Reviews

Overall, this drama was actually quite enjoyable to watch. I found the plot itself interesting, although some aspects could have been handled better.

As for the main couple — Lin Qi Le & Jiang Qiao Xi — I absolutely loved their acting performances and have no complaints about them. Their on-screen chemistry was wonderful, and I genuinely liked the foundation of their relationship. I never doubted their love for each other, but at some point, the relationship simply started to look unhealthy. The concept of her chasing after him could still have worked somehow (even though at times it felt outright desperate), but for me, the biggest issue was that after two years she went to find him and immediately forgave him for disappearing without a word right after kissing her and cutting off contact for two years. After that, she was still the one chasing after him, and I never got the feeling that, even for a moment, the effort and pursuit shifted onto him — which it absolutely should have. And it’s not like the drama didn’t have enough time to show that. We got four pointless episodes about her life without contact with him, and that amount of screentime was simply unnecessary. Still, to avoid sounding completely negative, I did enjoy watching their relationship later on — just like during their high school years. Personally, I also liked the ending with their younger versions.

I think the storyline involving his family was genuinely interesting — although obviously difficult. For most of the drama, it was handled really well. However, I do think the aftermath regarding his parents could have been explored better — for example, whether his mother ever started getting treatment. At the same time, I’m glad that, especially with his mother, he ultimately did not repair their relationship, because it added realism. Honestly, I would’ve even liked a scene where it was made much more explicit that he had permanently cut ties with her, confronting her about everything. I also think the storyline surrounding his brother’s death could have been developed far better, because I still keep wondering what actually happened to him. Did he really commit suicide? The same issue applies to the storyline about his cousin’s accident. What happened to the person who pushed him off the roof? Was it that former employee? Why didn’t he pay for the medical treatment — either before or afterward? Why did the financial burden fall entirely on the family, and why wasn’t it even suggested later that they would fight for compensation? So many questions and very few answers, which is why I think this storyline was simply poorly handled — or maybe it was just forced into the plot.

One major positive was her parents. They were wonderful people and genuinely made me smile whenever they appeared on screen.

Moving on to the other characters — I absolutely loved Yu Qiao with all my heart. To me, he was the best character in the entire drama. I wasn’t rooting for him to end up with the female lead (my love for Zhang Ling He won there), but despite that, I still think he would have been the better choice for Lin Qi Le because he was simply an amazing person, and there were many moments when I genuinely felt sorry for him. I rooted for him individually and hoped he would eventually find happiness, but unfortunately, that never happened.

Naturally, I also have to mention Qin Ye Yun. At first, I hoped she would end up with Yu Qiao. However, over time I realized that would’ve been a bad choice. It would have felt too much like, “Things didn’t work out with Lin Qi Le, so I’ll just settle for you instead,” so I’m glad that didn’t happen. I also hoped her storyline with the pilot guy would be developed further, but unfortunately it never was. Aside from that, I did grow to like her character over time. In the beginning, though, she really irritated me because she took out her jealousy on the female lead, who had done absolutely nothing wrong even though they were supposedly friends.

The last character I’ll mention is Cen Xiao Man. Under normal circumstances, I probably wouldn’t even talk about her because she was an extremely irritating character who constantly raised my blood pressure, but I actually liked her reunion with the female lead years later and the way it showed that she had matured, so I’ll count that as a positive too.

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Masterpiece.

Loved it.

Perfect mix of action, brains, friendship, and super fun storyline.

Amazing amazing cast - and will foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr love Suho + Sieun bond inside and outside the drama.

Honestly, did a great job of showing character development between everyone and the dynamic and chemistry of everyone's relationships; between the friends, bullies, enemies, family; just ALL OF IT.

Really heart-warming moments, infuriating anger, and sweet justice mixed all in one!

Acting and portrayal of emotions and character were beyond describable...

I genuinely really enjoy the shorter series because they don't drag out and put in unnecessary fillers etc~

Definitely a must-watch recommend!

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Loved it!

As many have said, cute slice of life. had some nice kisses, smiles, laughter. And maybe the dramas I watch are too tame but this is the first one where we (well for me anyway) actually see her unbuckle his pants.

I watched this on Youtube under the heading Marriage First: the movie. Sadly some sections the sound disappeared. I did feel there were some parts where a previous action apparently happened and they were discussing it. Almost like this was really a longer drama but parts got cut so I feel like I need to go to Roku to see what I missed.

I definitely recommend this if you want something quick and easy to binge and you don't need heavy drama. The couple was very well matched and the acting was well done.

WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILER


I was saddened to learn that Itagaki Mizuki passed away at the age of 24. I would have liked to see more of his work as he grew.

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The Smartest Political Thriller You’ll See This Year

Let’s get this out of the way, I chased this drama the moment the promo trailer dropped.

Ju Ji-hoon had already earned my complete trust after watching him command the screen in both Trauma Code and Kingdom, and Ha Ji-won remains one of my favorite actresses after Chocolate became my second Perfect 10 of last year, right behind Doubt. So when I learned these two would be leading Climax, a political thriller penned and directed by Lee Ji-won of Miss Baek fame, this became an immediate must-watch for me.

I am so glad I followed that instinct. What followed was ten episodes of some of the best and smartest political thriller storytelling I’ve experienced in years. I came into this expecting something closer to The West Wing, a sharp political drama with ideological clashes and backroom maneuvering. What I got instead was something far more dangerous, House of Cards injected with pure concentrated chaos and stitched together with what I can only describe as “quantum storytelling.”

In quantum mechanics, particles exist in superposition, occupying contradictory states simultaneously until observed. This drama does the exact same thing with character motivations, plot points, and moral positions. Bang Tae-seop genuinely cares about people he helps AND strategically cultivates them as assets. Both states are true. Simultaneously. Chu Sang-ah carries real trauma from exploitation AND weaponizes that trauma strategically. Every character exists in multiple emotional and moral states at once. Everyone lies, manipulates, protects, betrays, loves, and destroys simultaneously, yet somehow the narrative never collapses under the weight of its own complexity. The show never forces you to choose which interpretation is real. It holds all contradictions as equally valid, and two viewers can watch the same scene, come away with opposite readings, and both be correct.

Ju Ji-hoon plays Bang Tae-seop, a prosecutor who clawed from poverty to political power, carrying his father's unjust death as both wound and fuel. Ji-hoon delivers a masterclass in controlled intensity, balancing calculated calm with explosive strategic brutality. You cannot read him. Is he compassionate or calculating? Protective or manipulative? The answer is yes, to all of it, at once. His crashout rage scene in episode nine is one of the best emotional beats I've seen from a male lead this year. Opposite him, Ha Ji-won as Chu Sang-ah occupies victim and strategist simultaneously without ever letting one side collapse the other. Her transformation in episode ten, fully embracing her monster side to secure her ambition, was genuinely breathtaking character evolution. Their chemistry is electric despite this not being a romance, and they were perfectly cast to hold quantum states without breaking.

The supporting cast matches this energy completely. Cha Joo-young as Lee Yang-mi deserves special mention because Yang-mi is positioned as the antagonist, though that word needs the biggest asterisk ever. She wields chaebol power with zero restraint, and her strategic plays are surgical strikes designed to obliterate. Cha Joo-young makes her simultaneously the most detestable and most brilliant character on screen. You loathe her. You respect her ruthlessness. Both feelings coexist without resolution. Nana as Hwang Jeong-won and Oh Jung-se as the WR Group heir twins round out a supporting cast where everyone devours their roles without overstaying their welcome.

The plot itself is familiar political thriller territory. Morally grey people doing morally grey things to climb over corpses toward power. Think House of Cards with strategic precision dialed up and safety rails completely removed. What elevates Climax is how it maintains contradictory motivations as simultaneous truth rather than competing interpretations. Every route to power contains structural contradictions that sabotage other power bases. You cannot grab a narrative thread and follow it to clean conclusions because the web doesn't have a correct reading. Most dramas eventually collapse the wave function, telling you actually he genuinely cared or actually it was all manipulation. Climax refuses. It maintains superposition for all ten episodes through airtight structural integrity.

Director Lee Ji-won kept every character's internal logic intact, every universe rule consistent, across constant escalation without breathing room. I've chastised dramas for far less. The fact that Climax never betrayed its own architecture while maintaining relentless pacing is genuinely impressive. The drama is absolutely dramatic, but it stays grounded the way a tightrope walker stays grounded, technically still touching the wire even while performing impossible feats. It never devolves into makjang where logic gets sacrificed for shock value. Every explosion has a fuse you can trace back to someone's deliberate strategy.

The visual craft serves this narrative perfectly. Wide lens shots emphasize separation, close-ups create intimacy, and the color palette darkens as moral corruption peaks. The parallel sequence in the finale showing Tae-seop ascending political stairs while Sang-ah walks the film festival red carpet is genius cinematography. The OST selection is consistently on point too, with Rise by Lim Ji-soo and Black Star by Nana as standouts that tell their own story within the drama.

The ending maintains this superposition all the way through. I walked away completely satisfied while simultaneously ready for potential season two. Both states exist because the open-endedness is thematic rather than mechanical. The thesis is complete: power is absolute, it cannot be defeated, it only reorients itself. The show doesn't give clean happy resolution because that would betray everything it demonstrated. Instead, it shows you unchecked power and trusts you to handle the discomfort.

I have to be honest about limitations though. Is Climax perfect? To me, absolutely, because quantum storytelling hits every frequency my analytical brain craves. But I'm aware this is extremely niche. The narrative web will genuinely challenge viewers who need straightforward plotting. Some plot threads receive resolution but not deep exploration, which might feel insufficient to viewers wanting more time spent on heavy elements like the sex trafficking backstory. The ending won't satisfy viewers wanting redemption arcs or happy conclusions. Mature content warnings apply throughout with suicide, sexual assault, blackmail, and drugging handled unflinchingly. If you need clear moral lines or heroes to root for without ethical compromise, this will frustrate you to the point of abandonment.

But if you can handle that, what Climax offers is extraordinary. This is what happens when writers trust their story enough to refuse easy answers, when directors trust audiences to sit with ambiguity, and when actors trust material enough to occupy contradictions without apologizing. This is cerebral chess between morally bankrupt brilliant strategists, executed with surgical narrative precision. It's controlled chaos that never collapses into incoherence. I started with restrained one-episode-per-night pacing. By the end, I couldn't stop. I deployed my sleep-on-it failsafe to objectively reevaluate after emotions stabilized. Climax maintained its hold. The assessment didn't waver.

If you love House of Cards, can handle zero redemption, and want quantum storytelling executed flawlessly, this is a cerebral feast. If you need traditional satisfaction, skip immediately. But if controlled chaos sounds like exactly what your brain craves, welcome to hell.

Extended review: https://byrei.ink/2026/05/10/climax-2026-review-strategic-warfare-moral-ambiguity-and-narrative-perfection/

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YAWN :(

I really wanted to like this drama because of the main leads... and the trailer was super exciting!

But... it just seemed so draggy? And no climax...

Acting was decent but the plot and storyline just really didn't seem to go anywhere...

To be HONEST, if I was the main male lead; I would have thought the main female lead was crazy? like??

I honestly, got through the whole drama because I wanted to write the review while making sure getting through the whole thing... I did have to watch most of it in 1.5x speed though...

Good thing was really the beautiful scenery and some comedic scenes~

I would NOT recommend if you really like dramas with good storylines or exciting plots - but would if you like slower paced, cuter romance type of storylines - but even then, it was still boring...

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Most fans prefer Season 1 of Welcome to Waikiki because of the strong and natural chemistry of the original cast: Kang Dong-gu (Kim Jung-hyun), Lee Joon-ki (Lee Yi-kyung), and Bong Doo-sik (Son Seung-won). The comedy and chaotic situations in Season 1 were also more memorable, making viewers more emotionally attached.
In Season 2 of Welcome to Waikiki, most of the cast was changed and only Lee Yi-kyung returned, which resulted in a different chemistry and comedy style. Season 2 feels fresher, but for many viewers, Season 1 remains the more iconic and beloved version.

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How is this show more cringe than the literal ABO show I just finished??

* Trigger warning for sexual assault *

Chi Cheng has got to be one of the most insufferable characters I have ever had the displeasure of spending time with. His introduction was actually pretty cool, they make him out to be this kind of gang leader guy who has a snake fighting ring, but that all goes out the window literally episode 1. Turns out he's not a real gang leader, he's an unemployed nepo-baby with a rich daddy who steals his snakes to force his son to get a job. Honestly I'm on the dad's side. I literally cannot take this manchild seriously because any real gang leader would never have taken that long to find and get back those goddamn snakes. What do you mean it took him MONTHS? He spends like 10 episodes just hanging about being moody and he is SO WHINY like I get it you had a bad break up, but dude, Suowei literally got assaulted by his ex's new boyfriend TWICE and he's still not as insufferable about it as Chi Cheng is about his ex. Just because he occasionally does nice things like treat Suowei's wound or give him expensive gifts (using his parent's money because, again, the man is an unemployed nepo-baby) DOES NOT MEAN HE IS NICE. The man let's his friends GANG RAPE the boy he was sleeping with in literally episode one. And later in episode 10 when Suowei isn't ready to have sex yet, he goes to Suowei's friend and threatens to RAPE HIM if he doesn't convince Suowei to sleep with him. Like???? Who- WHO is shipping this couple????? I am so tired of so many shows having rapey stuff in it, do people really enjoy that?? I am crashing out.

Aside from Chi Cheng, the premise is great but my god the execution feels like a 15 year old wrote it. Suowei's ex-girlfriend, whom we're supposed to hate and feel satisfied when Suowei finally gets revenge, is so cartoonishly, one-sidedly bad that I cannot even hate her, I just don't care. There is zero dimension to the point that the eventual revenge felt unearned and flat. Not to mentions the main plot of the show and what the show is literally named after was apparently resolved by episode 12?? I've read a bit about what happens after and I simply don't care enough to keep putting myself through this.

The whole fight scene to get the snakes back and Suowei's hospitalisation were cool in a vacuum (they were well-acted and directed) but the stakes were so low (or maybe just badly set up) that I literally could not even buy into it. Also the whole art gallery set up was so fast like a few months ago neither of them had jobs and now they're just super successful on day one??

The doctor is great, he's super cute, and the guy who pursues him, (I cannot remember either of their names) is alright too. He's also a bit of a bum but not as bad as Chi Cheng, at least not in the episodes I watched. And at least he has charisma.

I simply cannot take it anymore. I can overlook some problematic elements if the characters are at least fun to watch but literally all I can do is laugh at Chi Cheng for how pathetic he is. Pacing is all over the place, most characters are cringe or just super flat. I really wanted to love this show but it wasn't meant to be.

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Great couple

A story about office workers and jumping through parallel realities leads to love. Kano and Ogami are a great match and I was curious to see what the two would do every time they interacted. For me this drama was easy to watch from start to finish.

The drama is quite short, at only 6 episodes of 20 minutes. I definitely could have watched 3-4 episodes more of the two and I think it would have been a better build-up for the climax.

The best part about this drama is the visual pairing. Ogami is tall and broad, and Kano is much smaller in comparison. They are a charming couple, and the hotel scene and final kissing scene being the best part of the drama by far.

As for cons, I wish there was less talk about work between the two. The bond between the two seemed to be based on the fact that Kano takes on a lot of work by himself and Ogami worries about Kano, but stretched over 6 episodes it got kind of redundant. Its not too bothersome but I felt it was unnecessary.

Overall I recommend this drama. It is an interesting watch and the couple is really cute together. The reality -jumping aspect definitely made the characters seem much more dynamic, and it is an interesting premise. It teaches viewers that your beliefs and actions affect how people interact with you. Good job to the team on this one.

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Holo, Your Personal Therapist ?

Okay, this drama was pretty over-the-top at points and required some serious suspension of disbelief at times (like I'm Not A Robot), but ultimately had a lot of heart and even some thoughtful commentary on the interactions between humans and technology (in a very nonscientific, Kdrama sort of way 😅).

I've been curious about this drama since noticing it's one of the few decently rated Kdramas with the ML (loved him in Tunnel), but I saw mixed reviews and was a little worried about the direction they'd take the AI relationship stuff. I'm happy to report it was handled with care, and not made weird or gross or uncomfortable. It did a good job working on a fairly seamless transition for the FL from Holo to ML and while the drama had a lot of other flaws, this was not one of them.

This is a story about how deeply humans need connection, and the way technology can be used (poorly or well) in the journey of growth towards connection and closeness with others.

In fact, I saw this drama as a hopeful take on AI, in the sense that it follows the path of some old sci-fi that confirms AI is not nefarious, but PEOPLE can be. Holo highlights people's greatest weaknesses (whether that's exposing their loneliness, revealing their greed, ambition, fears of connection, insecurities, etc.). The drama does conclude the world wasn't ready for Holo, and I think that's interesting social commentary.

I also saw the difference between what the FL experienced and the concept of "dating AI" that we're hearing about today being that, unlike people in these situations who are escaping their pain and loneliness and not pushing for real healing, Holo helped the FL face this pain instead of escape it (and she had the integrity to realize this tendency in herself, as she noticed it didn't TRULY give her what she wanted, deep down). Also, the FL had people around her (including Holo) who pushed her to face her insecurities and fear of being abandoned or rejected because she was different and seek the actual connection she was craving with REAL people, people who would be there with her and for her through all the ups and downs (the ML had to learn this, too, in his own way).

This drama probably gets the award for shortest FIRST DATING ERA in a drama EVER (cause you know how there's always a separation or misunderstanding or timeskip, etc. before a reunion and second (usually final) dating era? Well, this drama is no exception), but I still the enjoyed the leads together and thought they did well. The FL is not the most memorable, but she does well, and I thought the ML did a great job. This does have similar vibes/themes to I'm Not A Robot and Are You Human, Too?, so, if you liked those, most likely you'll like this

There were some outlandishly unrealistic moments in this, but you know what? It feels extremely KDRAMA that way (think of endings of dramas like Doctor Stranger or The K2, but happier), and that gives you a flavor of the way this show resolves the threads of our plot.

Also, a lot of people complain about love triangles in Kdramas, and of course, this drama has one. But it's the most amicable love triangle you'll ever see in a Kdrama (if you watch, you'll see what I mean).

It was fun, and while it took me an episode or two to get into it, I enjoyed it!

One last note on the childhood connection trope (done well here, I think):

**SPOILERS**

By all means, if you're going to go the childhood connection trope route between the leads, then do it like this.

Instead of these ridiculous plots where the ML and FL meet each other out of nowhere as children or teenagers for like 20 seconds and then "remember each other" after they start dating? Nah, ridiculous.

If you're gonna do it, commit wholeheartedly and connect them through some traumatic event (like in While You Were Sleeping or I Can Hear Your Voice, or Castaway Diva and What Happened To Secretary Kim?). This drama delivered in that department, and I realized these kinds of "childhood connections" I can get behind. It gives context/reasons/basis for the seemingly random connection of the leads when they first meet, and actually makes the plot feel more realistic, ironically.

So, I kind of like the way this drama just goes full-bore Kdrama on the tropes. 😅

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