Reviews

A solid and satisfying drama

This drama initially caught my attention because of its list of actors. As a long-time CDrama watcher, it was a thrill for me to see Taiwan CDrama veterans like Fang Fang and Zhang Chen Guang cast alongside newer favorites like Elaine Zhong, Wu Xuanyi, Miles Wei, Gong Jun, and Gao Zhi Ting. What a smorgasbord of professionals!
Each one filled their roles well, helping to push the storyline along. While there were a few times in the 40(!) episodes when things did start to feel a bit draggy; something significant would almost always happen in the midst of these "calms" to renew my interest in the plot. So I give kudos to the scriptwriters. (It's my understanding that the author of the original novel was also part of the writing team; which probably helped.)

Overall, it had some of everything -- corporate drama, romance, humor, schoolyard friendship and angst, slice of life, etc... to appeal to a wide audience; and for me, watching it from beginning to end truly felt like partaking in a well-balanced meal. I actually teared up watching the FL get repeatedly pummeled by life. I felt the pain of her losses, as well as the stifling pressure she was under. Elaine Zhong truly gets better with every role she plays, and this series showcased her versatility. Another favorite for me here was Gao Zhi Ting. Having seen him in a couple of other shows ("A Love So Beautiful" and "Young and Beautiful"), he excels at portraying the nice guy who finishes last. So it was refreshing to see his character finally win at love! :)

This drama won't make my list of top picks -- but it was well done. If you're not sure what to watch next, consider giving this one a look.

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Iljimae: The illegitimate Thief

Aside from the obvious writing problems, the story itself felt like it was dragging its feet endlessly. Everything became tiring and dull after episode 4. The male lead was on a life mission to become more and more pathetic with each passing episode. Romance? A pale imitation. There was no spark, no cosmic alignment of hearts, just a void where chemistry should have ignited. And then, to compound matters, they slapped in a love square (pentagon?) that was infested with poorly written love interests between any and every one of them. The ending was a weak attempt at redemption. It rushed to tie up loose ends but ended up creating even more problems, leaving major gaps to what could have been a very simple wrap up.

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Bride of the Century (2014) - this is one of my recommended dramas, I think it is good for beginners as well. What I like about this drama is that I don't know the female lead and I like her so much. Lee Hongki as the main male lead isn’t bad either. I think that since it revolves around romantic comedy, with fantasy genre and how they executed the romance, I was into it and I felt the chemistry of the leads. It has its own revelations that shooked my core, and I was not really expecting the twist at all, since I did not really have an expectation of the drama in the first place. I became attached as to how it would evolve. The drama turned out really well for me as a watcher, and I did rewatch this one maybe about 3 times. I’m happy with this drama.

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King Hater: The Change of Heart

This set up was just terrible— unconvincing, cartoonish, and downright ridiculous. And don't even get me started on that plot armor, it's like they thought they could get away with it. That love triangle was a mess. The guy was just plain revolting, but the real issue was how the writer tried to force us to feel sorry for him. If you're gonna have a crappy love triangle, just stick with it! Another bad habit the drama had was how often they leaned into cheesy drama tricks, killing the narrative and any potential right off the bat. One more thing to mention, I don't know how it's possible but the leads had negative chemistry. Their younger selves had a slightly better screen presence anyway.

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Blood (2015) - it really has potential, the concept of the drama being a vampire aspect as a disease is really cool and great. It was really a different take on having a vampire drama, which is quite the theme at that time. I was impressed at the first parts of the dramas, with all of it's effects and the aesthetic. Mystery wise there are questions along the way that got me curious until it just stop being interesting in the next episodes. It got dragging and the main reason of the drama seems lost. I did not really like how the drama progressed and the ending sucks.

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Blade Man/Iron Man (2014) - I would have this drama good if it was nicely written, I guess? I don't know the main reason but I think there is something wrong with this drama that I was not really engaged into it as much. Lee Dong Wook is perfect for the male lead. He delivers his role perfectly, and acting wise his really great. The female lead on the other hand, I was not really her fan in this drama but she is good, especially with crying scenes. The story between the male lead and his father is heartbreaking for me as watcher, and that what captured me best in this drama. Other than that, it was a drop. So I would not recommend this drama.

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Black (2017) - having seen the trailer on our local television network ABS-CBN before, with tagalog dubbed , I was quite curious why they get the drama, which usually they chose love stories/romance genre as the main genre. The trailer did not really have a big impact to me, but people around me keep recommending this one to me. I am not a fan of both leads especially Ara so there is no main reason for me to watch the drama. Since the theme of the drama is dark, and I like the genre that is not romance I did like it eventually. At first, I was not really into the special effects, I find it awkard and unbelievable but as it progress it gets better especially with the storyline and the actors/actresses did really well, I was hooked. I think the ending is satisfying, the questions were answered but I was still confused.

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Birth of a Beauty (2014) - it really is romantic comedy that is somehow childish for me as a watcher. I find it so because of the leads characters. I like it for what it offers, having revenge as a plot line but not so complicated compared to makjang dramas. The first part of the story is really infuriating, and I think at that era of Korean drama or movies, it was about body image or plastic surgery. Female lead is familiar to me, as I have seen her in other dramas before. The main male lead also did great in acting and I think he always have the same role. But I don't think I was into the drama as much as others, it's one of the dramas that I had fun.

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Murder on the Orient Express

The Ship of Theseus is the translation of the original title of this drama.

The Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment about whether an object, after having had all of its original components replaced, remains the same object. In Greek mythology, Theseus, the mythical Greek founder-king of Athens, rescued the children of Athens from King Minos after slaying the Minotaur and then escaped onto a ship going to Delos. Each year, the Athenians commemorated this by taking the ship on a pilgrimage to Delos to honour Apollo. A question was raised by ancient philosophers: After several hundreds of years of maintenance, if each individual part of the Ship of Theseus was replaced, one at a time, was it still the same ship? (wikipedia)

So what do mythology, philosophy and japanese time slip drama have in common?

Shin accidentally goes 30years back in time and tries to stop a murder from happening and save his father from being accused of committing it. But every time he goes back in time, the future changes and so does his own future: he finds himself on a parallel timeline. So if he manages to change everything, will his future be same or different? Spoiler alert: his future is the same but with different state of his surroundings. Ship of Theseus: he changed everything and still ended up happily married and having a baby with the same woman but the path (ships parts) to it has been completely replaced. Is he still the same person even though he does not have the original Shin's memories (the original ship)? The question remains!

Time travel is hugely difficult to write about because it is impossible to explain logically. Every alteration in the past, necessarily creates another timeline and he can never go back to his original one.

The main plot is a serial murder killing left, right and centre apparently for no reason. Shin and his father try to discover and stop the killer who always seems to be one step ahead while they pointlessly run around without achieving anything. Red herrings abound; new suspects are introduced only to be murdered in the next episode. The plot moves at a breakneck speed. Until it gets too fast: new characters are constantly introduced, those seen just in passing become suspects: basically in last two episodes, everything goes upside down, the suspects are surprising and their reasoning psychotic! Shin runs around, repeatedly promising to save his family from doom and miserably failing, until the final solution turns out to be the right one!

I found the cinematography odd: I had a strange feeling of a low quality production throughout. It lacked warmth. Yes it is a crime drama taking place in the winter but still, it should not have looked so sharp and crisp. The writing was excellent but they crammed too much in it and I would have preferred it to be slower and more menacing. There are a few loose, unexplained events and characters' fates (two policemen, the book, the notebook, the drawings...) The culprit turned out to be based on the one from the aforementioned Agatha Christie's novel. The make up for the older versions of adult characters was weirs: it did not look natural at all: they seemed to be older than they should be! The music was appropriately heavy, sentimental and sad, stressing the tragic events on the screen.

As for the actors, they were all amazing. Particularly the kid who played Mikio: he managed to show the character's multiple different faces with an amazing ease. He is infinitely talented. The actor playing Shin is in excellent physical shape: there was at least one scene in every episode where he runs breathlessly and effortlessly around, either looking for something or trying to get somewhere

I love time slip stories, and I enjoyed this one a lot until I got fed up with the constant twists and turns and fake culprits and annoyed with asian societies as depicted in many dramas where the family of a criminal is eternally held responsible for its one member's misdeeds. Nevertheless, it was a great watch, i had fun!

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Should be called "Sky getting on Venus"

I'm so glad I had a second rewatch of this, I completely skipped out on watching episode 10, which is my favorite. This series was cute If you start at episode 7

Sky & Venus: Venus annoyed me up til episode 7, poor sky was trying to make amends for what he did in the past and he was trying to be happy and let Venus know that he cared about him and Vee was so mean to him, I do like though when Sky went silent for a while, Venus realized he could lose sky if he kept up the act he was doing. Venus also annoyed me during the special episode when Sky was sick and Vee saw the pills, instead of asking Sky what this was, he just left and ignored him. Not to mention, Sky was sick and took care of Venus when he was sick but Vee couldn't stay to ensure Sky was okay.

Janus & Bomb: These two were so funny, I love that they could care-lesswhere they did it. I like that they both didn't let Bomb's mother dictate if they dated or not and they showed her that they love each other.

Tong & Kla: These two were okay, I'm a big Max Detter fan so I loved him but after these two sorted out their differences, they were pretty cute.

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Thanks for coming into my life

This drama made me laugh just as hard as it made me cry my eyes out. 10/10 would recommend.


What a painfully perfect way to start 2024. I loved this drama from start to finish so I want to sing its praises since it’s not often I binge a 40 episode c-drama and don’t feel I’ve totally just wasted my time.

The plot is both simple, easy to understand whilst also being pretty complicated, as it talks about the intricacies of human relationships in relations to royal families, war, politics, found family and of course romance. There were beautifully executed fight scenes, tearful moments and very unexpectedly funny scenes. Like I had moment where I’d burst out into laughter after a scene being completely unexpected.

Every person in this drama has a personality, they all have feelings and emotions that justify their beliefs and decisions. There’s no saintly good person, and there’s no blindly evil character.

Now, onto the main couple, Ning Yuanzhou and Ren Ruyi. Their acting both as individuals and a couple was amazing. The chemistry was passionate and strong, and they were just as strong alone. Their relationship was built on mutual love and respect for one another and it remained that way throughout. I loved their romantic build up, the actual relationship and the way it progressed, I was in love with absolutely everything about their love.

Ruyi, our fl, is badass personified. A strong, powerful assassin to the end, and she was never made to appear weak or incapable due to falling in love. If anything love made her a more thoughtful, impactful person.
Ning Yuanzhou, the ml, is also a strong person who values deep human relationships above all else. He never wavers when it come to defending his family, even if that means staring down the fricking emperor. The respect he has for Ruyi was so swoonworthy and cute, I was quite literally kicking my feet and giggling whilst being slightly upset that he is a fictional character.

I mean where does one find a man who sees me as an individual, and constantly encourages, loves and supports me no matter what, whilst also being outrageously fine af (I say as someone with 0 experience lol). I can’t put it into words how perfect this man was to me. *tearful emoji*

On another hand, the entire cast of the drama were enjoyable. Nobody bored me and although some did annoy me, it just added to the enjoyability of the whole drama.

The extensive soundtrack of this drama was flawlessly beautiful. It was impactful, perfectly timed and honestly just sounded amazing.

To conclude, 40 episodes wasn’t enough. For my piece of mind, I need at least another episode so I can see in detail how everyone’s lives turned out. (Preferably another like 10 episodes but that’s pretty unlikely ik lol).

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Inferior to the prequel

On a surface level, I don't think either this film nor the first film were that unique — the premise and plot development is all relatively expected. But while Part 1 had a really powerful screen presence from its main characters, Part 2 opts for a more cliche, unspeaking "fish-out-of-water" superpowered lead, who doesn't really stand out from the overwhelming number of side characters (there like like four different antagonist groups) who all have the same "badass bad guy" personality.

The plot itself does feel less directed. Whereas there was a clear goal in the first one, this one felt much more passive; we spent basically the entire movie waiting for the bad guys to catch up to where our main characters were, siting still.

With that being said, as someone who understands both English and Mandarin, I did not really enjoy either of those groups. The English sounded fine, but the acting was not good, and it was very annoying to hear "Chief! Chief!" every other line. The Mandarin just did not sound good.

I think the final thing that just made this film feel more unserious was the special effects. There was something very nerve-wracking about all the Part 1 fights being up close and personal, even though everyone had super strength. It made everything scarier and bloodier. In this one, they opt for something in the vein of what the kdramas Strong Woman Bong-soon and Strong Girl Nam-soon went for — people getting punched and flying back 500 feet. It feels more comedic and doesn't at all match the serious tone the film seems to want to go for.

While I didn't dislike the main character, she was just...fine, especially in contrast to the main character from Part 1. In fact, it was amazing how much screen presence Ko Ja-yoon had when she finally appeared, and I realized I'd rather have gotten a story about her journey to getting where she is now, rather than time jumping to her return.

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I couldn't suspend my disbelief any further

When I opened this MDL page I read in the comments that there will be no second season, which is awful since it leaves this drama without a proper ending - not even for its own season. The last episode ends with a cliffhanger, so we will never know what was supposed to happen to any character, even the protagonists. I was very tempted to lower my rating when I read the news, but I guess I'm feeling generous.

The story is about Su Yu and Wu Bi, two high-schoolers who come from very different environments (Su Yu lives with his father in a poor neighborhood, Wu Bi lives a comfortable life with his rich father), but end up in the same classroom and gradually become best friends thanks to a series of coincidences. Little do they know that Su Yu's mother, who abandoned him after divorcing from his father six years prior, just got married to Wu Bi's father, who had been a widower for a few years.
The initial tangle of different relationships between the characters was very interesting to follow and actually made me more and more interested in everyone, even the secondary characters. The resolution of the first main conflict between Su Yu and Wu Bi, however, led the story to a less interesting and much more annoying part: one full with misunderstandings and lack of communication between the main characters. After that, the plot got a lot slower and fluffier, with cute and touching moments between the two main leads and also lots of "fanservice" moments. There were some events here and there to make the plot more lively, but for some reason everything felt much slower and I had trouble getting through the second part of the drama in particular. I also had to suspend my disbelief in multiple occasions, because the abilities of certain characters and the convenience of certain elements of the plot were just too much for me to take them seriously. I could have ignored it if it was just one thing or two, but there were too many times I rolled my eyes at the screen.

The main highlight of this drama are the two main characters. I felt like Su Yu and Wu Bi's feelings were truly genuine and that was great to watch. I know that this was an adaptation from a BL novel and that the love story had to be censored, but the production team managed to include lots of lines, gazes and moments that were just ambiguous enough to make it in the final version of the episodes. The main theme of the story was the idea of "family", in theory, but to be entirely honest I couldn't feel much of a bond between the characters other than between the two protagonists.
The secondary characters did an okay job, with some shining and others not so much. The parents of Su Yu and Wu Bi definitely had a better treatment as their characters got explored.

The production felt a little lacking. I am not aware of how much budget did they have, but there were multiple times when I just thought "oh, I guess they couldn't afford doing this thing properly?" and similar.
The OST seems to be made of two songs that are played at least once per episode, sometimes at moments that didn't fit the mood of the scene at all. To be entirely honest, sometimes I wished they didn't use music at all.

Overall I can't say that I'm entirely unsatisfied, because I felt like the relationship between Su Yu and Wu Bi developing and getting stronger and stronger across the episodes was definitely worth my time. However, considering that this drama is not finished, I'm not sure I want to recommend this to anyone. If you like bromance and you don't mind an open (VERY open) ending, go ahead.

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Beautiful historical love story

Beautiful production with near perfect casting. the chemistry between the main couple was electric, both characters well developed. The rest of the cast and their backstories could have been expanded on more rather than focusing on the historical aspects.

Only negative aspect is that it should have been 16 episodes long. The historical aspects didn’t add much value to the love story other than keeping them apart and bringing them back together. a few of the story arcs could have been left out and they were separated too many times, it became a bit irritating.

But overall, it’s definitely worth the watch.

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