This review may contain spoilers
Disappointingly overrated
Ning an Ru Meng started off very well and somewhere around the 15th episode I was convinced this was one of the best historical dramas this year, It certainly had all the right elements: a potential redemption arc, political intrigue, interesting characters.Let's start with the positives: I enjoyed many things on the show. The flashbacks to the previous "life" were very engaging and well tied to the present. I enjoyed many of the characters and their little arcs. Among them the characters with the most engaging character arcs were You Fangyin (whose arc kind of ended very early on) and the princess (a very good performance from Liu Xie Ning). The political drama was overall quite enjoyable till the second half of the show, although a lot of it wasn't particularly complex or unseen before.
Now the negatives:
The romance. Yes, the “romance”. Replace the handsome Zhang Linghe with a not-so-pleasant-faced actor and many of the things he did to Ning will appear creepy. Yes, very very creepy. A teacher who has power over her - who can kiss her forcibly and make her cry. And how many times did Xie Wei do this? Episode 32, episode 34, ep 36. This toxic love story is sold to audiences at fantastic paces. In episode 34 Ning tells XW that she does not love him, so what is his response? Basically it was something on the lines of- “the things you’ve done for me prove you love me” and then he drags her outside and forces her to plunge a knife into his stomach. Hmm. Ning has done a lot of good things for many people- does that mean that she loves them all?
Well, that brings me to the person she actually loved for most of the show - Zhang Zhe. She loved him so much that she died for him in the previous “life”, and she retained those feelings. It soon became obvious that the two of them loved each other. So, circumstances allowed his feelings for her to grow - he was certain she loved him too, and in this life there were no real barriers to them being together. In fact, as it is established later on, her father would have readily chosen Zhang Zhe as a son-in-law. Yet, the novelist/screenwriter decided to put an end to this love story in the most ridiculous way possible. No-one breaks up with the one they love when their beloved is suffering. Soon after his mother died, Ning decides to break up with him and she chooses to do it by pretending that she never loved him, wringing his heart dry. It was absolutely convenient for the story not to show Zhang Zhe much later either, and neither do we watch Ning weep over him.
What was the reason for that breakup? Truly insignificant. In order to prevent him from hurting further, she hurt him even more. It truly makes no sense. Are the novelist and screenwriters suggesting that good people don’t end well? Evidently, one need not look further than Zhang Zhe to find that.
In truth the purpose of cutting short this love story short is to allow the male lead and female lead to get together. By episode 34 however, she herself says that she doesn’t love Xie Wei. Of course, everyone is busy convincing her that she DOES love him. The music is suggesting that, and all of XW’s crazy, obsessive behaviour suddenly appear romantic.
Show don’t tell- evidently the screenwriter forgot that.
Xie Wei kisses Ning’s forehead after she is flogged by Xue Shu. As I said earlier- replace ZLH with someone ugly and this won’t fly that well. Her father happens to see this and confronts XW indirectly, but XW’s reaction is hardly apologetic. Instead it’s almost as though he owns her. Then when he goes “crazy” he kisses her forcibly. The background music really presents it as the most romantic scene ever.
This toxic “love” story is presented as the most beautiful one and that is truly a concern. The wrist-pulling, force-kissing abusive ML is presented as an ideal partner? Is it 2023?
I think had this story been placed in the back burner I would have been somewhat okay with it, but when the screenwriter decided that the ML and FL must be together the plot turned to ridiculous mush. All the palace politics that had held my attention earlier dissipated.
This show started off solid - it was interesting, and then it nosedived its way into a toxic “romance” with the historical bits taking . The performances have been good, and ZLH may have received his best role so far. I really enjoyed several characters and I wish the show makers had spent more time on those character arcs.
Overall I am so so disappointed. and I think 8 is already too high.
(My actual rating: 7.75)
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Chato, morgado, lento...
Lento demais, atuação ruim do passivo, ativo toxico e passivo submisso. Passivo cu doce demais. Que demora pra rolar um beijo. Pote de estrelinha? tenha dó!! E esse "PiDinÔ... irritante!!! Dropei!!!!!!!!!! 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
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Poorly written drama!
A Badly written story with great actors who tried to atleast make it watchable.grandmothers love story was unnecessary.
bread song story was waste. He could have been main villain and written as most dangerous.
Ryu Si O.. he was portrayed as tormented boy, they wanted us to feel bad for him and support him, but then instead of showing his redemption, they put him on killing spree, even trying to kill Nam Soon (the girl he loved and trusted)
Kang Sik and Nam Soon love story was just there. no development.
The Homeless characters are just there. no significance.
oof! writers messed it up!
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Not a very good sequel,/spin off nope not very good at all...
This is pretty much what you get if you take the Adams family, give them superpowers add a bunch of odd stereotypes, put them in mission impossible goes honest and becomes a cop show honestly any cop show will do put them all in a blend/word mix app and ta da you got this show.The most interesting character in the whole show is the villain who is not only fine but is the only one with a story... Dude is as evil as evil gets but he has his reansons and if only he were the male lead, maybe just maybe Nam Soon could have turend the bad boy good... or we could make a copleatly different story just for him maybe have him date the mom in reverse K2 type deal or maybe just give him a different lead to fall in love with all together... Anything would probably have done and uped the score from this otherwise pretty boring mess...
That said there are some moment of interest and intense stuff some of the friendships here are nice and the mom and grandma have their moments. The. grandmas guy and the cop male lead have thier moments of sweet but to be honest t he cameos 3 seconds of Bong Soon probably stand for one of the stars in this rating.
So if you loved the first season for it's chemistry and fluff, You are bound to get disappointed as it is just not there...
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This review may contain spoilers
Very underrated drama
Honestly i loved almost every minute of this show.But before getting into it i feel like i have to talk about Misaeng which is what i consider to be one of the greatest kdrama ever and basically a blueprint for all Work/office based dramas. Misaeng had a very realistic portrayal of life and i ended up being emotionally attached to most of the characters in it, this also happens to be why i've never rewatched the show, i consider watching it again as emotional abuse because it has loads of depressing and sad scenes.
Agency almost feels like the opposite of Misaeng, it doesn't feel as realistic, you'll like the characters and understand their actions but you won't end up being as attached to the characters as you do in Misaeng for example though you understand the female lead, her actions and why she is the way she is you'll not be as attached to her due to her toxic relationship with work, unless of course you suffer from any of the issues she has. Even with my favourite characters of the show Han-na, Mr Park and Eun Jung, its more of a feeling of wanting them to have more screen time rather than any attachment to the characters.
What made me like the show is how it managed to balance all the typically boring work scenes with light comedy & melodrama most work based dramas tend to over do the comedy with wacky crazy scenes you don't really get that apart from some scenes with Han-na, like sometimes you want to watch something serious/mature but not overly sad/depressing or have too many silly comedy scenes, due to this I will definitely be rewatching this multiple times in the future.
My only grip with the show is that the FL's relationship with her mother & pills could've been fleshed out more, it felt like they either forget about character development and decided to add subplots for this at the last minute or they planned for character development and just gave up half-way.
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This review may contain spoilers
Friends Forever
What could have been huh? There's no telling though because absolutely nothing happened in the two episodes. It took an episode and a half for the contents of the synopsis to take place, leaving no room for anything else to happen.What followed was a whole lot of flashbacks, which would've been understandable if this was a long format series with a lot of twists and turns and actual intrigue and suspense about who the murderer is. Unfortunately, since everything is incredibly obvious, the flashbacks play no role. It would have at least made sense if they were just showed once, but one scene was shown as a flashback multiple times, and this applied for several scenes.
It's a shame though, because there was absolutely no story beyond the synopsis, no proper genre you could think it is, and not even a proper conclusion to what could have been a solid miniseries.
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Worth watching
Zhang Zi Yi and Zhou Yi Wei are both superb in portraying their characters, their chemistry is so good. I really enjoy watching this drama. The cinematography and costumes are beautiful; the production, plot, scenery, setting, story and acting are outstanding. I love how Awu's growth and maturity develop as the story progresses; her behavior before she was married to the general and after she became the general's wife. Overcoming so many, challenges, betrayal, and trials; their love and devotion to each other develops with honesty, respect, openness, trust and caring. This is how a strong and relationship is formed. Zhang Zi Yi is a great actress, extremely talented and very versatile; her acting is believable.Was this review helpful to you?
Losing interest
Full disclosure: I am a huge fan of the FL actress: Park Eun BinI have watched almost all her drama!
From the title, I thought it would be about singing .... not family violence and abusive relationships ... the abusive dad story breaks the mood. I don't like to watch abusive stories so this is not my type of drama.
The story is not focused. To many stories and not enough about the Diva. I find it very difficult to connect with the main leads and their love story as adults because they don't spend enough together as a couple.
I can't connect with her as a singer either because the singing story is not continuous and distracted by other stories about family.
There only 12 eps. I feel it's too short to be focusing on crimes, family abusive relationships, etc ... more should be focused on her story ... I think there would be lots of good and funny moments about her adapting to a new modern life. But no: the writer chose an easier route through abusive story! I guess it's easier to write that story because funny stories are more difficult.
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A serene of young love
I have my doubts about adding this one to my list solely because of how misleading the poster was. It was far different from what the actual vibes of the story were. The poster is somehow dramatic and I thought that it would be a devastating series with a lot of pain but thankfully, I came across with non-spoiler comments of how beautiful the setting was.Characters are fluff and sincere. I love the innocence and kindness that Ryuji-kun has and how he manages to embrace Amane’s feelings in the end. A short BL that did a remarkable way of flourishing the main character’s growth the moment he finds the one with letting go of his past lustful intimate fling with others.
The story being produced in a seaside city was indeed an appealing sight to see and gives the highlight of being covered in warmth and affection that the story is trying to tell its viewers. I wanted to try the summer season living in that beautiful rural town.
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You can watch but don't expect to much.
Personally, I'm still enjoying some scenes in this drama despite some serious scriptwriting issues and I give this drama a big minus because of the scriptwriting.I actually have no complaints about the side stories in SWDBS because there weren't many of them and they were all really fun characters, but in this drama, there's so much focus on other stories and too many side character stories that the writer neglects our main couple story.
Grandma's story is my favorite out of all of them. She has a lot of scenes but doesn't overshadow the main characters' stories, and her love life is seriously hilarious.
As for the main couple's love story, I'm neither a villain team nor a male lead team.
The writer appears to be forced to cram their love story into this investigative comedy drama. I'm still puzzled as to why the writer gave the villain to have some feelings for the female lead. Logically, he was not supposed to feel kind toward other people and certainly wasn't supposed to have put any trust in other people, since he was raised by other villains.
Regarding our NamSoon, I genuinely enjoy her outgoing nature. She loves herself and is an optimistic girl. It is unfortunate that her mother's story overshadowed her own because the author is overly fixated on the mother.
Anyway, I'm still looking forward to their third season. Despite the fact that there appeared to be less plot in season 1 than in season 2, the first season was a lot of fun. I just hope the writer writes better characters and a better script that focuses more on her main character's story.
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One of the best romantic movies
It's a high school love story. Heartwarming in the end. It shows the friendship of people. A really beautiful, cute, sweet, sad love story. It is not a romantic comedy type of movie. It shows the beauty and sadness of teenage love.It is one of the best romantic movies I have ever seen.
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I don't have more words to tell about it. Simply perfect MOVIE.
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standard Thai romcom elevated by Off & Gun
Overall: this is a pretty standard Thai romcom, it was nice to see Off & Gun again. 12 episodes about 45 minutes each. Aired on GMMTVs YouTube channel cut and WeTV uncut.Content Warnings: past death, grief, mental health struggles, stalking/harassment, bullying, dead body covered, slap, homophobia, unwanted outing, punch, non con video recording/sharing, cyberbullying
What I Liked
- reverse personalities/dynamic from their previous characters
- laughed a few times
- sweet moments
- dream sequences
- motivations/responses of the main leads make sense
- how Prem checked in about Ten's boundaries
- Prem/Ten's mutual and ongoing affection, being supportive of one another
- supportive grandma, Unky's parents and the stepmom
- Ten apologizing for what happened in ep 10
Room For Improvement
- started with an inner voice exposition dump
- not a fan of an aggressive pursuer/reluctant pursuee for the side couple (liked them more starting in episode 7), and then there were some unwanted relationship games in ep 8
- quite a lot of the intended humor was a miss for me
- choppy at times, heard the uncut is less choppy
- the long press and hold kiss with zero lip movement, need more energy in their kissing
- comedy sound effects made things less funny
- could have condensed into 8 episodes, felt slow
- ep 8 the friend going as the in between felt very immature instead of funny
- was disappointed about the Unky arc/telling others without first checking in with the person
- punch was unneeded and then the scene after was jarring with the different tone
- a dad who slaps his son then lecturing him about using physical violence made me roll my eyes
- episode 12 time jump
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Come for Lee Yoo Mi, stay for 3 generations of women living their best lives
Look, this drama won't be for everyone. It's an unapologetically over the top fairy tale/comic book mashup with a barely coherent plot that requires a generous suspension of disbelief, and much like its predecessor, the writing and character development are mediocre and the treatment of the men in the family feels mean-spirited at best and downright abusive at worst.And yet, I enjoyed it so much more than I expected because, for all its faults, this drama absolutely nails it with Lee Yoo Mi as Nam-soon. She is utterly incandescent as our titular strong girl and I know not everyone is a fan of the bubbly and naive female lead, but I loved her and her cheeky grin and her unwavering sense of justice SO much. Lee Yoo Mi truly carried this drama on her back (pun intended) and she was an absolute delight to watch and I can't wait to what she does next.
The rest of the main cast is a total hoot as well, Kim Jung Eun and Kim Hae Sook are both fabulously campy, chewing every scene they're in with aplomb, and I genuinely love that we got to see a 60+ year old woman with a romance subplot and doing more than just being a granny. Ong Seong Woo is endearingly earnest as the long-suffering good guy cop getting bridal-carried all over the place by his super strong girlfriend, and Byeon Woo Seok took "if evil why sexy" and dialed it all the way up to 11 and we thank him for his service (somebody needs to create a mafia bromance drama with him and Lee Hong Nae ASAP).
In short, this is not a drama you watch for the plot, this is a drama you watch for the actors hamming it up in the silliest situations. It's deeply unserious but pretty fun if you throw logic out the window, and above all else, I love that we got to see these 3 generations of brash, bold women who fearlessly pursued their dreams, protected their loved ones, and used their powers to do good with reckless abandon.
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Last Doubts Vanished: One of THE most meaningful LGBTQIA+ series
A mindful spirit, braveness, and an open mind are what it takes to possess the power to produce something meaningful. GMMTV has again gifted us with another meaningful, heart-wrenching, and impressive series called "Last Twilight".The story, which evolves around the disability to see efficiently, dealing with heavy burdens like the suicide of a loved one and being reliant on others, is well-written and paced. Both Mohk and Day are realistically flawed characters and are also portrayed as such. I´m convinced this is one of the best series in the genre of LGBTQ+ in Southeast Asia to be released in 2023 and 2024.
STORY 9.0 >> 9.5
As I have already mentioned at the beginning of this review, the innovation and braveness to portray a story that evolves around disability - which shouldn´t be left out of the film industry as it is part of our world and nothing to be ashamed of or shushed about - has pleasingly surprised me. The issues that come with disabled eyesight are not coming too short and it doesn´t feel like the disability is only a tool for more views and attention, but honestly more as if GMMTV wants to raise awareness for and normalize the thematizing of disability in our lives, as well as showing what those affected by the suicide of a loved one go through. This series offers the possibility to reflect on our world and the entertainment industry, by raising awareness for both these crucial topics and also offering to witness a romance forming despite all the burdens faced by the main characters. Truly beautiful. Truly insightful. Truly inspiring.
I have never changed my opinion on the rating of the STORY to a better rating, UNTIL now. "Last Twilight" has convinced me to be one of the most time-worthy series out there to watch. I feel so blessed to be a witness to this tragic but beautifully written story between two young men trying to overcome this world's difficulties.
ACTING / CAST 8.5 >> 9.0
The chemistry between Jimmy and Sea is probably already well known among GMMTV viewers, but this series raises their bar even higher and makes me feel really happy and warm inside. I wonder what they´re doing in their workshops etc. to create such a natural tension. In "Last Twilight" they have gone over and beyond many bars I have ever imagined to see in the next few years. I am so happy they came this far and immensely pleased by the performance.
What I also like about "Last Twilight" is that the side characters have also become more meaningful for the main story and are not separately dragged along. Especoaööy since they don´t have "that side couple", but it´s focused on Day and Mhok. I´m very pleased to witness that this again proves that most series of GMMTV have improved their screenwriting, especially since I have been part of the journey for more than 6 or 7 years now.
MUSIC 7.0 >> 7.5
The music is usually what provides room for comic relief. With heavy topics as portrayed in this series, it´s unavoidable to provide uplift, as it can also help deliver a more meaningful picture of what it is like to live with a disability where life will most likely also have a shift of positive and negative events and feelings, as we are all are feeling humans after all.
OVERALL 8.5
Masterpiece. Over n´ out!
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