On a Special Note:
Acting/cast: Takuya Kimura(one of my favorites) and Kou Shibasaki (another one of my favorites) did amazing jobs as leads. It also helped that they had a great supporting cast.
More Please!
I was really hoping for some romance between Lloyd Ando and Asahi Ando - maybe this was a territory the writers did not want to explore.
Honorable Mentions: Sapuri and the evil little girl. Sapuri was the comic relief for this show; her character did a good job of keeping the light-heartedness of the drama. The evil little girl was just that - evil to the core and I love when characters have no redeeming qualities; because sometimes people do not change.
Would I re-watch?
Yes, this was actually a re-watch for me since the show last premiered.
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Pyo Na Ri engages the world like an underdeveloped child. Her codependent interactions, emotional instability and what could only be called pretending to be interested in her high school aged brothers life should serve as no example for an adult woman trying to make their way in the world.
The undeserving male lead remained self absorbed and undeserving for the duration of the show. The second male lead character was so much of what you want in a man and definitely should have received more air time.
The music was appropriate and hilarious at times (no, no, no nooooo! lol) the wardrobe of everyone EXCEPT Pyo Na Ri was on point.
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Story
The story was great- up until around episode ten. Then from that point on things start to go downhill. By episode ten they've pretty much covered the main story line and after that they had to bring out all of the K-Drama BS like going to another country/going away, break up for no reason, stupid second-lead, getting into trouble out of nowhere, etc. It would have been perfect if they ended the drama earlier.
Overall though, I liked the plot. It was simple and effective. Rich guy loses his memory. Country hick finds him. They survive in Seoul together. There were many sweet moments because of this setup.
Acting/Cast
The acting was great. Usually the female lead doesn't interest me that much but this one, Go Bok Sil, was great. She never really did any K-Drama female lead BS until the end, and even then it was kind of understandable. She was overall one of the better female leads I've seen.
Louie was great. He really seemed innocent and sincere the entire time, and his smile, well, both of the leads' smiles, warmed my heart. Again, the lead was different than usual. He was not a jerk at all and he was outright funny a lot of the time.
Hated the second lead. I like his actor but his role was pointless. He never had a chance and he knew it (he never even confessed his feelings). He took up precious screen time that could have been filled by the leads.
Music
I only really like two or three songs from the OST, but the drama also had a lot of English songs that I liked that were sometimes the titles of episodes. Some of the song choices, in particular two that I won't mention, were absolutely hilarious. I haven't laughed so hard at a K-Drama in a while. All I can say is that the execution was perfect.
Overall
Watch this drama! Even though I say it is only good until episode ten, that is a fair amount of good episodes for a K-Drama. Also, you can just skip through the bad parts in the last six episodes to get to the good parts like I did if you really don't want to sit through them. This drama will make you smile and it is a pleasant surprise. It didn't feel cheesy at all.
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also the actor and actresses are gorgeous, the acting is pretty good, just feel like the main actress doesn't have enough experience so her acting is't as amazing as others but its still a pretty emotional drama
also the dude potraying yuwen yong is like 6'3 while the main actress is only 5'5 the height difference looked kinda weird throughout the whole drama :P
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also tang yan and yang rong are two of my fav actresses they have such amazing acting skills, esp yang rong whenever she portrays an evil character
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Beautiful
the best word to describe this would be beautiful, theres nothing to not love about this except for the fact that chinese dramas are always so sad :( also i love that they didn't use filters and makeup to cover up liu shi shi's skin when she had a bit of acne, it looks way more natural like that. i love the music too!!! still listen to it 10 years later hahaha, im obsessed with angsty stories like this but most of the plot and people's motives seemed very reasonable and logical to me compared to a lot of the other dumb time travel dramas i've seen recently. i like how they placed lots of emphasis on the ancient societal views and maertai ruoxi's unique beliefs and values in that setting.Was this review helpful to you?
also i love fan bing bing and all the actors and actresses
one thing was htat i hate how it stopped when the chinese gov said the was too much cleavage showing up, i was just annoyed that i had to wait several days to continue the story
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anyway just dont understand why this one was so popular, it was just an ok drama
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the scenes are beautiful but the clothes and hair accessories were kinda weird esp the ones for weiyoungs wedding and queen headdress, also i didn't like some of the actors, they just didn't fit some of their roles. love the songs they were so beautiful too
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Shopping King Louis really surprised me with its unique take on rom-coms and its unconventional characters. It took a more comedic aproach to the story and I really aprecciated that, because a lot of writers forget that they are making a rom-COM but I gues they have the right to choose. I still really wish that they would have just taken out the 'melodrama' out of their genres list, because a) not a fan of those and b) they did a really poor job at mood changing. It felt like they don't really know if this is a serious drama or are they just making fun of cliches so they kept jumping between the two and it just felt so poorly done. And the melodrama was soooo cliche that the unique feeling they had built up just vanished into the air. And if they had decided to keep up the comedy throughout all the 16 episodes it still wouldn't have been enough, because even if they had a unique twist to everything the story as a whole, the base, wasn't that original, in other words, not enough to keep the audience entertained for 16 hours. Now I think if you watched this drama while it was airing you probably didn't feel like it dragged but as someone who watched an episode per day it got extremely boring towards the end. I felt like this drama only needed 10 episodes, because past that nothing really happened, a lot of boring melodrama took place, the writers did an extremely poor job at combining and switching between comedy and melodrama, the cute romance reached its peak and then my interest in it just steadily dropped.
The characters were all awesome. Bok Sil and Louis were a perfect couple - kind hearted, naive, but not stupid. They were truly two pure angels and I loved them. Adored the supporting cast, all of it honestly. They all were pretty unconventional. I especially adored the details: what Louis's favourite coffe is, that *ahem* sound that Mr Cha keeps making, how Heo Jeong Ran is kind of gangster like, how Baek Ma Ri learns by heart what to say to people and so much more. I like that a lot of the supporting cast grew throughout the show and by the end were better people. But I still feel that the writers really forgot to end our supporting casts story properly. And again no matter how unique they were, the characters weren't enough to keep the story going for 16 episodes blah blah blah...you know the deal.
The only thing I have to say about the acting is how amazing Seo In Guk was in this drama. I watched him act in I Remember You (nice drama btw worth checking out) and I was amazed, because the roles he played in these dramas were both so different yet he managed to pull them off so well. Some actors are amazing but all their roles seem pretty much the same. But he went from a serious - never smiles kind of guy, to a total naive kid and my mind was blown.
Shopping King Louis is the kind of show you can't take seriously, because you'll hate the characters from the first second. (I mean can Loius be even more spoiled?). It has a bunch of flaws and there isn't anything that would make me say that this drama is a must watch. But if you're a Rom-com lover, like me, and you're looking for something sligtly different then this is definitely worth checking out.
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At first my reaction was WTF *ugh* will I really be able to watch this? However I came to realize that what usually annoys me about Taiwanese humor was very delicately directed. I started to enjoy myself and have to admit that I was taken by the story and surprised at the end.
Lovely colors, dramaturgy and cinematography. Good production value, nice music and audio design. The actors are pretty good because the directing is wonderful!
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The story is basically a big, intricate spider web where everything is connected. What seems to be individual cases, slowly all begins to be pieced together into a large puzzle. It was fun watching that happen and trying to guess the criminals along with the characters. I also have to mention the incredible cinematography. The first few episodes really impressed me in that regard because it almost seemed like I was watching a movie. And at the short length of 30 minutes an episode, it went by quickly.
There's definitely less romance in WASFIL in comparison to LMIYD but the chemistry between Wang Kai and Olivia Wang is still palpable. It's definitely a more emotional and intellectual connection, rather than physical. Nevertheless, they worked extremely well as a team and the few moments where they did have romantic moments were thoroughly satisfying.
Music didn't really stand out to me other than the theme song and end song; they're fitting to the drama.
The reason why I couldn't give a 10 was because I felt like some areas were rushed. The drama could've been longer and more fleshed out. (I read the novel) Though the novel was more detailed, Wang Kai and Olivia really brought Ji Bai and Xu Xu to life, exactly how I imagined the characters to be.
I recommend this drama. It's a twisty, mysterious, suspenseful, and romantic drama that keeps you on your toes. The twists are unexpected too!
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Thailand movies/series are good in making story about boys love. Definitely this is something you need to watch.
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Based on a book and on a real life empress, Princess Wei Young depicts the fight of a woman for justice and her love for a man that loved her back in equal measure despite the political plots, vengeful twists and turns and machinations to keep them apart. The drama however masked under a quest for vengeance is a pursuit of happiness in the form of love, greed, revenge, ambition and desire for power which contrasts with the reality of ancient times where love didn't rule the world and women were nothing more than possessions to be disposed off by their fathers into marriage to strengthen their family's power.
The characters and performances
Wei Young is an interesting character albeit mellow and reactive; she's doesn't set the pace, she follows it. She's soft even when she can't be bordering on aloofness, a contradistinction with her strength and drive on paper and most likely with her real life persona. Wei Young ought to be fierce, driven, determined, proactive and engaging, but she's not yet somehow despite the flaws the character is likeable.
Touba Jun looked most often than not a lovesick man pining for the woman he loves. Without the period wardrobe he would be just another contemporary man running after his love. For a male lead he lacks spunk which might be attributed to how the character was written or how the director wanted it to be performed. Regardless Touba Jun is visually appealing to watch on screen therefore what is lost in character is gained in beauty, not entirely a bad thing if the drama was a period adaptation of Boys over flowers in the palace.
Chang Ru and Touba Yu are machiavellian scene steallers. Chang Ru is a weed pretending to be a naive flower that uses people to accomplish her own personal agenda without them knowing about it. Clever, manipulative and ambituous, she's an expert at deception like Touba Yu, the man she loves; the man that wants Wei Young. Both characters are complex and have such a strong presence on screen, that is fascinating to watch despite all their plotting and coniving misdeeds.
The music
The opening theme is A-Lin's A Moment ir Romance, a sweet ballad about loving someone until one has to say goodbye, wanting to be together. The closing theme, Gifted is sang by Princess Wei Young's leads Tang Yan and Luo Jin. Both reflect the story well and are sang beautifully.
Overall
An interesting story with a good cinematography, well crafted and visually stunning that is both enganging and moving, despite the flaws of the lead characters, that acted more like secondary characters in their own story. Someone's loss is another person's gain and Chang Ru and Touba Yu took the opportunity prsented to them and showcased episodes of pure magnetism on screen, therefore, for all the above I rate it 7 out of 10.
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