Reviews

Blade Man/Iron Man (2014) - I would have this drama good if it was nicely written, I guess? I don't know the main reason but I think there is something wrong with this drama that I was not really engaged into it as much. Lee Dong Wook is perfect for the male lead. He delivers his role perfectly, and acting wise his really great. The female lead on the other hand, I was not really her fan in this drama but she is good, especially with crying scenes. The story between the male lead and his father is heartbreaking for me as watcher, and that what captured me best in this drama. Other than that, it was a drop. So I would not recommend this drama.

Read More

Black (2017) - having seen the trailer on our local television network ABS-CBN before, with tagalog dubbed , I was quite curious why they get the drama, which usually they chose love stories/romance genre as the main genre. The trailer did not really have a big impact to me, but people around me keep recommending this one to me. I am not a fan of both leads especially Ara so there is no main reason for me to watch the drama. Since the theme of the drama is dark, and I like the genre that is not romance I did like it eventually. At first, I was not really into the special effects, I find it awkard and unbelievable but as it progress it gets better especially with the storyline and the actors/actresses did really well, I was hooked. I think the ending is satisfying, the questions were answered but I was still confused.

Read More

Birth of a Beauty (2014) - it really is romantic comedy that is somehow childish for me as a watcher. I find it so because of the leads characters. I like it for what it offers, having revenge as a plot line but not so complicated compared to makjang dramas. The first part of the story is really infuriating, and I think at that era of Korean drama or movies, it was about body image or plastic surgery. Female lead is familiar to me, as I have seen her in other dramas before. The main male lead also did great in acting and I think he always have the same role. But I don't think I was into the drama as much as others, it's one of the dramas that I had fun.

Read More

Murder on the Orient Express

The Ship of Theseus is the translation of the original title of this drama.

The Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment about whether an object, after having had all of its original components replaced, remains the same object. In Greek mythology, Theseus, the mythical Greek founder-king of Athens, rescued the children of Athens from King Minos after slaying the Minotaur and then escaped onto a ship going to Delos. Each year, the Athenians commemorated this by taking the ship on a pilgrimage to Delos to honour Apollo. A question was raised by ancient philosophers: After several hundreds of years of maintenance, if each individual part of the Ship of Theseus was replaced, one at a time, was it still the same ship? (wikipedia)

So what do mythology, philosophy and japanese time slip drama have in common?

Shin accidentally goes 30years back in time and tries to stop a murder from happening and save his father from being accused of committing it. But every time he goes back in time, the future changes and so does his own future: he finds himself on a parallel timeline. So if he manages to change everything, will his future be same or different? Spoiler alert: his future is the same but with different state of his surroundings. Ship of Theseus: he changed everything and still ended up happily married and having a baby with the same woman but the path (ships parts) to it has been completely replaced. Is he still the same person even though he does not have the original Shin's memories (the original ship)? The question remains!

Time travel is hugely difficult to write about because it is impossible to explain logically. Every alteration in the past, necessarily creates another timeline and he can never go back to his original one.

The main plot is a serial murder killing left, right and centre apparently for no reason. Shin and his father try to discover and stop the killer who always seems to be one step ahead while they pointlessly run around without achieving anything. Red herrings abound; new suspects are introduced only to be murdered in the next episode. The plot moves at a breakneck speed. Until it gets too fast: new characters are constantly introduced, those seen just in passing become suspects: basically in last two episodes, everything goes upside down, the suspects are surprising and their reasoning psychotic! Shin runs around, repeatedly promising to save his family from doom and miserably failing, until the final solution turns out to be the right one!

I found the cinematography odd: I had a strange feeling of a low quality production throughout. It lacked warmth. Yes it is a crime drama taking place in the winter but still, it should not have looked so sharp and crisp. The writing was excellent but they crammed too much in it and I would have preferred it to be slower and more menacing. There are a few loose, unexplained events and characters' fates (two policemen, the book, the notebook, the drawings...) The culprit turned out to be based on the one from the aforementioned Agatha Christie's novel. The make up for the older versions of adult characters was weirs: it did not look natural at all: they seemed to be older than they should be! The music was appropriately heavy, sentimental and sad, stressing the tragic events on the screen.

As for the actors, they were all amazing. Particularly the kid who played Mikio: he managed to show the character's multiple different faces with an amazing ease. He is infinitely talented. The actor playing Shin is in excellent physical shape: there was at least one scene in every episode where he runs breathlessly and effortlessly around, either looking for something or trying to get somewhere

I love time slip stories, and I enjoyed this one a lot until I got fed up with the constant twists and turns and fake culprits and annoyed with asian societies as depicted in many dramas where the family of a criminal is eternally held responsible for its one member's misdeeds. Nevertheless, it was a great watch, i had fun!

Read More

Should be called "Sky getting on Venus"

I'm so glad I had a second rewatch of this, I completely skipped out on watching episode 10, which is my favorite. This series was cute If you start at episode 7

Sky & Venus: Venus annoyed me up til episode 7, poor sky was trying to make amends for what he did in the past and he was trying to be happy and let Venus know that he cared about him and Vee was so mean to him, I do like though when Sky went silent for a while, Venus realized he could lose sky if he kept up the act he was doing. Venus also annoyed me during the special episode when Sky was sick and Vee saw the pills, instead of asking Sky what this was, he just left and ignored him. Not to mention, Sky was sick and took care of Venus when he was sick but Vee couldn't stay to ensure Sky was okay.

Janus & Bomb: These two were so funny, I love that they could care-lesswhere they did it. I like that they both didn't let Bomb's mother dictate if they dated or not and they showed her that they love each other.

Tong & Kla: These two were okay, I'm a big Max Detter fan so I loved him but after these two sorted out their differences, they were pretty cute.

Read More

Thanks for coming into my life

This drama made me laugh just as hard as it made me cry my eyes out. 10/10 would recommend.


What a painfully perfect way to start 2024. I loved this drama from start to finish so I want to sing its praises since it’s not often I binge a 40 episode c-drama and don’t feel I’ve totally just wasted my time.

The plot is both simple, easy to understand whilst also being pretty complicated, as it talks about the intricacies of human relationships in relations to royal families, war, politics, found family and of course romance. There were beautifully executed fight scenes, tearful moments and very unexpectedly funny scenes. Like I had moment where I’d burst out into laughter after a scene being completely unexpected.

Every person in this drama has a personality, they all have feelings and emotions that justify their beliefs and decisions. There’s no saintly good person, and there’s no blindly evil character.

Now, onto the main couple, Ning Yuanzhou and Ren Ruyi. Their acting both as individuals and a couple was amazing. The chemistry was passionate and strong, and they were just as strong alone. Their relationship was built on mutual love and respect for one another and it remained that way throughout. I loved their romantic build up, the actual relationship and the way it progressed, I was in love with absolutely everything about their love.

Ruyi, our fl, is badass personified. A strong, powerful assassin to the end, and she was never made to appear weak or incapable due to falling in love. If anything love made her a more thoughtful, impactful person.
Ning Yuanzhou, the ml, is also a strong person who values deep human relationships above all else. He never wavers when it come to defending his family, even if that means staring down the fricking emperor. The respect he has for Ruyi was so swoonworthy and cute, I was quite literally kicking my feet and giggling whilst being slightly upset that he is a fictional character.

I mean where does one find a man who sees me as an individual, and constantly encourages, loves and supports me no matter what, whilst also being outrageously fine af (I say as someone with 0 experience lol). I can’t put it into words how perfect this man was to me. *tearful emoji*

On another hand, the entire cast of the drama were enjoyable. Nobody bored me and although some did annoy me, it just added to the enjoyability of the whole drama.

The extensive soundtrack of this drama was flawlessly beautiful. It was impactful, perfectly timed and honestly just sounded amazing.

To conclude, 40 episodes wasn’t enough. For my piece of mind, I need at least another episode so I can see in detail how everyone’s lives turned out. (Preferably another like 10 episodes but that’s pretty unlikely ik lol).

Read More

I couldn't suspend my disbelief any further

When I opened this MDL page I read in the comments that there will be no second season, which is awful since it leaves this drama without a proper ending - not even for its own season. The last episode ends with a cliffhanger, so we will never know what was supposed to happen to any character, even the protagonists. I was very tempted to lower my rating when I read the news, but I guess I'm feeling generous.

The story is about Su Yu and Wu Bi, two high-schoolers who come from very different environments (Su Yu lives with his father in a poor neighborhood, Wu Bi lives a comfortable life with his rich father), but end up in the same classroom and gradually become best friends thanks to a series of coincidences. Little do they know that Su Yu's mother, who abandoned him after divorcing from his father six years prior, just got married to Wu Bi's father, who had been a widower for a few years.
The initial tangle of different relationships between the characters was very interesting to follow and actually made me more and more interested in everyone, even the secondary characters. The resolution of the first main conflict between Su Yu and Wu Bi, however, led the story to a less interesting and much more annoying part: one full with misunderstandings and lack of communication between the main characters. After that, the plot got a lot slower and fluffier, with cute and touching moments between the two main leads and also lots of "fanservice" moments. There were some events here and there to make the plot more lively, but for some reason everything felt much slower and I had trouble getting through the second part of the drama in particular. I also had to suspend my disbelief in multiple occasions, because the abilities of certain characters and the convenience of certain elements of the plot were just too much for me to take them seriously. I could have ignored it if it was just one thing or two, but there were too many times I rolled my eyes at the screen.

The main highlight of this drama are the two main characters. I felt like Su Yu and Wu Bi's feelings were truly genuine and that was great to watch. I know that this was an adaptation from a BL novel and that the love story had to be censored, but the production team managed to include lots of lines, gazes and moments that were just ambiguous enough to make it in the final version of the episodes. The main theme of the story was the idea of "family", in theory, but to be entirely honest I couldn't feel much of a bond between the characters other than between the two protagonists.
The secondary characters did an okay job, with some shining and others not so much. The parents of Su Yu and Wu Bi definitely had a better treatment as their characters got explored.

The production felt a little lacking. I am not aware of how much budget did they have, but there were multiple times when I just thought "oh, I guess they couldn't afford doing this thing properly?" and similar.
The OST seems to be made of two songs that are played at least once per episode, sometimes at moments that didn't fit the mood of the scene at all. To be entirely honest, sometimes I wished they didn't use music at all.

Overall I can't say that I'm entirely unsatisfied, because I felt like the relationship between Su Yu and Wu Bi developing and getting stronger and stronger across the episodes was definitely worth my time. However, considering that this drama is not finished, I'm not sure I want to recommend this to anyone. If you like bromance and you don't mind an open (VERY open) ending, go ahead.

Read More

Beautiful historical love story

Beautiful production with near perfect casting. the chemistry between the main couple was electric, both characters well developed. The rest of the cast and their backstories could have been expanded on more rather than focusing on the historical aspects.

Only negative aspect is that it should have been 16 episodes long. The historical aspects didn’t add much value to the love story other than keeping them apart and bringing them back together. a few of the story arcs could have been left out and they were separated too many times, it became a bit irritating.

But overall, it’s definitely worth the watch.

Read More

Shaky Story/Production saved by solid cast

I don't watch these Xianxia dramas except for the Eternal Love with Yang Mi & Mark Chao. This is the first one I watch because I like ZL's acting ... I have to admit I skipped A LOT in the beginning to get to the interesting part. I will probably rewatch some but not all because the storyline is shaky and slow initially. Eternal Love is better and more solid in storytelling.
The chemistry and solid acting by almost all of the cast make the drama watchable.

Context: Finished watching ... fan of Lusi ... couldn't handle Ancient Love Poetry (sorry no hate to anyone but I don't like Xianxia. The only one I could watch was Eternal Love with YangMi)
1) Chemistry was 9.0 - WAY & ZL are both youthful - very convincing - and shows love for each other with longing looks (I just wish that they give more time to develop the interactions - I find the scenes disconnected sometimes - they were kissing and then the next scenes - what happened? again it's about couple interaction)
2) Acting from all cast- 9.0
3) Screen play / plot holes (5) - convoluted (again I didn't watch ALP) - sometimes abrupt transitions
4) Director (5) - the way it was film and presented - no wow factor - LLTG was way better in artistic presentation
5) Costumes - the peacock has the best costumes

Overall: I could make it to the end not because of ZL but it was entertaining after ep 10 where he suddenly realized that she's the one ?? just like a step function. As I said, the director is not very artistic ...
I gave it a 9.0 only because it's the only Xianxia that I made it to the end.

Read More

Boa História e péssima execução

O drama começa muito bem com uma história e enredos envolventes, mas tudo começa a desandar do meio pro fim, fica tudo mt arrastado e óbvio, a máfia começa a ser muito óbvia e ter decisões burras. O final não fecha as diversas pontas deixadas durante a série, ser tudo parte de um jogo virtual é uma decisão preguiçosa de roteiro, além de que o que os pais fazem também não faz sentido, tudo bem querer vingança contra os bullys, mas punir os dois únicos amigos da menina não faz sentido. No final, uma série com bom potencial acabou virando uma série mediana que temos que engolir esse final.

Read More

Drama Falls Short in Story and Character Development

After reaching episode 7, I decided to stop watching this drama. The main reasons for this decision were the lackluster elements of the story and characters. Despite the potential, the plot felt underdeveloped, failing to draw me into its world. Additionally, the dynamics between the leading characters lacked the depth and chemistry needed to truly engage an audience.

As an admirer of Ok Taec-yeon, it was disappointing to see his talents not fully utilized in this project. While he has shown exceptional skill in previous roles, particularly in 'Vincenzo', this latest endeavor didn't seem to match up. It's my hope that future projects will better showcase his abilities and provide more compelling storytelling.

Read More

… And to where your eyes stray to

Bodyguards falling for whoever they are supposed to guard is a trope I have always loved. So, it’s no surprise I have really enjoyed this drama. The plot was simple, but I didn’t mind it. Seeing the series is quite short, I think anything more complicated would have a lot of shortcomings as there would be no time to properly address everything.

Han Tae Joo & Kang Gook: The two of them are very different yet similar. They come from different backgrounds, have different outlooks on life, and while one seems to be a trouble-making womanizer, the other is a problem-solving and always single bodyguard. But the two do share some interests. They both seem to deal with problems in a similar way, sacrificing their own happiness to keep their loved ones safe. I was ready to dislike Tae Joo and his spoiled self, but I really liked him at the end. Gook carried his emotions on his sleeve, even if he was trying hard to hide them. He knew it would only bring trouble to say it out loud. I think the two actors had nice chemistry, even if the acting was a bit weak at some points.

As for the bad, I really wish we had seen more of the main leads being a couple. I really missed at least a few scenes with them just being lovey dovey with each other. Han Tae Joo’s father was a very unlikeable character. And while I wasn’t bothered by him being all high and mighty and who knows what else, I absolutely hated his behavior and attitude towards Hang Gook. It just didn’t sit right with me. Maybe it’s because of how short the series is, but his motives were not believable. Nor did they make much sense.

Read More

favorito

Meu coração fica quente só de pensar no hospital Doldam. Gosto muito dos personagens, parece que são minha família. Sem dúvidas minha temporada favorita. Conheci Dr Romantic em 2021 quando estava procurando por trabalho da SungKyung, e acho que foi minha melhor descoberta possível, a personagem dela mora no meu coração. Tive alguns problemas de Daddy issues assistindo meu querido Kim Sabu, tenho dependência emocional nele. Acho que eu poderia ficar horas falando sobre como esse drama mudou a tragetoria da minha vida, fiquei dias pensando em fazer medicina ?. Mal terminei de assistir e já estava morrendo de saudades. Gostei muito dos casos, prendeu minha atenção do começo ao fim. Aguardando ansiosa pela 4° temporada, espero que seja tão emocionante quanto.

Read More

Perfeito, sem defeitos!

Eu nunca pensei que chegaria o dia em que um drama superaria Wait My Youth em meu coração, mas When I Fly Towards You chegou de voadora!!! Perfeito, leve, com um squad de amigos encantadores, um casal maduro, companheiro, e seguro!

Apesar do período deles na faculdade e na vida adulta ter sido rápido, não foi algo que deu a sensação de história corrida. Tudo aconteceu de forma suave, e emocionante, deixando o coração quentinho a cada interação.

Pra quem gosta de dramas fofos, com casal que se apoia mutuamente, se entende, e percebe os minimos detalhes pra fazerem um ao outro felizes, eu super recomendo!!!

Read More