Reviews

Action packed with a rollercoaster of laughters and tears

The show is about a top assassin, Ren Xin, who had been framed and imprisoned of killing the empress of An kingdom, who happen to be her benefactor. She had to escape prison, fake her death, change her name to Ren Ruyi, and later reinfiltrated the An kingdom’s spy organization’s branch located in a rival kingdom to track down the mastermind behind the empress’s murder and avenge her. With a twist of fate, she encountered the head of spy organization of the rival country, Ning Yuanzhou, and striked a deal with him, tagging along with the envoy entourage to her own country to teach the envoy in return for NYZ gathering intel to help her get her revenge. Many things happened along the way, and she started forming a bond with the members of the spy agency in the entourage, and a special liking towards NYZ.

I like it how the show had a solid premise, good storyline and they executed it in perfect gracefulness and rather fast paced too. Although it started out in a serious and intense premise, they manage to blend goofy scenes seamlessly within. The goofy parts were well executed and didnt looked forced, leaving me smiling or laughing throughout - definitely didnt look out of place or annoying like those in Fighting for Love. Despite the goofy scenes, they were able to execute the action and serious scenes tremendously well too. The action scenes were superb, the choreography was on point and well executed. The intimate scenes between the leads were well paced. With this show i can really feel and make sense of how they fall in love with each other despite coming from rival kingdoms, without having senselessly overbearing and cringe-worthy proximity moments like those in Ancient Love Poetry.

The only show ive ever seen Liu Shishi in was Scarlet Heart, although she acted well in it, i felt that her face didnt really suit to be in ancient drama, cuz i thought she looked too modern. I changed my mind when i saw this show. Maybe its due to hairdo, costume, age or makeup, but she looked perfect in AJTL as a retired top assassin on a mission to avenge the death of the closest person to her. Now this character Ren Xin/Ren Ruyi is one of my favourite FLs of all tv shows I’ve seen so far, the writers wrote her really well with almost no flaw at all. She is strong, quick-witted, resourceful, brave, resolute and capable with a sound and collected mind despite facing conflicts of interest. Basically she is the badass of all badasses of the mortal world, while Shen Li from Legend of Shen Li wins that spot for the fairy fantasy category. Although ML being the understanding other half, contributed too. I liked A Mai from Fighting for Love too, but the writers slightly botched it with poor decision-making when in comes to love in the esrlier part of the show. Ren Ruyi did not suffer from this. I guess I had to give it off to the the writers for not messing up.

My most favourite character of the whole show is Yu Shisan, one of the spies in the envoy entourage. He’s easily the most handsome of the spy group, he’s not shy to flaunt it too as he is proud to be known as the shameless, flirty playboy who has a way with girls. He was extremely popular and admired by female inmates and workers in the prison (he was imprisoned for kidnapping a noble’s daughter) because he loves to do make up on them (and obviously because he flirts with them) before ML picked him up to join the entourage mission. He’s the goofiest person in the group, most of the goofy scenes are caused by him, but also the closest to ML, being a good listener and confidant to ML, especially with regards to dealing with FL. He’s the first to learn the truth about FL being a top assassin of a rival kingdom spy agency, and the first to know how badly ML’s health condition was as ML often confides in him.

Princess Yang Ying is probably the character with the most progress. She started off as an extremely timid, weak with zero self confidence, unfavored princess of the late emperor, born in the cold palace and looked down even by the palace maids, let alone the rest of the harem,but later grew into a full fledged ambitious, capable, confident, resourceful and quick-witted princess aiming for the throne. She is the youngest sister of the current emperor, who was lovesick with the only palace guard who showed her kindness thus willing to do anything to marry him. When her brother the emperor was taken hostage by Emperor of An kingdom, she volunteered to be the envoy to deliver the ransom in return for her to be granted fiefdom and ability to choose her own husband. Because one of the conditions of ransom is it must be delivered by a prince, she had to disguise as one and learn everything a prince should know during the trip. She was slow at learning at first, but the moment ML, as the head of security of the entourage, changed her tutor to FL, she made great progress in terms of learning capability and the building of her character as a pompous and snobbish prince with ample political & court knowledge. I must commend the actress, she definitely nailed it as a male impersonator. Although she looked soft and delicate as a princess, she also managed to pull off the look of a snobbish yet graceful teenage prince and as time passes, i no longer see her as a girl. This is the second character after Fighting for Love’s FL that I ever saw able to pull off as a male impersonator, and she did it perfectly well without even having to try too hard to act as a tough boy. I’m glad they didnt forget to bind her chest, i hate it when characters are portrayed to be disguising as a male and yet the chest totally gives them away, and lets not even get into the girly voice and acts. Fortunately, those cringy parts that give away male impersonation are nonexistent in this show. Well done!

Another interesting character is Qian Zhao, one of the spies with medical expertise. He’s literally the medic for the entourage. He is very quiet and reserved, only speaking when necessary, but in fact is very stubborn and steadfast in his decisions. Nobody could stop him when he set his mind to kill FL when he found out she was a spy from An, and everybody had a hard time persuading him against seeking revenge from Emperor Wu for his reckless decision of going to war with misleading intel and information which resulted in high war casualties. The only thing stopping him from finishing the emperor off was the flare signal from nearby fortress indicating that they were under attack. Even ML admitted in the end that he had everyone else figured out but Qian Zhao .

All in all i think the whole production team did a tremendously great job with this show. I really couldnt find any other loopholes other than the hand injury of Deng Hui that went missing the next day after his hand was stabbed by Emperor An. The make up artist and director must have forgotten the script. Anyway, I wonder who wronged the writer team so badly for them to come up with such a huge massacre of characters. It saddens me but the show was so good I cant seem to hate it for making me cry with each episode after Ep30. For a show that is laden with goofy scenes all over, i was so not ready for the last 8 episodes that are pretty tragic and tearjerker. Boy sometimes I hate this show for being so damn good at bringing laughter and tears to its viewers.

If youre like me who love shows with strong leads, action packed with non-domineeringly sweet and non-cringy love story, and do not mind a tragic-possible-emotional-damage-inducing ending, then this might be for you. If youre all that but cant handle sad ending, well, maybe stop watching at Episode 38. Despite hating the ending, I just cant seem to strike off a star from my 10 rating. The show was THAT good!

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The actual lead isn't listed

It's coffee. I learnt more about coffee than I did about either of the leads.

This is a concept that should work on paper. A song writer with writer's block and café owner who's lost direction of his passion. A man with a scarred heart and a man who can't write a love song, tell me this doesn't sound good as a concept. The thing is, this story would have worked much better as a melodrama as opposed to the comedic route they took. Even then, they didn't really know how to pull off the angst that is guarantee when you have a drama with two lost individuals.

Even if it doesn't work as a slice of life/melo series because it may be too long or have too many inconsequential scenes, it makes no difference. It's not like that's what they didn't already do with this. Put aside the concept and this was just.. boring.

It says a lot about a show when you would rather watch the side couples who barely have screentime over the leads. The leads didn't have much screentime together either, but I'll get to that in a while. They were cute for a while, all the blatant flirting was bound to come home to roost though because after the initial episodes it was conflict upon misunderstanding upon conflict. They even had the ex return for a conflict that ended as weirdly as it began. They didn't talk to each other and when they did it was all very surface level deep. The more I describe it, the more it sounds like angst, but it just didn't work.

Instead of spending time on developing their relationship though, they spent so much time on the band, their label, the coffee shop. Even though they were integral locations for each of the leads and several of the supporting characters, most of the scenes and characters in those locations felt like filler.

I did however love the friendship between Yi and Jao, the one between Nuea and Plaeng, all the friendships in fact. The band, Gene and Plaeng, the employees in the coffee shop, I loved it all. I also liked Yi's family, again not showcased much but realistic and supportive.

I don't mind the ending as much as I should since there is a special, but that was indeed a weak ending to a weak story. At its core, it was indeed a filler series.

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One of The Best Romantic Comedy Drama

I really enjoy this drama, so many plot twist storyline with Comedy on all characters, Haha. The drama is light and the storyline is easy to understand. Don't miss all the episodes and if necessary, re-watch them so you can understand the storyline.

In my opinion, there are not many time travel dramas that are easy to understand, full of sadness and comedy that can carry viewers away in a very coherent and good story. Thank you to the producers, actors and actresses as well as all the supporting roles for their excellent acting. There is a lot of inspiration that can be taken from this drama.

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STUPIDLY OVERLONG

Soo-chul a waste of space: Da-Hye had a more meaningful arc & his dead brother had more impact on the story by the way his mother reacted to his death
The last 2 eps were a makjang meltdown. Clichéd & lazy. Makjang is fine in a makjang Drama, not here.Better as 14 60 minute episodes, with a different end.
BUT, some outstanding TRUE romcom - lol & sweet. The OTP worked, both of them. Lots of thoughtful and intelligent conversations between them, which was a delight And they dampened my eyes even when I knew how it ended, which is a tribute to the power of their acting.

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Please add me?

I've done to watching. Great story line, the acting and the character were great, I think I've watching it again. After episode 7 until last I'm was a crying baby. The story is full of words of wisdom, Yi heon one of the best character for me in kdrama and until now I'm still crying. Kudos 👏👏
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failed in the proposal, protagonist forgot his goal

*English is not my first language, I'm sorry if it is confuse

okay, first of all, I had a lot of expectation on this drama, the proposal on the beginning was really interesting but as the story unfolds, it looks like de protagonist forgot what he wanted to do. I really like jae-i but I think that when kangha fell in love with her it mess everything, that was a romance that wasnt necessary. On the beginning, kanga was really willing to take revenge but he gave up of everything because of her and that doesn't make sense because he wanted to revenge for his brother right? he just give up of fuck with the lives of the guilty of his brother death just because of a girl?? that makes me feel upset. other thing is that I think this drama was really slow, there was a lot of things that could be used for revenge, Woojin's relationship with the teacher for example, but that was just thrown away, even with such a good opportunity to do something interesting

Giving my final considerations, I really liked this drama, but it certainly could have been much better. this had such an incredible proposal at the beginning that it got lost as it unfolded. I'm looking forward to part two, I hope revenge really is done

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ONE OF THE BEST KDRAMA

Literally watched this in two days, one of my favs kdrama’s. I would really recommend, the acting, the idea everything was so interesting and I was so invested in it . the end was perfect to, really happy that I watched it and it deserves more fame because definitely a work of art. The acting was great, but as a european at start I found the main female acting really cringe😭it was so strange she jumped, screamed and more, like idk later she was okay, ofc Vincenzo was handsome the whole series and carried ( best mafia ever🫡) again I would definitely recommend, will be rewatching soon myself🤞

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Kicking my legs and giggling all the way!

Awe man I just finished this and I'm just so happy I invested my time in this. I usually hate shows that have hour long episodes but I looooooove shows that can make that hour go by fast and this show man god damn. Perfect. Everything just fell into place all the time. I was worried about some aspects like would they do the dumbass liar reveal trope thing? Which they did but they handled it well by having everyone react realistically: grieving the loss of Torfun.

I was also worried about the slow burn aspect but hehehe it was so good!!! It was so worth the wait when they finally got together and smooched and the romance build up flowed organically.

Even the more out there aspects of the show fit in. The whole smuggling thing? Foreshadowed throughout the show and that's just an example. Some people might get annoyed at the product placement but I didn't mind them.

The soundtrack btw GOD DAMN WAS IT LOVELY. It was soothing and beautiful and damn it I just really liked this show. I cried, I laughed, I kicked my legs and giggled even though I'm a fully grown man. I'm kissing this show on the forehead happily.

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it's good....but not excellent.

I was really curios about this show because honestly I really struggle in finding Interesting japanese dramas.
this has (or had) a lot of potential but somehow it manages to be .....meh.

the story: interesting. a young man manages to evoke a yokai and to bond with her experiencing love for the first time.
the yokai though is on her mission to find the five families that contributed to segregate her fellow yokai and therefore kill them.
hachi, the protagonist really cares for Izzy (the yokai) but doesn't agree with her "methods" of freeing her friends.
that's basically the plot in a nutshell.

the acting is really good. the music, the photography are also enjoyable but what is really lacking in the script.
the funny moments are not really funny, the tense moments are not really tense. I get that this is a short series and developing characters and plots takes time but everything is too much superficial.

don't get me wrong it is still enjoyable but it feels liked a missed opportunity.

the last episode gives away the fact that the story is far from over and that a second season should be on the horizon but as for now , June 2024, nothing seemes to be confirmed.

give it a watch if you want something light.

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The ml is handsome but everything is twisted!(unsatisfying end) >:(

Idk how to express that dissapointment I just felt. The story had a good start and you kinda got the feeling that she might have been the real granddaughter, who accidentally lost her memories. EVERYTHING would have made sense with a little touch ups. But who in the world would give away his life-profits to someone who is just an actress. Why did the ml need to end up in a coma in the last 7 minutes of this series. why is his charakter such a jerk? I mean its for the plot but there's no plot.. The "sister" was pretty annoying and selfish it was hard to watch because of the "cute" acting.

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