Reviews

A gem!

This Kdrama was an absolute gem! It had me in stitches with its humor, and I couldn't help but fall in love with the main characters. The blend of cuteness and comedy in the storyline is simply delightful, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking for an entertaining series. I've rewatched it numerous times, and each watch brings back that same sense of enjoyment.

For those who appreciate healthy relationships in their dramas, you'll find a strong female lead here who not only stands up for herself but also adds a touch of playful charm to the story. The male lead, too, is endearing and lovable, making for a perfect on-screen pair. Set against a historical backdrop with elements of romance and action, this drama checks all the right boxes.

Now, about the initial deception by the female lead – it's crucial to note that her actions are motivated by a desire to help the king or the male lead and, at times, by a bit of jealousy. However, rest assured, all these aspects are addressed and resolved by the end of the series, leaving you with a heartwarming and happy conclusion.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the drama, I did feel like something was lacking at times, though it wasn't a major annoyance. One area that could have been improved was the ending for the supporting cast. It would have been fantastic to have more information and scenes depicting their future. Such insights into their lives would have added an extra layer of depth to the story and enhanced the overall experience.

I recommend you to give this Kdrama a try – it's an absolute must-watch that's well worth your time, and I'm confident you'll thoroughly enjoy it!

Read More

WATCH IT or NOT?

THE DRAMA WE ALL NEEDED IN 2023!

Here's my opinion soup of why you should WATCH IT:

OMG!OMG!OMG! Much of a rollercoaster, innit? Absolutely love what I am watching and what I watched so far. I am super curious at the end of each episode as to what's next. I really love the pace at which the drama is going. Certainly, keeping me on my toes. Just can't get enough and I don't think it was a good idea to watch it during the airing. Had I known how amazing of a drama this was and how addictive it is, I would have watched it after its airing.

Storyline is so interesting and so well knit, with the different themes that it addresses like friendship, first love-crush, family relations, time-traveling, and more. Now, although all these themes packed into a single storyline is not something new or OG, this drama has quite the charm that makes it feel different. It may remind you of 18 Again, at a certain point, but don't be fooled or quickly judge it so. This feels and is different because of its character dynamics. Not to mention, how much I love the casting for this drama. Got a great cast. Also, I say so because Choi Hyun Wook is one of my biases. He's such a great actor and truly a watermelon popsicle to the eye, especially because of the type of character he is playing. FR. Anyways, the character dynamics is what makes this drama worth watching and I must appreciate the casting director for such excellent casting depicting the synergy.

Personally, I am not a "time-travel" theme watcher but this drama just broke my record. Got me hooked. It bought me with it's rom-com theme. If you're like me, who's not a sucker of time travelling series and finds it overrated, this storyline can be trusted and you can watch it. They backed it so up well with romance (love triangle), comedy, musical vibes, and school-setting. I have had such an emotional connect since the beginning because of scenes that touched my heart and got me teared up (in a positive way). At no point I felt a disconnect as a part of the audience. Which is sooo rare with the dramas of today. And this makes the drama even more special.

I really like rom-com and it is perfectly well done in this drama, given the beautiful cast and the school setting in which it will take place. I really like a good love triangle (or maybe square?). It also gives the vibes "she fell first, but he fell harder" which I absolutely love and we get to see it growing.

Most importantly, I really like that there is no toxic equation or nothing toxic or extremely negative. It all seems warm and happy with slight misunderstandings in relations being resolved or unravelling truths within the story over time travelling. It does give twinkling watermelon to me.

Moreover the negative roles in the drama makes it seem like a modern day princess story where the prince comes at the rescue and to set her princess free. The magician or the helper is from the future and it happens to be their child! This is just magical in the sense of refreshing drama given the chaotic reality of today.

If you liked the review, I hope the drama excites you just as much and that you enjoy watching it.

Thankyou for reading and Happy Watching!

Read More

I ENJOYED IT A LOT!

I've seen a lot of reviews saying how the relationship is toxic. But, whethere BL or not, most dramas are done that way as it depicts reality.

It doesn't mean I support toxic behavior at all. It just mean it's reflecting the imperfect reality of the world.

I dropped this drama the 1st time round too, because I can't stand how there's bullying involved

But, I'm glad I gave it a 2nd try, because...the story actually developed pretty fast. So, we are able to see the progress and see how things are getting better, even though it isn't perfect

What I wanna say is not to judge a relationship too early. It might started toxic, but the more important part is whether it stays this way, which I honestly won't know till I watch S2 and more

But again, I don't really see people commenting toxic relationship in non-BL show. Somehow, this has been a trend in BL community.

If you're uncomfortable, drop the show, but I feel there is no need to backlash it so much, especially if you didn't finish watching it

Don't we watch BL to enjoy anyway? That's why I give my rating not necessarily on any critical factors than the fact that I enjoyed it. Because, I don't care how "pefect" s a show is, it's pointless if I don't enjoy it

Verdict of this BL?

I really enjoyed it. I love the ending a lot.

The chemistry, the sexual tension building up is so well-done.

I wish they have more hot scenes coz I can imagine how hot it'd be, given the passion!

And I'm glad that they FINALLY communicate (what's new lol)

Read More

I can watch it a 100 times and still won’t get bored.

One moment you are laughing your ass off and the other moment it gets soo intense. Nail bitting suspense keeps you watching episode after episode bcz you can’t wait to see what will happen next. And suddenly without realising you reach towards the end ?
Its perfect blend of comedy, romantic moments, political drama and action. Totally different than any other k-dramas that I have watched before. It kept me hooked until the very end which is rare bcz I get bored very easily.

Queens acting just blew me away she did it soo perfectly. The body language, the expressions and emotions all made it a hit. Though I felt bad when bong hwan returned back to his world and the queens soul comes back. It actually felt like something went missing. I feel like some clarity was needed here about the feelings between bong hwan and the king.
I loved the support characters. They did an amazing job. Added it to One of my favs list. Chefs kiss ?

Read More

It goes downhill very fast after the great start

Based on a short, it's obvious after 15 minutes that this lacked the staying power to ever be a feature - let alone a +3 hours mini-series!

The opening shot of this was great. The acting was good as a man turns up at a hotel room to buy the virginity of an 18 year old girl... only, it soon becomes clear that she's a liar and massively over-pricing her services. Renegotiating, my interest began to wane, the girl then leaves the room while the man showers to reveal some kind of massive con operation, and when she re-enters the hotel suite, the man is tied to a gurney, with people standing around bidding for his organs.
This is likely where the short ended - it's also where my interest in this went out the window, as bad acting and dull dialogue crept in. Another 10 minutes of waiting for something to happen, there's the earthquake and the first episode ends.

The second episode features two retards, a constant flickering light and a boat-load of tedium. If the retards weren't annoying enough, the blinking lights caused a headache and all the dumb waiting around to maintain the "one shot" began trying my patience.
20 minutes into the episode, I considered turning it off; when it ended, I had no intention of clicking on the third part.

DROPPED. High production values can't gloss over a crappy script! This really should've stayed a short.

Read More

Looking camp right in the eye

This was a short drama with around 20 min playtime for 9 episodes, but that doesn't stop it from feeling like both everything and nothing happened. With the source material being a heavily smut-based josei manga about a young college student and a Yakuza boss, there isn't alot that implies this wouldn't be dramatic almost fanfic-esque. The story is cliché so if you are watching it better get ready for the "obsessive love"-trope with a hint of "We will never know when it's our last day together"-trope.

Apart from the shows storyline, the campy feeling derives alot from the cinematography and the lighting/cuts in the scenes. The director has made some creative liberties to try to emphasise emotions like the main leads strong passion/love for each other, chock and other emotions. The fact that they get emotionally "transported" to a entirerly different setting decorated with neon lighting in blue and pinks with flowers everywhere everytime they make love was fun and definitely serves to aid in the campy-ness. There was also a filtering blurring effect and bright BRIGHT lights adding an almost washy effect over the whole thing.

I had a hard time liking the acting of the main leads.
The male lead felt like a bootleg version of what the hot Yakuza leader Oya was in the manga. It might be because I had read the series beforehand, but he was just not it for me. Got to give the production an applause for the very good shoulders and back tattoo that was similar to the 2d version of Oya.
The female lead delivered a more toned down version of Yuri as a character comparing to the manga. In the manga, Yuri is alot more bubbly in personality and that is something that sets apart and highlights how differently Oya interact when he is Yuri. Since she no longer has that clear personality, the whole chemistry between them changes (even if the actors stay true to their lines).

Lastly, I gotta touch upon the fashion/styling. With the low-budget production, it is not per se atrocious but it was by no means good. Over the top patterned furniture and clothing choices for characters that felt odd, some of the time, the clothes really felt like costumes more than something that people would actually put on. It felt like it was fashion from like 2015 instead of being 2022.

Storywise, there definitely felt like they ended the show on a happy ending with opportunity to continue alternatively get the watchers to read the manga.

In conclusion: If you are in search of something campy, with a short lenght and over the top romance, this might just be it!

Read More

I'm confused

I am on ep 4 and I am lost. I am so confused. I think I missed something. there are so many names and back and forth. I can't stop watching though. though I have no idea what is going on. I almost feel like I need to watch from the beginning again. I get the point of, 'you should be confused and things will make sense later,' but I don't understand the two different worlds individually.

Is In-gyu yeon-jun? should I start the series over? ugh Now both guys are fighting over her?! How can the show be so good but yet I don't understand why or what is happening.

Read More

Keep in mind that this is a commentary and not an interview. For me, it was fun watching these two react to the first two episodes.

It's nice to get a little background information about how something was recorded.

I like to watch commentaries in general to get to know what the actors think about specific scenes, to get some background knowledge and here: simple to see them again infront of a camera. They have a really nice chemistry!

There's not much to say about this. You shouldn't expect a lot of new information, but it's a nice work on top if you finished the show and want to see some more of them together - just like I did.

Read More

Ambitious but with an identity crisis

** Please be warned that this review contains lots of spoilers **

Watching this series from the vantage point of 2023 was an interesting experience. I can readily see how it must have excited the BL fans of 2016, and can imagine the anticipation for each new episode as the series progressed. Unfortunately, I can also imagine their disappointment over how it eventually ended.

Because, alas, the production ultimately lost its nerve, and it turns out that the conflicted feelings that Jatjang has for his neighbors Earth and Ice are simply overblown.

Well, strike that. The feelings that are overblown are the ones that Jatjang has for Earth in particular.

Because, while Jatjang declares several times over the course of the series that his heart “flutters” for Earth, in the final episode he reveals that he has never thought of Earth romantically or ever wanted to touch him sexually, and he even recoils when Earth unexpectedly kisses him on the lips to help him test how he feels. At the same time, we learn that the one Jatjang has wanted to be with romantically all along is Earth’s sister, Ice.

Jatjang, it seems, has just been a confused straight guy the whole time.

What, then, was all the fuss about? As a viewer I wouldn’t want to endure ten months of suspense only to be let down by such a whopper of a cop-out in the final episode.

Along the way, the series does tackle several contemporary issues faced by teens, and most of the time it handles them well. This includes a nod toward accepting people who are gay, which is laudable, but it must be said that the only two examples of same-sex attracted characters are Jatjang’s flamboyant ladyboy cousin and a closeted art teacher who has molested one of his male students.

Furthermore, once Jatjang’s father learns of his son’s possible bisexual tendencies he’s not happy about it at all. After he discovers that Jatjang has been keeping an online journal, he hacks into his son’s computer so he can read the entries from week to week, and soon pretends to be a concerned stranger in order to exchange messages with him. He repeatedly urges Jatjang not to give in to his feelings for other guys or even believe that they’re necessarily real. Then, once the dad finds out that the boy his son is attracted to is Earth (a friend he's around constantly) just the sight of the two boys alone together drives Jatjang’s dad into panic. This is usually played for laughs but after a while becomes offensive.

By the last episode, Earth and his sister have moved away and Jatjang is back to square one for his romantic pursuits. At the end of that episode (and of the series) someone comes to the house to pick up Jatjang to go to school, and after Jatjang’s sister announces that Jatjang’s “new lover” is outside, the family makes a fuss as though there’s a question of whether this new lover is male or female. We, the viewers, never find out for sure, but based on everything that happened earlier, wouldn’t it have to be a girl? By this point there has been repeated reminders that the only boy that Jatjang’s heart has ever fluttered for is Earth, and of course that was a false alarm—other boys have never appealed to him. The series can’t have it both ways. Once you establish that Jatjang is just a confused straight boy you can’t expect to get away with becoming coy on the subject again.

What cannot be faulted here are the performances of the main leads, Tongtong (Jatjang) and Nonkul (Earth). Tongtong has the most difficult role and completely owns it. His emotional range is amazing. Regarding Nonkul, by the time he was in this series he was already an experienced actor and had previously been in a pioneering BL film, 2014's “Love’s Coming”. (In that film, as here, his character is straight.) His performance perfectly balances the tough and tender aspects of Earth’s personality.

In the role of Jatjang’s dad, Jatjen, Saksit Tangthong is also very good, despite the flaws in his character’s approach to his son. As for the mom character, Pang, I must admit that she really annoyed me. In one satisfying scene she gets called out by the kids for always being a scold, and that’s exactly what she is. By the end of the series her voice grated on me and I couldn’t wait for her scenes to be over. I probably shouldn’t blame actress Aom Piyada for what I didn’t like about the mom. I’m sure it was the performance that they wanted from her.

The series is filmed like a traditional sitcom, mostly on a soundstage with occasional outdoor locations, but not with a live audience. Instead, canned laughter is inserted constantly. The fake laughs seem to become less intrusive as the series progresses, but I can’t say if that’s simply because I got used to them.

One last comment. For the files I used to watch this series, the subs were done by a team that called themselves EarthBangJang Subbers. That name was displayed at the upper right corner of the screen for each episode, serving as a constant reminder of how everyone back in 2016 must have been counting on the series becoming a bonafide BL. How disappointed they must have been when it ended without Earth banging Jang.

So, this is not a BL. I'd even say that there's not a "Bisexual Character" as the MDL tag suggests. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, unless you want to spend 55 episodes to get disappointed for yourself.

Read More

Quite disappointing. A sweet story to pass the time but nothing more.

This will be the shortest review I've ever written. I won't even write positive or negative points like I usually do. Maybe I had high expectations but I was quite disappointed by this drama especially as I loved the other two similar mini-dramas "A Familiar Stranger" and "Provoke". The drama starts with a banging first episode. Intense and eye-catching fight scenes, suspense and beautiful romantic feel of the main leads. But it's all a lie as the majority of the episodes are about watching the daily lives of the main leads - sleeping, eating, cooking, going to the market etc.

I really enjoyed the first half of the drama as we got to see how the main leads fell in love. However the second half of the drama felt very underwhelming as virtually nothing big happened. I was really struggling not to fall asleep. The plot didn't intrigue me even one bit and the fact that the biggest conflict in the whole drama was resolved in the final episodes in two seconds by a random side character.

Overall I still may recommend this drama as everyone has different tastes and what I didn't like someone else might enjoy. But personally for me this was a huge disappointment plot wise which is a shame since the cinematography and cast were great.

Read More

Ending sucked

It was totally unnecessary the way they ended it. I was so disappointed when two of my favorite actors were in this drama and the writers had to end it the worst way. They should have made it better to where people want to keep watching it. I have no desire to watch it anymore. I thought that this was going to be one of the best dramas I’ve ever watched to date but boy was I disappointed. They need a second season to see how they rekindle, and if he gets his memory back because that was a bunch of crap, and totally unnecessary for them to go to Africa, which made no sense. It was stupid. I’m really disappointed in the actors and directors. I will never watch another one from the Writer again. I am just baffled by what they did. And the extra ending made no sense. They need to have a second season to see how it rekindles and what happens. at least do a mini series of 10 or 12 something to give the viewers a happy ending that they should’ve had to begin with. I regret watching this when I was watching the first 30 episodes I loved it and then from episodes 31 through 38. Totally disappointed me that I regretted ever watching this. That Writer needs to redo the ending and do another season. That is my opinion in my review I would not recommend this to nobody do not watch it.
DO NOT WATCH IT WORDT ENDING EVER ON A DRAMA!

Read More

Emotional & romantic love story that could have been great

The drama tells the love story of the dragon male lead who falls in love with the mortal female girl and spends four lifetimes protecting her silently with the hope that one day he will be together with her. The story starts beautifully, like a fairytale. The first 10 episodes focus on the main couple falling in love, and if you are a hopeless romantic you will definitely love this part. Then we have a separation as the mortal girl is reincarnated which is fine at first. Until she reincarnates again, and again. What could have been a sweet and romantic love story turns into a repetitive plot with zero development between the main leads after episode 10.

THE SECOND COUPLE IS WORTH TO SEE:
The love story of the second couple was perfect. "I-love-you-for-a-thousand-years" vibe. They have the perfect organic development and steal the spotlight especially in the second half of the drama. We see them bickering, we see them becoming friendly, we see them falling in love. We see them as the perfect star-crossed lovers. They had the sweetness, the angst, the fire chemistry, the grumpy/sunshine trope, cold man with bubbly woman.

HOW I RECOMMEND TO WATCH THIS:
I'd recommend watching episodes 1-10, then only watch the second couple while skipping the rest, and then finish the story with episodes 29-36. You won't miss anything plot wise because nothing happens in the 2nd and 3rd life. Honestly, if this drama was only 24 episodes with only the 1st and 4th life it would have been perfect for sure. Not that the 2nd and 3rd life are bad, if you watch them as 4 mini dramas they are interesting but the fact that for 17 episodes there is zero relationship development for the 1st couple is just horrible writing.

MUSIC:
I have to specifically mention that I loved the OST and I played the ending song on repeat non-stop. If you drop the drama, at least listen to the ending song as it's perfect.

THE FOUR LIVES:

1st life: ep 1-10 (10 eps)
- FL is an orphan, working as a maid. She is soft hearted and helps animals. This is where the main leads fall in love and it's done really well.

2nd life: ep 11-17 (7 eps)
- FL is hard-working, independent and head-strong. She is bullied by the village’s annoying girl. Honestly nothing much happens and you can totally skip this life (but watch the second couple scenes).

3rd life: ep 18-28 (10 eps)
- FL is a general and the strongest in the army, she is giving Mulan vibes.
- The best villain of the drama is here.
- Great war and fight scenes.
- Feels super draggy with boring side characters. The plot doesn't move forward. Zero development for the main leads. You can totally skip this (but watch the second couple scenes as they are amazing here).

4th life: ep 29-36 (7 eps)
- FL is born into a wuxia sect that fights demons. Everything is revealed here and we have a great final battle (it's low budget but still done well).

OVERALL:
I did enjoy watching this but I'm disappointed because the plot had great potential for the main leads but didn't deliver. I still recommend people to watch this but skip the parts I mentioned above. In terms of acting, I was very pleasantly surprised by the FL. She was phenomenal in playing 4 different characters. ML was a bit stiff but somehow it fitted his character. The second couple were perfect in every way.

Read More

Nothing new

Drama was same like any other drama which was based on Boss and his secretary or Boss and his employee. In starting of such dramas the boss gets irritate with his secretary's work or by her behaviour and slowly slowly starting care her . Here little change in the story she was neither his employee not secretary in starting , circumstances made her work for him . She has her advertisement company so she had tie up with male lead's company . In starting their views never matched but he had a past story with her so sometimes he had soft corner towards her and then gradually he fell in love. Then some problem had been created in their life so there was turn in their love story but he gradually solve the issues and there after happy ending.
Though I enjoy watching love stories but this drama bored me a lot .

Read More