Reviews

Magic Mike but funny

I was drawn to this series because I liked Drag I love You so much. It is not as entertaining as that was, but it has plenty of hilarious scenes. The comedy comes from the over the top acting, which bounders on the cringey side, but just manages to stay away from it. It gives feelgood and pretty ripped man bods. What's not to like? The main character Annie is a powerhouse who stands her ground surrounded by predators. Her ex, her former partner, a creditor and her daughter are all asking for something from her. Suddenly a golden opportunity in the form of an inherited host club falls in her lap and she decides to make the best of it to make money and improve her life. While recruiting men to host at her club, she meets a colorful set of guys who all bring their own set of issues and talents to the club. She manages to make her creditor fall for her by giving him a sexy dance (LOOOL, this scene is gold) and as a bonus riles up her former partner, who then decides to also start a club to annoy and compete. Everyone falls in love left and right, some couples lasting, others failing miserably. I love that, although all relationships are heterosexual, they are not standard at all.
There is plenty of women's liberation and feminism, great music and a serious note here and there. I was entertained every second and regretted that it ended. I don't know if I will re-watch, but I will certainly not mind a sequel.

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A slow journey with gradual build-up and a face plant end

One of the rare times that I'm dropping the rating of a show post the finale. Adamas isn't for everyone and I'm most likely included in that list. The show had a very promising start and suddenly started to drag it's heels at the beginning making it a hard watch.

I was excited to see a dual role but by instantly separating the twins and shooting scenes separately for most of the show undid that excitement. It might as well have been played by 2 actors. The camera work that excited me at the very beginning of the series was no where to be found. The writer twin spent majority of his time roaming around the mansion repeatedly which I would just watch at 2x speed. At the time, I found the role of the prosecutor twin more exciting. But soon that too felt like it was heading nowhere.

Most of the excitement starts around episode 9 onwards. By then a lot of the secrets about the mysterious Adamas are exposed. The people fighting the bad guys all seem to be helpless and powerless despite their status and connections. It is frustrating to see them failing so badly at times and you have to wonder why they have no result to show for all the work and manpower they've put in.

There was a rare opportunity to wind everything in a positive and thrilling way but it was a disaster after disaster for the good guys. In fact, episode 14 may have been the best episode. The ending leaves you scratching your head and wondering what happened? The satisfaction that one might get from watching a crime drama is nowhere to be found here. Do some bad guys get punished? Yes. But it's so underwhelming. And one of the characters realises, "truth holds no power". This is the entire theme of Adamas.

Acting and production is good quality but if the story telling fails to enthrall you, the hard work of the cast and team is meaningless.

SMALL SPOILER:
They tease an open-ending and if just makes you think, do I want to put up with that again in the second season? Probably not, in my opinion.

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Everybody has somebody they can't forget

What starts out as an unlikely friendship at the neighbourhood laundromat transforms into an unsteady tension when Minato discovers Katsuki’s feelings for him. Is his affection that of an older brother who wants to watch over Katsuki as he grows older, or something romantic? In his confusion, he resists his initial attraction toward Katsuki, a task that only gets tougher in the face of Katuski’s relentlessly earnest pursuits. 

The relationship dances in circles for most of the series but their chemistry is unmistakable. Apart from looking wonderfully compatible despite the age gap, both characters were also well-balanced, each alternating between childlike playfulness and maturity.

Minato Shouji is about feelings that don’t go away, despite the passage of time – for both Katuski and also Asuka, another highschooler who has fallen for an eccentric man far older than he is.

As their story unfolds in a lazy seaside town where everybody knows everybody, it turns out that everyone has somebody they can’t forget.

My full review: https://asianblreviews.wordpress.com/2022/09/15/minato-shouji-coin-laundry-review/

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There are so many great things to enjoy in this drama! First off are all the relationship dynamics on display: family, friendship, colleagues. I love how the brothers Jae Chan & Seung Won take care of each other. They bicker and fight but are always there for each other! Hong Ju and her mom have a close, loving relationship, born out of their loss and grief. Woo Tak is a loner but will have a great friendship with our leads. Also love how protective his police partner is of him. Even at work, love how Hong Ju and her hyung are on equal footing, working as a team. Jae Chan and his investigator's relationship is also heartwarming, especially later on when we find out who he is to our main leads.

Actors Lee Jong Suk & Suzy actually have great chemistry together. It's the first time I really enjoyed Suzy's acting, she seems so natural and emotes well here. And I can now understand why Lee Jong Suk is so popular, he's great in this role.
Lee Sang Yeob is so good as our main antagonist too. His character is such a sleaze bucket.

The first few episodes are thrilling and a great start to the storytelling. It's a unique premise: to be able to see the future and then try to stop the crime from happening. Each individual case was intriguing. My only complaint is I wish we learned the rules of Hong Ju's gifts/powers more clearly. I really didn't understand it's origin or how it worked until much later on in the drama. And of coarse they had the usual trope of our main leads having met as kids, but in this instance I can forgive it, as it really does propel the story forward with their connection and the shared dreams.

The other great thing about this drama is the amazing OST. So many wonderful songs & ballads starting off with Eddy Kim to Henry. They all kind of have a dreamy quality that fits the drama! I could listen to it all day! Highly recommended!

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promising premise and beginning, disappointed with the execution

Overall: I enjoyed the unique premise but had major issues with the plot. Aired on GagaOOLala & Viki.

Content Warnings: violence/blood (in the first scene), murder, trauma, grief, attempted kidnapping, non con kiss (sleeping)

What I Liked
- the premise was unique and rarely seen in BL
- production value
- retelling of the first episode from a different perspective

Room For Improvement
- I wish that Jae Woo and Ji Woon's parents were friends and Jae Woo had just moved into the same city, because... it felt odd befriending a kid like that/having a 10 year old sleep over in a dorm room, it was a bit squicky to me and speaking of...
- Jae Woo was very childlike and stupid for a 25 year old, it made the relationship dynamic even more strange
- their total lack of communication about something suuuppppppeeeerrrr important, like come on
- nonsense things besides the initial premise, a 10 year old regularly walks around at night alone when there is violence in the area? money? ID? same outfit every day?
- why do they like each other, love at first sight? but it was initially an uncle/nephew like relationship, when/why did it change?
- the non con kiss and also this line "I'm going to do something I know you don't like" (and he kisses him, wth?)
- what in the sisyphean hell was that ending?

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Never Trust A Transfer Student!

Alice, the Final Weapon (2022) is similar to Hanna (2011) and The Psychopath Diary (2019) but if the plot were set in high school. The best part of the show for me is the chemistry of the main actors: Park Se Wan, and Song Geon Hee. The main characters' chemistry is oddly sweet in this dark film, and their comedic scenes really made the show unique. The music choice also adds a bit of charm to the scenes, and makes the romantic scenes really stand out. The weakness of this show are the villains, I think they are a bit over-dramatic throughout the whole show. However, the action scenes can be very intense, and definitely added the sense of danger throughout the story. This is a show that doesn't take too long to watch, and I'm sure people will find a new gem while watching. Definitely worth checking out blind!!

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Tons of Wasted Plots & Lacking Ending + Hard Carried by Actors Spectacular Acting.

First of, I felt like this drama could've been better without the countless plot twist and overly dramatized story progression.

To start everything with, I just wanna rant and point out how the large number of useless plot twist ruined the entire story. Honestly, they were kind of bearable and understandable during the first 10-15 episodes of drama cause that's how they usually set things up to make the story more mysterious and exciting but I never expect them to push it to the extent where I started to get so irritated and tired of it. They built up 65% of the drama with those craps but failed big time in making them work or even useful for the story.— What a waste!!

The excessive amount of unnecessary and unused plots and twists that ruined the drama even before it reached half of it + The overly rushed and mostly off screen scenes that are useful to the narrative but was excluded and dumped at the end.— The final 10 episodes left a big impression to me for being exaggeratedly fast pace and rough in terms of character closure and story conclusion. Like, they invested so much drama for the 2nd Main CPs story only to make their whereabouts off screen and even not giving them any proper final exposure? seriously? Their love story made me the most infuriated all throughout and they've all decided to give us almost nothing?! Gosh~ that was a bad writing right there. I'm disappointed.

Going deeply into my most hated story plot of all. Here comes... Yang Yue and his unwavering, foolish and persistent way of going after Shangguan Xi. Like, man! When will you learn to stop? that woman's love sick towards other man and been treating you carelessly all this time!!! Their takes completely infuriated me, imagine having to deal with them for more than 50% of the story. Wow! That was tough and I must say I endured a lot.

Also, The cinematography, color grading and graphics during the first half of the drama was really bad and ghad!! The horendous use of green screen made me rolled my eyes out of frustration countless of times. Like, are the people handling the art, design and editings are some bunch of interns? It look so unpolished and unbearable most of the time.

Hmm, It was a drama that was saved by the set of great actors and their great acting skills and character portrayals.

Story - 8.5, I wanna give it even lower rating but the story wasn't entirely bad at all. It's just that they've misused and misguided a supposedly good story into a dark and hollow space and failed to bring it back into proper light for salvation. They gave us 55 episodes and made 65% of it useless.

Acting/Cast - 10, The saving grace of this entire production~!! The only positive take of this drama is how they casted such great actors and how they performed their characters with deep understanding and accurate execution. The spectacular acting and character portrayal amazed me so much. I love almost all of them.

Music - 10, The music used on this drama was able to make the scenes either more enjoyable or sorrowful. It created an emotional aura that highlighted most of the scenes and made them more heartfelt and alive.

Rewatch Value - 7.0, I probably won't. This is one of those dramas I will keep and hide on my archieve and will only look back to when I'm trying to appreciate how great the actors/cast are.

Overall - 8.5, If it was not for the Actors and their splendid acting I would've probably given this drama a 7.0 or so. The story has a lot of unused plots and how I wish for them to remove all those irrelevant scenes to make it shorter and add a little more to the lacking ending. Definitely a drama I won't rewatch. But will recommend to people who loves to see good acting.

IF you find my review helpful please let me know.

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Fails to Entertain

I was looking forward to this series. The trailer looked incredible and evoked iconic mafia movies such as Goodfellas. It seemed to be just my cup of tea – organized crime, corruption, drug lords, exotic destinations. This is why I was really surprised that I could not even get through episode one.

Organized-crime movies and series are usually flawed in terms of plot and characters. They prioritize being fast-paced, action-packed, and suspenseful over being deep, and the audience accepts this because they succeed in entertaining it. However, when such a story fails to entertain, it goes from being shallow but really fun to being shallow and tiresome. Such is the case of Narco-Saints – it has the flaws of similar stories, and it is also boring.

Episode one introduces us to the main character and embarks on a long, tedious summary of his life until now. It is not clear if the production team actually aimed to film a series about organized-crime. In such stories, suspense is key, but halfway through episode one out of only six, there is still no suspense. The story of the main character's past is unnecessarily long and repetitive, and, despite that, has plot holes. It should have been short and told wittily, as is common in the genre, or, if long, it should have at least been well-written. It is neither.

Furthermore, the initial scene, in which the main character is shown riding a truck through the jungle and whose purpose is to capture the viewer's interest, did not offer any information that could have intrigued me and made me wonder how the main character ended up in this situation.

Overall, the premise of this series has potential, and the actors – at least those whom I saw – are great. However, the story is frustratingly slow-paced and fails to entertain. It might become more interesting in the subsequent episodes, of course. I see that the other reviewers have enjoyed it. I decided to drop it, though, because I cannot help comparing it to the classics of the genre, which are superior in all aspects.

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Frustrating as fuck but it was worth it, i guess.

This series started off to a great start. Minato is a very low self esteem person when he comes to love and his age, due to his past and Shin is headstrong, persistent and shameless person. So by that dynamic only you can tell it would be a fun watch. But the problem with this series is that it has way too many episodes. It should honestly have only 8 episode. And because of this, the series dragged the problem with Minato and his past way too much. It become way too annoying to see Minato say the exact same thing every episode just to not do it in the next episode. If only they didn't dragged it out so much maybe this series would have a higher rating. But never the less, it was cute. Now the second couple on the other hand, barely bring anything to show and sometimes wonder why they exist in the first place. Both of the actors did a tremendous job, Akira and Shin's actor delivered their roles pretty well. Especially Shin's actor. He basically carried the show along side maybe with Akira's actor. The music is good. The ending song was very exceptional. The ending ost of the last episode especially, made me scream like a little girl. This series is nice to watch if you watch it in one go. I watch it while it was airing so I found it rather frustrating. But if you like slow burn series with a cute moments here and there and a shameless protag then this is must for you. Watch it, I say its worth it.

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best drama 2022

Such an entertaining romcom! its super funny,heartwarming,chemistry of the leads on fire.Both Lee Seunggi and Lee Seyoung give a solid performances on their unique characters.Each episodes contains different cases as the romance of the 2 leads blossoming.The music is so good too,the background music is spot on,and the all the songs are really lovely and easy on the ear.The
visual of the leads are daebak. The cinematography is so good.the set is also nice.All the supporting characters are interesting too,so many seniors actor joining this drama such as Jang Hye Jin (Parasite) and Jo Han chul( hometown cha cha cha,vincenzo).its adapted from a popular webtoon love according to law,but actually the scripwriter develop their own story,so its kinda different and unpredictable.Cant wait for episode 5!Must watch!!

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Around 40 episodes of misunderstandings

Don’t watch this drama if you don’t like a push-and-pull romance, there are many romantic drama couples out there that have healthy relationships and ended up happy. It’s easy to get frustrated when you watch the leads succumb to their own prejudice and immaturity. For me though, that’s what makes it entertaining because of how incredibly dumb yet dramatic their misunderstandings are. Over time, we can see how they mature with the tragic war in the background. I’m stumped with the ending, I don’t know if I should like it or not but it’s definitely not satisfying. I’m obsessed with Dou Xiao as Xiao Bei Chen and Yuan Hao as Mu Zi Zheng, they were great to watch. Zi Zheng’s character arc was most interesting to me but I think the writers didn’t quite hit the mark and his storyline was lacking something. If you’re willing to watch 40+ episodes of misunderstandings, give this a try.

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