The Legend of the Blue Sea (2016)

Second Time Watching It, First Time Appreciating It

This is the second time I watched it but this is the first time appreciating the series overall so I am writing this simple review. It did not have an impact on me the first time I watched it when it was released. Now, I feel like this is my favorite Jun Ji Hyun's drama, and this is one of my favorite Lee Min Ho's dramas alongside City Hunter and Faith.

The chemistry is top-notch. Jun Ji Hyun is so good at carrying her male lead the same way she did with Kim Soo Hyun (My Love from the Star). She's my favorite character here, very funny yet charming.

What I love about this the most is the parallel-world concept of the plot. My grandma usually has a hard time understanding the changing of timelines in a series, but she seemed to be enjoying this.

OSTs? The best here.

A little downside for me here is how Sung Dong Il's role (Ma Dae Young) felt discarded at the near end of the series.

Still worth watching.

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It's a MESS, but it's a really fun MESS!

Let's start with the obvious! You're NEVER gonna watch this show, because it's well-written, because it's not! I could tear apart the story like a piece of paper.

The base of the story is a mess, there are no rules, basically. I know, every fantasy is different, but I think they made a mistake with some things like that water part. That's basically the biggest plot hole in the story. If one simple drop of water can change her back to mermaid, she couldn't leave the house, basically. They should've done it like in other mermaid shows, like she's only changing when it's seawater.

Also, the crime story was handled poorly. Not to mention the mother story. I get that she divorced and left the house, but for the love of God, how can she leave her son as well? We didn't get a proper explanation of why or how it happened. That's not a real mother in my eyes! The law doesn't work like that, not even in Korea, she could've seen her son at least on a weekly or monthly basis.

The whole story was predictable, BUT with shows like this one, it's not really about the story. It's about the characters, and basically every character were great.

Jun Ji Hyun and Lee Min Ho were amazing together. Especially Ji Hyun. I can't believe she was 34 when they shot this Kdrama, yet she looked like the cutest puppy ever. Her (face)acting is something else! She was not only cute, and obviously beautiful as hell, but badass as well. The love story between them was not ordinary or new, but still, I was invested 100%!

Honestly, at first I was like: "20 episodes, why?" But it didn't felt long or stretched, because most of the episodes are like fillers, in a good way. It was like a weekly American show.

My biggest problems with the show, other than the writing, is the last couple of episodes, AGAIN! After they finished all the main story, I just can't understand why they had to start a new drama with her leaving, not to mention erasing everyone's memory. That was 100% pointless, and ridiculous. At first, I was like, why is her heart has a problem, but later we find out the reason, and that made the whole FAKE DRAMA even worse! If she had to leave because she needed time to heal, she should've just said it, not making a fuss about it, so the writers can waste time for unnecessary scenes.

She should just leave, for 3 years, everyone knows what happened, and come back later. End of story. I mean, two of them already knew she's a mermaid, they could've told his mother and the other kid as well.

The last 2 episodes could've been like those filler ones, living in peace, raising their kid etc. Also, we never get any real explanation about that girl who can hear her thoughts. I mean, sure, she remembers her past, but that's not a real explanation. Just because in the past she was a mermaid, it doesn't mean she's a mermaid in the present as well. We never see her mother or her father as well. At first, I thought the father is the guy who died. That would be a nice side story.

Anyway, like I said, you won't watch this show, because it's the best ever, it's a show that you're gonna enjoy if you don't about the story too much, because it's a LOT of fun, and the drama is well-written, most of the time.

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⛵ Fish Tale About An Angel⚓Fish Out Of Water ⛲️ °7.2° °VG°

🐚LOTBS is a dreamy onscreen excursion about a plunge into the pool of 💞. Roundabout there's beautiful scenery & other trappings that will hook a viewer. Based on a Joseon era fable, it tells the love story of a man, Heo 'double hooks' Jun-jae “JJ” (Lee Min-ho of Boys over Flowers-8.3 & Pachinko) & a mermaid, Shim Cheong “Shimmy” (Jun Ji-hyun from My Love from the Star & Kingdom: Ashin of the North-7.5) that is destined to end tragically. Even more tragic, is how they are fated to repeat this ♻ again, perhaps again-lessly.

⛵Ep1 sails to Spain, dazzling the viewer w/ refreshing scenery (though the 🎥 location is Palau). We meet JJ, who's in a sub-set of con artists. As if Lee Min-ho's looks aren't mesmerizing enough, JJ has the ability to spot hypnotize his 'marks' if quick lures are needed. He looks in a person's eyes while speaking softly & flicking his lighter. This is usually distracts the poor saps long enough for his gang of fleecers & scalers to work their agenda: Stealing pirate💰booty. These 'pirates' are all people as crooked as a barrel of hooks. As JJ& Co just steal ill-gotten 💴, their crimes cannot be reported to the police, nor the coast guard. Thus, these boys aren't so bad... They're just lovable scamps, really, like 🐬🐬.

⛲JJ's in Spain for 🏖 after a big haul. He's shocked to encounter a confused woman in his hotel room. She's a real strange 🐠. Shimmy cannot talk, has curious cuts & scrapes on her feet, & she's wearing one of his 👕, while looking quite the 🐡 out of water. He has the police take her away to cold storage. We learn, though, that this pair will not escape e/o. There are not plenty of other 🐟 in the sea for them. They're in a school of 2.

🐙JJ has a picture caught in his head of how pitiful "she" looked, & he can't 🐡 it out. She didn't try to con him, she didn't steal anything, or even 🐠 for compliments. Obviously, she has other 🐡 to fry. Most significantly, on her lovely wrist is a jade bracelet that could be worth over $6mil. That ain't 🐟 food. Swept off his feet in a tide of compulsion to care for her (or at least the $6M) he tells the police he won't press charges.

🐳Once she's released, he soon encounters her crouched under an overhang near the police station, looking utterly forlorn. It turned out to be a snag: He can't cut the line in which she & he are tangled. Before he snaps out of it, he's already fed her & taken her shopping for 👗 & 👠. Soon after, they escape from hitmen sent by a "victim" who wants JJ to sleep w/ the fishes. To hiss amazement, Shimmy is extraordinarily strong, & she can hold up in a tight spot. She's sort of pretty (scorchin hot) too... Hypnotized, his will drained, THE 🌊 crashes over him: He's amazed by her! He's catfish crazy over her! He takes the deep dive from a high cliff & crashes hard for this exotic, yet perplexing beauty.

🚣Like sunlight beams in water, when JJ is dreaming, we get flashes of past-life regression showing their woeful experiences in the Joseon era. Flashes later morph into flashbacks of past-life memories for JJ, along w/ several other characters that are being spun out & sucked back into the whirlpool alongside the two big fishes, our protagonists.

💦Things we learn about mermaids💦

💧Mermaid tears become pearls: In the Joseon version, a mermaid is locked up and forced to manufacture pearls.

💧Mermaids have super strength: This debones many situations.

💧Mermaids heal rapidly: This is also a lifesaver on occasions.

💧Mermaids are highly intelligent, learning at the speed of sonar: Shimmy teaches herself Korean by watching dramas all night. She picks up on culture along w/ pearls of wisdom, quickly surpassing JJ&Co regarding the latest looks, lures, & expressions.

💧Mermaids can wash away memories: We see several memory wipeouts.

💧When mermaids beach themselves for love & it's not reciprocated, they'll die. The same thing applies when they are separated from their love. It will kill them. Shimmy jumps in anyway, w/ 2 feet. She won't be like a cat that will eat a fish, but not get its feet wet. She commits fully.

🔥Things we learn about Jun☂jae🔥

☂His father's a Duke, um... I mean a CEO, & he's one cold 🐡. When JJ was young, his father cast out his mother in order to bring in a mistress, um, /new/ mistress of the ⛴. Once divorced, his mother abandoned ⛴, believing that JJ would be better off in his father's house, where he would want for nothing. She drifted away w/ very little salvaged from the divorce.

☂Stepmom turned out to be fishy. She's bait wrapped around poison. They needed her like a 🐠 needs a bicycle. His father is hooked, only seeing the bait. While in HS, JJ escapes the net & departs home to swim in other waters.

☂A chummy con man w/ a fish eating grin, Jo Nam-doo, takes him in (uses him for scams) & teaches JJ the trade (he teaches a man to fish🎣), as it were. Nam-doo may be friendly (most con men have "friendly" mastered before their first grift) but he's serious about his trade. From lips to tale he's hella serious about 💰. Don't be confuzzled on the subject.

☂While JJ has been looking for his Oma, she's been hiding 'under decks' avoiding detection, somehow believing that's better for JJ. (Big plot weakness).

🏊The show freestyles back to SK. We see our mermaid arrive in 🌇Seoul w/ no clue what to do. Her first friends are small 🐡: A bag lady, ahem, - excuse me - a /homeless/ woman, & a little girl instructer-&-scolder. It's as cute as it sounds. Eventually she learns to handle herself, including learning to 🍺 like a 🐟.

💦W/o ruining any big splashes, there's a tackle box of fun gear in LOTBS. There's chases w/ guns, flying 🐠 jumping off of cliffs, cons gone bad, cons gone good, & cons long gone. We're introduced to additional players from the Joseon era as the show unfolds. There's a secondary romance & other lively side characters. There's several shots of beautiful 🌊, water, & shore. We see escape on a 🚲, a An Affair To Remember moment, secrets & more secrets, messages in & on vessels from the past, & a backlit shot of an exquisite kiss while a fin fishtails dreamily. At the show's end, JJ has a 🐡 of another species dropped in his aquarium of friends - it's amusing.

🌅There is tension over the issue of fate & whether the repetition of the past & fate itself can be altered. The primary theme in LOTBS is, in the words of Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 Judgement Day: "There is no fate but what we make". JJ will not accept the outcome that seems fated to be. At both ends of the fishing pole, the past & present, he works actively against fate, believing that his actions & his decisions determine his future🌄.

🦑We see a bit of a fashion show. They're far downstream w/ the couture. Shimmy is beautiful enough to make Jacques Cousteau come back from the grave, but if she's hungry, or if she just watched a Bruce Lee movie, or read Moby Dick, avoid her like a Great White 🦈. Ms Jun is swimmingly at ease, playing at first an awkward newbie-to-everything, & later a naturally & affably uninhibited woman. Her comedy scenes, such as when she's eating, are clean nets, unslimed by the juvenile, trash filled, slobbering pig humor we see Hollywood drooling out. This hottie can actually ACT. It underscores how condescending Hollywood is to their audience. Afterall, isn't their declining quality why we love Kdramas?

🏄Besides the regular obstacles, misunderstandings, & outstanding warrants, there's also criminal matters that must be investigated. They drop hooks w/ a tantalizing bit in which JJ injects himself into an investigation & starts ordering the detectives around. They start complying before they realize what's going on. It's straight Mcdonald's fish sandwich&🍟. So tasty.

🛥While LOTBS is mostly treasure, & as a romance it's on solid ground, pertaining to film craft, it's a bit out to sea, as follows:

🦀LOTBS is only trying to be a surfs-up-fun-in-the-sun romantic cruise, not a deep water expedition, so it has less depth than JJ's feelings for Shi-ah.

🌀It suffers from overdone, too oft seen Kdrama devices.

🔻MMP Missing/misplaced parent(s). Here's yet another show where parents (especially a mother) get separated from children. I haven't seen one Kdrama yet that has separated couples co-parenting. It must be frowned upon in Korea. No reasonable explanation is laid down for JJ's mother to hide. They should have been tidier w/ it.

🔻MSS (Mandatory Separation Syndrome, where couples, once they commit, are physically separated for a period of time). LOTBS suffers a minor shipwreck & takes on water due to MSS. Anyone familiar w/ Kdramas knows what I mean. This is one of the worst cases I've seen. It's that 4th day w/ houseboat guests. The show threw a few 🐟 too many into the aquarium, crowding it out & making the presentation worse, not better.

🍤But the worst thing about Ep21 is how they cut the line on nearly every mermaid rule they had reeled in earlier. It kept stinking more as time sailed on & freshness waned. That isn't good filmmaking. Just be warned that Ep21 could near filet you, if consistency is important to you.

🚤One final caution: In Ep1, subtitles can fly by too quickly, especially when JJ is doing the hypnosis. After a couple times early in Ep1 it rarely, if ever, happens again. Don't be thwarted by that.

🏝To summarize, for cute escapism, LOTBS is like riding some perfect waves until we hit a bit of chop at the end. w/out the quality dip in eps20-22, LOTBS is easily in the middle to high 8s. The last thing we see, as LOTBS pulls up ⚓ & 🚢 away, is a couple sitting on a bench watching the turquoise 🌊 from a snowy beach, in a lovely & serene bon-voyage. It's been a good trip.

Quote🗣

I regret nothing❕ 〰homeless (I'm no bum) lady〰

IMHO〰🖍

🎬7 🎭7.7⚡6.5 🤔5 💓 7.5 🦋7 🎨8 🌞5 😅5 🔚5.

Age 12+

👁📺again? Eps 1-20✅ then w/⏩️

Loving someone from “another world” - In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:

Mr. Queen-9
99 days with the Superstar-7,
Live Up To Your Name-7.6;
My Secret Romance 7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks),
Boys Over Flowers 8 ~ melodrama to the max,
The Bride of Habaek 7,
Hotel del Luna-8.4,
A Korean Odyssey-7.2,
Romance is a bonus book-7.9;
Oh My Ghost-10,
Heirs 7.3,
That Winter, The Wind Blows 7,
Something in the Rain 9,
C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love 7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine,
You are my destiny 6.8 cute, sweet & 1/2 padding,
A Little Thing Called First Love 8.5,
Find Yourself 8.9

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I hated the ending SO MUCH

The last episode was completely nonsense. Why did she have to make everyone forget about her like that? She destroyed friendships and made people feel alone.
I just can't buy that excuse that it was her only and last option. For me, it was really awful. Just vanishing like that for years, like sea bubbles???
Ok, in the end she came back to him, married him and had child. But it was..so nonsense? A happy ending built over a nonsense disaster.
Aside from that, I really loved the plot and all the story about their past lives. I enjoyed so much the OST also. But some stuff REALLY ANNOYED ME, such as the lack of characther development around the "villains" , they were ridiculous. Ughhhhh I wish his father had not died...

Well, I liked it, recommended it to my friends and also will probably watch it again someday. Every k-drama has it's mistakes and flaws. This one has way less than others out there.

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simple series

it's cute✨and simpler than other series, le min hoo handsome ✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

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