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Why do non-BLs always have to be sad and tragic?
This is not a BL, it's a queer series. It's slices of live spanning over around 8 years or so. The beginning is a bit strange because there are too many coincidences in the first episode. And of course while we know they are gay, there is no explicit scene about confessing and of course no kissing at all. I don't need any nc-scenes at all, but their relationsship is not defined. We can asume they are together because they love each other but it would not have hurt to give as at least one fluffy moment.On the other hand this slices of life are mostly a series of negatives. For me it was very emotional because every negative stroke of fate just happens. Ryo gets confessed to but he can't handle it. The confessor get outed and jumps (we do not know from how high), but survives, Ryo runs away to Germany of all places and gets nearly killed in a church were another gay persons throws molowtov-cocktails at the altar and is saved by a man who just before listenes to his guilt-confession.
And the list goes on... Is there a happy end? Kind of, but not really. Of course there are also happy moments but anything happy will be destroyed by a tragic event. Is it really necessary to make queer series where everything is tragic? Do we get only stupid, crappy BLs for happyness? I don't mind if there are tragic elements in a story, but this was too much.
I can't fault the actors, they did their best, but watching this series is very taxing. I can only fault the script & direction. I wish we get realistic gay stories which do not end always badly, or where at least the good and bad balance each other out. So, I'm a bit disappointed that they choose not do so. It's very emotional and I needed some tissues. I can't even say it was "bad". Yes the script had it's flaws, the story-arc is not what I wished for, some scenes are too slow for my taste, but it was done mostly in a good way. If you crave for something tragic, this series is for you, if you want something happy, this is definitively not for you.
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The Lead Performances: Xyriel Manabat (Rose) and Kyle Echarri (Jordan) are the heart of this movie. Xyriel, in her first lead film role, proves she hasn't lost the emotional depth that made her a star as a child actress. Kyle plays the "brooding new boy in town" with more nuance than your typical teen heartthrob. • Nostalgia Factor: For anyone who grew up in the 2000s, the "internet cafe" setting, the old-school emails, and the general vibe of a provincial town will feel very cozy and grounded.
• Visual Direction: Directed by Dolly Dulu, the film has a warm, cinematic quality that captures the beauty of the Philippine countryside without feeling like a tourism ad.
The "Too Much" (The Not-So-Good)
• Melodramatic Tropes: As the story progresses, it leans heavily into "melodramatic wrench-throwing." If you aren't a fan of sudden, high-stakes drama that complicates a simple romance, the final act might feel a bit heavy-handed.
• Formulaic Plot: The "enemies-to-lovers" and "rich boy/poor girl" dynamics are things we’ve seen many times before. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it executes the formula well.
Final Verdict
If you’re in the mood for a "hugot" film that feels like a warm blanket (with a few thorns), "18th Rose" is a solid choice. It’s less about a revolutionary plot and more about the chemistry between the leads and that bittersweet feeling of first love.
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Fun binge watch
People start KDramas through 'Goblin' and 'Crash landing on you', I started with this drama. And it wasn't a bad start.The story follows a magazine reporter Geun Yeong who gets misunderstood as an anti fan and then that becomes the reason why she ends up on this reality show with the celebrity Hoo Joon where he has to play the role of living with an anti fan. And even if they start off on the wrong foot, they end up falling in love with each other.
It's funny. It's pleasing to the eye and the story is quite good. The enemies to lovers trope is fine but it's more soft, bickering and pettyness.
Rewatch wise, no I wouldn't. Nothing much. But I would say I liked the Japan arc. Maybe because it was my first drama I remember it well. If you like a celebrity love story, go for it.
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And honestly? I probably did enjoy it a lot more because of the era and the mindset I was in at the time. The whole “your celebrity neighbors secretly move in next door and chaos unfolds” plot was exactly the kind of fantasy every fangirl secretly loved back then. It was cheesy, unrealistic, awkward at times and entirely built on fanservice but that was also the charm of it.
Looking back now, the acting, plot and overall writing definitely feel very Wattpad coded but I can’t even fully hate on it because it perfectly captured that 2015 fangirl experience. It felt less like a proper drama and more like someone took an EXO fanfic straight off the internet and turned it into a series.
And as a new EXO-L at the time? Of course I ate it up. Seeing the members casually appear on screen every episode was enough to keep me seated regardless of how unserious the plot became.
Would present-day me call it cinematic excellence? Absolutely not. But younger me was having the time of her life and honestly, that nostalgia alone makes this drama weirdly memorable.
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I was deeply impressed by the transformations in Li Yun Rui's character. He completely changed his behavior, temperament, and mannerisms in each of his appearances.
I don't quite understand the complaints about the latter's age Zhang Kang Le, as there's about a four-year age difference between them.
It's worse with the FL character – it's a bit embarrassing when a teenager pretends to be 20. It doesn't bother me as much the other way around.
The direction and production design are fantastic.
The film is very engaging, the action is great, but unfortunately, the script looks like it was written by a frustrated teenager girlwith a sadistic streak, so the character portrayals are quite questionable. I really feel that all the women in this film are immature creatures, nasty and unforgiving at that. The male characters aren't treated much better either. The actors did their best, but there's nothing magical about this script. However, compared to Princess Agents, it's less boring and drawn-out. and it doesn't look like it was made in the 90s. Technically it's spectacular.
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This could've been a movie. A bad one but at least shorter
This entire show was extremely underwhelming. I gave it a 1 cuz that's the lowest I can give.Script:
•I'll start with what was the worst part for me. The lines didn't sound like how normal ppl talk. It just didn't sound correct. I had to check if the script writer was Japanese cuz it felt super unnatural.
•Fire scene: I didn't care for Ryu enough as to be like "No! Don't kill yourself!". There was no foundation for that scene or character. I couldn't care less. We didn't see him being loved and cared for or caring towards others. He was just a dude within a team. To the point that until the story focused on him, I didn’t even realize he was the main character.
•There's a stupid useless naked scene for no reason whatsoever.
•They should've cut the military scenes. It didn't add anything to the plot and we would've miss seeing Johan and understood Ryu's feelings better. At least if we got to like Johan which I feel like we didn't really.
The characters don't have a character. That's how I can explain this entire mess in a sentence
•Arata saying he was prepared for the response was such a stupid line. He can say he thought he was prepared but prepared? How was he prepared? He tried to kill himself cuz he couldn't handle it ffs! Also, that storyline was wrapped up way too quickly, and he was far too casual about it. They’re trying to make it seem realistic, but it doesn’t feel real. In real life, someone in his situation would likely struggle much longer, maybe even attempt again, or blame themselves much more harshly than what was shown. He seemed way too positive for someone who hasn’t mentally recovered and is now also physically unwell.
•Also why tf is everything so random? Like what is the point of this show? Life is shit? Is that what it is?
Acting and directing:
•The characters spoke too slowly throughout the show. So when they actually needed to slow down to convey emotional weight, it didn’t feel meaningful. Also, why does everyone keep repeating the beginnings of their sentences? There’s so much stuttering that it loses its impact instead of adding depth.
•Seiichi and Sumiko have less chemistry than Sumiko and SuA.
It ruins the entire experience of the loss cuz I don't feel like she loved him that much as to not go out and try to meet some friends and a new man.
Editing:
Editing is a mess. Welp... This is 1/3 editing, 1/3 directing, 1/3 script writing. You don't know how much time has passed and you get lost.
I’m so frustrated that if I don’t stop myself, this review could go on forever about how bad this show is.
Don’t watch it. It’s a waste of time.
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Weaponized Chemistry and Revenge-Fantasy Physics
Forty episodes of emotionally unstable aristocrats conducting psychological warfare under aggressively cinematic lighting while the actors fought for their lives to keep the script from collapsing into decorative rubble.And against all available logic, they nearly succeeded.
The Double understands something fundamentally important about melodrama: if the emotional payoff hits hard enough, viewers will temporarily enter a legally questionable relationship with coherence.
This show does not aim for realism. Realism was found dead somewhere around episode three and respectfully buried beneath ten layers of silk robes, vengeance, and unresolved trauma.
The opening alone arrives with the energy of a writer slamming their fists onto the table and yelling:
“What if revenge, but make it operatic?”
A woman is betrayed, buried alive, resurrected by narrative destiny itself, and immediately re-enters society looking emotionally exhausted but aesthetically magnificent. Subtlety never stood a chance. And strangely enough, this is exactly why the drama became so addictive.
Because when The Double locks into its emotional rhythm, it becomes absurdly entertaining. Not in a carefully restrained prestige-drama sense. More in the sense that every character behaves like they are two personal betrayals away from delivering monologues directly into a thunderstorm.
The directing contributes heavily to this collective emotional overreaction. At times it borders on visual overkill. At other times? The atmosphere truly impacts.
Wu Jinyan especially deserves enormous credit because she understands exactly what kind of drama she is acting in. She never underplays Xue Fangfei to force realism into the material, but she also never lets the character devolve into pure revenge-fantasy cardboard. There is calculation beneath the grief. Exhaustion beneath the elegance. You constantly feel that this is a woman surviving through performance, intelligence, and sheer refusal to emotionally disintegrate in public. Which is important because the plot itself occasionally behaves like it consumed several stimulants and stopped consulting cause-and-effect relationships entirely.
Schemes succeed through destiny-level convenience. Characters appear precisely where the emotional tension requires them. Information travels through the empire at the speed of dramatic necessity.
And then there is Duke Su.
Or rather:
the national emergency that occurred after Wang Xingyue unfolded one fan and started smirking at people like he already knew their worst decisions in advance. This character should not work nearly as well as he does.
On paper Duke Su is basically constructed from every dangerously competent male-lead trope known to historical drama humanity:
politically untouchable,
psychologically unreadable,
suspiciously omnipresent,
and permanently standing one step away from softly threatening someone’s bloodline.
But Wang Xingyue plays him with enough amusement, restraint, charisma, and underlying menace that the performance starts generating its own gravitational field. Eventually you stop questioning why he keeps materializing exactly where the plot needs him. You simply accept that the man apparently travels through narrative tension itself.
And that is the central truth of this drama: the acting performs emergency structural reinforcement every time the screenplay starts cracking under pressure.Because the logic absolutely cracks. Not occasionally. Repeatedly.
Some political developments feel less like strategy and more like emotionally committed improvisation. Several villains fluctuate wildly between terrifying masterminds and deeply unstable theater figures depending on what the next confrontation scene requires.
Princess Wanning in particular operates on such spectacular emotional instability that every entrance feels one rejected conversation away from ceremonial arson. Meanwhile Shen Yurong slowly transforms into the physical manifestation of guilt, repression, bad decisions, and untreated psychological decay.
By the second half, the drama increasingly abandons grounded political storytelling altogether and embraces full emotional spectacle. But unlike many prettier idol dramas, The Double possesses one major advantage:
its cast understands how to weaponize emotional conviction against narrative nonsense. That changes everything. Because viewers can forgive impossible schemes. They can forgive revenge plots fueled entirely by coincidence and rage. They can forgive historical worlds operating on dream logic.
What viewers do not forgive easily is emotional emptiness. And for all its chaos, The Double rarely feels emotionally empty.
Messy? Frequently. Overwritten? Absolutely. Subtle? Not even remotely. But empty? Never.
By the final stretch, I felt like the writers were sprinting through the production carrying armfuls of plot twists while the actors desperately transformed all remaining confusion into emotional intensity before the audience noticed.
A less committed cast would have sunk this drama completely. Instead, the performances drag it across the finish line through sheer force of charisma, chemistry, and collective refusal to let the emotional momentum die.
An aesthetically extravagant revenge melodrama held together by acting performances strong enough to temporarily suspend the laws of narrative physics.
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1This review may contain spoilers
Notoriously Reputed Yuanlongli Building
The old and long-standing building of Yuanlongli is surrounded by many urban legends. Some say it is a ghost building that eats people, others say people vanish in black cloak with no bones left. Things go awry when a pair of father and daughter disappear on the 18th floor of the building in broad daylight, in front of numerous residents of the building. A rumor or an accident, an accident or a well-planned murder? A case spanning throughout three timelines at the cost of numerous innocent lives, what seemed like unconnected accidents were in fact a web of crimes leading into something even bigger and far darker.The story starts off really well in terms of build-up. Starting it all with the disappearance of two living people right in front of people, slowly changing the superstitious belief into reasonable man made activities. I really enjoyed those little introductions and doubts they kept throwing at the beginning and unveiling the story slowly in each coming episodes. And then the chills down the spine when they started throwing clues at the end of episodes starting from ep 8 and 9!
Tho, I wish they could do a better job with the build up of main characters in primary episodes, I was starting to take them really unserious considering how casually they were predicting the entire incident writing a whole script of events based on few clues, and how malleably they kept on changing their predictions on the crime and criminal and labelling all that with fancy high-end terms. I really couldn't take the theory of investigating after predicting, cause that is what lead to constant closing and opening of this case. I really couldn't excuse all of it to lack of gadgets and technology. So in the beginning Ran Fangxu's collection of theories really did not impress me a single bit.
The story started to get hold of the characters after the second timeline, when they actually started concluding the case based on actual evidence and did not presume things unilaterally. I think that was when I finally started getting even more interested in the story.
The parallel storytelling of the second and third timeline kept me invested. Ran Fangxu slowly discovering issues after a co-incidental discovery and then the unveiling and consequences that followed. But the third timeline again lost its spark, while I was indeed into the unveiling of the mysteries, the way those mysteries were conveniently solved in the third timeline made the entire investigation humanly unrealistic. Everything was just conveniently there, there was a child in the building of yuanlongli who was conveniently a hacker and hence could solve every problem, people conveniently remembered the questions asked and investigations made 15 years ago by Ran Fangxu and were able to solve the case. Ran Fangxu's theories conveniently dropped the right clues at the right time, which solved the case easily in hours. I would have preferred if they put the same efforts in the third timeline that Ran put during his investigations while unveiling the story and discoveries made by Ran, so this part made the entire police team's job in the third timeline feel like plot supporters rather than actual job workers with crucial role.
Anyways, coming to the end, it still does not change the fact that the story had me hooked from the beginning and engaged until the end except a few episodes. Starting from the build-up to the suspense, the emotional engagement, the attachment to the characters' emotions everything was so beautiful and well done. Each character played their little role in the drama in bringing the story together. The plot twists were fun, tho I did manage to reach those predictions but seeing them actually happen was fun.
The one that surprised me the most was definitely Wang Hedi, while I would say he has a big room for improvement, this genre switch was indeed well handled by him.
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Perfect First Impression
Zhan Zhao Adventures starts off incredibly strong with an exciting and well-paced first episode. I really enjoyed the way the hero and heroine first met, as their chemistry felt natural and entertaining right from the beginning. The action scenes, especially the fight sequence, were choreographed very well and kept me fully engaged throughout the episode. The production quality, visuals, and soundtrack also created a great atmosphere that matched the adventurous tone perfectly. Zhan Zhao already feels like a charismatic and likable protagonist, and the supporting characters seem interesting too. The episode balanced action, suspense, and character moments nicely without feeling rushed. Overall, this was a fantastic opening episode that immediately made me want to continue watching the drama. Definitely a 10/10 start for me!Was this review helpful to you?
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Delightful feel good story, not to be missed
I truly loved this C drama. Fresh, heart warming storyline with beautiful, talented young actors. Fantastic chemistry between ML and FL and they looked really, really good together. I loved the whole friendship and family vibes as well. To see such enduring love is very uplifting and one can only wish to have such love in real life. The whole production is superb. I especially loved the music. Finally a drama that uplifts the spirit and gives warmth to the heart without any negativity or sadness. Many thanks to the whole crew for creating such a wonderful entertainment for us! Bravo!Was this review helpful to you?
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Not Only One But Two Masterpiece Romantic Stories
Holy hell, this show is damn magnificent! I started this show with zero expectations,. However as the story started progressing, I began to cherish it enthusiasticly. It was beautifully written, not only one but two love stories. The earlier episodes were really slow, I can understand if several audience choose to drop it. But that was the overall pace, and that was the exact pace so we could enjoy this show. The story was all about revealing the truth about a writer, Han Se Ju, and his fan, Jeon Seol, regarding their past life back in 1930s. It was also about slowly revealing the promise they made in the past. As they recalled their past memory, they began to understand what happened and what shouldn't happened, like putting a puzzle pieces together. That slow pace was the way we could enjoy it being slowly revealed. I love the character development of the leads. I was afraid due to their mistakes in the past, they would begin to run away for the sake of avoiding making the same mistake. Thankfully, they all were mature enough, and thanks to Se Ju strong-willed personality due to his childhood trauma, to ensure they had the same vision: to never repeat the past mistakes. There is a good mixture of romance, mystery, and comedy too.The cast did an outstanding performance. Yoo Ah In did a great job, it's a shame he did stupid things later on in real life. Im Soo Jung rarely appears on a drama, and once she did she always had an impressive job. Even all of the supporting characters did an excellent job here.
Several things that bothers me: I still couldn't understand why Seol decided to stay around Se Ju after he was being excessively harsh to her, it didn't make sense at all. I think Cho Sang Mi's storyline was unnecessary. The story about Tae Min and his problematic family was already complicated itself, there was no need to bring another storyline into it. Also, Ma Bang Jin didn't get a proper closure.
The soundtracks are really nice. I enjoy it a lot.
Should you watch it? Of course! If you're searching for a deep, slow-burn, and heartwarming story, you should try this.
And I would like to close the review with this quote from the show. "If you want to say something today, say it. Tommorow might not be yours. Your loved ones won't always by your side."
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1
1This Drama Was One AI Filter Away From Becoming a Luxury Skincare Commercial
I truly think Pursuit of Jade should be studied as a social experiment on how far cinematography can carry a script before viewers collectively start hallucinating depth into it.Because for a while? It works.
The drama arrives looking absolutely gorgeous. Everyone is stunning. The lighting glows softly like the entire empire discovered moisturizer and emotional repression simultaneously. Every frame is composed like it expects to be screenshotted, edited, color graded again, and uploaded to TikTok with dramatic piano music.
And I understand the hype.
I truly do.
This drama knows exactly who it was made for.
If you are:
a younger viewer looking for intense romantic fantasy,
someone primarily invested in the leads,
or simply emotionally vulnerable to attractive people staring at each other while snow falls dramatically around them,
then Pursuit of Jade probably feels like a spiritual experience.
Now before people panic: I am not above this either. If Jing Boran plays an emotionally constipated man in layered robes looking at me like he has not slept properly since the Ming Dynasty, I too suddenly become more forgiving than logic would normally permit. I have absolutely rated dramas higher than they deserved because the atmosphere seduced me into temporary intellectual collapse.
The difference is that those dramas at least entertained me emotionally.
Pursuit of Jade somehow managed the incredible achievement of being both absurd and boring.
That is difficult. Respectfully.
The problem is not that it is an idol drama. I do not judge idol dramas by the same standards as serious prestige historicals. Logic in idol dramas is often more of a polite suggestion than a governing principle. I accepted that before even pressing play.
But this drama’s writing eventually stops functioning even on idol drama logic.
The female lead especially feels less like an actual human being and more like a fantasy of “the perfect strong woman” assembled from endlessly marketable traits. She is endlessly competent, endlessly righteous, endlessly adored, endlessly capable of surviving situations that would destroy normal people — and the script bends itself into pretzels to constantly reassure us how capable she is.
At some point I stopped watching a character and started watching the screenplay aggressively defend its favorite child against the consequences of reality.
Nothing around the characters feels emotionally grounded. Reactions feel manufactured. Conflicts exist because the plot needs another dramatic montage, not because the characters behave like believable people shaped by their environment.
And the political storyline? Good lord.
This drama starts throwing around revenge plots, military conspiracies, assassinations, hidden identities, massacres, power struggles, dramatic reveals, and emotional speeches with the boldest confidence, while possessing approximately 4% of the narrative discipline required to pull any of that off.
Half the time it feels like the script itself only vaguely remembers what is happening.
And then we arrive at the visual processing.
Now listen carefully because some people online hear criticism of AI/post-production and immediately act like you personally declared war on technology.
That is not the issue.
Technology can absolutely enhance a historical drama. But Pursuit of Jade increasingly crosses into that strange modern-drama aesthetic where everyone looks softly rendered by software instead of lit by actual sunlight. Faces are polished into porcelain. Skin texture disappears. Backgrounds glow suspiciously. Entire scenes look so digitally perfected that the physical atmosphere evaporates.
Historical dramas feel most immersive when they look lived in. Dirt. Shadows. Cold rooms. Heavy fabrics. Uneven lighting. Human faces that still resemble human biology.
Instead, parts of this drama look like ancient China was filtered through three beauty apps and a graphics card.
Which is frustrating because Zeng Qingjie clearly does have visual talent. Some quieter scenes actually breathe. Some compositions work. But the production becomes so obsessed with visual perfection that eventually the atmosphere starts feeling synthetic instead of emotional.
At some point I realized I was no longer watching a coherent story.
I was watching beautiful people emotionally wandering through a very expensive AI-assisted skincare advertisement while the script slowly dissolved into decorative mist behind them.
I dropped this at episode 33 after finally accepting that the drama was not building toward complexity, coherence, or depth. It was simply becoming more aesthetically polished while the writing quietly disintegrated in the background.
Perhaps the most fascinating thing about Pursuit of Jade is what it accidentally reveals:
if the actors are attractive enough and the cinematography glows hard enough, audiences will forgive almost anything short of the writers being rendered in CGI too.
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70s problems more than romance
i like it In start thought it will be slow burn romance I'm at my limit dropping at 20what I don't like
1.no romantic interaction at all
2.no slow burn
3.random and forced relationship,and romance
4.ml has crush on FML is clearly visible but FML is not interested in him at all from start till end, he is only friend for her, it looked one sided crush always but suddenly they kiss ? that forced into relationship without any development?
5.ml and FML suddenly get married so I thought now their story starts but no ? they're only focused on career or FML family members that's it,
6. story focus more on life in 70s , problems in 70s than romance, romance is non-existent
7. annoying 2nd couple? why would there be 2nd couple when there's already so many side characters? I felt 2nd couple part or romance totally unnecessary
8. FML wants to get into University but she faces so many problems so many times I'm was fed up ? i was like now now she might get chance but till 20 nothing
9. ml feels dumb sometimes, he is really good still
10. FML and ml both unemployed, or FML work in factory the pay is less I think ? FML got out of parents house so she can focus on carreer and her brother can come home ? any problems solved? no .
i thought maybe slowly both will succeed but , ml got job really late and pay is less I think and FML is still working in factory.
10.alot of annoying people the main head female who denies FML application, another villian ml saved this women but this women always from start till 20 creates problems for fml ml, another not that much but gets in the way of FML she is ml friend
11. the story is full of problems but there's family moments, slice of life kinda.
I'm bored,it's repetitive, no development in romance at all
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superb acting but pretty bad pacing (misleading title tbh)
honestly, i enjoyed the movie. it was interesting to watch and the acting from the 2 mcs was incredible. i enjoy watching these types of movies based on true stories cuz of the educational value and the dramatized version just makes it more fun to watch.however, the film itself was meh. (major spoilers ahead)
like i knew the story beforehand and yea that was fine, but the pacing of the film just ruined the whole vibe for me. i mean yea, the movie was almost two hours long but it just felt so so rushed. like he was turning away all the food served and then suddenly out of nowhere he starts eating and talking/hanging out with all the villagers and then suddenly the coup planning and then it actually happening and then it ended after what felt like 5mins... and then yk the ending happened. it just all felt so quick. like boom boom boom one after another and then end. like yea there's the mcs' friendship but like the progress and when they actually became friends was SO quick and not explored deeply.
idk this is just my opinion
i just wished they gave us more screen time with the king and his warden. since that was the title of the movie, i thought it would focus more on that, rather than the like actual events that panned out in history. the title was a bit misleading tbh. like maybe just a slower development between the two, more time for us to understand them both and how they came about to being super close would've been way better imo. we only get a few scenes of them actually connecting yk.
anyways, park jihoon's acting was great (as usual) he's just on another level fr. he's the goat. and yoo hai jin was great too. he acted very well.
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