Reviews

Decent story with lots of potential, killed by some fatal decisions

Usually these kind of stories starts off with a FL wronged in the prior life and gets a 2nd chance. However in this story, The FL is trying to correct her wrongs.
There's a common theme referring to the scent (hence of scent of time)

The leads Zhou Ye & Wang Xing Yue is a good pairing visually.
Sets/production overall decent although inconsistent. Costume & accessories are beautiful especially for the FL. Then there are props that looks incredibly cheesy fake too.

What killed this drama little by little ...................
1. Poor choice of dubbed voice for the FL. Even when her facial expression is on par with the mood, the voice didn't follow. Actually it sounds like 2 different dubbed voices. One sounded older but either way, it was not good.
2. Mu Yao -- I was wondering how they picked someone who can't act AT ALL. Apparently she's some internet celebrity and end up getting this supporting role with enough lines that can kill a drama. So that happened.
3. OST overkill. It's a nice song but the ONLY song which they play bits of it 10x per episode x 30 episodes ....
4. Over smoothing of people's skin especially of Huan Rong Zhou. He has a wax figure face at times.

Potential not fully realized but not bad overall.

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Downfall: A Poignant Exploration of Art, Alienation, and Redemption

Naoto Takenaka’s “Downfall” (2023) is a compelling narrative that delves deep into the turbulent life of Kaoru Fukazawa, a manga artist grappling with the end of his long-running series and the subsequent emotional and creative void. The film’s portrayal of Fukazawa’s journey from fame to obscurity and back is not just a story about the struggles of a creative mind, but also a reflection on the complexities of human relationships and self-perception.

The opening scenes set the tone, depicting Fukazawa’s college days and a relationship with a quirky girlfriend, characterized by her cat-like eyes and rare smiles. This relationship, though short-lived, casts a long shadow over Fukazawa’s life, symbolizing his obsessive devotion to his art at the expense of personal connections.

The crux of the film lies in Fukazawa’s relationship with his wife, Nozomi, a dedicated manga editor. Their marriage, devoid of children and strained by their respective careers, reflects the dilemmas faced by many modern couples juggling professional aspirations and personal lives. Fukazawa’s sense of abandonment and frustration culminate in a harrowing scene where he confronts Nozomi with a mix of accusation and desperation, exposing the raw nerve of their failing marriage.

A significant portion of the film is dedicated to Fukazawa’s interactions with various women, particularly those in the escort world. These encounters, especially with a woman who possesses a maternal gentleness, and another, a free-spirited university student with cat-like eyes, represent his search for emotional solace and inspiration. These relationships, however superficial, are portrayed with a sensitivity that underscores Fukazawa’s deep-seated loneliness and quest for redemption.

The film reaches its emotional climax during a book-signing event where Fukazawa is confronted by a long-time female fan. Her words, praising the kindness and sincerity she perceives in his work, trigger a profound reaction in Fukazawa, who still considers himself a “monster,” as labeled by his college girlfriend. This poignant moment, marked by Fukazawa’s outburst, “You know nothing,” is a powerful testament to the internal conflict between self-perception and external validation.

“Downfall” stands out for its nuanced character development and the exploration of themes like artistic integrity, emotional isolation, and the search for meaning in a transient world. Takenaka’s direction is both subtle and impactful, weaving a narrative that is as much about the art of manga as it is about the art of living. The performances are uniformly excellent, with Takumi Saito delivering a compelling portrayal of Fukazawa, capturing the character’s vulnerability and complexity.

In conclusion, “Downfall” is a beautifully crafted film that resonates with anyone who has ever grappled with the dichotomies of success and failure, connection and isolation, perception and reality. It is a poignant reminder of the complexities of the human condition, making it a must-watch for not only fans of Japanese cinema but for all who appreciate deeply human stories.

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A Rollercoaster of Love and Loss

First, I would like to say sorry for I thought, more or less two years ago, that this will not be good and I'll hate it because idk season 1 is so perfect to me and I don't actually wanted a second season hence I didn't watched this while airing last year...boy I'm clearly missing out and I'm glad I had time and energy and decided to watch this... I did not write a review about season 1 so I'm writing this as an amend for doubting it. This might be long so here it is.

I thought I'd seen it all in Season 1, but this second installment dives even deeper into the turbulent world of Kang Seo Joon and Han Ji Woo.

The chemistry between Seo Joon and Ji Woo is like a magnetic force that draws you in. It's not just about their differences; it's about how those differences make their connection all the more powerful. The ups and downs of their love story feel so real that you can't help but root for them, and when they're happy, you're on cloud nine with them.

But just when you think they've found their fairy tale ending, bam! Life throws a curveball, and you're left holding your breath, wondering if true love can withstand the storms of life. The suspense is killer, and every episode leaves you hanging on the edge of your seat.

The cinematography is like poetry on screen, capturing the glitz of Seo Joon's celebrity life and the quiet, intimate moments with Ji Woo. The music? Don't even get me started. It's the kind that lingers in your soul, making you feel every emotion the characters are going through.

Now, don't get me wrong; it's not all rainbows and butterflies. There are moments when you want to shout at the screen, "No, don't do that!" The plot can be a tad predictable, and yeah, there are some clichés thrown in. But here's the thing – the actors pour so much heart into their roles that you forgive the drama's flaws. You're not just watching characters; you're feeling their joy and heartbreak like it's your own.

In the end, "To My Star Season 2: Our Untold Stories" is a tearjerker, a heartwarmer, and a testament to the crazy, unpredictable journey that love can take you on. So, brace yourself for the emotional rollercoaster, and get ready to fall in love all over again. I might rewatch this when I'm lonely idk.

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krork

this drama..is adopted from a manhwa...and usually manhwas are super long...so it's just simply impossible for the makers to fir everything into mere 8 eps...and deliver a godd story

the drama feels a bit cut out from between...

the first 2 episodes were literally boring n pointless for me because I just couldn't understand why taesung was behaving in that way...but then later in ep3 the misunderstanding was cleared and it gave reasoning to taesungs actions in tha first 2 episodes...the story upto ep 4 or 5 was okay..
but after that it just feels boring cringey and too stiff...the scenes which are supposed to make u blush actually made me cringe...like that scene where taesung was eating something (cream bun I suppose) and the filling was dripping so haebom just bit the other end to prevent the filling from coming out..it just seemed cringe to me

as for the acting..not to be rude to any of the actors but I really did not like the acting of anyyyyy actor...now i haven't watched other dramas of any of these actors so idk about their overall acting ...but in this drama it was not good

as for the story..as I said already it was adopted from a manhwa..ig the original manhwa has about 140 achapters so clearly...the flow of the story in the manhwa will be much smoother...in the drama I feel...the makers have just simply like..picked some scenes from manhwa which they thought wd serve as gr8 fanservixe and they just put it up there in each episode due to which everything felt weirdly cut off

so i wd not suggest watching this drama...you should just go for the webtoon because I feel the webtoon or manhwa serves a lot better than the drama...

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the cast is perfect

i’d say the story is pretty generic but the casting was done very well and everyone did well to tell the story so it’s really good. in my opinion i don’t see any romance in this show especially between the main 3 characters bc i think their love feels more familial.

i think the ending is pretty good. it’s very sad but it’s doesn’t make it a bad ending. i like that they didn’t miraculously find a cure like how most dramas would. my interpretation of the ending is that llh was at the beach before the other two came but when they arrived he was gone (probably somewhere where he actually does die).

i think a season two isn’t necessary for this story. llh would’ve wanted it to end. however i would like the see the cast again.

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OVERRATED - TIRESOME - MAIN LEADS HAS REALLY LOW SIGNFICANCE ON HOW THINGS ARE GOING

Emotional rollercoaster is okay but when this is driven by a third person it becomes annoying. Why I say that will be revealed in a moment. Continue reading if you want...

I will start with the good things.
Acting & Cast: I rated it 7. Though it deserves more. They are good. But I think I am a bit disappointed that's why I rated 7. They are really good actors. Casting was also good.
Music. Quite good. But it didn't really hooked me into them for long.

Now then.....
Story: Typical rich kid CEO & a random girl but really famous being pursued by almost everyone in this universe. Just because of how this develops forward i rated it 3.5 or else maybe it would get 4.5-5.

What I hate most about this Drama:
I absolutely hated Bi Ruo Shan aka Shan Shan. The support role is in the driving seat how the relationship develops between the ML's. She is absolutely a B*tCh. At first she gives the FL idea on how to pursue Shi Yan in a negative way. Well there is nothing wrong about. Almost all the typical dramas have same story. But when our female lead is feeling sorry for her action, shan shan the B*tch is trying to stop her. Why? because it will ruin the scholarship. Well, girl you gave her Idea. WTF. This happens countless times. Now after the ML Shi Yan gets to know why the FL Shu Yi pursues her, he becomes upset. Well, obviously anyone will be, right? Weather it's male or female. If anyone bonds up with someone with some intention not because of own gain anyone will be upset & depressed. Now when the ML leaves the FL, she decides not to explain . Well it's too late but at least try. What is wrong with you? FL decides to write an email. AN EMAIL, guys!! Seriously. Okay let's say Email is okay but she writes an email regarding work not about clearing things between them. On the top of that she allows the other side characters like Yi Yang gets close to her acting like she doesn't know what goes through the male lead is going through. Well, let's say she is an absolute immature character & doesn't know about these things. Let's forgive her. Now, Shan Shan again becomes a bi*ch & ask the female lead to be involved with Yi Yang this time. Again controlling the leads love life,. Our female lead still didn't apologize & explain things to the male lead. The male lead is not also taking any action. But according the situation, in my opinion the male lead owes her nothing. He loved her from start to finish. Some might disagree but It's just my opinion. Then the b*tch shan shan hears about Shi Yan from the female lead that he is not doing anything, she becomes upset with Shi Yan for this. The b*tch things Shi Yan is the problem. WTF. Girl, you were doing everything from the beginning. Putting ideas on female leads mind, doesn't let her clear things before disaster came, then asks the female lead to hook up with others, becoming angry at Shi Yan for nothing. Everything is about you. What funny is she couldn't even handle her own love life at the beginning while she was sharing tips about love with FL. That makes me more furious.

I don't know how this drama rates 8. It has absolute downfall. You can disagree but I don't care. I watch drama to relieve myself from stress not to gain more.

And never have friends like shan shan. They ruin love life. Talking from personal experience.

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Edit: (After watching the remaining eps)
Still shi*t. childish ending.

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thought provoking if nothing else

this was thought provoking if nothing else.

The primary conflict revolves around the FL. Will she find a date?

That's basically all there is to it. The potential male suitors are varying degrees of mediocre to awful. You've got the slob that had negative social and emotional IQ. The ex that is told No, the FL is not interested on at least three occasions, but still inserts himself into her personal life (while being her manager).The junior that is told No a couple times but keeps harassing the FL and propositioning an intimate relationship. And lastly, the long term manager with a temper and strange power relationship.

Just ignore the brother and mother. they are meaningless to the story and never developed as characters.

The story is happy feel-good introspection interspersed with awful harassment of the FL. It reached a pinnacle when the various male love interests setup a scoring rubric to give themselves the privilege of asking out the FL for dinner. wtf?

Wish the FL quit the job, cut all of them out and leveraged her newspaper column to work as a writer. She deserved more than a shitty marketing agency that has rampant sexual harassment.

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A Buffet of Romance Stories

This anthology-style drama consists of 10 romance stories that happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Except for the last episode, you can watch the other 9 in any order, and you wouldn’t be confused. For me, I just watched it from the beginning. Even though these are stories of love, they are not necessarily all cute and fluffy. But it does give us variety and viewers will probably like some more than others.

“At the Moment” has a star-studded cast. If you watch enough Taiwanese dramas, you will recognize or have seen all of them in other dramas. It seems like the whole cast was in the “Light the Night” series, some as main/supporting characters, and others in guest roles. This is probably because director Lian Yi Qi also directed all 3 “Light the Night” dramas.

The acting is pretty good and the stories are interesting enough. I do have my favorites.

Ep 1 - Scripted Love - this is an interesting and not a bad introduction to the drama.
Ep 2 - Price for a ‘happy ending’ - this is one of my favorite ones. Love the actors and it’s funny!
Ep 3 - Blinded by love - not one of my favorites as I don’t like the female character that much. The male lead is quite good-looking though.
Ep 4 - ET phone home - this is quite weird to begin with but I like the interesting twist (thought somewhat predictable).
Ep 5 - Dodgeball - not one of my favorites because I don’t like the portrayal of the sudden change of feelings.
Ep 6 - Let’s try again - this one is OK, even though I like both leads.
Ep 7 - Hot and sexy revenge - there’s just something about Chris Wu that makes him so damn sexy, even though he’s not the typical pretty boy. Watch this for him. LOL
Ep 8 - Role Reversal - this one is different from the others. A very ‘normal’ relationship but it’s actually really sweet to see how the couple supports each other.
Ep 9 - Badminton never dies - a pleasant surprise to see the portrayal of such a relationship.
Ep 10 - I’m sorry Jie Jie 姐姐 - gotta include this trope within these 10 episodes. It was nice to have a quick recap of how everyone’s doing.


Completed: 11/21/2023 - Review #379

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A completely different BL series than the others. I only felt the similarity with 1000 stars. The thirty-two-year-old director chose 6 BL series unloved boys aged 19-21 for the main roles. They tried very hard, so I rated them a 10 for the selection and a 6 for the acting, so overall an eight, and the "something" they showed towards each other in connection with the almost perfect music really evoked something nice in me.
On the other hand, a big disappointment regarding the other two aspects of the evaluation. If you play the music videos that are listed in the link I share in the Comment, you will see the director singing the theme song directly, and he can't open his mouth properly while singing. Just as he can't articulate properly and doesn't even open his mouth, that's exactly how he directed this series. The processing is literally lousy, very below average, I deducted 7 points from perfection, the inconsistencies are glaring. The fights with the "gangsters" in the seventh episode reminded me of caricatures of bickering three-year-olds in the sandbox. It's a shame that the creators weren't inspired by the series Golden Blood ... The biggest sex between guys is holding hands, I don't need anything physical, but here the guys were calling for something closer, more intimate. There was tons that could have been used from the story itself that remained hidden. Damage.


Naprosto jiný seriál BL než ostatní. Cítil jsem pouze podobnost s 1000 stars. Třicetidvouletý režisér si vybral do hlavních rolí 6 kluků BL seriály nepolíbených ve věku 19-21 let. Ti se moc snažili, takže jsem si je výběrem ohodnotil na 10 a herectvím na 6, celkově tedy osmička, a to "něco" co předvedli vůči sobě navzájem ve spojitosti s téměř dokonalou hudbou ve mě vyvolalo opravdu něco hezkého.
Na druhé straně velké zklamání, co se týče dalších dvou aspektů hodnocení. Pokud si pustíte hudební videa, která jsou uvedena v odkazu, který sdílím v Komentu, tak tam uvidíte zpívat ústřední píseň přímo režiséra, a ten neumí při zpěvu pořádně otevřít svou papulu. Tak, jak neumí správně artikulovat a neotvírá ani hubu, tak přesně tak i zrežíroval tuto sérii. Zpracování doslova prachbídné, hodně podprůměrné, odebral jsem z dokonalosti celých 7 bodů, ty nesrovnalosti bijí do očí. Rvačky s "gangstery" v sedmém díle mi připomínaly karikarury hašteřících se tříletých kloučků na pískovišti. Škoda, že se tvůrci neinspirovali v seriálu Golden Blood ... Největším sexem mezi kluky je chytnutí se za ručičku, nepotřebuji nic fyzického, ale tady ti kluci přímo herecky volali po něčem bližším, intimnějším. Ze samotného příběhu se daly využít tuny, které zůstaly schovány. Škoda.

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As of 6 episodes

I genuinely want this drama to end on good note .It's not that i'm loving this drama to the core but there 's something about that backstory that's making me root for this drama .I am looking forward to the historic tale in the elisode thaat's gonna release today .I hope it'll make it up . I'm repeating I just want this drama to have a satisfactory end please ?.
Note: The modern story is so uninteresting btw .but it's forgivable as it's a setup for the upcoming episodes . and also want to appreciate the leading lady who is elevating the drama with her acting so well

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I was slightly disappointed with Serpiente. I expected a bit more. The story could be told, even if it is nothing groundbreaking, but it was not used as a filmmaker or director, such a mild pall mall, the shots were often unnecessarily dark (if the intention was to achieve a bigger mystery), a long-winded shot of the laundry in the first episode (I don't understand) . I was looking forward to an actor named Kaleb Ong, whom I know from the series Meet My Angel, he did not disappoint, but he was bound by the script and the director. So life the Filipino way .... aka love, sex, betrayal.



Serpiente mě mírně zklamalo. Čekal jsem poněkud více. Příběh by se dal, i když nic průlomového to není, ale nebyl filmařsky ani režijně využit, takový mírný pall mall, záběry byly často zbytečně tmavé (jestli se tím chtělo docílit nějakého většího tajemna), dlouhatánský záběr v první epizodě na praní (nechápu). Těšil jsem se na herce jménem Kaleb Ong, kterého znám ze seriálu Meet My Angel, nezklamal, ale byl svázán scénářem a režisérem. Takže život po filipínsku .... alias láska, sex, zrada.

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The "stupid" effect of the series was much less on me than on many others. Yes, we have the right to judge from the point of view of an ordinary European that something is stupid, but that does not mean that we are right. There are a few billion more Asians like us and I evaluate from the point of view of this kind of production and in that case this evaluation of mine worked out for me.
But the simpler, low-budget mini-series caught my attention, and it even has some advantages over other Thai productions of this type. Above all, it had a plot, it didn't branch out, there were no secondary characters or an annoying school. Still amateur acting young actors are trying, that "something" for the users of this server was also there (searching for a gay, bisexual feeling). But otherwise, a very naive piece, as if filmed really only for elementary school girls.
On the plus side: there weren't those horrible Asian lids (I still can't get over the last series I saw, The Best Story, when the creators turned nice guys into six lid cunts), the entire faces of the actors stood out. It was interesting that Win, with the figure of a Thai boxer and the type of brawler that the creators liked to reveal in a swimsuit, was getting picked on by both Pun and Porsche, and that girl seemed like a thorn in the heel or rather in the fart.. .
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"Hloupě" na mě působil seriál daleko méně, než na mnohé jiné. Ano, máme právo soudit z pohledu běžného Evropana, že je něco hloupé, ale to ještě neznamená, že máme pravdu. Asiatů je o několik miliard více, jako nás a já hodnotím úhlem pohledu na tento druh produkce a v tom případě mi vyšlo toto mé hodnocení.
Jednodužší, nízkoropočtový miniseriálek mě ale zaujal, a má dokonce i některé přednosti oproti jiným z tohoto druhu thajské produkce. Především měl spád, nevětvil se, nebyly žádné vedlejší postavy ani otravná škola. Ještě amatérsky působící mladí herci snaživí, to "něco" pro uživatele tohoto serveru tam také bylo (hledání citu gay, bisex). Ale jinak hodně naivní dílko, jakoby točené opravdu jen pro žákyně základních škol.
Pozitiva: nebyly ty příšerné asijské poklice-afinky (stále se nemohu probrat z posledního seriálu, který jsem viděl The Best Story, kdy tvůrci udělali ze sympatických kluků šest poklicových pizd), vynikly celé tváře herců. Zajímavé bylo, že Win s postavou thajského boxera a typem bitkaře, kterého tvůrci rádi odhalovali do plavek, dostával nakládačky jak od Pun-a, tak i Porsche-ho a ta dívka tam působila jako trn v patě nebo spíše v prd.li ...

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