The film highly caught my interest within the first few minutes, it's got a great, unique pitch. The romantic relationship shown between the main characters was sufficient and so...realistic. This is why I was so shocked when I found out it was based off a shoujou manga - it wasn't cliche' and sappy like most shoujous. This film is an intense coming of age story that depicts more than just love and chemistry - it's about life, which is something very real; and the plot/acting stays true to that intention thoroughly.
I was very surprised with such a difference in Nounen Rena's character, it was very pleasant to see her act as a serious role, instead of her usual comedic-ditzy roles. And she held this new kind of character up to its fullest, she's good! Real good! I mean it, literally. I'm not that into the EXILE TRIBE but it was interesting to see one of the tribe, Hiroomi Tosaka act and not sing. Fun fact: he's hella' talented at both of those things. He did great and I'm kind of shocked that this role was his first acting job - I couldn't tell.
The overall art of the film was warm and touching; the music, development, transitions, and pacing was wonderfully placed.
My only warning is that you shouldn't watch this movie for the kissy-lovey dovey-doki doki attributes that most live action shoujou movies have. Like I said earlier, the film displays much more than their relationship. If you're into realistic-romantic movies, you'll enjoy this a lot.
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Forest of Secrets has a quite typical “Who did it?” story, but it is marvelously told. Just like our main character, it starts off emotionless. However, somewhere along the path, it gains some small rays of light that, slowly but surely, pierce the darkness that overwhelms the show. It has no elements of romance or comedy to make some moments more enjoyable and it certainly doesn’t need them. The drama, from the beginning, until the very end, screams “crime” and “corruption”. At times it might seem slow, but it has this steady pace that gives a unique feel to it. It is packed with details, which are easy to omit, but if you look back at it you will see that there is much more to this show than it initially meets the eye. The attention that was given to all the small things makes you not lose focus of the story, but also the way it is composed makes you look at all the elements of the show, so that you don’t miss a single thing. It is not just a regular crime/investigation drama where you just can’t wait until the last episode for the killer to be caught. Quite the opposite, this show keeps you occupied throughout its entirety, so that you can clearly understand everything that is happening.
One of the things that I especially enjoyed is the fact that this show is unusually realistic. All the characters, both the heroes and the villains act as people would act in the real world. There is no superhero-type of behavior where someone does something that would never be done in reality, or a character who can easily outsmart everybody else. It is very down to earth, the solving of the cases is systematic, carefully planned, there are no sudden jumps made by long shot conclusions that are just there to speed up the story.
Now for the characters. They are, undoubtedly, the true gems of this drama. Everybody fits his or her role perfectly, there is not a single miscast. It makes you see only the character, and not the actor. All the characters are given a very human touch, the heroes as well as the villains. Even though our main protagonist is, for the most part, emotionless, he is not robot-like, and steadily develops throughout the story. The villains are given a lot of depth as well, which makes us even sympathize with them at moments. However, the most important aspect of all, that truly makes them all human, were their mistakes. Every single character made a mistake at some point in the show, which made this drama feel that much more real. And to top it all off, the interactions and dialogues between the two leads were simply amazing. It is what made this show produce some truly heart-warming moments, in all of its coldness. Lieutenant Han gave Prosecutor Hwang, our “emotionless” hero, a bit of heart.
The setting of the show was ideal. The dark scenes, in a usually crowded, but in the show mostly empty city, kept the thrill and the mystery present at every moment. The gloomy atmosphere gave a special chill that made everything even more dramatic. The closed, office scenes perfectly portrayed the cage which the heroes were trying to break through while searching for the culprit. Places such as the homes of the characters spoke for themselves, as they gave a huge insight into who they were, and what they were like, producing superb results. Even though it is a thriller/crime drama, it is very aesthetically pleasing, and enjoyable to watch. The cinematography is beautiful, like a fine piece of art, everything is where it should be.
I could go on and on for days talking about this show, but to sum it all up… this show was poetic. All other dramas I have seen cannot even compare to it. Through its complex characters, and sometimes painful to watch scenes, this seemingly emotionless drama, takes you on a wild roller coaster, which in the end leaves you speechless and puts a small smile on your face, just like it did to our beloved Hwang Shi Mok.
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Enjoy it!
p.s. the sequel is just as good.
p.s.s. love the tsundere yamapi
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The side characters were all extremely likable, even Marie. The way the "greedy" family member is resolved truly broke my heart and how it was handled couldn't have been done better in my opinion.
The last episode had me in tears because it was heartbreaking and touching at the same time. I didn't expect everything to tie together the way it did in the end, but I'm so glad the writers had the forethought to wrap everything up the way they did.
There are no loose ends and I didn't find any plot issues that usually leave me questioning things. Everyone got an ending and the pacing was superb.
*And* EVERY SINGLE EPISODE HAD ME LAUGHING MY BUTT OFF. Which only added to the quality of the drama.
"Tiger Moth" by MONSTA X was an amazing OST and I keep listening to the original version as well as the acoustic because they're just so lovely to listen to!
I've seen Seo In Guk is some other dramas, such as Reply 1997, and while I adored his bashful and introverted character in Reply 1997, his silly and innocent character portrayal (completely different, mind you) was hilarious and expertly represented.
The only real memorable drama I remember seeing Nam Ji Hyun in was Suspicious Partner. Personally, I think she did a better job portraying such a kindhearted soul in Shopping King Louie than she did as an attorney in Suspicious Partner. Even though she really did do well in Suspicious Partner, I think I prefer the performance she made here.
This is definitely a drama I will rewatch in the future. I especially found the comedic moments to be so incredibly hilarious! Whenever Louie screamed usually due to a bug, would make me laugh out loud! His scream and high pitched voice when screaming was just sooooo funny!
My rating for Shopping King Louie is a solid 10/10 with absolutely NO reservations.
I would highly recommend the K-drama, Cinderella and the Four Knights as an equivalent to Shopping King Louie.
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A Story with Great Potential… That Completely Falls Apart
With such actors and an intense historical setting, this drama had everything it needed to become a truly powerful story.The core idea is fascinating — a brutal conflict between royal brothers fighting for the throne. Then, we have a modern woman who travels back in time after being betrayed by her boyfriend… only to repeat the exact same mistakes. Instead of learning or evolving, she falls for another man who is already had a wife just because he was nice to her. Meanwhile, the man who truly loves her — Wang So — changes for her, gives her his heart, and proves he is worth far more than the one she chooses first.
Her actions only make everything worse. She interferes so much with the flow of history that countless people die because of her presence. And when she finally realizes who she truly loves, she runs away from him instead of trusting him until the end. She dies far from him, leaving him alone, broken and miserable.
They even have a daughter that Wang So barely knows exists. He suspects the truth but is never given a real chance to confirm it.
In the end, the story feels incredibly unfair to the main male character. He promised he would find her again, but he ends up living a life full of pain after her death.
There is no satisfying explanation, no emotional closure, and definitely no happy ending. The narrative becomes confusing and disconnected, leaving many unanswered questions. Instead of feeling moved, I felt no real connection to the drama at all.
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heartwarming slice of life series
Overall: this series really gets you in the feels. Aired on GagaOOLala, 10 episodes total about 20 minutes per episode. Has a 1 episode spin off. It is based on a manga which I purchased on Amazon and read (and it stayed pretty close to the source material).Content Warnings: past bullying, trauma
What I Liked
- the intro/outro songs
- sweet moments
- the cooking
- slice of life vibe
- that kid is adorable and the dad is super supportive
- Minoru seeking out communication
- production value
Room For Improvement
- not a fan of some of the exaggerated expressions, many series based on manga have a character like this but it doesn't feel right in the live action adaptation
- too many flashbacks
- wish we got some/more romantic attraction signals from Yutaka
- went too quickly from daytime to nighttime in episode 8 during a short story
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K-POP survival classic
mnet definitely set up Riina and Jihan as if they could do a few performances separately but no. They decided to play the same song repeatedly. Say what you want, but I've watched enough MNET survival shows to know about their snakes and evil arrangements. I hope you are watching this, DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU SEE ON HERE because mnet loves to make drama especially between women. Let's just enjoy the drama they create for clickbait and views, never mind. I hope I don't see anyone swearing at anyone here, if you want to blame someone blame mnet, not the girlsThe other issue I would mention is that I didn't need to watch it after the 6th episode. I didn't see any gram change in the rankings. Again, it was the classic K-POP Survival competition, which was brought by the popularity, not the talent, are we surprised no?
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The biggest reason I love this drama is the feel-good feeling you get from watching it. Compared to a lot of other dramas I've seen, this is really realistic and stuff that happens in real life. Very easy to put youself into how these people feel and why they do the stuff they do.
The music in this drama is also amazing. I absolutely love it!
Acting can't get any better. It's kids in this drama too and even they do it really really good. I have to confess though, the only reason I started watching was because of Kamenashi Kazuya, and he didn't disappoiont me either.
So, this is a drama I would recommend to anyone who wants a warm family drama without too much stuff that won't happen in real life. To put it simply, awesome drama!
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Why I was disappointed?
The characters:
The first 'Bad Guys' hit me hard. It was different. The criminals were not just senseless persons that went around throwing their fists- 'me man lets see who fists is tougher' while beating their chest. They were intelligent.
The story:
I am not comparing this to the first Bad Guys but I would think that if I am making something of the idea of something else then I would at least make it have something of the original. The first was an original the second was made from a blueprint of every other Korean drama out there. The only thing that was missed was amnesia. (I guess that would have been too ridiculous) If the child have not characteristics of its parents then it was probably adopted.
If you want a good action show I would recommend watching Heartless City instead.
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Had so much potential, but fell short of my high expectations
This is a drama I’ve been waiting for a long time. There were rumors it wouldn’t air for another year, so I’m glad it finally came out. Song Weilong and Ju Jingyi are also two of my favorite actors. To be honest, after finishing it, I felt quite disappointed. If it weren’t for the last two episodes, my rating would have been even lower.The first part was pretty fun, but the middle to the later episodes were really boring. The female lead’s character is quite annoying — she’s gullible and overthinks everything. That said, I can understand her because the male lead keeps hiding things and doing stuff without telling her. However, the second male lead was the most annoying character in the entire drama for me. Song Weilong looks handsome and cool, and his acting is decent. Ju Jingyi is very beautiful and adorable, but her performance in this drama feels repetitive — like she plays the same character in every series. Still, I’m okay with it. Their chemistry is passable, but I secretly wished there were more romantic scenes between them. The editing is not very good; it feels messy and confusing at times. The visuals, CGI, and some costumes look quite dated, but I understand since it was filmed a long time ago. The supporting cast is fine. Personally, I really liked Liu Mengrui as Ge lin — her acting was cute and charming. I hope she gets to play a lead role soon. The last two episodes feel like a summary wrap-up. If the story had been handled like this from the beginning, there wouldn’t have been a need for 33 episodes lol.
Overall, If you’re a fan of Ju Jingyi or Song Weilong, I’d say go for it. Their presence definitely carries the drama and makes it more enjoyable. However, if you’re not particularly a fan of either, this one is pretty average and skippable. The story starts off strong with good potential, but it drags heavily in the middle, has pacing issues, and some annoying characters that might frustrate you. The last two episodes help tie things together nicely, but it still feels like it could have been much tighter. Watch it if you have time and don’t mind a slower-paced xianxia romance, but you definitely won’t miss anything groundbreaking if you skip it.
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It's a Sweet romance with a Super cute FML
Found the start not to my liking but after a couple of episodes it got better.It's a Sweet romance with a Super cute FML and the ML is very sweet to her.
I was abit disappointed that the FML character wasn't more confident in herself and was kinda Naïve. I wish she would have stood up for herself abit more, but it was kinda sweet that the ML always held her hand and protected her.
Crazy 2FML!
there is something really annoying with the fact that they are always so insane, can anyone please write a 2FML character that won't hear "i don't even like you" and translate it in her head to "I'm in love with you let's get married" ?!?! There is something seriously wrong with that.
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The randomness starts at the episodes’ structure. The way the story is told? Random (well, sometimes it DOES make sense). The characters’ personalities? Random. Or that’s what you would think because every single one of them as a story behind, and guess what, you can buy all the explanations to the weirdness. But still, you totally get hooked to this.
Of course the main reason to watch this is comedy. Pure crack. But you want some lessons on Japanese culture and the origin of some Japanese words? Yes, you can have it here. You want some lovey-dovey scenes, you want some sweet scenes, you want some introspection scenes, you want some friendship scenes? Yes, of course. Or maybe you feel like watching one of those old black and white silent movies, yes, you have that here too.
Really, you have to give this a try. Oh, and I have to say I loved the costumes and how they did it, I mean, I couldn’t help but find Hoshi really handsome.
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Initially this drama started off at a pretty watchable standard. The young versions of the characters are played by the same people who play the adults, just in school uniforms. I liked the story behind the lead guys past, how he's looking for his sister, hiding out in book shops, living off of ramen. The introduction between the characters was great. The oddball friend falls in love with her best friends brother, the popular friend and the two guys crushing on her. I like the way that the oddball friend befriends 'Peter' and stays loyal to her promises.. however. I don't like the fact that this entire drama is based on the fact Ai Li Si refused to tell anyone who Peter was, and that her so called best friend didn't believe her. That was kind of the area things started to wobble.
Fast forward to the future and Ai Li Si has turned into this cold and distant woman who works as a science researcher. Now as a science researcher I would expect her to be fairly bright, despite her obvious emotional trauma. No. No she is not. The main female lead is probably one of the most naive, air heads I've seen in a drama. Now female empowerment in general is not something I talk about, I'm all for it but it's not something I ever talk about because I don't really argue my opinions. But this... THIS took the biscuit, the plate and the tiny little napkin it came with. I can't put into words how annoyed I felt at this female lead. I know a lot of female Asian leads are meant to be delicate flowers who need to be protected by the strapping young man with a six pack and a flaming axe made out of manly things, but this.. this.. I just can't. I don't see why or how the writers thought making the female lead so urghhhhh. I KNOW she's emotionally unstable but ughhh. Okay I'll stop talking about how peeved the female lead made me I think you get the idea, but it was like.. 73% of why I started skipping.
The actors themselves weren't awful, it was mainly just the way the characters had been written. I think with the scripts they were given, the actors did a great job. Not enough to win an Oscars (or Asian equivalent) but pretty good, especially in the first episodes when they're pretending to be high school students.
I like the way that bullying can be seen in this drama, as in... it shows that bullying can affect people whether that's the intention or not. There's one scene where Ai Li Si meets one of her past tormentors to try and only her memories, but he doesn't really remember bullying him. I think the way it shows that although it doesn't effect you, or doesn't seem like a big deal, bullying can be a big deal in some people's lives. It's kind of like how in Who Are You: School 2015 she tries to commit suicide, although not as extreme in this drama, showing the side effects bullying can have on the victims. Especially in Asia where you can hear a lot of extreme cases of bullying, but no one sees what's wrong with it (I don't know how accurate this is I'm just basing it off of blogs written by people who have taught in Asia).
That's second (and last) item I liked about this drama.
The music was okay, I don't really remember a lot of it... I know it wasn't bad, but I'm not about to go and download the OST.
So to summarise:
Good things - The first episodes where they're students, the portrayal of bullying in younger generations and the affect it can have on the victim.
Bad things - Weak female lead, predictable script writing and a little repetitive. Weak female lead and even seeping into weak second female lead is a large reason I disliked this.
But please keep in mind that this is my opinion and that I did start skipping because it bored me. It is possible that the parts I skipped had information to make this drama better, but in my personal opinion I highly doubt it. I was going to drop this drama, but finished it due to sheer will power. I wanted to give the drama a chance but it just didn't do it for me. I know a lot of people are fans of the innocent romance style, and if you like that kind of thing it might be worth giving this drama a try. But if you came up to me and asked me if you should watch this.. I'd say no. Or at least watch the scenes as kids and then just read up on the rest of the drama. There were a couple of good parts but I don't think that they were quite worth the other 10(ish) hours of not... very.. exciting script writing.
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