Reviews

My rating seemed to change with each episode

First, I'll just admit I'm a total romance fan. I like lighthearted, fun, easy to watch romances with good kisses and a happy ending. At the beginning of this series, my rating was probably close to a 10. It was funny, with quirky characters. Then we hit the midway point - it felt like they threw the standard tropes in just to move the show along. Arranged marriage, evil controlling family, jealous co-workers, it had it all, but each difficulty was so short-lived and easily resolved, that they just seemed pointless. As I watched, I could feel my rating lowering. Then came the last two episodes. These episodes had a lot of heart and I'll address some of them below.
LOVED:
1) Lee Jun Ho. Call me superficial, but man, he is a beautiful hunk of eye candy. Seriously, I think he could probably have chemistry with a rock. Watching him relate to the FL was such a treat. And my romance meter was on high alert through all the stares, I laughed as he tried to figure out how to date, and those kisses? Yes, thank you. That's what they should look like! His character arc was such that he moved from cold, impersonal and not caring about anyone to thinking highly of his employees. I loved that. He and the FL were absolutely adorable together...lots of sweetness to go around.
2) Two of my favorite actresses, Kim Young Ok as FL's grandmother, and Han Mi So as ML's mother.
3) No evil ex-girlfriend or wanna be girlfriend to muddy the waters.
4) Did I mention the kisses?
5) Kim Sun Young as ML's older sister. Loved to hate her. Early on, I kind of wished that a white truck of doom would make an appearance, but in the last few episodes I just felt for her so much. I wish that someone would have told her that she was allowed to let others in.
6) The "six siblings". Friends that you want to have. I also liked the storyline of the two flight attendants. Cute.
7) A non-rushed happy ending with a wedding. Thank you very much!!! I get so tired of watching a show that's billed as a romance where the couple spends more time apart than together and the ending is rushed in the last 10 minutes. That was a beautiful wedding venue!
8) No time skip.
9) Breaking the fourth wall at the end.
10) Loved the nods to The Red Sleeve and Squid Game.
COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER:
1) Im Yoon Ah as the FL. There was something off about her to me. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. She was beautiful, to be sure. The couple was cute together, but there was just something missing from her. One thing, her character was just TOO perfect, she kept getting ahead no matter what people threw at her. Her facial expressions often seemed "off" to me. I understand that the "fake smile" was a plot device, so I had to let that go, but she looked terrified during the wedding scenes, which made no sense whatsoever. I felt a lack of energy in her acting, that's the only way I can describe it.
2) Da Eul's husband - that was a waste of storyline.
3) This show had more product placement than I have ever seen in any other show, and it was extremely irritating.
4) When she was in the countryside, she mentioned that she had sent him pictures of the food when she initially went to the restaurant. How could she have? He didn't know she was in the countryside.
5) Who thought that Love Hotel was a good name for her hotel? I think maybe it's because I'm American, but unfortunately that name makes me think of places you rent by the hour.

So, overall, I was treated to the romance that seems to be so sorely missing from the "romance" shows. I just wish they hadn't tried to make it more melodramatic in the middle. I'm certainly glad I watched it, and I can recommend it. It's not one of the best I've ever seen, but it's definitely re-watchable to see Jun Ho fall in love.

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"Every time you lose something, you have to discover another piece of yourself"

Summer Blooms was a gauzy slow journey through a young woman's grief and guilt. Hatsumi's life froze in one moment in spring, not looking back and not moving forward. A series of events jarred her loose from her self-imposed exile compelling her to face the truth of her life and the death of her ex-boyfriend.

Hatsumi works part-time in a soba noodle shop, listens to the radio, and floats through her days. We're told her boyfriend had died three years ago in the spring, an event that upended her world. She gave up teaching and for the most part, living. Whether it was sorrow over the loss of a great love or something else we don't know. The noodle shop owner is retiring and closing the shop ending her tenure there. An old student attempting to make it as a jazz singer drops into her life. The energetic, kooky young woman shakes up her mundane routine. With the restaurant closing, a customer who had eaten there every day just to see her, finally works up the courage to speak to her. He wants more from her, but she seems reticent to go out with him. A pregnant ex-colleague asks her to substitute for her while she is on maternity leave, pressuring her to make a decision. And more dramatically, the deceased ex-boyfriend's last letter to her shows up at her door step.

After three years of existing, she decides to confront the past and travels to the town where her boyfriend's parents live. Here her truth comes out as well as the reason for his death. To be honest, I'd figured it out early on, but the movie takes us well into the last act before it shares these revelations. I found his letter to be self-serving and it seemed she did as well. It turns out it was one of many he'd written her, with her not responding to them. In the end she wrote him a letter that helped her move from spring to summer.

Asakura Aki was perfect for playing a reserved young woman with a fake smile. She gave us tiny glimpses into the pain beneath and through the former student Kaede, flashes of the fierceness she was capable of displaying. Kawasaki Yuriko as Kaede gave just the right balance of youthful bravura and frightened homeless waif with an abusive boyfriend. She also supplied a clue that Hatsumi's ex-boyfriend might not have been mentally well-balanced. Miura Takahiro's Totaro, the craftsman in love with her, was rather bland and something of a red flag with his behaviors.

Summer Blooms was a light exploration of Hatsumi's grief and guilt and her withdrawal from the world. It took a collision of circumstances to finally force her to face her monotonous life and the reason for it. Due to the reason for her seclusion, I was expecting more of a moment of emotional discovery and more revelations to the audience for why she felt she needed to suffer so much. What led to the fateful moment that crystallized her life in seclusion? In the end, it felt like the movie was skipping stones on the shallow surface of her life and only briefly touching on the real reason behind her actions when the stone sank below the waves. Though the film attempted to show how one young woman responded to loss and finally worked through it, the story lacked the depth to have a proper conversation and left many pertinent elements of her previous relationship unknown.

8/14/23

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How to bury a maybe-BL under a whole load of other stuff

This remake of the earlier censored "Addicted" is like being offered water after you've already drunk several bottles of Soju. Lacking the sexual tension and physical interactions of "Addicted", "Stay With Me" becomes a long (24 episodes? Really??) slog through a history of 3 families, connected by marriage, divorce and accident. The relationship between the two boys too often takes a back seat to the melodrama of parent conflict, child-rearing and earning a living. The series looks great: photography and action on-screen is top grade, although the missing millions of Beijing (car scenes on empty streets, for instance) is bizarre.

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Sweet and down to earth

Contrived plot aside, the actors are terribly cute and there's a sweet earnestness to this as to so many low budget shorts. It's never going to rake in sponsor money, but I'll be happy to donate to Wayufilm for more GL short films.
The plot is thin as tissue paper and the ending is very "and then everyone cheered" unrealistic, and main character Didi starts out incredibly dramatic and over the top, but all in all it's very charming.
The production team has squeezed all the juice from the budget too, even the sound is good. It was well worth 38 minutes of my time.
Cut as a film instead of episodes here: https://youtu.be/I2naQwG-o3M

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Mediocre drama with mediocre plot and acting skills from the entire cast.

"You From the Future" is a RomCom drama with a total of 24 episodes and 30 minutes in length per episode.

The Synopsis: Xia Mo is a recent college graduate who dreams of becoming a popular blogger and gets into a girlfriend living together contract with a cold and arrogant tech company CEO Shen Jun Yao. Their romance blossom while living together in the same house with the help of an AI robot named "Starlight."

Lou Zheng is definitely being typed cast in playing the same cold, arrogant, and into contract-romance with FL in so many. Modern dramas that it is repetitive. His acting ability is one-dimension with no range. Ji Mei Han seems like a newcomer to the entertainment business since 2020; let's hope she has better potential than Lou Zheng.

Overall, it is a mediocre drama with decent but predictable flows. I give it a 6.0 rating because the plot is okay, the acting is mediocre, and the production quality is not great. Too white. The ending was no good and the lost brother story was an unnecessary filler.

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Surprising and overranging most of the best school dramas

Due to the title and pictures I wasn't expecting much of this drama.
Yet since the ever first minutes I understood that I hit a hidden gem.

This is not the usual school drama, it is none of the boring ever repeating silly and exaggerated stories like
several very trendy ones right now. It is full of humor, self irony, hilarious realistic personalities,
real seeming situations, out of the box solutions, great music, fast peace. The acting is fantastic
and the camera work is at the very top level, plus a non conformist realization. Audacious production,
it has the potential of getting many praises and a huge audience.

This rather long (11 episodes of about 43 minutes each) is 300% worth the time watching it!

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Slow paced

Cute and a different drama, but not something everyone would like watching.

The leads are quite new so I am not sure if many people would like it but I surely liked watching the drama.

It was a great pass time to watch it, the story was very slow paced, but the characters developed by the end, the story towards the end also started making more sense to me and I learnt a few things from the show that I would always remember.

It is not something many people would enjoy watching. So it depends from person to person.

But for me, it was a good one time watch drama.

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A powerful female CEO, Yoon Se Ri (Son Ye Jin), gets caught in a tornado while paragliding and crash lands in the DMZ on the North Korean side. A North Korean soldier, Ri Jung Hyuk (Hyun Bin), decides to help her return to South Korea. His actions draw the pair into a whirlwind romance that transcends political boundaries, threatening his family as well as his own safety.

The big stake throughout is whether their love can survive across the dangerous border. I was lukewarm to it at start cause I thought it would be dark and angsty, but it is romcom-y. Nevertheless, this drama was satisfying, as it shines in the comedy, swoony moments, meaningful epilogues, and the everyone’s chemistry. Thanks to the direction and talented cast, each emotional scene hits the way it should. I invested equally in the main and secondary couple; Dan and Seung Jun, who could easily have their own spin-off. Jung Hyuk’s ducklings and their blossoming understanding of South Korean culture were hilarious and heartwarming. Also, beautiful scenery and heartfelt OSTs.

My few hot takes are… First, why the dead fish-eye kisses? It was very jarring considering Son Ye Jin and Hyun Bin's perfect chemistry and that they're in real love. Then, I wouldn't mind a slightly less fairytale scenario for the leads and a fairer scenario to second lead couples. Despite all of that, it's undeniably an engaging and memorable watch! :D

Find me on Instagram: @kdramajudge

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REFRESHING…!

This drama was a very refreshing one, with no toxic ex’s revenge or anything like that, a very simple love story but yet very heart warming.
I really loved watching the drama as every episode ended up making me want to know what happened next. ( I watched it ongoing)

I mainly watched the drama because of the Main leads as both are my fav and seeing them together was a great and a very refreshing pair.

The actors and the story did equal justice to the characters.

I overall loved the drama very much as it was very relatable, all of us atleast once in our life time have had this inevitable crush on someone which is hard to resist and how we end up with that feeling. This was the feeling that actually took me back to my crush.

it was really a good choice to watch it. I suggest all hopeless romantics to atleast give this drama one watch. They will definitely on regret it…!

The ost of the drama is also great. The songs just happen to fit in pretty well as if they were meant to be.


If you feel magic, this drama is no less than one

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HEALING DRAMA but not everyone’s cup of tea…..!

This story is more of a healing drama, it is about a psychology counsellor who has herself experienced childhood trauma while the ML is a skilled screenwriter. both of them heal each other over time.
It is a very slow paced drama with unnecessary fillers.

40 episodes is a bit too much. The story could have been better and could be presented in a better way.

I watched it mainly because of Ren Jia Lin, I believe he is an actor with great potential and his role did not do justice to him. The character sketch could have been better.

The background stories are also quite unnecessary as they take up too much screen time leading to no development in the story line.

According to me, the topic was a great choice as it is something that has become more important to discuss in 2023 but the story was poorly written and presented; they could do a better job.

I feel I quite learnt a few things from the story, as I survived through all 40 episodes. The drama is very slow paced so not for viewers who hate slow moving dramas. I like slow paced dramas but this one was a veryyy slow moving one. I wish this kind of topic about mental health is presented in a more constructive manner in the future with a better story line.


Not for everyone to watch it..! But you might as well decide after watching the first episode..!

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Doesn't live up to it's potential

A big FAT dissapointment!

Let's be honest, just as many other's , I've started watching this drama cauz of Teac. The initial plot of a vampire that has been sleeping for 100 years opened up many hilarious ideas in my mind, and I was excited!

Oh boy, so much lost potential... Here we go:

1) One-dimensional characters: You have the good, bad, funny, dependent, sad, etc. Nobody is interesting in this series. When there is a change in a character's habit, it goes 180 and doesn't make any sense.
2) Scenes are dragged out and boring: Yes dude we know you're bad, you don't have to tell us every scene and every episode.
3) Too many flash backs (too many!): even though we saw a specific scene 5 minutes ago, the editors decide that we as watchers forgot this, and repeat the scene again. Without the flashbacks, this series is about 9 episodes.
4) The story has many characters but no depth: There is a vampire and a mean girl, we are told that they're in love (chemistry level is 0%), one or the other has to die to let the other live. THAT'S IT!
5) No chemistry beween the actors: Not only the supposed romantic characters, but also their friends, family and neighbors. I got the feeling that this series was a side job for everyone involved. Many supporting actors are very good actors, it is very specific to this show that they don't shine.
6) Not a funny vampire: Other than the first two episodes and the old-timy language the lead speaks, nothing funny happened concerning a 100 year old vampire that wakes up in this day and era. I was expecting him to be adjusting to phones, cars, music in a box which you can hold in your hand, or the overal culture changes! Non of this stuf happened!! How funny would it have been that they'd put him in a 3D cinema for example.
7) No romance: IMPORTANT NOTE: I have seen Ji An Won (Joo In-hae) in other series, and she was/is lovely! But everything that she did and said in this series annoyed me so much, she was so bad written and coached.

In my honest opinion, I believe everyone in this show did their best to make something of what they'd recieved, but were badly written and directed. It's a shame for all the hard work that the team has put in for this show.

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Psychological thriller with a dash of rom-com

I mainly watched this drama because of Gong Jun but also because I do like psychology. The drama is a mix of psychological thriller, detective style cases and a dash of rom-com.

I’ve studied hypnosis and been to many sessions so from my perspective that part was very accurately portrayed. The writers did a fantastic job in showing visually what happens in your mind when hypnotised. The psychology part was also very accurate and easy to understand from my point of view. However the actual cases were a hit and miss for me. I managed to watch the first 4 episodes in full but afterwards I fast-forwarded a lot of the cases. I enjoyed the cases where it involved the supporting cast however the others I had to skip as I simply didn't care about the characters.

The rom-com part was the best. The main leads were mature, super cute with great chemistry and funny interactions. That was the main reason while I managed to finish this drama otherwise I would have probably dropped it early on. I almost wish this was a full on rom-com drama with a dash of psychology as I would have enjoyed it a lot more. There are also two side couples but they don't take too much screen time.

I usually don't pay much attention to the editing but here it was definitely choppy and somewhat weird.

As many people have mentioned, the final 3 episodes with the revenge plot were super boring and I skipped almost everything in order to finish the drama.

Overall, I'll say that this drama accurately portrays hypnosis and has great psychological info however the way the cases were executed and the plot overall was quite boring. The romance was the best part of the drama and I wish it was actually a full on rom-com.

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Incredibly Well Done - But Not a RomCom

I don’t have a lot to add beyond what other reviewers have already said. But I’d thought I’d make a few points to perhaps make it easier for folks to make a decision to watch, or not.

This series is not a RomCom. While there are comedic moments, most of the time this is more of a drama. There is lot of sadness as things don’t go well for the main couple. The picture on the movie's page makes the couple look super happy. This was not the case for many episodes.

Having said that, there are quite a few positives aspects to the story. For example the ML’s family is a very positive storyline (with some backstory, or course).

The storyline is intricate and well crafted. The different threads weave seamlessly together and come together well at the end.

The acting is really good. I think this was a tough assignment for the actors, but they pulled it off so well. I’d also call out the casting as superb.

I think I could point out a few things I would like to have seen come together a bit differently, but that does not at affect my recommendation. Despite the fact I thought this might not be my cup of tea:

If you OK with a story that some might consider a bit “slow” and that is not very happy a lot of time, then by all means watch this series. It is well done, well acted, and quite touching. I give it a 9/10 rating.

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Thank God I didn't drop it

So when I first watched it on its release day on Disney+, honestly, I dropped it just after 10 mins or so. I thought the story was a bit stupid with weak suspense. But, I watched it again, after the season ended. So can tell I had no interest in it. But God knows what really happened and I started the show once again from the beginning. And omg, I couldn't believe myself. I have this rule called "never watch what u dropped" and most of the time I follow it but this show made me break that rule cuz I loved it.
The suspense, thriller, story and ending was fabulous.
They did a good job in hiding the main culprit till the very end. The mystery plot was well constructed. Scary parts r minimal with hardly anything scaring u but still the ghost plot was well written.
I m so glad that I watched this show again.

Overall, a must watch show

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