Reviews

Thee Exception to the Rule

This season was short, sweet, and full of broken rules. It beautifully showed that love doesn’t follow society’s expectations. When the right person enters your life, the rules no longer matter; what matters is embracing every moment with them, even when it goes against what others think relationships should look like.

Though it was the shortest season, it felt entirely complete. Yumi became someone’s exception, and he realized from the very beginning that she was the one for him. I admired how he let love guide him without reservation, setting himself apart from the men in her past. He was bold, fearless, and unwavering; truly her Superman.

I also have to give credit to all of the emotional cells throughout Yumi’s journey of love and self-discovery. The humor, teamwork, adventures, and even the little moments of chaos made the series so entertaining and relatable. It honestly makes you imagine your own little world of cells working behind the scenes in everyday life. Such a creative and well-produced drama.

Thank you to the writers and production team for delivering another K-drama banger.

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An Engaging (even though long) Show

This show was good, and I was thoroughly entertained even though it ran pretty long. I thought I would drop it because most of the synopsis had already happened by episode 15, and I still had more than double that number of episodes left to watch, but I had 0 idea what the plot would be. I am shocked that I made it all the way through, but I don't regret committing.

I liked the creativity around the show. That said, because it was so long, even though it was creative, it also occasionally felt tedious and repetitive. They insisted on killing a lot of characters, which plot-wise made sense, but of course, I never like it when they kill characters that are good. I'm still not over the fact that they killed the little boy sidekick Dou. He was so cute, and he deserved so much better, but I mean, he got to be a general in the end, I guess.

It was doubly ridiculous that an unprecedented number of characters committed suicide by knife to the throat, as if they didn't have poison or something they could use. I don't know why everyone had to take a knife to their throat, including her mother, which was a decent plot twist except for the fact that, once again, someone had taken a knife to their throat to kill themselves as opposed to something different.

I did enjoy that the Great Khan's wife was the real villain, but I hated that her story was pretty similar to every evil empress in that she wanted her son to become a ruler. Honestly, if she had just left Ashile She Er be, he probably would have been the ruler regardless. She actually just wanted power like every other person who is evil, and I'm not convinced about the reason why she did what she did. The Great Khan did suck, and he wasn't a great husband. It sounded like she literally had a better husband before him, and she still killed him, too. To say that her villain origin story started with this guy isn't true because she literally killed the original husband (the father of her son) she had. So, I don't know. It's like I low-key get her point of view, but they made her so black and white that it was a bit ridiculous.

I will say that the uncle killed Li Chang Ge’s dad, and I was trying to figure out how we would come back from that. Of course, they made it so that Li Shi Min literally killed Li Jian Cheng, not to become the crown prince, but because Li Jian Cheng was gonna kill Li Shi Min first, and so to survive, Li Shi Min killed Li Jian Cheng instead. Then it's crazy to know that low-key Li Shi Min was gonna be with Lady Jin if he hadn't come back from war to find out that Li Jian Cheng, the late crown prince, basically raped her???? I feel like they glossed over that a little too much because I'm like, wait, I don't understand how this was allowed and how this even happened. It was insane, but it did work to the plot's advantage. It was one of those points that was, for lack of a better word, “creative”, because normally in these shows where the character needs to get revenge, she succeeds, and it's literally the peak climax – she got her revenge, her parents are satisfied in their graves, and she feels like she's committed proper retribution – but in this show, they kind of turn that on its head and really push that idea of not everything is as it seems. Sometimes you have to think of the greater good as opposed to just revenge, which was this show's strongest point.

The romance was more of a slow burn secondary part of the plot, but I loved:
- Ashile Sun’s three reasons and letter of proposal 😭🥹
- omg omg she found Falcon’s letter of proposal ahhhh so cute i will die
- Their ride or die attitude for each other

Other parts of the show I liked:
- The godfather to father scene between Du Ru Hui and Hao Du was super cute
- Hao Du and Li Le Yan’s romance was nice and pretty decent overall
- Li Le Yan’s “side quest” as a princess learning about the people
- I actually enjoyed Ashile She Er’s character arc and how they explored his brotherhood with Ashile Sun

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Too Young to Communicate

This show was had a strong start for what it was as a light-hearted, youth, slice-of-life type show. It reminded me of Exclusive Fairytale and a little bit of When I Fly Towards You. However, the biggest issue with the show was the last four episodes. Up until then, it was actually very engaging in terms of complex characters. Instead of having a one-all, be-all antagonist, they had characters with depth. Each character had their flaws or moments of attitude/stubbornness that was more realistic than if there were just two characters that were point blank evil for the sake of plot.

That said, the ending was actually so disappointing. I only had 4 episodes left, but I genuinely contemplated not finishing it because of how badly they set up the ending.

SPOILERS BELOW
For the first 20 episodes, the main leads are excellent communicators. They have loved and trusted each other as friends since childhood, and it only strengthened as time went on. So it made no sense for us to just time jump and be told that they took a break because they needed to go their own way, and that led to a breakup basically…and then work backwards from there to show us flashbacks of her missing her recital, him being MIA, and then them not talking for over 12 months properly because both of them felt slighted by the other. Both felt the other had broken up with them, rather than the reality of the situation. It was just absolutely chaotic, and it made no sense for their characters at all for them to have fallen apart the way that they did. It definitely felt forced for the sake of the plot.

The show would have been better off with us actively watching them during the breakup time. Instead of it lasting for a year and a half, it should have only lasted a month or two. We should see them breaking up and figuring themselves out, figuring out how to communicate, rather than them just going silent with each other for over 12 months. That's just so unrealistic, and it made no sense because literally they're just a phone call away. I don't believe that they could not have communicated better.

Similarly, Ning was a solid character, and I understood she didn’t want to rely on her boyfriend but after everything, she ditched Chen Fan only to rely HEAVILY on a man that didn’t give two sh*** about her and almost helped her get assaulted??? Like, make that make sense?

I also want to note they succeeded in casting actors who passed as high schoolers, then college students, then adults. But I really don’t understand why they cast 30-year-olds for these kinds of shows…

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Enjoyed, but wasn't as pulled in

I liked the show, I really did, but I also hated, *like really hated*, the age gap set up, especially when the “secondary lead” was the male lead’s *nephew*. Lord Ding looks older than Zhuo Hua and kept being presented as “a sickly old man about to die” and I just was not a fan of it at all. It was the *main* thing that held this show back. Every time I “forgot” about it or accepted it, they would make some comment or other about his age and how he’s at death’s door or her age and how she has so much life to live. They are both *grown* so it wasn’t creepy, but the gap just served no more purpose than him being sickly.

I also loathed the empress dowager. I can respect the use of a straight-forward antagonist but every time her face was on screen I wanted to throw my phone. The complexity of the first princess really made up for the pain of listening to the empress dowager.

Lastly, I originally kind of liked the monotone baseline personality they gave to both Lord Ding and the first princess. However, since the show was on the longer side, it did start to get frustrating as they did the same ish over and over again. I guess they were solid foils with tragic childhoods that shaped their defensive/offensive personalities.

While Zhuo Hua and Lord Ding’s romance was very slow and *subtle*, I thoroughly enjoyed Zhi Mo & Ju Li’s romance. Just two sweet cuties that deserve nothing but good things. I also enjoyed how Zhi Jian interacted with them.

I wouldn’t rewatch this show just because it is on the longer end and most of the plot is more political than romantic. The show was just barely entertaining to me at first (the FML was an actress I liked and her character as Zhuo Hua was fun) *but* it ramped up once we get the “reveal” *but then* gets a tad repetitive near the end.

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A tad disappointed but was entertianed

This show was *not* bad. In fact, production and acting wise it was pretty solid. However, the plot? Not for me. The slivers of romance and my enjoyment of all the actors faces (esp. Jospeh’s) is really what kept me, and my own burning curiosity to see the ending. Being able to foster said curiosity out of me is credit to the show because I usually just don’t care enough.

Let me break down what I enjoyed:

- **The actors**. Literally everyone was impeccable and felt truly like the character(s) they were playing.
- **The sliver of romance.** It truly is not a lot of romance as I would say this is more a fantasy action than romantasy by any means. But the two main pairs that have a romance do not hold back. You get some fated mates, some “enemies to lovers” to close proximity to “fake dating”. A nice range of tropes with a questionable but classifiable “happy ending” for both. I actually get it a 9 for *both* the pairings because they were equally the main characters. It was a 9 and not a ten bc of the said questionable happy endings.
- The general pace of the plot. I think the reason I was able to finish the show was that it maintained a solid tempo. Anytime I was getting sick of a storyline, the storyline changed to something new.

Time to highlight what didn’t work:
- The synopsis does not set the viewer up for what is to come. It only covers Xiao Wei and the Dragon Deity's power but it should have focused on trying to defeat Jiu Ying. I don’t think saying it up frount would have been a spoiler as the show has so many twists its hard enough to keep up. I genuinely started the show thinking we would spend 29 episodes in Wei Manor and was getting a bit confused by the shows tempo as we got closer to finding Xiao Wei.
- I have to say the synopsis doesn’t lean into romance but the trailer and tone of the show seem, not light hearted but not so serious either so I did expect more romance and levity overall. As such, the show was doomed to be a hit for me. I am not a fan of being given a show I wasn’t expecting lol
- The show overdoes red herrings. In an effort to impress the viewer with plot creativity, the show actually just achieved frustrating me and also becoming a bit redundant in its “plot twists”.
- 9.9x out of 10 I am not a fan of time travel because the show usually just ignores its own plot holes and causes more of a headache than less. While the show did a decent job with the time travel for the whole Lu Wu Yi & Ji Ling’s stuffed fox, it also just felt overwhelming and unnecessary. It was romantic enough but we’re told she *cannot* change the future, but then to prevent him from committing suicide she conveniently could by cutting her tail which was conveniently “fixed” by Ji Ling STILL “committing suicide” by giving her his dragon scale which is conveniently resolved by the DEAD Chi Wen’s last power giving energy to a special rock which is conveniently fast tracked by the ALSO *supposedly* DEAD star stone and idk what else.
- See how conveniently everything unfolded? I am a happily ever after girl so I don’t mind convenient plot solutions but with all those conveniences, why the heck did the show end with 3 out of 4 of the main lead forgetting EVERYTHING that happened in the show? Two of whom randomly land in a different timeline.
- Also circling back to the time travel, the secondary time travel makes less sense because if Jiu Ying was killed back in time before Lu Wu Yi is part of the nine-tailed fox clan, then how does Wu Shi Guang still end up as the 10th dragon deity–everything we watched has been undone and we have 0 real knowledge of the “actual” timeline that happened in the show. We see You Chi
alive again and more serious, but that’s it. Does that mean You Chi’s father isn’t dead because that whole situation didn’t happen? Does that mean Wu Shi Guang never had the sliver of Jiu Ying’s essence in him? If so, why does he remember everything that technically didn’t happen?

See what I mean? The show tried so hard to *be* and instead it was just a snake eating it’s own tail (pun intended bc Jiu Ying is a snake). I enjoyed it at face value but with all the twists and turns that led to dead ends, it’s clear this show wanted to appear intellectual to some degree. If you like fantasy, and don’t mind the headache involved in keeping up with everything, I would recommend, otherwise, eh.

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After 4 Years! At last but…

Since 2021 I watched S1 then S2! I loved Yumi Cells! Loved it bc I could see and understand every aspect of Yumi.


Those cells made me laugh, cry and understand what she was going thru. I was team Babi! Had to wait almost 4 years for S3 and I cried of happiness to be able to see Yumi’s final journey S3. I was so worried that I would only have 8 episodes and how would things turn out. I have a bittersweet feeling bc I wanted more. How can after 4 years they gave us only 8 episodes? I wanted more of her relationship with Soonrok, their wedding. We deserved more!

I gave S1 10/10 and S2 10/10 but this season I just couldn’t. I gave it 9.5 and only bc it was too short for me. I felt it somewhat rushed those last 2 episodes. How can we enjoy 1-1/2 episodes of their relationship only.

So happy for Yumi that she found her love at last! One of my favorite kdrama!

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A Heroine's Journey (versus the generation before her with a whole lot of yearning from the ML)

WHAT A GOOD SHOW. ITS EXACTLY WHAT I’D BEEN CRAVING.

I just love a good costume or fantasy with mostly yearning and romance and love. This show had it! It’s not a 50/50 split, definitely more a “from the female leads pov” but I didn’t mind because Zhou Yi Ran did soooo good conveying his thoughts/emotions with just his face let alone his delivery of lines.

The good of this show:
- **The Plot:** it’s simple and relatively straightforward in a way some fantasies are not, but is a way that allowed the real messages of the show shine AND that allowed us to just enjoy Cai Zhao’s journey (and her romance with Mu Qing Yan)
- I love this more literally visual/breakdown of generational trauma in this show. You can clearly see how her aunt’s choices (and the choices of those around her) affected everyone and in turn colored how the kids grow up.
- **The Romance:** As I mentioned, we don’t get scenes with Mu Qing Yan much without Cai Zhao, but Zhou Yi Ran does such a good job that I don’t think we needed more than what we got. Mu Qing Yan clearly falls for Cai Zhao almost instantly, wanting to be around her as much as possible, being clearly upset when he learns she betrothed, following her on all her adventures for no other reason than to make sure she is safe.
- I adored their “break up scene” as much as anyone could adore it. Cai Zhao loves him, but he was being toxic, a bit too manipulative, selfish, and shortsighted. She saw that, she STILL loved him, BUT she told him, they were not going to work with that set up. Lo and behold, he stops trying to learn the Wu method, he stops being as aggressive as he was at the start, and he start letting her make her own choices properly – even when he really wanted to just throw her over his shoulder and hide them away somewhere safe.
- The Main Leads: I know I talk about them in the romance point, but their characters were great.
- Cai Zhao is a caring young woman determined to follow the path of justice like her beloved aunt. I loved how she kinda breezes by peoples negative opinions, but you can see how she has to struggle with prioritizing her own feelings vs her morals vs what the adults she admire tell her.
- Mu Qing Yan is an iconic male lead imo. Is he a little bit “toxic”? Sure, but not so much so that is unreasonable. To say his upbringing was traumatic is an understatement. The man could probably do with some therapy but his arc is clear – he was a young man on the road set for revenge and then death. But in meeting Cai Zhao, his softer side is slowly exposed and freed from the wall around his heart. He was totally smitten with her and I ate up every second of it.
- The secondary leads! I didn’t think I would like Qi Ling Bo or even her mom because they were definitely annoying at the start, but their growth and pain and struggles were legit and I loved them both by the end. The rest of the secondary leads were great too. I feel bad for my guy Song Yu Zhi, but hope he finds love with someone else. I also actually loved his dad LOL the way he was trying to get his son to woo Cai Zhao was highly entertaining and he spoke facts when he said that Cai Zhao likes how unrestrained Mu Qing Yan is with and around her which is why she isn’t into Song Yu Zhi.

So for the “flaws” of the show, I think some were less “serious” than others but:
- There are some “logistics” of the story that are conveniently skipped but threw me off. Like Cai Zhao’s sheath for her sword makes no sense. How does the sword come out of the sheath when the tip of the sword is way bigger than the base but the base of the sheath is small? And how did Mu Qing Yan get his sword when she hijacked his “execution”? Those were the more obvious ones, but there were other little things like that, that I wished they properly resolved even with a sentence or something. If it’s going to happen off screen it needs to be something you can obviously stitch together which wasn’t the case for those moments.
- The plot was solid, but I was kinda hoping for some kind of “wow” climax. I don’t think it was horrible, but heaven knows some shows overkill on red herrings and “plot twists” for shock value, but I could see Qi Yun Ke being the villain from a mile away and no one else would have made sense but still – would have been nice if they thought more on how to make the antagonist more dynamic and not the “leader of all the good sects” lol

That are my only two complains. Some people claim that the show is confusing, which considering my second complaint, I wholeheartedly disagreed. But then some people say there were too many characters introduced all at once. To which I say: I am not a native Chinese speaker so I am *used* to being confused by fantasy plots in the beginning...but this show is no more confusing than others similar to it. If anything it’s a pretty simple fantasy with just two sides: the demons vs the “amazing perfect six sect”. There's a range of characters, but you really don't need to "keep tabs" as the last names do most of the heavy lifting. After finishing it, anyone that I could not really "remember" well was not more important than if they were "good" or "bad" tbh LOL.

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Yumi’s Cells: The K-Drama That Redefined Love for Me

It’s been a while since I last wrote a K-drama review, but Yumi's Cells truly deserves one.

I’ve followed this series since 2021, from Season 1 all the way to Season 3, and somewhere along the journey, it felt like I was growing alongside Yumi. This isn’t your typical K-drama where you can easily predict a happy ending. Instead, it gives you something more real, something more human.

Seasons 1 and 2 gave me both butterflies and heartbreak. I genuinely thought Woong was already the best match for Yumi. But the story reminds us of a hard truth: love alone isn’t always enough. If one person isn’t ready to fully commit, no matter how strong the feelings are, it simply won’t work.

Then came Babi, someone who seemed ready, stable, and “right.” But when challenges appeared, his sense of commitment wavered too. And that’s what makes this drama stand out, it doesn’t romanticize love; it shows how fragile and complex it can be.

Season 3 felt entirely different. More mature. More grounded. It quietly teaches that love can be patient, calm (except Soon Rok's naughty cell 🙈), certain and not defined by how long you’ve known someone. Sometimes, the right kind of love comes when you’ve already become the person you needed to be.

What I love most about Yumi’s Cells is how it beautifully captures life in all its highs and lows and how every experience, whether painful or joyful, shapes who we become.

This drama didn’t just tell a love story. It told a story about growth, timing, and self-understanding.

Definitely one of my all-time favorite K-dramas and a must watch (please do watch the other seasons too since it will really hit different before watching S3).

And yes… I will truly miss Yumi—and of course, the adorable cells. 🥹

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Sound Bigger Than The Horror

A horror with classic formula, full of obnoxious characters making selfish and ignorant decisions that endanger everyone. Well, without them there is no horror story, right?

No complaint about the acting, I love them all staying true to the character. Thorough the movie there was non stop jump scare with freaking loud sound, it was supposed to scare me, but it became repetitive, tiring to be completely honest, and even funny at some point. Story wise, there might be a dozen of plot hole unexplained, given the short duration. Feels like this movie would be more wrapped nicely if they gave us back story snippet, but instead they left us hanging. I only came to understand the story more after reading some theory. This also became a hit in Korea, because the real background setting. Maybe for foreigner like me- it didn't impact me as much as it is only full of cheap scare.. but if you want that experience, you might enjoy this! As for me, unfortunately this isn't the type of horror I am into.

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it was really good, however the end felt rushed

I really wanted to see more of their lives together and how their relationship continued to grow beyond what we were shown. It felt like the story had so much more depth to explore, especially with the characters and their dynamics. Honestly, this could have easily stretched to 10–12 episodes, because with only 8, everything felt a bit rushed and some moments didn’t land as strongly as they could have. That said, despite the pacing, it was still an enjoyable watch overall.

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Some stories entertain, some stories saves lives!

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to explain what season 2 episode 6 did to me.

And I won’t spoil it, because some moments deserve to arrive unannounced, exactly when someone needs them most.

But the conversations between Chishiya and K♦️, and later Momoka and K♦️, broke something open inside me. Not in a painful way… in the way light breaks through a locked room you forgot even had windows.

I watched that episode at one of the weakest points of my life. The kind of weakness that doesn’t look dramatic from the outside. The quiet kind. The dangerous kind. The kind where your soul gets tired before your body does.

I’ve been questioning myself for a long time now. Questioning my ideals. Questioning why I keep choosing empathy, sincerity, hope, kindness, sacrifice… when the world often rewards the opposite. I kept wondering if maybe I was naïve all along. If maybe survival truly belongs only to people who learn how to become colder, more selfish, more detached.

And somewhere along that dialogue, I started crying uncontrollably because it felt like the episode was answering questions I had never managed to say out loud.

What if some people simply cannot betray their nature?
What if some people would rather suffer than abandon what makes them human?
What if meaning is not found in winning, but in remaining true to yourself even when the world gives you no reason to?

That episode reminded me that not every way of living needs external validation to be real.

There are people who love without guarantees.
People who continue being gentle after life gives them every reason not to.
People who hold onto impossible ideals not because they’re foolish, but because abandoning them would feel like a spiritual death.

And maybe that makes us irrational.
Maybe it makes us weak in the eyes of the world.

But I think there’s something profoundly beautiful about refusing to let pain turn you into someone unrecognizable to yourself.

For the first time in a long while, I stopped seeing my softness as failure.
I stopped seeing my persistence as stupidity.
I stopped needing proof that my way of living will “pay off.”

I realized that even if the world never rewards people like us… I still want to live this way.
I still want to care deeply.
I still want to believe in people.
I still want to protect the fragile parts of myself instead of killing them to survive more comfortably.

And when my life eventually ends, I think my greatest victory would simply be this:
that despite everything, I did not become cruel.

This scene has become strangely sacred to me.
Every time I begin collapsing internally, I return to it.
And every single time, it pulls me back from the edge.

Some stories entertain you.
Some stories distract you.

And then there are stories that quietly save your life.

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Watch for beautiful visuals, costumes, captivating romance...and a cute cat

Reviewing this after bingeing this again (yes, the show definitely has rewatch value) and as someone who has watched too many xianxia/period costume dramas to count, this is truly one of the better shows to watch. Whether it is the aesthetics, plot, charactors or on-screen chemistry, there is really have not much to gripe about. OST wise was decent too but not particularly memorable where you are transported back to an iconic scene etc. Of course, if you are a fan of Deng Wei, this is a must watch, the styling is on point and there were multiple facets to his charactor on top of the character growth that he portrayed, which really makes you appreciate his acting skill here. Along with the strong characterisation of the FL, and the cohesiveness of how they blended the characters from different timelines together. Some dramas require you to suspend logical thinking or to close one eye to subpar visuals/CGI, but for LOTDT, you can just sit back and immerse yourself in the beautiful world set up in the drama.

I also appreciated the references to the meaning of memory, our lives and the outcomes of our own choices/action. What use is restarting in a new world if the memories are completely different, even if the alternative world has the life you desire? In the end, we are but a sum of our own experiences and relationships with each other.

ps. Many others have highlighted this and I will add to the chorus - Deng Wei's hair styling was a main character in itself here too !

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Go man, give us nothing!

Underwhelmed and unsatisfied with the romance: Have you ever waited 4 years for a complete letdown? That's what it feels. The characters are actually well thought out and their interiority beautifully depicted. Yumi is the best version of herself, goal-oriented and very adult.

But she still can't dress herself to save her life. The knitwear is atrocious. Over a white t-shirt, what is this, trashy 1998? Couple that with the unflattering haircut and you have a heroine that lacks taste, ironically for an artist. It's good that she doesn't design the comics, she's writing them.

The romance doesn't flourish until the last episodes and even then it's childish and redundant. I signed up for heart-fluttering, not okay-fine. They are adults, sure, but there can still be whimsy. I am profoundly underwhelmed.

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August was a documentary bike ride to Lhasa, Tibet taken and directed by Zhang Zhe Han. The short film was part scenic trip and part journal revelations.

After being publicly canceled in August of 2021 and dragged through the mud by netizens, Zhang was afraid to leave his house and be seen in public. (Having read the complaints, it seemed like the punishment did not fit the crime at least from this outsider’s perspective.) Music helped restore the embattled actor and he found new ways to express himself, find work, and begin healing his wounds. This documentary was one of the ways he let people know that words can hurt and that he was choosing to focus on the positive.

There were times the set-ups felt overly staged as he played with children, helped a restaurant owner cook and serve, learned from river raft guides about their business and relationship, or interviewed a Tibetan musician. Having said that, I enjoyed the bits and his chats with the different people who opened their lives to him. The scenery, as expected, was stunning. Mountain vistas, glaciers, rivers, green fields with nomadic herds, all were soothing as Zhang experienced them.

If you are a Zhang Zhe Han fan, I could highly recommend “August” as he bared his heart and discussed his life without going into the “scandal” that nearly broke him. If you don’t know who he is, the documentary is still a sweet ride through the Tibetan mountains with brief glimpses into the people who live and work there.

4 May 2026

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