Reviews

Genuinely Funny, Great Chemistry

I love when you can tell that actors have worked together for a long time, and that's exactly how I felt watching Tay and New in Dog and a Plane. It's obvious from the start that the two actors understand each other very well, and this is especially apparent in the way they play off each other in comedic moments, and the chemistry they bring in the romantic ones. For a show to be funny in its native language is one thing; for the humor to translate into another language is another talent. This one was genuinely funny, even translated, and was super fun to watch. While it wasn't some deep, emotional show and maybe could've created a little more intrigue or tension in some places, it was still a great time.

Kanit (New) is a flight attendant with a pilot boyfriend, doing very well for himself. During a luggage switch-up, he ends up with the suitcase of rescuer Toto (Tay), meaning all of Kanit's designer clothes were replaced with Toto's cheap and rugged ones. Toto capitalizes on this switch up to try out some luxurious clothing, and ends up paying the price when he gets into a fight, Kanit's clothes get destroyed, and Kanit wants him to pay up. Unable to pay with cash, Toto enters into a deal with Kanit: determine if Kanit's pilot boyfriend is cheating on him. As Toto investigates Kanit's (obviously) cheating boyfriend, he starts to fall in love with Kanit himself.

I really enjoyed this series, especially the first half where Toto was trying to find evidence that Kanit's boyfriend was cheating on him. As a viewer, you're almost immediately aware of the answer, but watching Toto try to prove it was super fun. Then, the development of the relationship between Kanit and Toto was wonderful. I really enjoyed the tension between the characters, Toto's boldness in pursuing Kanit, and the comfortability that Tay and New brought to these characters. Not to mention, this show was super funny! Toto's over the top pursuit of Kanit was hilarious. Plus, Mond and Ryu's roles were a great complement to Tay and New, and I was super invested in their storyline too. Overall, a great comedy that you don't need to take too seriously.

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A stunning visual ride, featuring great acting and a deep mystery.

Luo Yunxi shines bright with great style and strong acting. Cool fights and lovely clothes make it fun to watch.
Found family themes add heart to the story.

Alen Fang's complex performance as Liu Yan is widely considered a major highlight of the series.

They share a captivating, tense rivalry that drives the narrative forward.
Alen Fang breaks out of his usual typecast, brilliantly executing a heartbreaking, slow descent into darkness.

Cool fights and striking, elaborate costumes provide consistent eye candy.
Found family elements balance the heavy plot with heartwarming character bonds.

Slow parts stall the pacing, particularly when navigating the dense mystery lore.
Emphasis relies strictly on martial arts brotherhood and revenge.
Rushed ending drops the ball on resolving several complex subplots smoothly.

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Something New and Interesting

I really loved the storyline of Deep In and how it often went back and forth between the real characters and them as actors. Combining how their characters they were portraying affected them in real life and their relationship. It was something new in BL, at least in the way they captured it. I have some small complaints here and there but nothing that made me feel like dropping the series by any means. I think overtime both Ollie and Shu Yuan will become very skilled actors as they continue on. The only thing I will say I’m a little disappointed in was this last episode, the last episodes in C-BL always feel so rushed and a little unnatural. I wish we had gotten a little more or maybe did a separate episode for the conflict that happened in the last episode and then a final episode with just the fluff of a happy ending. But again, it was concluded overall fairly well but I always tend to complain about an ending feeling rushed when a series I enjoyed feels over a little too soon.

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My fav cbl

This is definitely a cbl that will make it to my top 10 series this year, the characters and storyline was complex, unhinged, intimate and crazy, it was well rounded, its a dark story so it will not be for everyone, the cast did incredible job, the acting was so good The serie within the serie and plot twist by end was immaculate, the serie had one of best pacing I've seen, i didnt struggle showing us 2 love stories in perfect way, kt was entertaining, the chemistry was on point, emotional core was strong, the intimacy was hot, the only issue I had that my shayla was entitled to an apology for the sa by end, im getting tired of romanticizing this in media.
The side characters were good, served different emotions, the director was one of my fav
Anyway this will get long if i get into details, but this was well rounded serie

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An inspiring sports drama about a Winter Olympic discipline

Sport dramas are difficult to make in my opinion, for several reasons. First of all, scripts have to strike a balance between the technical and the human aspects to create compelling storytelling for a general audience. Second, the technical requirements present a difficult dilemma to producers and directors: do you go for athletes with hopefully decent acting skills, or do you choose real actors and train them in the basics of the sport while finding ways to film great sports scenes that remain believable? Beyond**,** a drama about the history of Chinese Olympic short-track speed skating from the 1990s to the 2022 Beijing Olympics, manages to overcome both challenges quite comfortably.

The story starts in 2014 with a young girl determined to compete and win gold medals at the highest level in the sport. Her father and coach were both former national athletes who now coach the next generation. This provides the perfect excuse to tell the struggles and dreams of those athletes back in the 1990s while balancing them with the state of the sport in the 2010s, before naturally culminating in China hosting the Winter Olympics.

From technical and medical conditions to infrastructure, training methods, and the creation of an ecosystem capable of nurturing young talent across different parts of the country before reaching the national team, everything is covered in a very solid way, with a particular emphasis on friendship, mentorship, and the lives of athletes.

The story set in the 1990s revolves around three friends whose lives represent the three main paths within the sport: the outstanding talent who finds himself alone at the top, the good athlete who simply isn't good enough to compete among the very best, and the one who is forced to abandon his passion because of an accident.

On the other hand, the story set in more recent times revolves around teamwork and the individual challenges each athlete faces in the pursuit of gold. The coaches, the former athletes themselves, serve as the link between both timelines and highlight both the evolution of the sport and the contrast between past and present from a national perspective.

One aspect that is sometimes even more touching than the series itself, at least for me, is the brief segment at the end of each of the 29 episodes dedicated to interviews with real short-track speed skating athletes and coaches, sharing their own personal stories; you can genuinely feel their passion and love for the sport. The team behind the cameras used this material to write the script, so each episode's central theme is paired with a real-life testimony told by the people who actually lived it.

The pace is really good, with an excellent intertwining of human relationships and the various sporting situations throughout the whole drama. The focus on the core groups of friends, both in the past and the present, helps us as viewers connect with and become invested in their stories, although I felt that, during the last third of the series, this focus shifted somewhat and lost part of the strong hook it had.

At that point, the drama begin introducing short stories about other members of the national team that, while being representative of the diverse conflicts and struggles modern athletes face and are still interesting in their own right, don't quite have the same emotional impact as the core characters I had grown to cherish.

I'd also like to highlight the casting and directing choices, because the resemblance between the younger and older versions of the characters is fantastic. You can immediately tell who is who in each timeline, and the performances of both the seasoned actors and the younger cast make that continuity feel completely natural. Among the latter, I'd particularly like to mention Teresa Li and Liu Yi Tie, whom some of you may know from The Long Season; they're quickly becoming two of my favourite very young actors.

All in all, it's a very inspiring story about the determination, passion, and sacrifices these elite athletes make in pursuit of their dreams, while also offering an insightful look at the advances in sports science and technology, as well as the importance of public policies that support athletic development.

I wouldn't have expected to become so invested in a drama about a sport I'd barely watched in my life, but I did.

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J'ai adoré l'enquête... beaucoup moins certaines réponses...

Avec "Siren's Kiss", on suit Cha Woo Seok, un ancien policier devenu enquêteur spécialisé dans les fraudes à l'assurance. Réputé pour ne jamais lâcher une affaire, il se retrouve à enquêter sur Han Seol Ah, une brillante commissaire-priseuse travaillant dans une prestigieuse maison de ventes aux enchères. Le problème... tous les hommes qui sont tombés amoureux d'elle sont morts dans des circonstances pour le moins suspectes... 😳

Je commencerais par dire que le rythme est assez lent, mais je trouve que c'est justement ce qui fait toute la force du drama. Plus les épisodes avancent, plus cette ambiance pesante s'installe. Perso, j'ai douté de tout le monde, et le drama m'a donné envie de lancer l'épisode suivant pour essayer de comprendre ce qui se cachait derrière toute cette histoire.

Et alors... qu'est-ce que j'ai aimé faire mes propres théories 🤣. Un coup j'étais persuadée que le photographe Eun Hyuk était derrière tout ça. Puis je me suis mise à soupçonner la présidente de la maison de ventes. Ensuite Jun Beom... avant de revenir à Eun Hyuk 😭. Franchement, je crois que j'ai changé de suspect presque à chaque épisode, et c'est clairement ce qui m'a le plus amusée pendant le visionnage 😁.

J'ai aussi beaucoup aimé Park Min Young ❤️. Son personnage dégage une froideur presque intimidante, mais j'ai senti très vite qu'il cache surtout énormément de souffrance... Le drama joue constamment avec le doute, genre : est-elle une meurtrière ?!? Une victime ?!? Est-elle manipulée ?!? Personnellement, j'ai assez vite arrêté de la considérer comme une véritable suspecte. À mes yeux, elle ressemblait surtout à quelqu'un qui accumulait les malchances plus qu'à une femme dangereuse 🥺.

La romance, par contre est très discrète... mais ça ne m'a absolument pas dérangée. Le cœur du drama reste l'enquête, et je trouve que la relation entre Woo Seok et Seol Ah s'intègre naturellement à l'histoire. J'ai vite compris dans quelle direction le drama souhaite aller avec ça, mais leur alchimie fonctionne suffisamment bien pour que ça reste agréable à suivre 👍🏻.

Petit coup de cœur également pour l'OST 🎶. Elle colle parfaitement à cette ambiance mystérieuse et participe vraiment à installer cette "ambiance".

Par contre... il faut qu'on parle de ce plot twist du milieu... 🤣

Franchement... c'est quoi cette histoire ?!? 😭 Que Su Ho soit en réalité Jun Beom, pourquoi pas... L'échange d'identité à causes des vêtements militaires nominatifs, je l'accepte totalement. Mais qu'après une opération il se retrouve avec exactement le même visage que son meilleur ami... là, je n'ai pas réussi à y croire une seule seconde 😅.

En faite, ce n'est même pas le twist qui m'a dérangée. C'est surtout qu'il casse le réalisme que le drama avait construit jusque-là... Franchement, Si Su Ho était simplement revenu avec un nouveau visage, inconnu de tous, j'aurais trouvé ça beaucoup plus crédible. Là, j'ai vraiment eu l'impression que le scénario me demandait d'accepter quelque chose de beaucoup trop gros et pas cohérent.

C'est frustrant, parce que le drama avait de bonnes idées. J'aurais aimé que certains personnages et certaines intrigues soient plus développés, mais bon, c'est un défaut que je remarque souvent dans les thrillers... ils sont excellents pour installer le mystère et me mettre à fond dedans... mais ils ont parfois beaucoup plus de mal lorsqu'il faut apporter toutes les réponses... 🤗

Humm, sinon concernant le véritable coupable, même si je m'en suis douter rapidement, je ne m'attendais pas à découvrir des motivations aussi tragiques... Je pensais qu'on etait sur une simple histoire de jalousie, pour cause de sentiments inavoués... mais non !!! Et avec ses révélations, je me suis même surprise à éprouver une certaine "compassion" pour lui malgré tout ce qu'il avait provoqué 🫣. Pour le coup, j'ai trouvé que le drama réussissait plutôt bien à nuancer son antagoniste.

J'ai également apprécié que Han Seol Ah soit enfin innocentée 🫶🏻. Après tout ce qu'elle avait traversé, c'était vraiment cool de la voir se débarrasser de cette réputation de "femme qui porte malheur". Tout comme j'étais contente pour Woo Seok qui puisse enfin révéler la vrai histoire sur la mort de sa sœur.

Au final... je suis restée un peu entre deux 🤣. J'ai adoré mener l'enquête, faire mes théories et me laisser porter par cette ambiance mystérieuse. Par contre, la dernière ligne droite m'a laissée plus mitigée avec un twist que je n'ai jamais réussi à trouver crédible. Ce n'est clairement pas le thriller coréen qui me marquera le plus... mais je ne regrette absolument pas d'avoir joué les détectives pendant quelques soirées 😉✌🏻

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Immaculate vibes

Many thoughts. Number one is that the whole mafia thing was perplexing to me the entire time. What were they doing? I don't know. Why were they doing it? No Clue about that either. What I do know is that the men were hot and Vegas stole the show. I read some comments beforehand about him dominating every scene he was in, and you know what, they were RIGHT. Was he the reddest flag that ever walked the Earth? Mayhaps. Was it hot? Damn right it was. Problematic fave forever and always. At some point I stopped caring about Kinn and Porsche, but I must commend this show for including one of my favorite tropes ever - when two nerds are left in the wilderness to fend for themselves. This was such a stroke of genius that I thought maybe that episode was crafted specifically for me.

The lighting team was amazing and production should be proud of how pretty the entire show was.

The sex scenes get a section of its own because they were splendid. The bathroom scene. Need I say more? Speaking of lighting, that green and yellow vibe will stay with me forever. Tied up sex dungeon thing? Hello? Vegas the man that you are……

Special shoutout to Tankhun for being batshit insane but also secretly the wisest person in that house. Reverse shoutout to Kim for being frustrating and emotionally constipated. Side-eye to Kinn for fully forgetting all about Pete in his time of need, but also thank you. Love and lust to Vegas for everything.

You will not like this if you care a lot about everything being consensual and tidy. If it means a lot to you that the story makes sense, you will probably also not have a good time. If you're in need of some good fun with competent acting, beautiful fight scenes and hot men, KinnPorsche will be right up your alley.

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Middle-Aged Men, Assemble!!

The story Agent Kim Reactivated is very good and highly engaging. It won't bore you at all and hooks you right from the very beginning. The story follows Agent Kim, who lives an ordinary life, but when her daughter gets kidnapped, his actual character comes to the screen.

The action scenes are absolutely amazing. The raw and heavy Hand-to-Hand Combat is also incredibly good. Agent Kim's explosive action Comeback is highly impactful, and every single fight sequence has been brilliantly executed. Agent Kim's (Kim Do-hyeon) character is very smart and silent. The actors playing his companions (Choi Dae-hoon and Yoon Kyung-ho) also delivered powerful performances, and their trio looks fantastic on screen. The other actors did a great job too.

The story is strongest in the first half with the kidnapping arc. However, it stumbles a little when the heavy-handed political arc starts around Episode 7. While the story does end satisfactorily, the narrative felt stretched out towards the last couple of episodes.

Overall, Agent Kim Reactivated has a strong narrative and plays well due to it's action sequences, however feels stretched and little bloated towards the end. Although it doesn't get boring, it should have been wrapped up a little earlier to keep the screenplay tighter and more impactful. Still, a great watch!

My Rating : 4/5

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Sweet but Overstretched

A simple, fluffy romance with touches of trauma. Overall, the story is okay. It's your typical romance where the white knight swoops in and saves the female lead. My biggest issue is that if that was always going to be the story, there was no reason for this drama to be 28 episodes. They easily could've told the same story in 20. The script would've been tighter, the pacing would've been better, and the story wouldn't have dragged as much as it did. Overall, The Best Thing is a decent, easy watch if you're looking for a comforting romance with a genuinely lovable male lead. The leads have good chemistry, and there are plenty of heartwarming moments throughout.

The whole ex-boyfriend arc annoyed me, not just because he was such a detestable character, but because we never really learned why he was so determined to get back together with her. Since the drama starts before their breakup, we witness everything unfold firsthand. I actually think it would've been much more interesting if the story had started after they had already broken up. Then the audience could've learned about Shen Xi Fan's past alongside He Su Ye, slowly uncovering what happened and why she became the person she is. Instead, there wasn't much mystery surrounding her history because we already knew exactly what happened, which made that entire part of the story feel far less engaging.

He Su Ye is a major green flag, and it's easy to see why so many people loved him. I also appreciated how the drama handled his ex-girlfriend. They acknowledged that she existed and that she'd had an impact on his life, but they never brought her back just to create unnecessary drama like so many romance series tend to do. Instead, they showed how his previous relationship still influenced the way he viewed love and approached new relationships without turning it into another love triangle. I thought that aspect was handled really well. That said, I do think they leaned a little too hard into making him the perfect male lead. He barely had any flaws, and after a while he started to feel more like an ideal fantasy than an actual person. He was endlessly patient, understanding, accommodating, and willing to compromise. There's nothing wrong with those qualities, but eventually the balance felt off. He became less of a fully realized character and more of an ideal partner.

As for Shen Xi Fan, I found her to be a pretty boring protagonist. Yes, she's sweet, kind, and considerate, but beyond those traits there just isn't much to her. She doesn't have a particularly strong personality, and her character growth feels very limited. I kept waiting for her to become more confident or decisive, but that moment never really came. She spends so much of the drama hesitating and dragging her feet that it eventually became frustrating to watch. I honestly think the ending would've been stronger if she'd chosen to study abroad while staying single. For much of the first half of the drama, she was still dealing with the trauma left by her ex-boyfriend, and then she immediately entered a relationship with He Su Ye. She never really had a chance to breathe or figure out who she was on her own. The time she spent single simply wasn't enough. Let her grow, gain new experiences, and return as a more confident person.

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show that fully earned its (now confirmed) third season

this review is definitely going to be biased because the main cast and the theme are completely my kind of thing. honestly, just getting a show like this already felt like a treat, but the fact that it was executed so well made it even better.

as a kochi fan, i can't think of a better show to fully showcase his strengths and everything he's good at. even before watching, i knew i was going to love it based on the premise alone, and it absolutely lived up to my expectations.

what i didn't expect, though, was how much i'd end up loving the junior cast. i didn't really pay much attention to them during season 1, but by the end of it, i had started to appreciate them a little. season 2, however, took it to a completely different level.

the development of kochi's relationship with the juniors ended up being the highlight of the season for me. i could barely remember most of their names after season 1 (except maybe rinne and takemura), but now i'm actually invested in all of them. watching kochi go from saying at the beginning of the season that he didn't really know how to approach or interact with the juniors to becoming the kind of senior they feel comfortable opening up to, sharing their worries with, and asking for advice was genuinely heartwarming. no wonder totsugi said in the interview that the conversations before bed were his favorite part of the season. i'm really glad they kept the same junior cast from season 1, and i'm looking forward to seeing how their relationship continue to develop in the upcoming season.

another thing i really liked was how they improved the overall format. they clearly adjusted the structure and made everything flow much better. the new rules made the challenge a lot harder, but they also made the show much more interesting to watch. there's still plenty of room for improvement, but overall, i think they did a great job.

totally unrelated, but a few months ago i came across some youtube videos of people visiting the locations featured in the show. they made me realize i had seriously underestimated just how rural and remote those places actually are. i remember thinking the cast was probably exaggerating how difficult the journey was, but if anything, the show actually made it look much easier than it really was. it gave me a whole new appreciation for how hard everyone must have worked behind the scenes.

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L’idea (forse) giusta nel drama (sicuramente) sbagliato

Drama cinese BL con un obiettivo ambizioso: tradurre in immagini una storia che esplora il confine labile tra realtà e finzione, seguendo due attori, Zhang Zhun e Zhen Xin, che mentre girano un drama BL iniziano a confondere i sentimenti dei loro personaggi con i propri.
L'idea di base è anche interessante e, per certi versi, originale: un "drama nel drama" che si interroga su cosa significhi davvero "entrare in un ruolo" e su quanto un personaggio possa contaminare chi lo interpreta. Sulla carta è un’idea vincente, nel concreto lascia molto a desiderare, purtroppo.

La chimica tra i due protagonisti è buona? Dipende da cosa intendiamo per chimica. Sicuramente la serie pullula di scene intime esplicite – non a caso è classificato NC17 – ma la sintonia tra due attori, per me, va ben oltre e comprende un’affinità a più ampio spettro che qui proprio non ho riscontrato. Questo perché abbiamo a che fare con una sceneggiatura davvero basic, satura di scelte surreali tutte volte a suscitare un fremito nello spettatore. E’ una carrellata di “momenti clou” estremamente banali, che tolgono alla storia qualsiasi possibilità di seguire un arco narrativo sensato e credibile. C’è un dramma in ogni sciocchezza e da ogni sciocchezza scaturisce un dramma (si arriva persino a ricamare sopra dei banalissimi orecchini, tanto per dire).
L’introspezione dei personaggi è pari a zero: a conti fatti, tolte le riprese sul set e le dinamiche tra di loro in albergo, cos’altro rimane? Quanto si conoscono veramente, quanto sanno l’uno dell’altro? Poco o niente, al pari dello spettatore. Dovessimo fare un elenco di dieci domande classiche sul loro passato, le loro passioni, i loro interessi… Probabilmente non caveremmo fuori un ragno da un buco.

C’è poi la questione del doppio ruolo. L’idea, dicevo, è anche curiosa, ma lo sviluppo proprio non funziona. I personaggi del drama che stanno filmando – Fang Chi e Gao Zhun – non riescono a diventare un secondo pairing, ma fanno da fastidioso riempitivo. Le loro scene arrivano a occupare la maggior parte di alcuni episodi, aspetto che ho trovato personalmente noioso, già che da parte mia c’era già un grande investimento nel cercare di apprezzare il pairing originale, se così possiamo chiamarlo. Sia nella “finzione” che nella “realtà” relativa, c’è una carenza evidente di sostanza. Tante scene ad effetto che poggiano su poco o niente.

A una trama povera e confusa e a una caratterizzazione inconsistente dei personaggi, si aggiunge anche un livello di recitazione che definire acerbo è un complimento: due attori giovanissimi, al loro drama d’esordio, con alle spalle più partecipazioni a programmi TV che studi di recitazione. Uno è un cantante rapper, l’altro un modello e social media creator. Non ci si inventa attori da un giorno con l’altro, insomma. E nemmeno registi, già che anche qui contiamo un altro esordio di un altro giovanissimo. Che il risultato limitato sia un caso? Direi proprio di no.
Già che però l’idea di base mi incuriosiva, ho fatto uno sforzo e l’ho portato a termine – dodici episodi da quaranta minuti l’uno, perché di più non avrei retto – arrivando alla fine dell’ultimo episodio pentendomi amaramente della scelta: raramente mi capita di essere così lapidaria, ma l’ho trovato davvero un epilogo di rara bruttezza, dove tutto - ma proprio tutto – sembrava veramente fuori luogo.

Dato il livello qualitativo, parlare degli aspetti tecnici non ha molto senso: basta far caso ad esempio al doppiaggio, che è spesso fuori sincrono. Sorvolo poi sulla gestione della logica del set cinematografico, che è qualcosa al di là del fantasioso (ma del resto, regista e attori devono averne bazzicati pochi nella realtà).
L'OST si salva paradossalmente grazie al brano "Tiger in my love" di Ollie, uno dei due protagonisti: decisamente più apprezzabile come cantante che come attore.

Tirando le somme, arriviamo a una valutazione per la quale bastano – e avanzano - le dita di una mano. Ho apprezzato giusto l’idea di base, ma anche con una copertina interessante un brutto libro rimane una lettura spiacevole. Evitabilissimo.

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