Reviews

Second lead won my vote

I loved this series so so sooo soooooo much. honestly it was so refreshing to see her embracing her beauty, her friends embracing her too. And the men around her seeing her beauty with and without makeup.
Now I have to be honest that I was so split on the last few episodes, which was such a twist. I love Han Seo Jun, I loved him the entire series. There was no "questionable" moments that usually comes when learning about the second male lead that pushes you to root for the male lead. He was sweet, tough, funny, and his love for her was selfless. He fought to protect her, didn't care if he was teased for his constant care and wasn't expecting anything in return for his love.
I honestly had this momentary hope that instead of running to "stop" Su ho, she would walk towards the entrance then stop and race after Seo Jun and find him crying. Embrace him and they can reminisce about how much they grew together over the years. How he was more of a partner to her, supported her and loved her over the years.
Yes, I know Su Ho was set in between a rock and a hard place when they broke up, but their relationship was a high school, first love romance. They didn't really go on proper dates or grow together since it was a constant battle from the get go, that excited rush of the honeymoon period. So to have them instantly get back together just seemed a bit cliche since it was Seo Jun who gave her the care and love, spent years as her friend and built a real foundation together.
Don't get me wrong, I know the heart wants what it wants, sometimes you just don't have those feelings for someone. Su Ho is a great character and I do like their love story but I just rooted for Seo Jun a bit more in this. RaWr.
I also was in tears with his singing the song in the end, his raw emotions. I just wanted him to have a happy ending too.

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Don’t Bother

If you want great reviews, write great. If you want this review, write like you did. The actors did what they could with this romcom that for some reason didn’t have a rom. Quickly the writers appeared to start a campaign regarding the lack of romance and began calling it a com rom…and this was just the beginning if it’s stupidity. Watch it and see! This was a murder mystery with slapstick. If the writers would have been honest about the genre, I definitely would have rated it higher, but then I probably wouldn’t have watched it. Their you have it in a nutshell my friends.

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Confusing, but still enjoyable

I gave this series a shit since I watched the original thai one and because I saw some tiktoks about the drama. The story is interesting but confusing at the same time. Still, you can tell the drama does not take itself too seriously so the confusion can be forgiven as a silly little BL plot. The pairing work well, I liked the side couple more than the main couple but no one was ouright bad. I surprisingly liked the kissing scenes a lot and felt like they were spread out nicely as well. This was a short and fresh drama for me, enjoyable and a little silly. One comment I do have is that I was confused by some of the voice lines looking like they werent recorded live, and it took me out of the immersion even more coupled with the silly nature of the drama. I still recommend a watch.

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Over dubbing not for me...

I did not like the overdubbing at all but that is really about the only thing i didn't like. The story itself was cute. I do feel like there was probably some things lost in translation and culture.

It won't be one i watch again due to how much the overdubbing annoyed me. I thought of dropping it several times but I wanted to see if the story panned out. If they do a second season as hinted at I mist likely won't watch it.

Hint: Read P'Thod's actors biography on Dramalist before the last episode. There is a joke in the end pertaining to his real life.

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Welp!

I won’t lie the first time this kdrama was being advertised i was suuuuper excited and had such high expectations, especially since i love comedy kdramas and this was advertised as one.

to that being said, let me just say that the comedy was certainly served well and i had many moments where i laughed! so that part was good.

but i can’t lie that certain moments in the episodes were such a drag. couple of episodes in it got super boring and it seemed like certain moments in the show were added just to make the episode longer, like a filler of some sort.

most dialogue scenes were super boring except for the rivalry between won and his sister, i was really intrigued by them! i wish we got to see more of them and more of them getting along.

the side plot with the mother was also rushed imo and very boring, she appeared out of nowhere and was quickly accepted and then we moved on, and the thing with that friend with the husband? like why did she stay with him when he’s a literal selfish prick? though im happy she put him in his place and i loved the daughter!! she was such a savage!!

i loved the side characters a lot but i also feel like mr.no’s romance plot was either ignored or forgotten? even if it was hinted at like maybe once or twice it felt like it just got erased and was used as a filler plot. i’m also sad we couldn’t get to see more of sarangs hotel!

so in conclusion i think a lot of things in the show were dragged out or rushed ! it wasn’t a bad show per se, it’s a good watch but it did take me months to finish it.

anyway the actors did well!

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Good potential in this concept but unfortunately badly flawed by cliches and plot holes

Vet visits a farm to attend a sickly cow, and while she and the farmer are handling it, they are struck by a meteor, imparting each with psychometric powers to read the minds of any person or animal who they are touching in the same place as they touched the cow – him on the leg, her on the bum
A supposedly hot-shot detective is demoted from Seoul to the small town of Mujin where he is desperate for that single big case which will get him back to the capital.
After a predictable period of distrust, with him being especially hostile and dismissive, they begin to work together on a series of cases (successfully, leading him to trust her assessments/visions totally), and eventually on a number of brutal murders.
The drama is not awful and at times quite amusing. A certain amount of comedy 'business' is mined because she is obliged to find respectable reasons to touch random bums, and due to his complete ineptitude in the face of local customs and certain styles of communication among the natives. He routinely has to have his colleague 'read the room' for him and translate local euphemisms about his behaviour. Various other local characters are also good fun and relationships among the local people are often quite charming and engaging
The cases start off being quite lightweight, and there are a mixture of police investigations and vet work all resolved by her being able to read peoples' bottoms. The serial murder cases though are darker and there are hints that a number of tragic deaths in the families of protagonists many years ago may be linked with current events. So intriguing, but it looks like these are never going to be investigated, nor the link/s checked out.
For me a lot of potential in this concept, but petty ineptly applied by the writer and director. The psychometry s played too much for laughs, and hardly ever taken seriously – even when it is accepted as true.
Neither the vet now the cop are particularly professional. The vet often finds a dead or injured and bloody person and NEVER knows what to do! She goes straight to panic and whines to a man for instructions. Any medical scientist will look at a pool of blood and know immediately what to do and how to do it – and will do it while multitasking to call for help. Good grief even I can have a good stab at that (pun intended)
The hot-shot cop seems pretty incompetent. He ends up taking control of his police team despite the presence of a superior officer (who limply protests but not much), but leaps to a series of unwarranted conclusions about who the perpetrator is, based solely on suspicion or personal dislike and never even considers actual evidence. His attention bounces from one person to another and occasionally rotates round individuals in the group. This is frustrating and confusing - poor writing reduces my engagement with the central drama.
On the whole, this is an enjoyable little drama, but imperfect. Writing and plotting is somewhat perforated (there are holes) and I found the ending a little artificial. OK but far from the best. The best thing I can say is that the bad guy wasn't immediately obvious to me ... but I found his revelation badly over-played.
This drama also committed a few several pet peeves. Young attractive and intelligent female characters are styled to look just ridiculous. The pretty vet is in boxy jackets that are 5 sizes too big for her, chunky jumpers that swamp her, and trousers cut too short, making her legs dumpy. Her 'assertive' friend, notorious for having a mind of her own and a temper, is styled like a clown : but when she meets a man who unexpectedly tickles her fancy she suddenly tones down the make up and starts to look more human. Our FL's aunt, divorced and desperate to regain that lost love of her youth, dresses too young for her age, but looks good on it however, her demeanour is that of an aged fan-girl desperate for attention.
Meanwhile, our male actors are styled as normal males. Depending on their work role they are dressed for the part. They're neither fashionable, nor dowdy – unless they are oxter deep in a cow....
For me this kind of sexism in character styling makes me question the competence of designers and directors. It's unnecessary fancy dress - and actually gets in the way of me enjoying a drama unfold. It's all too common, though.

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speechless

Several factors just made this drama a total shIt show! It would've been better if and I hate to say this
if the female lead role was casted with a different actress. Sorry but that mousy look and child like acting topped with the way they had the character dressing in every ep. The actress just wasn't the right fit for the role as harsh as that might sound. SMHD
Then there's the writing, I don't know what the purpose is in making the female lead not be a tolerable character. This drama had the bad people pretty much carry the show. The story overall was good enough its the casting and the way it was carried out that made this just bad and frankly soured my stomach. I stayed till the end because of the male lead. This is one of those dramas that I'd suggest to watch only if your at the bottom of a barrel and only if there's nothing left that your able to watch.

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A fifth of the series includes flashbacks

The plot is terrible & the scenario is awful, dialogues boring, characters silly & weak, acting bottomrock poor, 101 level, but the worst thing is that nearly a fifth of the series is made of flashbacks.
Overall the series makes the viewer feel stupid. Then why do I watch it?
I started watching it thinking it's an interesting plot, a fun series. The first two episodes were ok. But then it started to get boring & insulting to the intellect of the viewer. The families depicted in the series don't exist. They're totally unrealistic. The characters are unrealistic too. Such people don't exist.
Why am I still watching? Because I got hooked up on the nonsense & this addiction keeps me away from my daily worries. This is modern day fairytale not a soap opera or a Cinderella drama. If you want to kill time, & you can afford it, then you can watch it. It let's your gray cells tell you how watching this series can do wonders leaving worries behind, works much better than getting drunk or stoned high. Cheaper too.

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Could have been better...

It was a seriously bad decision to show a battle as an introduction to the drama. Slow movement, bad choreography, extreme camera shaking to cover the extras' performance in the background and post production ugly blood splatter. It was clear the drama wasn't going in that direction, there was barely any fights after that. Aside from that, the drama had its issues with the writing. That can range from unnatural flow, disjointed pace, inconsistencies, and a poor transition/development of the characters. Soo Ro going into politics and a position of power was the worst direction to the character. It's outside the scope of his character and always came off as a child playing politics. The drama handled death poorly, whenever someone died you don't feel the impact and weight of their death. It's almost irrelevant after the next episode. The same can be said about the entire situation with the love interests the drama had. Which also featured questionable chemistry between anyone and everyone. With all that being said, at least the cast was decent (and you had a couple of shirtless Ji Sung scenes) to keep you distract for a hot minute.

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The poor humor fails to hold up a very weak story with a very imbalanced message.

This drama wasn't trying to be too grand so it feels a little excessive to be too dramatic in denouncing it. I watched it for the humor, for a silly, bizarre story that didn't take itself too seriously. Which is largely what this was. The humor was humorous, even if sometimes it was quite cringey. The story was fairly cute, if love triangles don't bother you too much (they bother me, but whatever).

Stories like this, that do this deliberate switching around of gender roles, are always failures when they try to say too much. I've never seen such a drama that didn't get a worrying amount of basic stuff wrong.

The general idea here is that the Do women are the strong ones in their families, both in terms of physical strength and personality. To borrow an old expression, they wear the pants. In that sense I really appreciated that Do Bong Soon was actually more meek and submissive than her forebears. The contrast was more compelling and it allowed for growth as her character, presumably, would learn that physical strength isn't the only or even the most important kind of strength. And that was a bit what they were doing.

The difference in how the two male leads treated her was also interesting. They both still had an instinct to protect the woman they cared about (which is good and fine), but one did so because she was weak (he assumed) while the other was doing so because no one should have to endure dangers and hardship no matter how strong they are.

That was pretty much the only thing they did right. The rest of the drama was deeply weird in its depiction of "strong" women. I'm not sure I agree with viewers who say that Do Bong Soon's mother was trying to get her to basically rape the main guy. I only watched till episode 10 so maybe that occurred after that. What I saw was a wildly overbearing mother who insisted that her daughter make the first move with a guy who would definitely reciprocate because he's a hot-blooded male. Tasteless and vulgar, yes, but not rape. Somewhat funny at first given how inappropriate it was and how much Do Bong Soon hated it. But it dragged on way too long.

I'm also not sure I agree with other reviewers who say she was abusing her power the entire drama. The fact is that yes, the way she was slapping people around who were much, much weaker than her was pretty excessive. But that's where the tone and message of this drama fails. According to its own rules, the Do women can be physically abusive with their strength if it helps other, weaker people, or at least doesn't serve their own interests. Which seems fine, but it implies that smacking people around because you can is generally acceptable as long as the person getting smacked around is "bad." Too, Bong Soon almost always beat up men who were hurting women, children or the elderly. Which, again, is fine within the environment of the drama. But her beatings were BRUTAL. By anyone's standards. And this enormous imbalance of power is never addressed. It's all okay, according to the writers, because she's a small woman who has been underestimated. And therefore deserves to be brutal? Or has the right to be cruel enough to make her a villain in any other story? According to the writers this is all fine because it's funny.

All the Do women in the drama (Do Bong Soon being only somewhat of an exception) are terrible. If this drama were described without specifying the genders of any characters, Bong Soon's mother would be assumed to be a hated villain and the rest to be backwards and sexist. Funny how that assumption is reversed when you find out they're women. I have no problem with women being depicted as overbearing and prickly. I have no problem with women being depicted as too domineering and somewhat cruel in a relationship, especially if they experience growth along the story. But domestic violence is never funny. The rest, sure. A person could make a kind of comedy out of it. But things like domestic violence are not funny. If the gender roles were reversed and the man was bruising the body of the woman, it would never be depicted as funny. So why is it funny for the woman to do so?

I found that alone disturbing and off-putting enough to make it impossible to continue watching. The thing is, this drama's story is not great. Its success relies entirely on the quality of the romance and the quality of the comedy.

The romance was a long drawn-out love triangle. I hate love triangles so I'm a bit biased when I say it was therefore unwatchable. Strange, though, because there was some mature dialogue about how childish and selfish love triangles can be and how acting only on one's emotions always hurts people. And then the entire romance is a love triangle? Actually more of a love... octagon? I lost track.

The comedy was, at first, wonderful. Silly and absurd and nonsensical but with just enough heart. But then it lost its footing. The gangsters in the hospital, especially the one who lost his teeth, were more gross than funny. Humor suitable for a five-year-old maybe. The mother's abusive nature was never funny, despite countless scenes that made us believe that the writers seemed to think so. Their attempt to redeem her was set against the backdrop of kindergarten humor so it lacked both logic and drama.

The humorous interplay between Bong Soon and her boss was genuinely funny. Her ineptitude as a bodyguard was logically acceptable because how the hell would she know the first thing about being a bodyguard? And the absurdity of hiring her was another nonsensical illogical piece of comedy that could survive the environment of a drama that doesn't make any other kind of sense. But her almost mercenary motives painted her character in a selfish light that was never remedied with growth. And then the humorous interplay was taken over by semi-serious, semi-humorous love triangle antics so it lost all its charm.

The general idea of great physical power making a person able to dominate any relationship was never really addressed even though they set it up repeatedly. The dominant mother was never called out for abusing her own power -- physical or emotional -- as a strong woman hurting weak people with her strength. Meanwhile Do Bong Soon was expressing sorrow that the serial kidnapper was using his strength to hurt weak women. Is using one's strength to hurt people only bad if you're male? The writers of this drama definitely thought so. Thus you get humor that fits this world view and it never sits right.

Ultimately the humor fails to hold up a very weak story with a very imbalanced message. Eventually the humor becomes as much of a drag as the rest. I wouldn't recommend this drama to anyone.

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Beautiful

Since this show had such an unique atmosphere, extraordinary actors, superb OST and fairy tale feeling, im giving it absolute 10/10. I loved it, really i watched it alone once and then again with my girlfriend and she loved it too.

There is one flaw though.
Since there us plenty of people talking about how good it is (and it was) im gonna talk about the flaw which bothers me a little in this show and thats the disorder FL has. I dont know what its called but its some kind of sociopathy and i dont really think that its curable. Even though its a healing drama, i dont think this is healable. This spoils a little bit the message in the end because if it was reality i believe this realationship would end very very bad... I think many people overlook this cause FL is such a beautiful person but it kind of send wrong message. She behaves really mean like REALLY MEAN sometimes but because she is beautiful and cute is it ok to overlook that? The show us so good but this was bothering me a little. It sends a wrong message really.

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Inconsistent Time-Traveling Rules But A Warm & Cozy Time

The magic and whimsy of Be My Favorite gives me warm and cozy memories. It's not a perfect drama for reasons I'll go into later, but it definitely is one of the stronger BL's I've watched. It felt much cleaner than other GMMTV dramas in that the story had clear direction and no loose ends (at least for the parts that mattered). There was clear character growth for both of the characters and it was so satisfying to see Kawi become happier and more confident once he realized that he didn't need to time travel anymore to live a full and satisfying life.

The drama was also so dang pretty. Some of the scenes were absolutely and unexpectedly breathtaking.

I love romcoms with supernatural elements, so this could've been a 10/10 win for me, but the time traveling rules were very weak, or rather nonexistent. When Kawi first went back in time and it was chaotic, it made sense because Kawi was too preoccupied with making the future perfect that he ended up fumbling the present. When he returned, he was much more intentional with letting things play out, but when he went back, it was a mess. So what’s the lesson here? There needed to be a clearer connection between past actions and future implications. Like with most GMMTV dramas, I just turned my brain off and I was able to just fully enjoy the show.

The show really showed its strength with its surprisingly mature ending. I was ready to throw hands when Kawi got sick because I assumed it was the writers trying to throw an unnecessary last minute twist, but instead the twist of Pisaeng going back in time really had me floored. Pisaeng, having accidentally gotten Kawi sick in the future, considers ending his relationship with Kawi to prevent Kawi from getting deathly ill down the line, but Kawi, having grown so much in his time travels, tells Pisaeng that he's content with his life with him, and wants him in his life no matter what happens. They lived a full life in love, no need to tinker with the past.

What makes me love this show is that it's strong on its own. A lot of BLs falter because the writers rely too much on the ship or the mere fact that it's a BL to get attention and create buzz. But Krist and Gawin aren't a massive ship (and doesn't really seem like that was an intended goal of the show anyway given the lack of shipwork between the two) and you could've made Be My Favorite a het drama and it would've been JUST as good. I'm glad we're no longer settling for subpar stories to push ships and maximize $$$. I hope we continue to strive for quality dramas.

All in all, I really enjoyed Be My Favorite, a very unexpected pleasant watch!

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Perfection

If there's anything like a perfect BL series, this is the one(atm). The storyline, the casts, the romance and the CHEMISTRY 😍.
They don't want to be caught but they PDA everywhere except where they won't be caught 😁.

I haven't been so engrossed in a BL series after The Eight Sense and i just see myself waiting for Friday just to watch IFYLITA, that's just how good this BL is. The sensuality and the gentle approach to romance is one of the reasons i like it so much. It's been so long a BL gave me such approach to romance.

Don't sleep on this drama, you will be missing a lot.

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