Reviews

What more do you need?

This was the single greatest piece of cinematography I have watched since 2024. Ok maybe not to that point but still a great nonetheless. Really loved the way the story was told while we went back and fort from past to present and how throughout the show, the story was being detangled with details.
Something I love about action show is when you have some good fight choreography. The fighting scenes were so delicious and you could see that each punch and throw were put there to tell the story.
Screaming and gagging at the last episode. Best.
Where is the second season?
Where is Lee Dong Wook's Oscar?
Why was So Min Hye such a queen?
Anyways, this is going straight to my favorite list.

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Overall reveiw -cherry magic

Cherry magic drama are overall good. I am consider acting, The chemistry of Achi and Karan characters is a good mix up. The first parts felt a bit boring, but then it ended very successfully. The story was perfect effect, video quality was outstanding level. Simply cinematography was at the same level. The flow of emotions between Pai and Rock showed well in the story. But Min and Jinta's characters were not enough according to me. My feeling is that Jinta's character acting in some places interfered with the flavor of the story. As a fantasy story, the story can be viewed without any stress.

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The drama's okay, but it's not some hidden gem downrated by China haters.

The Good:
⌲ The OTP romance is relatively strong. (but this is only about 30% of the drama)
⌲ There is no triangle worth mentioning.
⌲ The format of getting into various psychological cases is nice. (almost case of the week-like)
⌲ Standing up to a toxic parent is always great to see in a cdrama(, but typically doesn't pass censorship.)
⌲ Overall the drama is a quite well made quality production.
⌲ The interesting symbolism (here and there)

The Average:
⌲ There are a lot of abrupt kisses that felt really strange & awkward.
⌲ The secondary couples are fun, but they barely had any screen time.
⌲ The individual cases are a hit or miss, there is a lot of procedural mediocrity everywhere.
⌲ The varying usage of hypnosis
⌲ Many things are over-explained, though this is the norm in this genre.
⌲ The 10 minute long breakup due to noble reasons
⌲ While the OTP romance is generally good, the writers have pulled the brakes in a very unnatural way to stall the couple's natural progress.

The Bad:
⌲ Second ML's plot is horrible + his cartoon villain persona could not be any more stereotypical.
⌲ The final episode is really underwhelming, in fact this is one of the most boring final episodes I have ever seen.
⌲ Going abroad to study is naturally a must..
⌲ Shao Ning's involvement in his love interest's treatment is a wee bit creepy.

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Pretty good for a mini show

If you look around on youtube you can find the entire series compiled into one 2 hour movie length video.
It's actually pretty good for a short format drama even if it isn't a blockbuster, it's still worth the watch.
The plot is a pretty common idea: What if you could go back to a pivotal moment in your life and make completely different choices? Don't we all think about that from time to time?
What I like about this is that our FL decides from the moment she arrives to change things and goes from being meek and put upon, to being strong and fiery AF. She's seen what her future looks like, she doesn't like it, and she's going to make sure it changes for the better!!

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Its beautifully heartbreaking

I decided to watch this drama out of curiosity but got a gem actor like Li Fei.

Firstly I didn't even know about short Chinese dramas and never got to know this event existed. And this is the first time I watched it because of a short clip on YouTube.

The story is a cliche costume drama with misunderstandings, forbidden love, an obsessive villain, and a Romeo-Juliette trope. Because of the duration, we just have a brief plot that includes flashbacks. It could be better story-wise but it is acceptable. I need some time to digest the plot because many scenes are cut harshly. And also many scenes triggering for some people. Please be prepared before you watch it.

Besides the story and the production value are just okay for me, I'm grateful that I found such a good actor like Li Fei and Meng Jia Jia.

What should I do? I just fell perfectly for Li Fei! He definitely can act, is such a good kisser, showed micro-expression very well, and of course, has a god-like appearance. And then I heard that he got a nickname as the king of short drama. Now I know the reason for that nickname.

Meng Jia Jia is really beautiful here. She got really good chemistry with Li Fei. She and the king do such a great job portraying their character.

The other good thing about this drama is the soundtrack. I got hooked on Day and Night sung by Ziruchu Yinyue. This song is so emotional. I can feel the sadness, desperation, and yearning, from both the Main Lead.

I think I will rewatch it in the future just for Li Fei himself. And as for the ost, I already put it on my playlist.

One thing that I feel grateful for after watching this drama, it is such a blessing that I can find such a good actor like Li Fei. And his drama is mostly what I enjoyed the most. Nice to meet you, Li Fei! I can't wait for your next project!

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I truly hoped for better, especially since the story sounded so great and different.

The only thing worth watching this for is the story, and yet they ruined that by going ahead and rushing the ending. The actors themselves are great, the chemistry, visuals and acting itself is nothing to comment on, BUT. Prepare to get major second hand embarrassment. First of all, why, and I mean WHY would screen writers choose random English conversations out of absolute nowhere? I get that BL´s are getting a lot of recognition not only in Asia but all over the world, but come on people...
Secondly, could you have chosen an uglier brand of underwear for the poor boys to wear IN EVERY EPISODE?
Third, and honestly most importantly, I feel like the great story of friendship, betrayal, love, drugs, unconventional relationships etc was ruined by the rushed (and honestly vague) ending. I must say, I can't believe I actually spent 10+ hours watching this. The actors deserved better.

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it is not the better but NOT THE WORST!!!! the noona romance just made its worthiness!!!!

I wanted to write a review just to say that a lot of reviews giving 1 and 2 ratings for nothing I perceived it right to give it that and I have to be realistic that 6.8 is not wronging but though it could deseve 6.5 to 7 ratings for overall performance it but I felt the story and script is not bad at all as so many users were complaining about it but surely could be better!!!!

I am the one that taking side to see it an average in everything, but for an actress renowned like song hye kyo and jang ki yong I would say it will make a gap in their history of tv series for many watchers but the drama could be casting like for the beginners in acting not for someone veteran like these actors who breaking a records in highly rated dramas for both of them: the glory, descendants of the sun, kill it, www and so many...

I wanted to try this show as song hye kyo is great when paired with a younger actor showing a wonderful affection and sincere love for her partner, she presented the same nice performance as well jang ki yong who didn't care for all the objections of his mother and hye kyo's mother that with a broad smile receiving this harsh words of being out of wedlock and how he fell for his dead brother's ex like a betrayal but he was so innocent in love with her without being deliberate to hurt his dead brother, as the coincidence of fate played the role to make them meeting together!!!!

I dropped it at the start after 5 episodes due to the negative reviews, then gave it a try for the sake of noona drama and binge the rest for 2 days while I skipped many scenes of the second female lead and second male lead as being so boring paired together with the work issues but I am here just for the noona romance that I prefere to watch always, it was also imperessive the terminally ill friend park hyo joo of first female lead and second female lead that performed so amazingly and she deserves to be the second female lead instead of choi hee soo, I can see a disparity in the acting of first leads and second leads that it could have been better to cast song hye kyo, jang ki yong and park hyo joo to be the leads as I like the most of their acting, the remaining of actors was average and less which made a great issue!!!!

I like the idea of now we are breaking up, moving back and forth in the realtionship of first leads as hye kyo was surrounded with hard circumstances: her work problems, parental divorce and her terminally ill close friend was a dilemma blocking her way for living a normal life with her partner as the chemistry was attarctive and catching otherwise the show didn't worth this little thing making it still acceptable watching till the end!!!!

the character of mothers was annoying especially song hye kyo's mother when throwing a rude speech to him but jang ki yong's mother character was bearable though she was nasty due that she loved ki yong despite not being her biological son and the son of her cheating husband but at least she chose to stay outside if her son will end up with his beloved one overmore I hated yoon jung hee the fiancee of ki yong's older brother too being a hurdle in the way of the leads but I can consider the end was "satisying" for the leads being together at least!!!!

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MA—STER—PIE—CE!!

???Rating: 9.7/10 ???
The story Quote: “To wish for life when you love them and death when you hate them. Wishing them to live while wishing them to die. That is what it means to be captivated.”



Preview:

The view shows Joseon during the Qing occupation. The Qing maintain strict order and rule with a strong hand, holding Korean hostages in their capital. One of them is Yi In (loyal to his brother (the king), the Grand Prince). After some time, the prince returns to his homeland, but no one welcomes him with open arms; he is treated as a spy and a traitor. He meets an unbeatable baduk player (which he himself likes to play).



Opinion:

I have grown very fond of this series. I'm so sad that I've already finished it. I started watching it on the 3rd of February and waited impatiently every weekend thinking "Do I have to wait much longer?". Lots of twists and turns. The ending of probably every or most of the episodes was gripping to the point where I wished I had started watching it after all the episodes were published. I was hoping for a sad ending. I was hoping for a tragic, impossible love. I was hoping for an unhappy break-up. What I got was everything. The last episode showed their momentary carefreeness, for one day they were a couple, a real couple. "Remember, you are my gidaeryong."Admittedly the ending didn't have anything special about it, it was a bit tedious, a bit touching. I think there was a way not to bore the audience, if only they had made it a dramatic ending.... let's not focus on that , let's move on to the cast

Soundtracks. Here a huge round of applause in my opinion especially to TAEIL for "Wave". This chorus triggered all the emotions, a feeling that is hard to describe.

Jo Jung Suk, do I need to add anything here? In every feed where I mentioned something about "Captivating the King" there was a sentence admiring his acting, his glassy eyes, his whispers, his ear-splitting scream.... everything was extremely perfectly great! The character of King Joseon himself was great, admittedly he may have actually (at the beginning) been sitting on the baduk too much. You could see that power changes a person. He started as a loyal subject of his brother and lasted later as a king who nevertheless has to defend the "crown". Still, I think he ruled fairly enough, not including Mongwoo and her friends. I really liked how he wanted to defend Hee-Soo and kept her with him.

Shin Sae Kyeong, I really liked this actress in "Rookie Historian...", but here, something didn't play for me about her. I had the impression that sometimes her eyes were running away somewhere else? I don't know. I loved her moments of tenderness and her relationship with the king, but in my opinion, too many scenes where she cried were shown. It's not down to the actress anymore, but this concept, this revenge plan, was it literally killing the king? My expectations were much higher.

Kim Myungha, really wasn't a very necessary character. Maybe she was supposed to fill in some space, going from being an unimportant character to becoming a bit more important. The script did not give room for Lee Shin Young to show off. I didn't really grow close to this character, I didn't really feel his importance (although I especially liked how he aroused the king's jealousy at first).

Park Ye Young as Lady Dong, I wasn't expecting much from the court lady, I thought she would be a budget character to play 'background', but I was really surprised. What I remember most was the vein that popped out on her forehead, it made a big "wow" on me. After that, I only appreciated her more and more. Her trembling, her look, her eyes... I really enjoyed her acting, I'm hoping for more new series with her.

Choi Dae Hoon as the earlier Joseon king was a bit annoying in my opinion. Otherwise, I have nothing against him as a character, but the fact that he suddenly spurned, ignored his brother, worrying only about power, about the crown, even worried that she was his spy for Qing, I understand that no one can be trusted in the court, but it bothered me a bit.

Ha Seo Yoon as the queen spouse Oh. I liked her a lot. I don't know why, but I was happy to see her working with gidaeryong. It made me sad to see her so ill, so I think she played the role well. Plus her relationship with Prince Munseong, I really liked that she treated him like a son even though he wasn't one. Her request to establish the Prince as the heir to the throne, I cried as she slowly died.

Choi Ye Chan as Prince Munseong. CHILDREN CAN ACT SO WELL?! In my opinion, he conveyed emotions perfectly, I didn't feel he was an inexperienced actor. I would like to watch his progress, there is a bright future ahead of him.

Yang Kyung Won as Hyun Bo. Is his punishment really not a joke? Exile from the capital? Seriously? For contributing to the deaths of people, aiding in treason? I remembered his acting from "...Samdal-ri", so my expectations were equal to his skills. He didnt shine, he didnt disappoint.


✅️ twists and turns
✅️ the ending of each episode keeps you in suspense
✅️ OST ("Wave")
✅️ Jo Jung Suk is 10/10, his voice, acting, looks, slay queen ??
✅️ Park Ye Young's acting, her trembling, her eyes.... everything is so perfect..
✅️ Queen Oh & Prince Munseong's relationship

❌️ Mongwoo's weak revenge
❌️ Kim myung-ha is a bit useless

+ I would have preferred that, after this three-year hiatus, King pretended he didn't know she was a woman in order to protect her, or that he knew her plan at all and let her carry it out because he loves her (someone wrote this under my feed and I very much agree).

Writing this made me feel like a film critic, this is the first time I'm writing an opinion... a bit lacking in order and composition, chaotically written.. but i hope someone ever reads this at least to some extent ??

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Great ML but everything else quite forgettable

I started to watch this drama because I like period dramas and I thought baduk at the centre of it might do for something refreshing, then I was captivated by the King's character, he was an all rounder and made for an interesting plot.

The king as a character and Jo Jung Suk's performance is what carried this drama for me and the reason it has the rating I give it, without him this drama would be so much worse, and if I had to rate the drama based only on him as a character it would get a 10. He's a very complete character and very engaging. It's such a shame that with such an amazing character and performance the rest of it was quite disappointing, especially anything involving the FL.

I like Shin Sae Kyeong and she has been the FL in a couple of dramas I rate very highly and I very much enjoyed. But being realistic I do think that she doesn't have a big range of acting skills and the roles she performs the best are those in which, I feel, she's playing characters that fit with her personality as a person or that she feels comfortable playing. Probably that's kind of the same reason why they took her for this one as the FL in this drama does share certain similar traits with characters she has played in the past. But there are a few things of her acting here that bugged me a lot, like the over stiffness and the constant eye moving to express what the rest of her face is not expressing. While I've seen her do this in other roles here it was very amplified. I don't know whether that was all her or the director was going for that and asked her to overuse it but at some point it started getting old and quite annoying.

Romance is also impacted by all this. ML is there, and his words and actions are clear and well acted and you feel the angst and the longing and all the feels. FL's on the other hand is just not there. So I enjoyed the romance part of this show, like everything else, because of ML, but it could have been so much better if FL had been at the same level.

When it comes to the writing I don't understand how we have such a good character in the king and such a miss in her. Most of the drama is just her contradicting the premise of her personality. She's supposed to be very intelligent, strategic and clever but she keeps making mistakes and becoming the damsel in distress.
The whole revenge plot was just plain BAD WRITING. She kept reaching bad conclusions, she kept asking the wrong questions, or not asking them and kept screwing everything up. Now, I could believe this as plausible and that a character like that can exist if the character hadn't been introduced as the opposite of that, and on the other hand if it was her alone it would have been more plausible, not with other people blindly involved in the revenge like it was the best plan and course of action.

Myung Ha was also quite frustrating and his whole plotline was quite pointless. It's dragged out for the sake of it by just making him not actively seeking information and justice but doing in a slow, second-hand way. Most of the drama he's annoying and towards the end he's just ok because by mellowing his personality they made him look ok now and made you forget all the things he did and said in the past and reduce it all to him being concerned about the Crown Prince. Disappointing.
Equally annoying was Lady Dong, although in this case her character was well developed and the actress did a good job at being the annoying piece of work she is. However, it was disappointing they were trying to make me like her at the end somehow, like if her behaviour was justified because she loved the king.

The rest of characters are basically background, they're ok, nothing to throw fireworks about except the kid that played the Crown Prince, he was great.
The queen dowager was always there but her arch was pretty anti-climactic in the end, nothing happened to her not it escalated much in any manner that would be interesting or significant enough for the plot.
Oh, and I almost forgot, special mention to Ja Geun Nyun (FL character's servant), she was annoying as hell, especially in the first half of the drama.

The end was a bit confusing (between the "I go, I don't go") and generally disappointing, and the last episode feels dragged and like they didn't know how to end it, like a kid dragging his feet leaving the park because he doesn't want to go back home. I definitely expected a bit more and a different ending. After all we saw in the drama I thought we deserved a better one for sure.
I'm also getting very tired of the time jump/one of main leads leaving just before ending it. It's been such a long time I haven't seen a drama where it felt justified to include something like this, especially not in the last episode when it's going to be resolved quickly and in an anticlimactic way. There was absolutely no point in making her go to the Qing, her father doesn't appear again and it's only there so they can meet in that tree to play baduk, what was also such a gamble she left the path/stopped for a break exactly there. There were so many options to end the story in a better way but it feels they chose the quickest to film and the laziest plot wise. Definitely could have been better and leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Overall I think this show is watchable mainly for the king as a character and Jo Jung Suk's performance but that's pretty much it, plot is generally average for a period drama apart from the king, and the revenge subplot is very bad writing.
I think this show had a lot of potential but I don't think it was exploited as good as it could have. The plots could have been a lot more epic or more engaging, more than a classic hide and seek between hero and villain. The romance could have been so much better as well if we had had a better performance of FL and more moments to explore it.
I think the king is a character worth watching, it's just a shame everything else in this drama needs to be watched as well just to get that, so I'm happy I watched this show for the enjoyment I got of that character but a shame it's attached to many other things I didn't enjoy and wouldn't want to rewatch.

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A heartwarming kdrama!

This kdrama is just one of the prettiest I've ever seen. All the scenes are beautiful, they took the best pictures and videos of Jeju. The history is so pretty, and heartwarming. I love it from the beginning until the end. The last episode is just too beautiful, I cried a lot, the pictures and all the photos that she took... I don't have words to explain.

One of my favs kdramas so far. I just want to rewatch it and rewatch it and rewatch it again. Welcome to Sam Dal- Ri really has a special place in my heart. I just wanted that this Kdrama had more episodes, and showed more of the love story of the sisters too.

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Not my cup of tea!!

So contrary of popular opinion, personally I did not like the drama. I watched it after falling into your smile because of the same gaming - romance genre but I was disappointed.

Story wise it lacked character development of the male lead. Like at one point it kinda became frustrating. The gaming sequence was also tad bit boring and tbh I just skipped most part.

The main problem for me here was chemistry between leads , was just too forgettable and felt forced.
The OST was nice though.

Honestly this wasn't my cup of tea but again I would understand if anyone else loved it. :))

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