This review may contain spoilers
Watch this at your own expense
STORY :
1 / THE QING Dynasty era:
This part of the drama has the most horrible and outrageous plotline I have seen in a while. It will present you with:
- a man who kills his godson and is never troubled because of it
- a man who uses the corpse of his victim like an accessory to frame other people
- a man who schemes plenty of plans to harm his brother but he gets away with it because he just misunderstood the situation
- a man who pays a thug to break someone's arm and he is never troubled about it even by his godson who knows the truth
- a man who knows all the crimes his godfather did against his brother but he would not do anything to help the brother out of jealousy but still call him his brother.
- a princess who is forced to marry at gunpoint on the head of her father but the husband does not sleep with her because she is not his "kind of woman". Of course. Like a pig would not eat jam.
....
Plenty of cranky farfetched unrealistic situations with iffy morals and messages like "I caused you to die but sorry for the misunderstanding and justice is not necessary as we are family".
Is this supposed to be entertaining? It is not. It is BS.
2/ THE REPUBLICAN era:
The drama becomes a lot better.
- The FL disappears as the plot is only centered on the ML
- The ML discover a new city (Shanghai), new people, new challenges. He starts to build his career and success.
- The Republican era is a time of change so the drama is richer of ideas and events
- The directing is better with nice slow mo
- The plotline is crafted with a good twist
- Then back to Beijing , back to family dumb misunderstandings
- FL appears again. Her story is quite sad.
3 / FIGHT VS JAPANESE
The usual great patriotic courageous Chinese brothers vs. the evil monstrous Japanese who kill innocent people just to bully and coerce and achieve their goal. Grotesque ending to give the bad guy his redemption when we have barely a glimpse at the main leads happy ending.
CHARACTER :
- Kang Ning : beautiful and smart and courageous, the writing of her character turned ludicrous and made her a props for 2/3rd of the drama
- Lu Yuan Zhi : idiot guy who improved himself as a great tailor but his personality is bland always trying to save his love and help his brother who constantly creates troubles for him.
- Jiang Mo Sheng : Terrible brother insecure and jealous. Does plenty of mistakes but accuses the others.
- Zhao Li Jun: Fun endearing and a fighter. I liked her.
- Su Pei Yao : Spoiled daughter
- Bai He Nian : Guy should have died sooner for the sake of his family.
- Guo Fei Yu : started a fool but had a good character development. Good guy.
OST:
Nothing special
REWATCH:
No. Packed with outrageous schemes. Nothing really enjoyable.
OVERALL : This drama is well produced with great costumes, places, props, many characters... It is too bad it drowned itself in family schemes and misunderstanding to promote usual family values and forgiveness and redemption blabla. The story is also amoral : the person who kills his Godson is never accountable but lives free. Also the endings of the master of Si He house and the bad brother are quite ridiculous.
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This review may contain spoilers
Thought-provoking KMovie, sailing close to the wind when it comes to duty of care and child welfare
The KMovie "Highway Family" is set at the bottom of the social pyramid in South Korea in the year 2022. It portrays a homeless family who seems to have found their own lifestyle at the country's highway rest stops. A happy family sleeping in a tent, living on scrounged money and having lots of fun together.That's one side of the medal. As audience, however, one cannot help but see the other side of the coin despite all the family idyll. The heavily pregnant wife has no medical support during what is now her third pregnancy. Her two children, being five and nine years old by now, miss out on any schooling. The parents claim that they do the teaching themselves, but reading, writing and maths are obviously not on their curriculum. A playground on the highway rest stops, which are heavily frequented by cars and heavy trucks, is dangerous, and the parents' duty of supervision is by no means guaranteed. The father is (as so often) the head of the family and objectively speaking, his decisions about the self-chosen outlaw family life sometimes border on violating his duty of care. Supposed (motorway rest stop) idyll and freedom may correspond to the father and his outlook on life. Wife and children, on the other hand, are now stuck in this boat. They love each other as a family and especially the children know no different. They rely on their father.
The KMovie sails close to the wind when it comes to moral issues concerning work, economy and society as well as duty of care and child welfare. Camps may form in the audience. And that is intentional.
The second protagonist, alongside the Highway family, is a married couple who lost their own child and who run a second-hand furniture store. Solid. Prosocial. Responsible. However, emotionally deeply wounded and unhappy.
Worlds clash. Two families meet. One is shattered deep inside, the other formally. Together they build something new - an alternative family patchwork, grounded in a rather simple normal life, which obviously doesn't have to be the worst, at least when kids are involved. Yet, can it be as simple as that? And at the disturbing end there is the question about the end of the story... which remains in the eyes of the beholder...
A thought-provoking KMovie.
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Warming, Fun and Very Enjoyable
Short: Warm romantic drama with two characters that have clear chemistry. Cast are fantastic and there are some great sparks between several of them, a really good job picking the cast for this I think. Music was great and fitting, without being overbearing. The story goes through a few turns but nothing really unexpected, all issues are tied off with a nice bow and the ending is nice too. Really enjoyed this one, seems a little while since I was having *so* much trouble stopping watching at 5am, but this one was definitely hard to put down.Detail:
He can't forget anything and she has lost a chunk of her memory. She's an actress in dramas and movies, he's a celebrated news anchor. They meet by chance, and wind up having to pretend that they're dating to avoid an inconvenient scandal breaking out. As the story unfolds, you find out more about the past, more about the memories that she has lost and the pains that he has to endure - an unrelenting perfect memory as far more of a curse than it is a blessing.
They're both great characters, played by excellent actors. I picked this one up specifically because I was enjoying Moon Ga Young in True Beauty and saw this one popped up on Netflix - but there are many more great cast members to pull you into this one too. Delighted to see Jang Young Nam whom I enjoyed a lot in It's Okay to Not Be Okay, and Kim Seul Gi who had a fun role in Oh My Ghostess has another key role here (i'm really not sure why it's classed as a support role when there aren't many scenes she isn't in).
There are some fantastic sparks of chemistry between various cast members - whether it's Kim Seul Gi and... well... everyone (she's just that fun), Jang Young Nam and Kim Dong Wook at the office - and I particularly enjoyed the way they handled the relationship between the Young Nam and the team leader (Kim Chul Woong) at work as well that was nicely done and fun throughout. Not to forget ofcourse the blend between the two leads was fun to watch as well.
My favourite character was probably Kim Seul Gi's - to the casual observer she comes off as the "little sister", small, fun etc - but she's absolutely the one in charge and you had better not mess with her. She's her own boss, she's her sisters manager and she will fiercely protect those she loves. A really great character overall and superbly represented by Seul Gi I thought.
There's no triangle in this (yay! I hear you cry), there are a couple of other standard tropes however they are written much better than I've seen in some other stories I've watched lately so no complaints from me on the "abuse of trope" front :)
Emotionally this one actually does an interesting job in riding a gentle path between laugh-out-loud moments and some sad ones that will have you feeling a little wet on the face.
There is some misdirection that's quite nicely done and even just the mention of the "suicide" tag effects some degree of that (though it is completely appropriate) - don't prejudge, let the story tell itself to you and enjoy the ride.
Overall, the main benchmark for me on this one is:
a) i'm actually writing a review for this, and i've been extremely lax on that front - but after just completing it, I wanted it to linger in my thoughts a while longer, and share my thoughts.
b) lately while i've been enjoying the dramas I've watched very much, not many have had that extra "10/10" that means when it says "Next Episode?" i'm smacking the button hard going "GET ON WITH IT!!" and at 5am struggling to pull myself away.
Can't think of anything I didn't particularly enjoy to be honest, which, combined with the above, is why I gave it a high score.
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This review may contain spoilers
Where should I start?? There are so many good things to say!! Plot: From the first synopsis read on MyDramaList, I brushed it off thinking it was going to like other youth Chinese dramas, but boy was I wrong! It may seem like it is, but it focuses not only on the youths on their personal journey through the "gao kao" but their families too. It shows how their parents grow and learn from certain developments and how no parent is perfect. No mother is perfect. No father is perfect. No one is born knowing how to be a perfect parent. The growth of the parents is seen evidently through the 49 episodes as well as the 4 children.
Characters: I already briefly mentioned earlier, but the growth of each main character in the 3 respective families is so touching and as an Asian child myself, I can see certain traits in the parents in my own upbringing and my own parents. For instance, the emphasis on getting good grades as done by Tong Wen Jie and Song Qian reminded me so much of when I was younger. The question of "do grades mean everything" is brought up a lot because of the "gao kao," especially when Fang Yi Fan wants to do dance and singing instead of studying for the "gao kao." Ying Zi's fall into depression was very sad, but shows the reality of the result of so much pressure from parents to do well. The episodes focused on her was really emotional and successfully touched my heart.
Acting: This leads to acting which was major 100%. 120% I would like to say. Every character seemed so real and the actors truly embodied their roles. Even though I know some actors were new like the actor who played Yang Yang and Fang Yi Fan, but I could not even tell. All the children seemed experienced. The tearjerker scenes all brought me to tears. Lei'er... was brilliant at certain scenes like his broken phone and the heart-to-heart talk meeting near the end. T_T I was bawling. The adult actors were all experienced from my knowledge so they were no problem at all. NO ONE was awkward, everyone was so compatible with another on screen with amazing chemistry!! I loved Tong Wen Jie and Fang Yuan's family dynamic the most with their son and nephew. :) "where did Lei'er go again?"
Music: There was a variety of songs played with instrumentals and they matched the scenes so, so, so well! Sad piano BGM for the sad scenes and comedic sounds for the funny ones. Editing was very well done to flow everything together, I loved it!
Rewatch Value: YES YES YES, I am going to once I have time, but later on, so I can maybe learn some more from this drama :) There were many life lessons mentioned like the perspective to look at things, to not always compare your child with other children. 10/10
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An action packed story that keeps you interested despite its flaws
Some spoilers but no specific detailsThis started off very nice, and was still interesting till the end although I was not fully satisfied with a lot of things, the ending was a big fat useless cliffhanger with basically all the big plots still left unanswered. We basically just got rid of some "npcs" lol. And i just could not for the life of me understand how so many of these people (even the mc) survived the sht they went through: a machine gun blasting from every corner/ a shot through the eyes, stab to the throat and a burning house/ 2 freaking grenades!!!!!! and the list goes on. And STILL they all get up with a minor scar. Just very very unrealistic and a huge pet peeve for me.
a little bit of a spoiler here:
I like that the uncle wasn't invincible, like you could see him get beaten down buy a bunch of random dudes before he finally managed to take care of them and you could also see that he got scared from time to time. At first I was like mehh it takes away from the amazingly badass mysterious vibe they set him out to be in the first couple of eps... but then I thought this ACTUALLY makes him even more of a realistic character and less like the mc with the plot armor protecting her.
All in all this was a fun watch, I really wanted ALL those bad guys, especially THAT specific one to go out very, very painfully but I am at least happy Honda got avenged, he was my favorite character :'(
Edit: Oh wait I just realized something that annoyed me in the first couple of episodes and I don't think it was answered till the end. Why on earth were a bunch of killers obligated to protect the mc? like what would force them to do that, especially since some of them just took out whatever those implants were? Not mentioned, they never even showed up lmfao xD
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This review may contain spoilers
This drama could have easily been a 9/9.5 drama. Easily. The plot's general concept was very alluring, something that grabbed my attention and kept it there enough to make me commit 17.3 hours of my life to this drama. For the most parts, I'll say that I enjoyed this drama very much. It's not a bad drama, definitely, and I'll recommend this to everyone! But it definitely has some faults that I could not overlook. I'll list the positives and negatives down below for easier reading. >> SOME POINTS THAT I DID NOT LIKE:
1. The second female lead is obnoxiously irritating. One thing I really hate is when people do not know their social status. She was a snake that bit the same owner who took her in as her secretary and gave her a good life just because of her own insane jealousy and delusion that she could even compare to Pat. A good load of great things that gave her in the end. *rolls eyes*
2. I do not want to say that Pat/Lan (the female lead) was very dismissive of the body that she has acquired and the responsibilities and reality that comes with it. But she was.
Firstly, after she comes 'back to life' in Lan's body, she completely disregards that the body she is in has a family of her own and is actually married. She completely decides to give no face to Lan's father and refuses to live as Lan at first, which I felt was very sad for the actual Lan who was now dead.
Secondly, Pat/Lan totally ignored the fact that she had a husband, which could really bring up a lot of problems in the future. Of course, Pat/Lan did not like her 'husband' at all. Therefore, I do not see why a divorce was not something she seeked first and foremost after finding out that she's married in this new body.
Finally, When Pat/Lan realised how evil and high-reaching Kaew is, she still endured her 'feces' and let her pull and push her around until the almost end. A lot of things, I believe, would have been better if she had just revealed the truth about Kaew to Win (Especially since she had proof).
>> SOME GOOD POINTS:
1. This drama was not draggy. It was conscious in that it knew where it was going and went there swiftly.
2. Kawin's loyalty is precious. Even though he was a little slow in the beginning, he was still firm.
3. Noojoon is a treat to my heart. He really was a great best friend and comic relief.
4. I appreciated the variety and complexity of the characters in this drama. You could see that there are good people, and bad people, and good people that do bad things intentionally or unintentionally and repent. It was more close to real life. I liked that.
5. The plot is good for most parts. Because it's not draggy, not a lot of 'arguments' carry on for a lot of episodes unnecessarily. I liked that.
6. The bad guys really got their karma back.
>> CONCLUSION:
After watching the drama and sleeping on it, I really like this drama despite its shortcomings. It made me laugh and smile and cry and get really pissed off. But I liked it a lot, still.
8/10.
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Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE should see this movie.
The plot is just amazing and one of the most original ones I've seen. The actors (I didn't know any) convey you the story perfectly which has a very deep meaning.
The message it delivers it's just unspeakable you have to see it to understand.
Above all this movie show us todays society and how independent we got, so much we stopped caring for anyone else but ourselves. The 'Superman' in this story show us that it is still alright to care for others, to help them, to be good and that it's actually a very good thing.
He show us that even though there are many bad people in the world there are also good people and that to make a difference in someone's (or everyone's) life it depends only on yourself.
Everyone has power, you just have to use it.
Go by me and see this. It's definitly worth the time...
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2To the ends of the earth.
The Lonely Warrior is a crime thriller about one man's obstinate, obsessive thirteen year quest for justice. It is a highly dramatized account of a real life case. The movie version Endless Journey is led by Zhang Yi whereas this drama version is led by Qin Hao.In the middle of a tense, emotional criminal case, an interrogation accident ends the careers of the elite Third Brigade investigative unit led by Cheng Bing. After a ten year stint in prison that costs Cheng Bing everything, he emerges hell bent on hunting down the violent killer Wang Dayong who eluded them all those years ago. He reunites with his squad, all of whom have at surface moved on with their lives but are still haunted by this cold case. They initially go to great lengths to help Cheng Bing but as a result of life commitments end up dropping out. Cheng Bing soldiers on deliberately, methodically pursing the vicious Wang Dayong seemingly till the ends of the earth, leaving no stone unturned.
The strongest aspect of this drama are the chase scenes and the way tension builds in a gripping and chillingly suspenseful way. What I didn't like was how Wang Dayong barely appears in the latter episodes. It was done to raise doubt over whether Cheng Bing was doggedly on the right track but it also made me quite frustrated with his obduracy. They failed to capitalise on Chen Minghao who delivers an incredibly menacing, ruthless and unpredictable Wang Dayong, a hardened criminal with exceptional survival instincts. I was also dismayed with what they did to his appearance; effectively obscuring all the nuances of his expressions. This would have been a lot better if they focused more in the cat-and-mouse chase between Cheng Bing and Wang Dayong with heart stopping near misses instead of pushing Wang Dayong off-screen for such long stretches.
My biggest issue with the narrative is that it delves too deeply into Cheng Bing's and the Third Brigade's personal stories. Qin Hao never fails to impresses in how he conveys deep emotions and he really out did himself in making us feel the weight of everything he loss. But I was not convinced at all by his relationship with Miao Miao. This is not a necessary character even though Ren Min does a good job with it. Add Tong Tong to the mix and I was just rolling my eyes. Even though I enjoyed the Third Brigade's camaraderie, they should either have had them see the case through all the way with Cheng Bing or not at all. It is very annoying to watch the narrative build up all of their personal stories only to see them drop out half way through. The most relevant and interesting relationship is the contentious one between Pan Dahai and Cheng Bing. These many digressions come at the cost of losing the momentum of the chase. This would be a much tighter and better drama with fewer episodes. As such, I am not surprised that the movie version has been better received than the drama even though I personally think the drama has a better lead cast.
Despite some pacing issues, this is overall a very enjoyable suspense thriller anchored by a stellar cast. Happy to rate it 7.5/10.0.
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What I liked was the honesty in the characters. As a true dramanista, I am always looking for the scheming friend, the evil mother, the rat in the group but there was none of that. The characters literally said out loud exactly what they felt, and it was refreshing. Narimiya Hiroki is an awesome actor! This type of character for him is not new (Yankee-kun to Megane-chan) but he is so believable even if you do see his wrinkles. He really brought the main character to life. Although the other supporting characters were to be stereotypical, they played their parts very well and I forgot i was watching actors at times. I must admit that started this because I love Mizushima Hiro. As much as I loved to watch him in this movie, his character fell flat. It could be the fault of the writers, but his character seemed under developed or maybe the character was supposed to be vicious/crazy but Hiro couldn’t commit to it. IDK. I may blame the writers because they introduced a lot of characters that have no development, no story line and then randomly appeared/ disappeared.
The main question on my mind while watching, “Why are they using fully grown men to play middle schoolers?” I know some of those dudes are in their 30’s! I mean these dudes had full facial hair but playing 15-17 year olds??!! I also couldn’t understand how some characters were not getting physically stronger with all the fights, like how are you remaining so weak but you can still run your mouth? Not to mention how cool the parents were with all of this, your son wants to become a delinquent and you say “ok!”?. To top it all off, there is a sudden sorrowful scene out of nowhere that causes major changes. (I had the stupid face on because I didn’t really see it coming).
There were certainly loose ends, unraveled strings, and frayed stitches, but it wasn’t boring. For a story that seems meant to tell young boys “life is short don’t waste it” I think it does a pretty decent job. However it gets a fat F for encouraging ruthless violence for younger ages. I, however am not in that demographic and anything that gives me a little eye candy while entertaining me, I say “bring it on!”. I do recommend the movie for a break from the complex story lines, the plotting and the scheming found in many of the dramas we see. Overall: Lots of cool real fights, loads of excitement.
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This review may contain spoilers
The biggest surprise ever.
As surprising as it is, I was not impressed by the trailer of this bl, nor did I ever thought of watching it. I saw the other series that Kao was in and that left a bad taste in my mouth, I hated it. But I thought, "who am I not to watch the first ep??? For the gays, let's do it". And God did I love it. The writing though, it's just amazing, whoever wrote the series, y'all did that. I am in love with the transparency. Finally, a bl that says "I AM GAY", "I DONT LIKE GIRLS", "YOU SHOULD ASK FOR THIS INSTEAD OF JUST DOING IT", and so on... It's just magnificent, chef kisses, for a gay man to watch this... Y'all did it yes. There's no awkward representation, there are no stereotypes, I mean, maybe some times, but nothing overwhelming. There's only one character that was not even in the series, and the sides characters didn't get the proper treatment, but I am not mad about it. Ugh whoever wrote this, yes you did that. The family issues, well addressed, the consent always WELL FUCKING ADDRESSED YES. Nubsib deceiving Gene, WELL ADDRESSED, YES. Even the sexy moments, those were well written, although, i felt like I had no right to be watching, that's when you know there's chemistry and good writing.Alongside "Manner of Death", this bl didn't get me dizzy. Finally, a proper conversation without switching shots, we love to see it. Up was game on this, he is a good actor and because of the direction, you can see how good he is. Kao too, I think this is an improvement for him. There are not shots that you feel like "why is he showing me that door, I want to see the facial expressions", there's just one ep. That I felt like some shots were out of place. Long shots properly used and overall great.... Rest of my review on my tumblr. myshyyangel
http://myshyyangel.tumblr.com
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Wow, what a lovely drama!!! I liked from the beginning to the ending, probably the most natural couple I've seen in a cdrama. They talk to each other about their feelings, they kiss, they have sex.
I didn't see much problem at the last 3 episodes, maybe felt a little rushed, but I prefer this than a dragged drama. The proposal was beautiful.
No villain, no evil parents, no love triangles, no silly misunderstandings, no break ups and what I think I liked the most: no secundary couples! For me in the majority of cdramas the secundary couples are very much unnecessary and sometimes annoying and I tend to skip their scenes. In this drama I didn't skip nothing. Simply adorable and enjoyable.
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Look at all the cute pets . . keep looking . .
You know the old saying about kicking a puppy? Yes, that’s you if you don't like this show because it really piles on the cute pets and eulogise on and on about keeping them responsibly.Essentially, this show is a collection of many pet related vignettes which are loosely linked together within the pet hospital setting. The problem is that the A-plot regarding the ML’s identity is meh. By the half way mark, everything is known to us. It becomes rather tedious to watch the rest of the ensemble stumble onto the truth many hours later.
The show could have benefited from an intense love line, but we ended up with a slow burn. The OTP is preordained but their chemistry is only passable. The show ran through the usual gambit of dating tropes, but nothing works. We watch the OTP dancing the Two-Step with each other for 30eps before something finally happens. This is not helped by the endless shenanigans cooked up by the SM/FL to try to sabotage them. The second leads just won't take NO for an answer. This is particularly true for the SFL. She took puppy love to infinity and beyond! It tests credulity and my patience. Regardless, their meagre efforts are transparent and ineffective.
All that changes towards the end of the run when the melodrama dial is turned up to the MAX. We are hit with a wave of tropes which viewers of typical family sagas will recognise at 100 paces. Luckily, the writer took pity on us and spare us a prolonged torture session. By the time normal programming resumes, the show has run out of puff and we stumbled over the finish line while singing Kumbaya. I barely noticed the herd of unicorns waiting for their checkups by our resident vets.
Acting is workmanlike on the whole. The script is not particularly kind to the FL with her behaving like a hapless and naïve girl for way too long. On the other hand, the ML is the hive mind and he is always ready with a “I told you so”. While he is handsome and charismatic, he can look bored and feels flat at times. The large ensemble cast did their job to move the plot along, mostly in the right direction.
In the end, the show is harmless and watchable but there is not a lot there to lift it above pass grade. The script is a millpond with the odd splash. Your mind will drift and want to hit the FF button. Unless you are a pet lover then there are plenty of dopamine hits. One time watch for me.
P.S. What's with the ML's hair? Does it need a session with Tian Yu Xian?
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This review may contain spoilers
Time to give Filipino BL's a break cause....no
Well, I did it! I was able to sit down and watch all of the episodes of this series and now I am officially done with this series! And this is one of two things that was good about this series! I'm done and I don't need to wonder about what happened to Bryce and Ethon and thier relationship and I no longer have this series on my On-Hold list.Story-3.5/10
The storyline is to me, personally, a hot mess. The producers and director had an idea about this series and was promoting it so much that bit got me excited. And then I watched the show. I had to put this series on hold at episode four- that's how bad this was to me.
Anyway, storyline! Ethon is a big shot actor, who mets Bryce (at the end of episode two, but they don't talk to each other until episode four), cause he threw down some expensive s@#t at an exhibit (I think?) and Ethon told them that he would pay for it. Of course Bryce has to work it off for him and all of this was planned cause APPARENTLY Ethon likes Bryce! So, he goes and works for him and somehow Bryce and Ethon are in a relationship that we don't see except through a montage. Something happens in episode seven that affects Bryce and Ethon's relationship. And then the ending...wow! I can honestly say that I did not see that coming ( it still didn't make the series good).
Yeah, and they expect me to come and watch the sequel called 'Worth the Wait' after watching this hot mess unfold in these seven episodes. And I would also like to add that Bryce totally deserves better friends.
Acting/Cast-2/10
Everyone's acting sucked. NO ONE could have saved this series. I'm just....ugh!
Music- 9/10
The only good thing about this whole series is the music. Loved every song thatvwas played!But I advise people to find a way to listen to these songs besides watching this series, cause no one deserves to put themselves through so much torture to only listen to some good songs.
Rewatch Valu-1/10
If I coud give this series a 0 or a 0.5, I honestly would! One is too high for this as I know that there is no way in hell that I would rewatch this series again!
Overall-4/10
The music is what made this series score so high of 4/10. I would not recommend this series to anyone. Also, this series made me realize that I need to not watch so much Filipino BL's, cause they are not producing the caliber that they did when they came out last year. May need to take a break from Filipino BL's now.
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This review may contain spoilers
I would have loved having a teacher like Takayanagi Sensei. Gender, age, none of it would have mattered because the information being shared is so invaluable.The drama covers attempted rape to bullying to self-harm by cutting and everything in between. Some episodes are stronger than others. There's an episode that deals with a teen girl trying to seduce her homeroom teacher, and that just made me roll my eyes because it was frustratingly melodramatic and tropy. I also wasn't sure what to think about the episode with the creepy pedophile dude. While I'm sure that happens, it felt melodramatic in ways that lowered the episode's credibility. Also, it's easy to lose track of who is who, especially if some of the characters aren't strongly focused on again after their individual episode. It's easy to forget what their specific story was since the focus is so strong on Aizawa and Taniguchi in their relation to Takayanagi. Everyone else fades a little bit into the background.
Speaking of Aizawa, I wasn't keen on her. She's the one character I could have done without because she was the trope. The angst-riddled teen girl in love with her high school teacher (and she's not even the teen girl I was talking about trying to seduce her homeroom teacher! It happened twice in the same series!). There was nothing original about her, and while I felt bad for her, there was also nothing truly likable about her. I'm sorry, but what girl in their right mind decides to fall in love with their ETHICS TEACHER? It was just weird and she annoyed me.
But, all of the Aizawa stuff aside, the show is brilliant and extremely relevant. Where is the line drawn between individual rights and collective rights? When is it possible for the bullied to become bullies? How does collectivism morph into totalitarianism? All extremely relevant questions for the time in which we live where if someone dares to have an opinion contrary to the popular one, they're burned alive online. Emotion trumps logic in this new world of ours.
At the end of the day, Takayanagi Sensei is still a bit of an enigma. The character is a private person and we only get to know him as much as any of the people who interact with him know him. It's implied by how he behaves that he is a deeply damaged individual whose only desire is to teach his students to think for themselves and make rational, informed decisions that respect themselves and others. He is a teacher, and we see him only as a teacher. If Yuki Yamada never stars in another worthwhile role, at least he starred as Takayanagi. I've been waiting for "his role" to come along, and this is it. Not as a romantic male lead, but as something so very much more valuable.
I will undoubtedly rewatch "Koko wa Ima kara Rinri desu" many, many times. Because it is just that good.
From now on, we begin ethics.
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A warm hug in a Saturday afternoon.
This is the best way to describe this series. It can comfort you, it can make you cry, and at the same time, it gives you a valuable lesson as you watch each episode. I am currently on Episode 16 as I am writing this review, however, I can tell that this is another masterpiece originating from the same screenwriters of Go Ahead.It takes you through the wonderful village of Yun Miao, where we get to meet a variety of characters with unique and imperfect personalities. The characters are, if I may say, some of the best-written characters in Chinese Drama. There is no rush between the romance, and their life story, it's just a good balance of watching them figure out their life as they go. They're realistic, they aren't special, they're just regular people that we watch.
What I love the most about this drama is the script. The exchange of words between each character with different perspectives in life, and the portrayal of youth and immaturity. It is raw, realistic, and well-thought-out. I truly believe that the script itself is a good enough reason for you to watch.
However, there's more. Unlike most camera work, directing, and acting in other Chinese Dramas, Meet Yourself goes way beyond my expectations. The stills, the production, the CINEMATOGRAPHY, everything about this drama was truly, truly the best. The actors also go way beyond my expectations, it is so rare to find such a gem like this that contains no stiff acting, good delivery, a good script, and good cinematography.
I truly believe that above all the Chinese Dramas I've watched, this drama is the one you MUST watch. I suggest watching it when you're feeling lost, and you're looking for something that can accompany you throughout the day. It isn't packed with action, it is slow-paced, therefore I believe finding the right mood to watch it is also something you must take into consideration before truly diving into it.
Now, let me ask you, are you ready to meet yourself?
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