprises around so many corners, moments where you suck in your breath. There are times when you want to pump your fist and times when you want to sob your heart out. There are well timed comedic moments that will have you laughing out loud. Pulling these physical and emotional reactions from the audience is the mark of great story telling. It's the best praise and prize a writer can get and the writers of City Hunter certainly got it from me.
Characters: Again, the characters are written so they are not dumbed down for the audience. They are fleshed out so well that you end up having sympathy for a character you know you ought to hate...who deserves your disdain and yet, you feel their pain. Or you may find yourself loving a character that is on a dogged search for and could just bring down your beloved hero. The character of Yoon Sung (City Hunter) is a flawed and fallible hero but he's smart and ultimately good and I found myself behind him and his cause. You get to see so many moments of kick-assery but you also get to see the price he pays; whether it is his body or his psyche. Also, those he's fighting aren't stupid either so he has got a fight on his hands. I like that the writers didn't make the antagonists stupid and they weren't always easy for City Hunter to catch. It made this show a delight to watch.
Romance: While I am all for some loving, hugging and kissing...I like that this drama knew when to quit. They didn't sacrifice the story to serve up the audience lots of drippy, gooey love. Yes, the love is there and the story shows the discovery and build up of that love but City Hunter has a mission. He's got stuff to do! We get to see how that love changes the City Hunter, puts the "true North" to his moral compass, gives him a reason to want to live beyond revenge and that is a beautiful thing. But thankfully, the writers weren't afraid to place that story on the back burner. Not only because it made sense in the framework of tale but also, they didn't pander to us mushy romantic types and force more into play.
Acting: I could go on and on (I know, I already have) but I'll just say t his. Lee Min Ho does a fantastic job. I was not a huge fan of his prior to this drama but now I am. And I would add that there isn't one actor in this whole drama that does a bad job. The main characters were cast well for their roles. There wasn't a time as I was watching this where I cringed or felt cheated that the actor wasn't serving the story or phoning in a performance. Lee Joon Hyuk (Prosecutor Young Joo) was amazing. Park Min Young (Kim NaNa) was often luminous and pretty bad ass in her right. Kim Sang Joon played (Jin Pyo) so well I hated him and had real moments of sympathy for him. Kim Sang Ho (Ahjussi) ~ I love you! I want to buy you an American Express Black card and let you home shop to your heart's content!
Season 2: When the 20 episodes are over...chances are, you are going to want one! Watch this if you are hesitating. There's a reason why there's about a thousand reviews of this Drama.
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1This review may contain spoilers
An interesting, thought-provoking, but somewhat unsatisfying love story
The writer tries to show us the stages of a relationship, but doesn't go far enough. The first half is beautiful, how it shows the development of the relationship between the two leads. The way their communication is portrayed is relaxing and nice to watch. When signing to each other or writing messages through their phones, it felt like they were completely attentive to what the other was thinking and saying. Those scenes were the most romantic to me. As the FL says, "it feels like we're having a silent conversation that never ends in a quiet world of our own".But part-way through, that conversation seemed to end, and the relationship unravels. Of course, it's realistic for relationships to change after an initial honeymoon stage. The FL has anxieties that come from a reasonable place, her position is understandable. But the sensible thing to do is to talk those anxieties out, to confront each other, to demand explanations and get everything off of your chest. It feels like the FL unilaterally decides to stop communicating, and that's the death knell for any relationship. There are moments where it feels like she has fallen out of love, although you could see it instead as her being overly melancholic or prone to insecurity.
In other words, we see the honeymoon and uncertainty stages of a relationship, but nothing else. There's no sense of recommitment, or really any solution to the problems raised in this relationship. The leads reunite at the end, but it doesn't feel satisfying, it's unearned because none of the problems were resolved. For a drama that dedicates so much time early on to idealizing communication, this is a big misstep.
Character-wise, I think the FL is the most fascinating character in the show. I think people can debate her motivations, the changes in her feelings, whether she's 'realistic' or not for a long time.
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not worth the watch
This drama had a promising start but it slowly got worse . The beginning was funny and sort of lighthearted and it was overall refreshing to watch in a thai lakorn since they are always very dramatic and serious. But this lighthearted-ness only lasted for about the first 6 episodes. As the story continued I got really angry at the ML he never thought about his wife just himself. After the FL got kidnapped and the video of her and the kidnapper got sent the ML changed. He rescued her but soon after in the hospital he couldnt even look at her while speaking saying he wasnt ready to talk about how she supposedly got raped and not even asking his own wife what happened. He then later on took the FL to the exact place she was kidnapped, that scene literally broke me she was crying cause she didnt want to go in and he kept trying to force her. And despite the FL literally yelling at him in tears about how she was pregnant with him and not the kidnapper the ML still denied it and thought that she only wanted his money. I wasnt even sure if I wanted to continue watching at this point but I was hoping that the ML would redeem himself but that never happened. He kept assuming that she had many lovers after seeing her with the doctor, banleng and sutee. He also kept saying how he only wanted the baby to be healthy which also got me annoyed. And after he did all of this he just apologized in the last episode and that was it, there was nothing more just an apology and saying that he wants the best for the baby and the mother. Overall this drama had potential but it was just ruined. If you personally prefer slap kiss lakorns you can avoid this one and watch dramas like kluen cheewit or hua jai sila that are also slap kiss lakorns but with a much better storyline and much better ML.Was this review helpful to you?
Mr. Unlucky Has No Choice but to Kiss!
30 people found this review helpful
Fluffy and cute with some of the same problems as other Japanese BL
I was intrigued by the plot initially, and really enjoyed the series at first. It’s a light-hearted drama that employs a magical plot device to create conflict, much like Cherry Magic, another fluffy, enjoyable Japanese BL.Unfortunately, I found that it was plagued by a couple of the same issues I’ve had with other Japanese BLs in the past. First, the fact that the last couple of episodes seemed to drag on, going in will-they-or-won’t-they circles without progressing the relationship in any meaningful way. Kota agonizes over the same questions of what he actually wants from Naoya for several episodes, and in the end it still feels as though they’re more or less where they started.
Second, I can never understand the inclination to write one of the leads as this blushing virgin archetype who’s so angst-ridden over the idea of kissing the person they’ve fallen for. This drama showed a kiss between the leads in the first episode, so I was really hoping it would be different in that sense, but nope. The same annoying mess of, “oh my gosh, we’re dating! Does that mean *gasp!* kissing??!” Why is this so common in Japanese BL? Why can they never just kiss without it being a traumatic 3-episode arc? Lol
Anyway, I liked it. It was cute. It was fine. I’m glad it didn’t drag on as long as Kieta Hatsukoi at any rate. But it took me awhile to get to watching the last couple episodes, because I could feel that it was going in that familiar direction, and honestly I’m kind of over this style of writing in dramas.
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Plot - It's based off the first, so there's not much room left for criticism. I like that the story doesn'r completely revolve around Kijima and Kido. It rather revolves around Kijima's feelings, vulnerability, and his relationship with the famous writer he studies under in this drama. I liked this because I don't really like Kido, and I assure you many of you won't after finishing this.
Story-Telling - Some episodes pull your heartstrings more than others. For me:
Ep 1 - Weird
Ep 2 - Revolting
Ep 3 - Captivating
Ep 4 - Exciting
Ep 5 - Interesting but lowkey rolling my eyes
Ep 6 - Ehhh. I like the ending ((:
The pennical for me are the middle two. The story really makes you think at some parts because I've never seen a relationship like Kido's and Kijima's. And I don't think that's necessarily a good thing.
Rio Kijima - The best part about this drama is the fact that it lets you understand where Kijima is coming from. You see a side of him you've never seen before, and I have a new respect for this character that doesn't even exist in real life. Why must we care so much about fictional characters?
Music - The same music from the first drama. It's not my favorite, but it sure works the scenes well.
Acting - It's good. Nothing to say about it. Zero criticisms.
Rewatch? - Probably not unless you're obsessed with these characters and love their story. The story's not overwhelmingly heartwarming or super funny. Only if you're invested in these characters the rewatch is worth it.
Ending Credits Scene/ Kuzumi-kun - I love throughout the movie that Kuzumi was mentioned.. And also anyways Kuzumi and Kijima TOTALLY outshine Kijima and Kido. Kido's character I don't know if he's sad or bad. Not sure which one.
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Could have been better.
This movie is being carried by its cast. Absolute standout in terms of acting and chemistry, which is to be expected because just look at who they cast. It is very obvious these two actors put in the work to embody their characters. I really, really wanted to love the movie, but I cannot overlook some aspects despite how much I did enjoy it.Flaws: So many. I think it can be summarized as this movie felt like it did not know whether it wanted to be a Japanese movie or a Hollywood one, so what you get in terms of editing is a very strange mix that ends up appealing to neither audience sometimes.
- There were many times where weird editing choices brought me out of the story completely. One such example is the announcer at the 10Dance section in the end, where he both names the dance, and adds a very unnecessary quip afterwards. Another odd editing choice is to layer conflicting music on top of each other.
- The pacing at the end, absolutely rushed. This story would have benefitted from being a series. An extra 40-80 minutes of content would have fixed a lot.
- The English subtitles are also plain wrong occasionally.
- The music was either a full hit or a miss. Since this is a movie about dance, I would have hoped that they had a better selection for music choice and background tracks.
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This review may contain spoilers
This is for adult viewers or people who want more than just fantasy IN MEMORIAM for YML
This is a romance between races, but also tragic story of self-sacrifice. Most folks will hate the ending, but for me it was a world better than The Love Between Fairy and Devil!From the first episode I was spell-bound. Considering I am not a big fan of fantasy this was one of the best I had seen in general and the best of 2024. Why? Consistent production. Great editing. Fun costumes, awesome color palette. Solid acting. Good story and interesting characters. Music and the lyrics! But what beats Burning Flames and Love Game for me was complex subtext of this story. The whole idea of animosity between two groups is nothing new but I have not seen anything like this before. I admit I only saw 350+ dramas, but this script was smart inside out. I was raised during the era of post-communist regime in the country where we could not openly speak of the tragedies and terror around us, so we developed an artistic, metaphoric way of communicating our observations, dissent and longings. I loved this drama because of how it spoke to that.
Now that we all know how much suffering YML had gone through in his career and how horribly he had died - being the hero of this drama is truly a memorial to his courage to persevere, love for who and what he loved and eternal sadness that he left us in. I never thought that this drama would be the last of his main roles released in his lifetime. I am going to look for Traditional Chinese Medicine that hopefully will be released soon just to see him again - as a healer.
If you are looking for an easy, HE romance, nah. Skip it. If you want a good story that is visually beautiful and filled with wisdom - give it a try. Or watch it just to honor the great person that Yu Meng Long was.
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P A I N O F M A Y Beautiful, Heartbreaking and Bittersweet
The Story is either too cliche for you or not. It depends on your taste..... Forbidden Love, Richman/Poorwoman is my cup of tea because I like how it makes me cried and this Drama have it. Didn't expect too much with this but Dammnnn it was so painful from the Start till the end. But it's not only that The Writers did an amazing job making it different from most of cliche K-dramas.This Drama is set in May 1980 when Martial Law happened in the City of Gwangju, South Korea. And the Love Story that blooms from the Youth. I really like the idea and execution. We can see that they put a lot of effort to make it realistic as possible.
Hwang Hee Tae is not your typical Male Lead but his life is too cliche for a K-drama because of his cruel Father.
Lee Do Hyun is pretty hype actor. He is not bad but not Wow also maybe I should watch him in 18 Again. He is actually good and natural actor
Kim Myung Hee is your Strong and Weak Female Lead. I just can't describe her Characteristics but I like how she knows to stand on her own foot however sometimes it felt so cruel for her Father.
Go Min Si played her role Okay. I'm impressed with her in The Smile has left your eyes but she seems off in this one maybe because it's her first time playing FL but I swear she can do better.
Lee Soo Ryeon who despite being wealthy desperately fights for social justice and feels responsible. To be honest I didn't hate her like everyone do.
Geum Sae Rok is the weakest out of all the Cast. She needs a lot of improvement and so far I can only see her playing Second Lead Role.
I have Love at first heard with the music. Starry Night by Ryeowook is so good I even downloaded it on my phone. It's my type of Music and the melody is too I also love the lyrics. I'm quite disappointed that they didn't used it in other emotional scenes.
Things to prepared if you're going to watch it.
1. WIKIPEDIA
- You might search about Gwangju Uprising while watching it.
2. COFFEE
- There's so many parts that is boring and draggy so I think you need to prepare it.
3. TISSUE
- 50 meters of tissue will do but only if you are are easy crier.
Overall, Youth of May is really great and underrated but can't say it's a Masterpiece. I hate it and I love it but remember Love can overpower hate so Yeah, I love this Drama afterall. The Drama is good in many ways however it felt so repetitive
I like You
Let's Date
I don't like you anymore
I love you
I want to spend time with you
I don't love you anymore
I still love
I'm scared of you
Let's break
You are Back
After those scene it's like nothing happened. They're like strong couple lmao
English is my Third Language so Sorry if it's bad but I will try my Best to improve it.
Thank You for reading my Review^^ I hope you enjoyed the Drama. I'm very sad it ended :( It's the first K-drama I finished while airing.
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