Reviews

An Underrated Fantasy Worth the Epic Journey

From what’s been recommended to new viewers over the years, I’m genuinely surprised this one rarely gets mentioned. Although the first 4–6 episodes were a bit difficult for me due to misunderstandings between the leads, this is such a solid staple for fantasy watchers. It has everything: dragons, gods, phoenixes, an evil deity, and cultivators. There are heroes, deep betrayals, redemption arcs, and several meaningful sacrifices along the way.

I had so much fun watching this. The settings were beautiful, and the action scenes were thrilling and powerful. The story unfolds as an epic journey, with strong character and plot development that gives the narrative real growth and helps connect the audience to both the story and its characters. This was a drama that was hard to put down because it was so engaging, with themes that really landed for me. I do think the last few episodes could have been edited down a bit, as the narrative felt slightly stretched. That said, I loved how everything wrapped up, and overall, I truly loved this drama.

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"Be Yourself, That's the Coolest Thing"

Be Yourself follows the story of four girls from room 5438 across their four years of college. The series consist 24 eps, each 6 eps covers the story from one year on college.

Be Yourself actually feels quite personal and nostalgic for me because of how accurately they captured dorm life, the way I experienced it myself. One thing I notice is the dorm/room setting arrangement doesn’t feel too artificial like in some other Cdramas, but it’s still comfortable and pleasant to watch.

The plot feels so real, from dorm life to college struggles, like adapting & dealing with friendships, love, family, and figuring out who they really are. It’s simple, not overly dramatic but the emotions and vibes are really there.

The thing I want to complain about is how they solve problems. They often try to wrap up one plotline in a single episode, so some conclusions feel rushed. It makes me think, “It’s just like that?” and it doesn’t always feel realistic. That also makes the series ending feel a bit bland because I was hoping for more character development from the girls. The best character development belongs to Zhang Ruonan’s character.

The four girls’ chemistry as roommates is the highlight of the show. They have very different personalities and backgrounds, which makes it fun to watch. They bicker but also help each other grow. One day they might hurt each other, but the next day everything feels fine again. The love lines also feel realistic to me, not every couple ends up together, but that’s reality, sometimes you have to choose your future over romance.

Overall, it’s not perfect, but it’s absolutely enjoyable.

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Speechless

Respectfully, what was that? The stupidity is overwhelming, Jay's friend group there is just no reasonable excuse for the level of absolute stupidity shown by every single person. Jay being the absolute worst. His brother is a dang police detective (I'll be it not a good one) Jay was present at minimum 3 crime scenes, witnessed no less than 3 (maybe more) of his friends being wheeled out in body bags and still he left the hospital to meet a killer, alone? How do that make sense? In the final ep Jade left the police station to meet Kamin at a murder in progress and he brought zero back up? Why did Kamin leave an injured Jay alone in front of the house, why didn't he at least put him in his car. Why didn't Kamin cuff Puifia? He disarmed a drug lord with ease but the female college student who didn't even have a gun was to difficult? In the end the Puifia and Phut wanted to play with the detectives so they allowed themselves to be found, Jade and Kamin solved nothing. I really wanted to like this show but I cannot get past the stupidity. There was no reason everyone had to be that dumb, the plot didn't require that level of idiocy.

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Dared to Death but not quite Daring

Right off the bat, it was quite smooth both in terms of pacing/cuts and the leads' wit/mouths. I liked how cocky Jade was and how particular Inspector Kamin was, and the natural, friendly competitiveness that sprang up almost immediately between them. They had fun banter and gave pushback for bad behavior.

This duo made for a good buddy-cop type of dynamic, which is my jam.

However, fight scenes could be awkward, and I do think it took a little too long for the stakes to be amped up. Not to mention, they spelled some clues/events out more than they needed to, in my opinion. An air of mystery is more attractive, you know? I think if they had thrown in some fake-outs and leaned into heavy deception toward the audience, that would have improved things massively.

Now, the finale didn't make or save this drama for me, but it did kind of earn it some brownie points for how crazy-chaotic/fun it got.

Overall, a good effort on the part of the production. It was just lacking in some areas.

In other words, it has issues, but I still liked it. Whether you will as well, depends . . .

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Liked season 1 better

I did get some clarity here like on the 2nd couple's story and why shu yi speaks Japanese cz he's dad is Japanese ig? But i was kinda expecting some growth in Shi De's character cz he's always doing things behind Shu yi's back and that didnt happen. Also leaving him for 5 years for the father's approval doesn't sound like him😅 knowing the him from season 1 he's too much of a schemer to do that. There was nothing very interesing going on with the 1st couple.

I do like how Shu Yi became friends with Bing wei and Zhe Yu never expected that. I kinda felt all the characters personality changed from season 1 except Shu Yi.

Bing Wei was a little too affectionate towards Zhe Yu. Zhe Yu was a lot more calmer, kinda a tease and friends with Shu Yi. Doc lost his wicked vibe and had become more rude kinda. Shi De was kinda like a depressed psycho i guess he lost his cunning wicked charm.

As for the 2nd couple i did read a lot of comments saying doc didnt love Xuan but i don't think so. He did love him in his way but was hesitant to acknowledge it cz xuan was like a stray cat and got attached to the 1st thing that gave him some warmth. Overall i feel both of them loved each other in their own ways although imperfect.

Overall watch it. It's good. Its just that the season 1 was wayyy too good i kinda expected more.

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Promising start, but loses its impact

5.5/10. I think this series had a strong and promising beginning, but it eventually fell flat for me. My main issues were the editing and the way the show tried to balance the police investigation with the romance. Unfortunately, these two elements didn’t blend well, and it weakened the overall impact of the story.

The main premise was interesting, and the acting was decent at best, with some stronger moments here and there. I do wish we had seen more depth and background for the friend group, because I never felt fully invested in most of them—except maybe Jay, who stood out a bit more.

The biggest highlight of the series was definitely JoongDunk’s chemistry, along with the OST, which helped carry some emotional moments. Those elements made the show more enjoyable despite its flaws.

I’m glad it was available on Netflix, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have discovered it. Hopefully, this is a step toward making more BL series accessible on major international streaming platforms, giving them the wider audience they deserve.

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started great and lost it totally

The first few Episodes were so good but then it deteriorated totally. It’s really sad because of the actors and specially the baby are so good. But it’s just not interesting anymore and has no real heart. I will probably watch the last episode but drop it for now. it is not a spoiler that it has a left triangle, which is totally unnecessary. I was hoping for a healing Romans or a slice of life and the Journey becoming parents and overcoming the death of their loved ones together. instead, it is a wishy-washy female lead, and the second male lead who is a good actor, but a useless character in my opinion.

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Would've Likely Been Great with Better Pacing

When working with a thriller/mystery drama, you have to keep your pacing really tight; otherwise, you risk losing your audience. If you solve the cases too quickly, you lose the impact and risk plot holes. Too slow and the audience gets bored/frustrated.

Unfortunately, this story falls in the latter half. Cases took too long to conclude (one case literally took 4 and a half episodes to solve). Honestly why? Some cases would keep going around and around themselves (like they were trying to be really smart), and when you finally got to the conclusion..., the payoff wasn't worth it.

The plot does get some points in telling stories, largely about the plight of women, but the message gets swallowed up by the aforementioned bad pacing. Also, I would've appreciated it if our main characters emoted a bit more. It's not fun watching a show where the characters only move between 2, maybe 3 facial expressions, traumatic background be damned.

I did enjoy the subtle romance, though. It wasn't loud, but it was really sweet and caring—especially from his side.

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Flirt you to Death

I came here with high expectations, but it disappointed me. I thought that investigation of the murder is going to be the main plot, but, no, it was flirting. We have a dead body in front of us, yet the main characters are flirting. They flirt at home, they flirt at their workplace, they flirt at their crime scene, they flirt at the hospital,etc. I know they are lead couple, but what about the investigation. At one point,I wanted to skip their scenes just to see where the story is going. I have to appreciate myself for controlling my urge and watching all their scenes without skipping.

This show has a worst police department. It's true though that I have watched much worse police departments in other shows. However, it never went this far, when investigation is the central point of the plot.

Now I am going to tell you about the good points of the show. First the chemistry of joong and dunk.The way their story progressed was smooth like butter🕺🏻. I'm not able to come up with another point.

Let's talk about the bad ones🙃.I think the good cast was wasted. They have a really good cast lineup, but it wasn't used well. The reason because they gave more screen time to joong and dunk to flirt with each other. I know they are main characters, but what about the investigation. The clues appear out of no where, making it hard to follow. I thought it was due to my own lack of intelligence. But believe me I have watched many complicated shows, and I have always grasped what was going on. I just couldn't comprehend it, the investigation is all over the place. None of the characters felt fully developed.The action scenes were lackluster and doesn't leave any impact on the audience.

Random thought :
Dunk’s hair in the earlier episodes is so weird. It was like there was a block of hair in front of his eyes. Every time he appeared on screen, it irritated me, and I just wanted to comb his hair so I could watch the series without any distractions.

In conclusion, I want to say that this drama is going to be overrated. No doubt, it is not Joong Dunk’s best work — in fact, it’s not even good. But still, if you're a fan, you should watch it. And if you're not, I dare you to watch it.

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Impossible to finish.

Vincenzo was a series I was looking forward to when tvN announced that they were producing this series with a few actors I tend to like when they are playing on-screen and I must admit that I was enjoying the very first few episodes when this series was released for public. It wasn't a masterpiece in those episodes either, but the series looked promising and decided to give it a full go.

Now about five or six episodes in, my opinion started to shift to a more negative point of view as I found the episodes becoming somewhat of a copy of the previous with a different story line and to me it felt that the producers were simply doing their best to stretch this series out and cash in.

Remind you that I started to watch this series back in 2021, I finished the last episode of this series right now in 2026 as I barely was able to waste my time to actually finish the series and my opinion even worsened over time.

Story was repetitive, weak and one could already see what was coming well in advance.

The acting was reasonable with some actors like Song Joong Ki, however Jeon Yeo Been been the absolute worst in this series (don't like her style of acting) and for some reason I am completely shocked by the fact that she won an award with it.

Music is reasonable to good

And it is fair to say that the rewatch value gets the lowest of the lowest score given that it took almost five years for me to complete 20 episodes.

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If you are a mystery/thriller lover and haven’t watch this drama, you are missing out so much

Let’s start with the fictitious country/city they had created for this drama, while I find it creative, the fake language really took me out. 😅 They didn’t even sound like a language. I think this is the only thing that bugged me aside from the unclear ending (maybe I am the only one who didn’t really understand it).

I liked the mystery element in this drama, and I really liked the concept of it, like how the ones that had really decided for their death actually made something out of it to make the predators pay for their sins and crimes although most people won’t take this as something good. But for me, watching this drama, I come to think of all those people who quietly left the world, taking with them their suffering and possibly their predators' crimes too. It make me think that maybe if they were determined enough like the characters in the cases of this drama, some of the sinners/criminals might have been put behind bars although I am certain it might not be easy like in the drama.

I really liked the songs in this drama, after rewatching the drama so many times, I even started to sing along at some point. 😁

I recommend this drama to anyone who love mystery/thriller because it is that good! I even rewatched this drama right after I finished it.

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My Sunbae likes me (°•°)

Thought this drama was about family and taking care of a child. Definitely not.

Not going to mention anything about romance between the leads. Because there's not much between them.
SML been getting all the cute scenes with fl.

So FL wanted to be a guardian to her sister baby.
She tried finding a job to support herself and the baby. Gets hired not because she's talented, oh no! She gets hired because she knows someone that works there.
She did not know the man she liked before was working there, but he most definitely got her into the company.

What about ML? His character is not important in this story. He's just the baby sitter that lives with them!

FL returns late every night because her Sunbae keeps her at the office to overwork her because he likes her (weird). He knows she got a baby to take care of, but he doesn't care because it's his universe with fl!

ML is left to watch WooJoo and worry himself because fl is too busy with her Sunbae.
She doesn't answer ml phones calls because she just doesn't bother to update him or care to.
Which is dumb because she wanted to be a guardian.

The first dumb thing I thought she did was go with her Sunbae to a hotel room to finish a work project alone at night. Haven't seen this guy in years mind you. It might be nothing to you, but you'll see why if you watch it yourself. She does more dumb things later. FL just doesn't think!

I don't know what's up with the way she's written.
Or why they needed to have her Sunbae with so much scenes. When this was supposed to be about taking care of a child with her in-law.

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Good noir vibe, but it pulls its punches

​Honestly, a lot of the low ratings are probably from people who watched it with trash machine translations or expected a standard polished K-drama. It’s actually a pretty solid, gritty movie, but I totally get why it frustrated some viewers.

​The atmosphere is definitely the best part. It really nails that desperate, dirty underground vibe. The dynamic between the two female leads is raw - they aren't your typical best friends; they're just trying to survive and aren't afraid to be completely toxic to each other.

Throwing in real-world problems like the housing scams and loan sharks gave the story some actual weight.
​But here’s my biggest issue: for a movie trying to be a dark noir, it’s way too timid. It heavily hints that Ye Seul works in the shady nightlife (the whole "blue bracelet" thing at the market), but it never actually shows what she goes through. Why be so vague about her actual job? If you're making a movie about women trying to escape a messed-up life, why sugarcoat the very thing they are trying to escape from?

It felt like the director was just too scared to go all the way.
​Instead of exploring that actual darkness, we just get endless screaming matches in cars and a super cliché sports-betting plot. It’s still a decent watch if you're into the genre, but ngl, it left me a bit disappointed. It could have been a 9/10 if it actually had the guts to show the ugly truth instead of just playing it safe.

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Totally overrated. I am shocked at the glowing reviews.

ABO Desire is one of the weakest BLs I've ever seen (out of many more than 100 titles so far). Those who gave it 10 stars: Were we watching the same show?

Although I don't like mpreg content whatsoever, in judging this series, I put aside all my reservations and feelings about it in order to give it a fair review. I am not familiar with the omegaverse, but I think it's an intriguing concept when it comes to having an alternate universe in which people are so strongly driven by their animalistic sexuality (pheromones, mating rituals, sexual selection and compatibility) to the degree where they have "rutting periods" and can't stop themselves from forcing themselves on others. It's interesting, but it gives me one overwhelming expectation: That the series will be very horny. Given the premise, I expect a lot of sex. The series doesn't deliver it at all. Nothing sexual is shown, even the kisses are really boring. How do you have a show about hypersexualized people, and even the kissing is passionless? I understand that there may be censorship issues, but then maybe China isn't the place to realize a series like this, or maybe they needed to find a better way to get around it. It just doesn't work. I've seen shows with steamier scenes that are basically Hallmark romance plots.

The irredeemable script: ABO Desire felt like it must have been created from some very weak source material. I have not read the source material, I'm just assuming it's bad because this entire series was like watching a terrrible fanfic. Most egregiously, the plot exposition was often handled by unrelated people simply telling us what is going on. The worst were the moments when totally random bystanders would give us the plot points: "Can you believe so and so did such and such? I heard that..." This is not how you write a story. You show it, you don't tell it. Less offensive, but still so disappointing were moments like Hua Yong explaining Shen Wen Lang's entire backstory like a footnote (and the backstory didn't even give us an easily understandable reason for why he hates omegas that much). Finally, we had this random narrator suddenly pop up out of nowhere in a late episode when (I guess) they really couldn't find another way to explain certain events. What? You can't just introduce a narrator randomly. You need to start and finish with one, or have one throughout or intermittently.

Unexplained inconsistencies: Let's think about the episode where Shen Wen Lang forces himself on Gao Tu, and neither of them recognize each other. Okay, maybe it's supposed to be pitch black in the room, and we have to just imagine that we can't see anything even though we can see everything. But these two have been close for what, like 10 years? They don't recognize each other's voices or anything, while being as intimate as possible? Shen Wen Lang doesn't recognize that same omega scent that he keeps telling Gao Tu to wash off? It's so incredible. Meanwhile, Sheng Shao You doesn't recognize Hua Yong in bed either, who is... his actual lover, with whom he lives.

The acting: With the exception of Li Pei En as Gao Tu, I didn't find any of these characters believable or relatable. All the other main characters seemed constantly bored. When something upsetting happened, no one looked upset. Their facial expressions never changed throughout the episodes, no matter what was going on. It was totally jarring. The worst offender was probably Qiu Ding Jie (Sheng Shao Yu), who may as well have been a mannequin. He had one crying scene which was his only actual acting moment in the whole show, that I can recall. If your loved one is injured, you should show grief. If someone has wronged you, you should show anger. If you're kissing someone you want, you should show desire! These characters mostly show nothing, and because I'm watching other shows at the same time where the actors actually do act, I could not stomach all the blank expressions throughout this series.

The main romance: While Hua Yong's scheming was kind of interesting, the love story fell flat. One moment they liked each other, the next they were together, somehow skipping the most exciting part of a romance (when two people who like each other finally get together) and then we just had to watch all their petty disagreements and reconciliations for the rest of the show (and a lot of cooking and eating, for some reason).

The side romance: From reading other reviews, I know that I'm definitely not the only person who was bored by the monotonous main romance and much more invested in the side romance. Gao Tu and Shen Wen Lang did not get enough screen time, and their story was nothing but an endless conflict. Why? It was repetitive; as soon as a possible solution arose, so did a new problem (such as Gao Tu's father's scheming at the very end of the series, something that probably should have been introduced earlier). I don't know why it needs to be explained, but a plot should introduce conflicts with the goal of having the satisfaction of conflict resolution. Gao Tu and Shen Wen Lang were never able to work through their issues, things that could have been quite easily settled if they'd just tried to talk about them. All we got for conflict resolution with these two was, at the very end, a mere suggestion that things could possibly be fixed in the future. Not to mention, we now know that they'd already lost years together and that Gao Tu had to endure the presumably torturous pregnancy that Shen Wen Lang could have helped him with, as first years of child rearing without his partner (and that Shen Wen Lang is a stranger to his own child). We never had the satisfaction of seeing them reconcile or understand each other. You don't build up all these obstacles over the course of 16 whole episodes just to have them still remaining by the end.

In summary, I found ABO Desire to be a frustrating watch whenever it wasn't completely boring.

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