Reviews

extremely adorable and sweet - green flag guys

Overall: this is an exemplar of a romance series. 12 episodes about 45 minutes each. Aired on GagaOOLala https://www.gagaoolala.com/en/videos/4626/monster-next-door-2024-e01 and WeTV https://wetv.vip/en/album/y1ocjz3bjta0prm

Content Warnings: past death, grief, manipulation

What I Liked
- their dynamic was lovely, very considerate of each other
- mutual want and ongoing physical affection
- sweet and caring moments
- respecting boundaries
- good consent
- supportive friends
- supportive mom/grandfather
- characters were fairly intelligent
- funny moments
- the short flashback in ep 2 set up a character's reluctance well
- Almond & Latte cameo from Knock Knock Boys
- how Diew looked at the book Monster Next Door in the library
- good calling out infantilizing a romantic partner
- the drama between the leads was realistic, they both made mistakes
- talked about how introvert/extrovert are not fixed traits, it depends on who you are with/the situation you are in and can be flexible

Room For Improvement
- bad voice over to set up a character
- plot felt a little drawn out in some places
- nonsense stuff: I'm sure those working in the library would notice students doing that and put a stop to it (and then the explanation in ep 12 was cringey), a university class with 3 students
- some choppiness
- continuity errors, complete daytime and then night in what was happening at the same time, messy hair to perfect hair
- not a turtle expert but that cage looked pretty small for that turtle
- a 3rd side couple was teased but we didn't see their relationship development
- the 'did you get your period' line
- 17 minutes of moping in episode 11
- too much drama in episode 12 should have cut it to just 1 issue, the mom having the epiphany from the random mom/daughter when it could have come from talking to grandpa/Diew
- time jump in the finale was not needed and felt they could have had a better ending scene for the 2nd couple

Read More

Warm, Caring, Supportive Male Lead

Let me start by saying I loved the feel of this drama. The warm undertones and emotional connection between Zhoa Jin and Xu Nuo kept me watching. This drama portrays the growth of the relationship between the ML and the FL. They met by chance and felt a pull toward each other. At the start, the FL was in a long-term relationship with her boyfriend, Peng Yu An who never seemed to have time for her. It is also clear that his father is against them being together and wants Yu An to have a more advantageous relationship with his partner. Without going into details, the FL breaks up with the boyfriend, but he refuses to accept the breakup. Yet, Zhoa Jin and Xu Nuo continued to grow closer and this is the part that made this drama so beautiful.

There is a secondary relationship between the FL's best friend and ML's friend Xu Yang. There is also a touching storyline with the ML's sister and her friend. This drama shows different relationships and motivations. Some relationships are based on dependency and convenience. Some are formed based on what might be considered to be advantageous. And some grow even when up against adversities...this is the slow burn we see with the ML and the FL.

I loved the ML! It baffles me that there are so many negative comments against the ML. He was warm, caring, supportive, considerate, gentle, and smart. His character is appealing because he shows strength and conviction. But even though he appears soft on the outside, he can defend himself. The ex-boyfriend sees him as pitiful as he is divorced and has a younger sister who has health issues. But this is just one of the indications that the ex-boyfriend is overconfident and too much into himself because others see the ML as handsome and wonderful. The ML is the main reason I watched this drama. Zhang Wan Zi is now on my favorite actors list! Sigh...

Read More

I don't quite know what to say about this movie. I did not think that this movie would be so affecting, but at some point, I realized I was crying and didn't stop for a long while. Choi Woo Shik is very, very good as Young Jae.

As far as plot goes, there's not a lot to it. Young Jae has a very unstable home life, and consequently, lives in a group home that's kind of a Catholic orphanage/halfway house headed by pseudo-parents. He does his best to keep in their good graces so he can stay there. He goes to mass, he sings in the choir, he wants to be a priest, and so he has to spend even more time at church and with his tutor. However, all these things aren't enough. His position is never secure at "home". So he reacts to the uncertainty by devising some not-so-priestly backup plans.

The way I see it, the uncertainty eats away at him, eventually turning into desperation, and that's when he reaches a breaking point. Everything in his life is in such a precarious balance, and he fights so hard to keep it there. But nothing he does is ever enough.

I think I'm probably not making a lot of sense, but if you like a good character piece, check it out. It's very well done, if this is the sort of thing you enjoy. The music is minimal, but very effective, the cast is solid, and I would totally watch it again, sometime when I won't mind being an emotional wreck. :)

Read More

A 12-year old's fever dream

This drama series is exactly what a 12-year old expects in a romantic relationship. The main positive is that the actors are all good looking.

The story itself is the usual cheesy cold-male and bubbly-female, who were friends as small children, but it quickly goes downhill from there. The 2ML is rejected many times, continues chasing, and doing things that are manipulative and completely inappropriate. The sexist stereotypes are infuriating, from the usual ditzy women, to the way contemptible way that ML treats FL, to a particular scene involving the third couple right after she visits his grandmother. Of the three older men in the drama (dad, and two businessmen), only one who behaves in a way I would consider a mature adult.

The reason I say it's a 12-year fever dream, rather than simply classic Chinese stereotype is due to some of the behaviours of the individuals. For example, when the girls get excited, they jump up and down squealing. The FL's voice is that cutesy soft sweet deeply annoying one that no real human being has. It's almost as if the characters magically went from age 12 to adult without ever actually maturing.

There are no kisses. Only a couple hand-holds and hugs.

I agree with the reviewers who dropped after a handful of episodes. If you want to enjoy something, this show isn't it. I watched all the way through the end because I kept wondering how much worse it would get. And they successfully kept surprising me by having each episode be worse than the previous.

Read More

Why were they even friends?

There was exactly one normal person in this whole show and I hope no one is surprised it was a woman - Chueam. It was a mess, everyone needs individual therapy and couple therapy to barely exist, but damn it was also extremely entertaining. On paper none of the characters was exaggerated or unrealistic, but to put them all together is just a circus no one would survive long term.

Starting from the most boring pairing - Top and Mew. Playboy tamed by a virgin is such a cliche story I don’t even think it’s possible to make it refreshing. No matter how you tweak it, it has been done, and probably done better. Top was basically an idiot and Mew was painfully immature. His confidence backed up by zero experience was at times fun to watch, but more often than not just frustrating. The acting was also not it. Force truly needs to stop using smirk as a comma.

Then we have Boston and Nick - the ship that opens the hell gates. Filled with pain and annoyance, but also a surprisingly good conclusion. Personally I believe Boston needs therapy the most, because he does not even truly know there is something wrong with him. I do not believe he is just this playboy who would have sex with a wall if he could. Dude is self-sabotaging without knowing while obviously craving actual connection. Nick was just a pure child who got himself into a mess, but came out of it so much wiser and stronger. Good for him.

And then we have fans favorites - Sand and Ray. Sand pretended to be normal and almost fooled me - that did make it a bit more fun. Ray though, as cute as he was, he also had the most serious internal issues that led him to more bad choices in one show than I did in my whole life. The guilt, abandonment issues, constant need for acceptance. Amazing performance from Khaotung, which should not surprise anyone, but I actually liked First’s performance more. Whichever someone preferred, they were both great.

Except for the “established” BL couples we had some mixes and mashups here and there, that felt like unsatisfying tease. Now I want drama with First and Force, which will never happen. Why show me the possibility when you will never deliver?

Truth to be told, I think I expected something even more crazy? I think the lack of any consequences washed down the story a lot. There was a lot of “what you did could lead to that”, but then it never did. I mean, the way they were literally doing crack (or some other hard drug), but no one was actually shown to be addicted. How lucky they must be?

Overall, it was fun and brainless entertainment. All the characters were awful, I would never want any of them as my friend, and I’m surprised they stayed as friends after all that happened. They don’t even have that much in common. Will I watch season 2? Definitely not lol

Read More

Have you ever thought about your future? Han Seung Wan and Jung Se Jin have and they are determined to fullfil their dreams of becoming a pilot and a diplomat.
But both never thought of ending up with a comlete stranger in a hotel in Singapur. That one night changes the lives of the two!
Now Seung Wan and Se Jin have to live what other ppl do the reversed way. Falling in love, dating, marrying and than having a baby out of love.
This drama is different from the dramas I have watched before. The charcters are very nice and suit their actors very good. The girl actress is very cute and though she is definitly not a professional she gives you goosebumps at some scenes.
Throughout the drama I smiled, laughted, got angry and cried.
This drama doesn`t seem like a high scale production, but with its cute and (in my opinion) believable story it makes up for all the missing glimglim.
Ohh, and the fact that this drama is not a constante good girl/boy beats bad girl/boy or bad girl/boy beats good girl/boy makes it much better.

Read More

SADLY DISAPPOINTED

Ok don't get me wrong...geminifourth is always a reason to watch a series...but im disappointed...the episode was very blah....same old lines just diffrent universe...I knew this could have been better...winnysatang and markford were adorable as always but still could have been better...I liked the mv thought...it was nice...
You know to be honest I wish they just showed us them being boyfriends...in this episodes they weren't even together...the crew got lazy and decided...why not promote the merchandise instead of giving a new story...I get the boys are popular and all but seriously am disappointed...

Read More

Another hidden Gem. Got too many laughs in the beginning but too much sweetness in the end.

At first, im kind of bored in its first episodes but its fine cos it gets better and better every after ep. I watched this because its romcom and its my first kim jae wook drama to watch too. I'm so glad I pushed myself to watch this. I really enjoyed watching this drama so much and very satisfied. I will never get tired watching repeatedly my fave scenes on every episodes. I can't get over Shinah's craziness, I think she got anger issues haha. Ilpum Edu CEO and the private investigator are so funny, they're my faves. Every mon-tue was exciting. They did a nice job for its story, development and character development. It's so warming to see the closure between each characters. Loving gojin & shin ah's relationship so much, they're too sweet for me. They're so cute, loving, supportive, and understanding. Their chemistry is on fire. They're gonna be one of my fave kdrama couples now. I wanna see their wedding at the end tho.

I freaking love all of the osts too. Especially Jay B's Dive into you, Baekho's Bite! and I'm crazy by two of the members of AB6IX. It was nice to see Krystal eonnie to sing too after so many years, I hope they get to released her full cover of the song she sang in the drama.

Read More

I was going through my reviews today and I suddenly realized I haven't written a review for this movie. This was actually the first Korean movie I ever watched (ok, technically The Host was the first Korean movie I ever watched, but that time when I watched it, I didn't even know it was Korean, so that barely counts. haha).

Anyways, it was truly the first movie EVER that completely bowled me over. I didn't know any actors, so there was no star power involved. It was just the power of the plot and the amazing acting. It was such a beautiful story with the right kind of direction to make the audience (that would be me) cry throughout the second half (yes I did) and make the audience (again me) come back to watch it over and over (I have watched it thrice already).

Ok, so some might be wary of watching this, thinking that it's probably a sad, sad movie that would leave you depressed for a long time. Well, I don't think so. I mean, the movie is pretty sad and the ending is very emotional, but I think you would be very satisfied with it.

And if you're still not convinced and feel that it might be boring and feel that I might be that person who cries easily during a drama/movie, well, you are certainly right (about the latter). But I made my friends watch it too and some of them are pretty tough nuts and even they broke down while watching. So yeah, it's an emotional journey of a newly married couple which I don't think anyone would hate or find boring.

And if I inspired you to watch this movie and you watched it and you loved it, don't forget to send me a message. Although, don't send me a message if I inspired you, you watched and HATED it. hehe. Hope I helped ;)

Read More

1080P story with 360P portrayal ?‍? Actors are 4K tho!

Edit/Overall: My complaint has been the same since day 1....too much story, too less time, hence skipping too much and only having canon shots. Other than that, the leads have been bomb since second 1. The supporting cast just supports like some columns to a building and do nothing more which is a little disappointing. But again it's a very big story but in 8 eps and we can't expect the writers to give big portions to the supporting cast. While I still love the manhwa more than the live adaption, I would still suggest you to watch it atleast once. It's good to watch it once.
Overall the series is OK.

Is it okay to write a review while only one episode of the show has come out?

I was very excited for this show for a long OBVIOUSLY because of the manhwa. I decided to make a weekly review if edits are allowed on reviews on MDL. If not it's still kwenchana. Go watch the series!

Ep 1: I liked the casting. Especially the mum. She looks so young man 🥲 for 49. I loved how they cut short a lotttt of scenes into just a few dialogues making the series jump to the main story right from the first episode ending. Can't wait for the second yay!

Ep 2: I was a little late with some work but here is it. There's nothing much canon in this episode, it's more like getting into the story that's it. We have two or three scenes which tell us about the pattern of the leads. So far it's all good. I personally LOVED the leads. The height difference is ✨ I think the series won't cover all life like the manhwa but would only focus till the time they get together or so. I liked the outro song. It's got really simple lyrics and simple meaning ❤️

Ep 3: This episode is quite disappointing to me. I understand they are skipping a lot of stuff just to focus on the main plot but in this episode the skipping game went overboard. There's a lot of things that missed pieces. Suddenly ML's friends knew that the MC and ML stay together? And in the camping the mom goes missing all the time and appears to deliver three dialogues? Kinda disappointing but let's see..

Ep 4: Hi besties! I'm back with ep 4 review. It is soft and goes really calm. The plot itself is really calming and the leads did right justice to it. But I still feel the lack of continuity from one scene to another. It might be because of the need to fit the whole story into 8 episodes. There could have been a better transition from one scene to another. For now that's a complaint. They got closer by ep 4, have to see how they'll tackle it here on. Also, I guess they made modifications in the story, as per the ep 5 preview. I'll be back soon!!

Ep 5: A big complaint I have is on Tae Sung who doesn't do/put his dishes away after finishing them. This episode felt extremely rushed to me. Extremely. As I already have the basic outline of manhwa (outline cause I forgot the details of it too, I read it a long back) I could comprehend the story pretty well. But if I were someone to watch it without knowing about the manhwa NGL I'll be pretty annoyed and drop the title. What does the mother do? Why does she always run away from here to there? Very accepting friends who can just get everything in an instant and get accustomed to the new changes? The noona from hae boms part time, she knows what he is going through with no single dialogue???? And Hae Bom changes his mind/answer within a few minutes of screen time??? SHOW US SOME GODDAMN BACKSTORY!! Sorry for yelling (caps mean yells). I mean yeah, I understand the time/episode limitation. But too much skippage (Idk if it's a word XD) is something that is taking away the essence of the story. There's no angst, I feel. It's just too much of 'having a question/problem', & 'finding it's answer/solution within the same episode'. But despite all this rush, they STILL managed to picture Tae Sung as the guy who reflects on his actions and apologizes. I really liked it when he said sorry for what he did. That's some green flag nature. We love green flag people. So yeah, if we exclude the extremely rushed plot or the ornamental support roles, the series even at ep 5 is still worth it to watch; Atleast once. And putting it here again, the leads are wonderful. They're not only attractive but are acting real real good. How is Hae Bom such a pretty cry-er? 🥺😭

Ep 6: It felt extremely sped up. The series is just jumping from one canon scene to another. I am not liking it much now. But I guess I'll still complete it

Ep 7: Why are they so cute? Actors and story are a 10/10 it's the time skippage and only filming canon scenes took away the whole flavour 😔

Read More

I don’t know how I survived this

Poor, poor writing. Like, worse than TharnType when it came to trying to do anything shocking with a potential villain character. I didn’t think anything could be worse than TharnType. And the sound design! What in the name of Christ were they drinking when they put that together?! It felt like an American soap opera from the 70s with the bad attempts at dramatic background music. The editing was pretty bad, too.

The whole story in general was confusing as hell (and the terrible subs didn’t help). So, both mains were actually just terrible people who somehow changed but didn’t change each other? And everyone around them basically bows to their every wish and agrees with them? Like, I get the whole “I need to help my boyfriend remember” but, Itt, mate, the relationship wasn’t good at any point from the looks of things? Also, the whole flashback thing can work in some shows, but because of how bad the editing (and hair styling) was, it really just got a bit annoying and confusing.

Also, wayyyyy too many characters were comfortable with sexual assault in this; Nan literally kept Mac as a sex slave against his will and no one but Itt seemed upset by it. (Yes? I know Mac tried to assault Itt but I feel like there are better ways to punish someone.) Then to pull the whole ‘but they’re actually in love’ thing? Sorry, I hated it in KinnPorsche and I hate it now.
Also, whilst I don’t think the series shows too much, Day very obviously assaulted Itt when they first met - that’s physical and sexual assault, plus kidnapping to an extent.

Other than Night, Nick and Neil, I feel like every character in this show is just a horrible person.

I normally love Frank, but for the love of all that is sacred, if I have to hear about cake once more, or hear the whiny way he says ‘Day’…it’s like this show took a bunch of pretty good actors and said, “let’s make the worst thing ever!” To top it off, Nick is reading a Fifty Shades book, which is the epitome of bad, non-consensual BDSM. It’s like the series writers did no research.

In all honesty, I don’t know why I kept up with this and didn’t just quit. I felt like I owed it to Frank and Long to watch it, I guess? I mean, there were some funny bits, but I honestly think this may be one of the worst Thai dramas I have ever seen. It really tried to be TharnType, KinnPorsche and Love in the Air and failed at it all. With each scene I could feel my soul draining away. Shout out to my brother for dealing with me constantly sending him voice notes of laughter at how terrible this was.

Read More

New comfort show perhaps?

This is honestly the first time I'm writing a review for a kdrama because I feel like this show needs more people to see it. I know because of whatever reasons it didn't air anymore and you can only watch it on prime video (or by other more orthodox means like I have cause I don't wanna put money in amazon's pocket lmao), but if you can find a way to watch it I highly recommend it!!

I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I have, but the overall vibe of it is so heartwarming and comforting and feels like such a warm hug that I can honestly say it's gonna become one of my comfort shows <3 It's generally a very fun and positive series, and while it does tackle some pretty heavy topics (although not all of them in the best way imo), I never felt drained of energy like I usually tend to feel when such subjects are depicted in other dramas.

[SPOILERS AHEAD LOL] My biggest issues with it would be the whole fatphobia surrounding Suri's character cause I'm still not quite sure if the writers were trying to criticize it or not (since none of the characters who fatshamed her ever apologized or acknowledged their behaviour). Another would be them casting a cis man to play a trans character (not that I was expecting much from a kdrama, the fact that they even touched on this subject would be considered impressive enough on its own), and the whole sexual abuse storyline that imho concluded (?) a little too hastily. [END OF SPOILERS LOL]

Other than that, most of the main and supporting characters were all very likeable (or became likeable pretty quickly), the format of having each episode focus on a certain theme was really interesting, and the very soothing voice of the lady doing the narration gave me a sense of comfort that I find really hard to describe. One particular episode that reflected that the best for me was episode 10, "How would you like your hair done?", where there was a heavy rainstorm happening outside, but it felt like the salon was a safe haven where you felt protected and cared for no matter the dangers that awaited when you stepped outside.

This got very long, but my general point is: watch this if you're looking for a sweet, fun and (mostly) lighthearted series that you can come back to on sad rainy days. And if you wanna fall in love with an OST and then curse the powers that be at JTBC for never properly airing this drama and, as a consequence, never releasing the soundtrack :)) Please I beg someone tell me there's a way for me to get my hands on this OST or I will cry :))

Read More