Reviews

Good OTP romance, but everything else is trash.

Yes, the leads have great chemistry with each other and the build up to their romance and their actual relationship stuff were entertaining to watch. However no amount of hot kisses can make up for the terrible writing. (if there ever was a couple hooking up, while shooting a drama..) The writing seriously is more than just terrible. I have given 10/10 to bad writing before, but I think this is the worst written drama I've ever finished. From the get go the premise is pretty hard to get onboard with. (tear allergy..) Then we get a workaholic male lead that is good at everything including & not limited to racing(he is better at racing than professional racers), playing the piano, BOXING & maintaining a ripped body. Truthfully I could have forgiven all of the above, since those things are pretty normal in cheesy Chinese romcoms, but there is a LOT of focus on the corporate life at an investment banking firm and all the plots there and I mean ALL OF THEM are just bad, It's difficult to describe in words how bad. The second lead is just the icing on the poo, I mean come on now, really? A character that has a completely different personality in every single episode, what were the writers thinking? Were they thinking at all? There is also a lot of contradicting information & moments where I felt the writer is insulting my intelligence. For example it's a big plot point, how supposedly FL only called ML Brother Yuan once, wait a few episodes & he is brother yuan in like every single flashback.. I'm okay with cliches in cheesy romcoms really and I'm sure it doesn't come as a surprise that this drama is a cliche-fest, however I think it's worth pointing out that the "oh no I accidentally fell onto your lips" thing happens TWICE in this drama, yep you've heard that right!

I decided to give the drama a relatively high rewatch value, because despite all of the above, if you know the story in advance, it's super easy to skip all the scenes where the 2 leads are not on screen & that way it's almost prime entertainment..

edit: So a rewatch happened after all. Fastforward buttoning all the trashy office intrigue has led to a much more enjoyable experience as expected, but the whole breakup plot annoyed me much more than back then. Just why?

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Prison Playbook is a story about Kim Je Hyuk who is a baseball player that was unexpectedly sent to jail. He witnesses a criminal perform a criminal act on someone he knows. This enrages him and sends him in a frenzy. He proceeds to beat the crap out of the criminal. He is sentenced to jail as a result of his actions. Prison Playbook primarily walks us through Kim Je Hyuk's journey through jail. From time to time you will see flashbacks from the past which will help you understand how Je Hyuk (and some of the other characters) ended up that way.

Story: [9.5/10] Prison Playbook is one of those shows that sort of starts out slow and provides you with very little information. The series begins with an episode that is very vague. You learn very little about the character as well as the over-arching story at the very beginning. The story begins to unfold as you continue deeper into the series. You begin to learn about Je Hyuk and his personality. You also get to learn about his many different cell mates as well. Some good, others not so good. The good ones are awesome though when they group together and sort of form a little brotherhood of sorts with Je Hyuk. I'm definitely enjoying the mini-brotherhood/sisterhood themes that have occurred in dramas in 2017. I.e. the brotherhood you see in Prison Playbook and Save Me, the sisterhood you see in Avengers Social Club.  I also enjoy the fact that the series is not very predictable as well. Overall it's a very well written drama about prison. The comedy needs a little more work though, hence the 9.

Acting/Cast: [9.5/10]  I found the acting/characters in this show to be really refreshing. The first reason is the fact that our main character Kim Je Hyuk isn't really the brightest of the bunch. Why does this seem refreshing to me? It's refreshing because it makes the show a lot more realistic and credible. There are so many different shows I've watched where the main character had everything. He/She is usually the smartest, good looking, richest, and the best at a certain skill. Je Hyuk became a character that was easy to relate to for me because he seemed more like any other every day average joe. Well... other than the fact that he was one of the best baseball players in Korea at the time. Even that though is evened out by the fact that he uses his perseverance in order to help him get better at baseball.  It's a lot more realistic to see a character struggle to get to his/her goal (rather than be born with the skill). It was also nice to see Jung Woong In play a nice person for once. I swear he has played the villain in every other drama that he's in. Again I found his character very relatable and admirable. His character acts tough on the outside, but on the inside he's a teddy bear. He takes a lot of scorn from the prisoners but he often tries to do what is best for them. In fact I was a big fan of all of the prison guards except the Captain Na guy (You can't have all nice prison guards, that would make for a boring story).

Music: [9.5/10] Music is pretty likable. It uses an array of different tunes for different situations. The whole -cricket- whistle thing sort of gets old though.

Rewatch Value: [7,0/10] I possibly see myself rewatching this show in future. However it definitely would not be one of my top priority dramas to rewatch. The problem that I had with this show was that it was about 90 minutes long. Each episode is generally about one main topic/struggle that the main character(s) have to go through. Generally most Korea dramas have episodes that are 60 minutes long. The fact that this show is 90 minutes long meant that some events were essentially dragged out 1.5x longer than usual.

Overall I'm a big fan of the show. I thought the show started out pretty slow, but I began to like the show more and more as I learned more about the characters. It was an easy show for me to relate to because it is a show in which you have average Joe characters proceeding through life and going through some very realistic misfortunes. My only gripe about this show was that I was use to the 90 minute episodes. I found it hard to binge the show. I ended up watching about 2 episodes a day before deciding to go do/watch something else. Prison Playbook definitely distinguishes itself from its competition though. It's one of my most favorite dramas for the winter season. I recommend you give the drama a try.

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This is probably the most peculiar thing I would be doing in my history of writing reviews, but I feel since everyone's gonna talk about their sweet healing chemistry, our he yisheng's lowkey flirting skills, I will be leaving the most genuine reason that got me tuning into this drama besides the above reasons every single day.

• 𝗡𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝘆 𝘄𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗜 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝘀𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝘃𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗳𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝘀 altogether in a drama, the appearance of those flowers on my screen were real healing element and stress relief to my busy days ✨ So thanks a lot to the crew of The Best Thing for making my days with those beautiful sceneries and cinematographies!

✅ Plus points of this drama :
- no depressing misunderstandings, we had a few but they get resolved in the cutest way
- ml being the greenest red flag, this gege with ulterior motive has used every single means to seduce our fl
- beautiful styling (loved all the outfits of fl, so big appreciation to the styling artist who was responsible for deciding and pairing outfits, absolutely loved them)

Tbh, in terms of story, it probably felt like one of those ordinary stories to me, I won't say we had anything new on radar. It was sweet, cute, beautiful, and would be relish to green flag sweet story suckers. So if you are the one who falls in this category of viewers, I would definitely be recommending this!

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my opinion changed

my opinion changed everything about this show was good up to ep 7 any scenes with vegaspete boring yawn last 2 ish eps picked up got slightly better acting was great except for petes character

in my opinion kinnporsche is the best bl that has been made it surpasses every bl ive watched from the acting to the visuals the music everything it's so perfect. they had the best people on this drama from the cast to the crew. vegas defenders/apologists close ur eyes when u read this. <3
(what I liked/praise for the series)

the fact that this is a lot of the actors first acting job amazes me ive never would have guessed it but then again it did take almost 2 years to come out so it did give them a shit load of time to do workshops. the chemistry between all actors is amazing the writing is amazing but the plot felt weak half way. the cinematography is beautiful which is no surprise as they were also the cinematographer for, I told sunset about you which is another beautiful coming of age bl. the best actors in this series for me have to be mileapo they hold so much emotion even in the smallest of glances their acting is so natural. bible is such a great actor no doubt in my mind if an actor can make you dislike a character, they are doing a great job. builds acting needs to improve. As for the rest they did great as well but these actors performances stood out to me more.

When it came to the main couple I never got tired of them a lot of ppl found them boring once they settled for each other but personally they were adorable and had the best chemistry out of all couples. Their love and kiss scenes were so beautifully done the amount of passion and love that came from that. Porsche and kinn come from 2 different environments and I think it's important to understand kinn's pov on what caring means to him and how its very different to what it means for porsche even though they are the opposites of each other they balance each other out perfectly. In the end they trusted and supported each other they had a messy and complicated relationship and was great seeing them continuing to mature together .kinn is an example of character growth when it came to this series. Their relationship wasnt rushed also please watch the side story after ep 6 it helps to understand the shift of the relationship

also the little details in the show if u pay attention to the background you can always find them doing small tiny gestures example would be porsche covering chays eyes when the body bag is passing them and u have to look closely to see this happen.
music is a 10/10 the actors can actually sing ( praise the lord). free fall by slot machine is added to best intro songs the english version being about porsche and the thai version being about kinn im not going to get into the meaning but if you look at the lyrics for each you would understand. jeff sounds like an angel anytime why dont you stay came on i had to prepare myself for every emotion i was about to feel when watching the scene.

what i disliked vegas

i didnt like him with a blazing passion. sorry not sorry. i will not be moving on from the fact he had zero growth ppl moved on from the fact he tried to sa porsche more than once it wasnt addressed at all the fact porsche never found out aswell. the fact hes the reason that led porsche to being raped . he had no growth and daddy issues doesnt excuse his behaviour. i feel like why a lot of people like him is because of bible thats what happens when u get a hot actor to play a shitty character. but i will say vegas here and the vegas we get in the book i accept the vegas we get in the show more.

the plot was near to nothing and very confusing i understand it now but i still have a lot of unanswered questions that could be resolved if we actually get a 2nd season. but once i read people explaining the plot the more i understood you kinda need to overanalyze to understand. the plot appeared to disappear it was like that when it got to the middle it started off strong got weak in the middle and then ended strong. kimchay not getting their happy ending made me upset. i wanted a bit more mafia. honestly if they stayed true to the novel we all would of hated this drama. thats a given fact especially after the special chapter that was released. korn killing vegas dad after he was about to spill the truth if we dont get a season 2 we will never find out what it was. wasnt the biggest fan of vegaspete thats all im going to say or ill get jumped.

beware this is a mafia 21+ rated bl with 18+ rated scenes meaning there is a lot of sex and so on. one thing i loved that they did was that they didnt gloss over the fact that porsche was taken advantage of and showed the struggles he went through in ep 5. please dont drop this show if ep4 is a concern for you because we were warned about this exact thing we were told it was going to hold a lot of scenes that can trigger people so just do your research before you watch it. also again watch the side story after ep 6

this show has become one my favourites it has set the standard of what theses shows can do im excited to see if anything can top it. people who will binge this will have a better experience then those who watched week by week. 7 day wait wasnt fun
overall kinnporsche is such a roller-coaster bl u will experience all types of emotions and u will be let down in some cases but its well worth it this show is very re-watchable. i was happy to be apart of the 15 weeks(a week was skipped) this aired and i will miss this show so much
this review is messy still but im too lazy to become Shakespeare and write some groundbreaking review.

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Do you know the feeling when you are watching something so terribly bad that you continue watching it to prove yourself that it can't possibly be worst than that (and finally it is, oh yeah, it can be worst)?
First I should say that one of the first Asian dramas I watched was Hana Yori Dango (the Japanese version), and even if we can admit is far from perfect, I enjoyed it. Later, Netflix had Boys over flowers, and I decide to give it a try to compare between the two versions. But, since the beginning I couldn't stand the female lead. Not only she is far far away from pretty, or normal (what an awful hairstyle she has), but also I think she tried to be funny and failed terribly.
Not for a second I could believe Goo Joon Pyo would fall for her (in fact, zero chemistry there), nor Yoon Ji Hoo, who, by the way, it's kind of masochistic because it does not make any sense that he follows her for so many years, helping and saving her all that time, without nothing in return.
So... For the story, nothing original, but the main problem is the plot, no sense at all. The acting... It could be muuuuch better. The music, overall the main song, drives me nuts, and no, I'm not going to rewatch it never ever. I only finished it because I have a problem with dropping books and series and I lost my time finishing them. Conclusion: if you want to watch something lightly funny, go for the j-version. It worth the watching even only to see Matsumoto Jun and Oguri Shun together.

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Butterfly Effect

Talk about the butterfly effect.
I know everyone has written a review on how good the drama is and how the actors have embodied the roles. However, can we talk about just episode one.
Everything in Yi Jae life would have turned out much better in a sense if he hadn't witnessed that man's death. That one thing was what literally spiraled everything out of place. Because he became traumatised he messed up in the interview.
It was almost like a bad omen. Everything after that kept going wrong. And we can literally see that DEATH was gripping unto Yi Jae since that scene. The dying man's grip on his blazer was soooo strong and felt very ominous to me at least.
So yea, everything after that one encounter with death set up the events that occurred after.
Which had me thinking what if? What if he hadn't encountered death that day? What would've happened? So that was just something I found very very intriguing.

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Could have been better

It's nice to see high-schoolers trying to figure out what to do with their life, and anchor the whole in real facts (Asian financial crisis of 1997, then to a minor extent the Sept. 2001 terrorist attacks), but looking a few below the surface, the series unravels, leaving much nonsense.
The series is full of monoparental families, or where parents are absent, and as such can't help their kids, which is seriously odd in Korea today. Extremely odd is the daughter of HeeDo who makes 0 reference to her father (she was somehow born! even if sperm donation was performed).
The whole spiel about fencing looks abnormal. Geographically, the high-school supplying half of the female national competitors and the national training center make no sense. Linguistically, the French sucks big time (school in "France", commands during Korean training, and at international events, ... the whole thing); the producers could have recorded a complete set of orders and then used it ad hoc throughout the series.
In the end, I am left with the feeling that the author didn't really know what to do, and thus took a bit of this (choose a sport, fencing), and that (some pseudo-rivalry among leads, a point in time for the main story and another for the results of the story), and then see what happens.
What happened is not much.

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Did We All Watch the Same Drama?

After reading the MDL reviews for Siren’s Kiss, I prepared myself for disappointment. Instead, I found myself completely hooked. At this point, I’m convinced I accidentally watched a different version of the drama—one with a compelling storyline, engaging characters, and an OST that emotionally manipulated me in the best way possible.

The drama kept me invested from start to finish, and the music? Let’s just say my playlist has never recovered. Every time an OST played, my emotions packed their bags and went on a journey.

Sure, it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it was definitely mine. And honestly, isn’t that what matters most?

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (9/10) – One point deducted only because the OST set unrealistically high emotional standards.

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What in the stockholm syndrome hell was that? It was like a train wreck that you know you want to look away but you can't take your eyes off it. I want those 2 hours of my life back. X_X

I started off just wanting to leave it at "I'm going to mark this as watched but I'm going to pretend I never saw it" --sadly, that fell through because it's forever embedded into my brain and I get, that's on me. That is what I get for seeing a cool cover and being like "I'm watching it" without reading the synopsis. But really. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THIS?!?!

There was barely a storyline. If you had to say the storyline, it was a storyline like SAW. Kinda, "oh you want to die? I'm going to traumatize you in so many ways it'll make you want to live!" make it make sense. SMH

Hats off to the actors, they did really great, that's about it. The actors did great but this show should have never seen the light of day. I don't get the whole:: of you want to die? Let me rape you repeatedly until you WANT to live! Oh and here is a hidden secret, I want to die too because I lost the love of my life and later I'm going to try to kill myself but YOU need to save ME this time.

Like it's some kind of fucking romantic drama? Are you shitting me?! My stomach is still turning. There is so much to say, none of it good but I swear I feel like my brain is a potato right now trying to process the bullshittery that was this movie.

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Started slow and ended with a bang this show is amazing !

This is the first C Drama that started off slow and builded so well as the show progressed. It usually happens the opposite way start off strong and dulls out towards the end. This show has a lot of great messages. I really love the character build up. This show was so unpredictable. There is so many twist and turns. You would never be able to guess what going to happen next in the show. I love the extended episodes. The main characters did so great they brought out a lot of emotions in the show . You can tell a lot of effort was put into the show.

I will highly recommend this Drama once you get pass episode 15 the show just starts moving and get's more and more interesting. Kudos to the whole crew. I know that I will be watching this show again . I am, highly impressed.

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Just the kind of drama I try to avoid. I mean, life is already so tough. Why watch such sad dramas and make it worse for ourselves? That aside, the story is obviously beautiful. Really good acting. In the beginning I was really annoyed how the so-called friend died just because he came second in an olympiad. I mean, DUDE, I participated in Math Olypiad once and my rank was...well, let's just leave it to 'not second'. HOW CAN HE BE SO UNTHANKFUL?? And If you ask me, there's nothing more selfish in the world than suicide. Once you die, you're free. But your loved ones have to endure all the pain of losing you and also deal with the consequences of your death. And what Tae Woong's friend did crumpled him and he pretty much wandered aimlessly, drenched in guilt, for 8 eight whole years. He quit school (quite a shame considering what a genius brain he had. Whenever he spoke all mathematically, it felt like an alien language :P). He even left his home (pissed his mom quite a bit. But she accepted him later on). But then he found Bo Ra (again). In the beginning, I hated her. But towards the end she became my favorite character. Ugh. It's just so sad. I don't think I'll be able to watch it again. Cried so much.

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