✒ ✋️Hands of Compassion Join ✋️✋️ of Healing °6.3° °12 eps stretched into 16°
She sheds lots of tears. She's probably crying right now. Baek Dong “Joo” is going to give /her/ some relief. Just because she's dead doesn't mean she doesn't have feelings!Joo is a weird woman. We've all heard of deathbed confessions, but she can hear embalming room last requests. She can speak to the dead. Only in the funeral parlor. Only when it's only Joo with the deceased. Only for a few minutes, and that's only long enough to hear last pleas. In ep1 we see a newly deceased Uber driver beg her to find his son whom he abandoned years (decades) ago.
Joo works with Im Il Seop (In Ho Tae from Misaeng-9.1) as a funeral director. Lee Jun Young, w/ the pinch-able round cheeks.(Melo Movie, Class of Lies) portrays Kim “Tae” Hui. He works at an errand service. One day it's his errand to break up with Joo in place of her actual BF, who hired him to do so. “I no longer want to hold your 🤚 because of what you do with your 👐,” he must say to her on behalf of his client. So, /these/ are the things this guy does for 💰? Joo has a few choice words about what Tae does for a living. After the breakup, she hands some cash to him, tells him to report back to the client that /she's/ breaking up with /that jerk/, NOT the other way around. Then she /kicks/ him. No fair! Tae just works here!
Life hasn't been fair. His little brother died years ago, and his family, career, and life “died” then, too. As it turns out, the little brother ties together several characters in the show. Tae's running an errand to the funeral parlor mere hours later. As he enters (limps) in, there's the woman who kicked him, and it still hurts. Ep2 is a string of fateful encounters. They run into e/o any handful of times. He even meets her dad, unawares, at the columbarium. He gets along well with dad, but Tae does not like Joo. Joo isn't impressed with Tae, either.
MIHY is a 20022 release that is rated 89 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 16 70-minute episodes. Director Shim So Yeon brought us Welcome 2 Life, and screenwriter Lee Seon Hye also penned 20th Century Boy and Girl. MIHY is sweet, often cute, and totally forgettable.
‘Stop following me!’ ‘No, you're the one who's following me!’ The fateful encounters don't stop. He's in an errand business. She's a mortician who is getting last requests from departed souls. They're sending her on errands, and he's hired by many families to help clean up after deaths. Consequently, she's been getting in the way of his work so badly that it looks like the complaints she's generated will put his company under, once and for all. But then he finds the check that she told him to look for. He hands it to the disgruntled bereaved, and exits the job, triumphant. As they say in Forrest Gump, now “shrimping is easy”. Once the general public hears about how Tae recovered and handed over a cashier's check for a whopping sum, *everyone* wants to hire him. Now, the jobs are stacked up, and running errands is a breeze.
In spite of it all, the more he sees her, the more he dislikes her.
Lee Hye Ri from Reply 1988-8.6 is our FL. They found a child (Lee Dam) who looks quite a bit like her to play her when she was young. Weirdly, “Lee Dam” was the name of the character Lee Hye Ri played in My Roommate Is a Gumiho-7.9. Ms Lee looks better with black hair, not the brown she's sporting here. Long ago dubbed the nation's “little sister“ she's that everyday girl… if the everyday girl manages to be cute, spunky, pretty, funny, winsome, independent, and appealing, all at once. She has a way of appearing capable, but also in need of assistance. She also has a way of looking a tad bored and unhappy, yet she still makes the viewer smile. She's a charmer.
Song Deok Ho from Link: Eat, Love, Kill-6.7 & Smoke is a local beat cop who falls for Joo instantly. Lee Kyu Han (She Would Never Know-7.3, The Judge from Hell-4.5) plays “Vincent-seeing-other-people-have-fun-makes-me-jealous,” who is Tae’s cousin and boss, Lee Hyang Bok. He's in a perpetual state of distress, especially when the company isn't doing well. Even when the company is doing well, he has to deal with his always-yelling, never-satisfied mother.
Many people react negatively to what Joo does for a living. She hasn't told her father about it. He thinks she's studying for the Civil Service exam. The lies mount up because of that 1 lie. Dad begins to get suspicious. “If you don't do what you want and keep what you want to say inside, it'll end up causing stress… That's the source of all disease… be honest with (loved ones) about everything; there's supposed to be no secrets between two people that love each other. Once you start hiding tiny things from each other, you have a hard time seeing that person because of guilt.” He says that in hopes that she'll open up. Speaking of guilt, we see 1 character smile slightly when he erases evidence. He won't smile again. Not during the course of the show. Not for years. The weight of guilt… well, it /weighs/ on him.
Joo must endure the dead pleading with her to live again, or for this favor or that favor, but she's rarely able to fulfill more than one simple request. There's no time to handle anything more. The first person she attends to whom she knew in life is her friend's grandmother. Joo considered her a grandma as well. In that scene, Joo is the one crying & pleading with Granny to stay. Kim Young Ok (Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha-8.2, Dear My Friends) plays grandma. This actress is so cute. Her earliest credited work is from 1957. She's almost 90 and she looks like she's in her 70s.
In one scene, a woman who was murdered when she was about to give birth pleads with Joo to save her baby. But she and the baby in her womb already perished. All Joo can do is endure it. Consequently, when that pregnant woman was begging, Joo is holding her, trying her best to console her, & Tae is delivering something. He walks in on them. When he enters the room, the beautiful surroundings that appear for the awakened deceased dissipate, and we're back in the cold, industrial embalming room with the departed no longer talking, but back to being a body. All Tae sees is Joo doing something very weird with the body. He really can't stand her. She tries to explain to him that she can talk to the dead, but he's only more scandalized by her odd behavior.
When Joo relays information that helps Tae prevent a suicide, he starts to soften his stance on her. Then he really softens on her. That begins to harden into positive feelings for her. He asks her out for a drink one night and… they are still together the next morning. Nothing happened, except the connection deepened. After several random encounters Dad & Tae become friends - Dad (played by Park Soo Young from My Mister-9.5 & Children of Nobody) makes friends with everybody. In one of those encounters, dad shows him a picture of his “beautiful daughter" and Tae realizes it's the woman that he'd been spatting with. That was before. Now they're starting to spend quite a bit of time together.
“I don't want to die.” Joo has to speak to a little girl who died when her mother committed a murder suicide. It's an act borne of misplaced views on parental love and protection. Parents who kill children because they intend to commit suicide see the children as property, not an individual human being, says the newscaster when reporting on the incident. “I want to live. Please let me live.” “I want to try dyeing my hair, fly on an airplane, have a boyfriend… drink boba tea one more time. I have so many things I want to do. I don't care if I'm poor. I don't care if I'm hungry. Please save me,” begs the child. Some of the conversations Joo has are agonizing. She wonders if what she's doing means anything. Is she helping?
When Joo needs to talk, she hits up father. Father Michael, that is - he's her uncle. Oh Dae Hwan (Life on Mars, Defendant,,Live Up to Your Name-7.6) is the priest. He has a very nice presence about him. He turns out to be old friends with Vincent - yet another connection.
MIHY is a hope injection. Accepting death, managing regrets and living on is the theme. Are we supposed to derive comfort from what the deceased say and request? I think so, and it's not too hard to guess how most deceased would see things. MIHY is more a commentary on death and loss than a romance, but romance is the vehicle that drives the commentary. It surfaces that Tae’s past was not a smooth road. He was in medical school, he had a girlfriend, and now it's obvious that she's not over him. Just as these two leads start to become interested in e/o, Tae’s ex tries to make moves. The local beat cop makes moves on Joo, too. Joo wants to back off when she sees Tae’s ex come back into his life. Yet, she /doesn't/ want to back off, so she just looks very uncomfortable whenever his ex is around. It's pretty much the same with Tae & the cop. At the same time, Joo's friend is falling for her immediate supervisor, In Ho, so love is in the air. (The secondary romance had the potential to boost the show up, but they treated it like a throwaway thing). Regardless of outside interference, Tae & Joo go together like ping and pong. Their relationship is sweet and cozy.
For most of its run, MIHY feels like a quiet space. This duo is comfortable. This is my 3rd look at Lee Hye Ri, and I must bow to her capabilities. For a tiny little thing, she's like a big comfy sofa. She's got that you're-home-now-everything-is-okay vibe mastered. Unfortunately, in the end MIHY didn't build up to anything and then it fizzled away. There is much to like about this show, but when the time came for the big reveal and wrap up, they lost me: It's cobbled together badly, it's half-hearted, and it's wholly depressing. The bad guy's actions and motivations don't make sense, and he's supposedly smart. It's written weakly. This is probably the furthest into the episode count that a show lost me. They don't have enough content for 16 episodes, though they don't run into serious trouble until the last couple. The intangibles can be hard to define, but just like the dead can't cross the threshold of the exit from the embalming room, MIHY can't cross the threshold from avg to good. It's sad.
On the + side, MIHY does the opposite of cheapening life. It reinforces that every life is precious and we have obligations to e/o. It wraps up nicely with a moving explanation of why and how this happened to Joo and why she and Tae are so very perfect for e/o. It isn't the worst, nor is it the best. It will kill some time.
QUOTES🗣
Success is the mother of failure.
Everything's an excuse.
IMHO〰🖍
📣6.5 📝6 🎭7.6 💓6 🦋4 🎨6.5 🎵/🔊7 🔚7 🤗2.5 ▪ 🌞6⚡4.5 😅2 😭5 😱3 😯2 🤢3 🤔3.5 💤1.5
Shazams: Goodbye My Friend, by JAMIE
Age 14+ Language: b!+ch, F💣s - all in the first 20 minutes or so. Then, not much, but it seems like every episode has some R-rated language. Scary elements not suitable for younger children. Rated: 15+
Re-📺? This is fine to watch once, but I'm not in a hurry to circle back.
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Crazy Love-7.8,
Racket Boys-8.3,
Mad For Each Other-7.7 ~ silly fun,
Mystic Pop-up Bar-8.2,
The Legend of the Blue Sea-7.2 (But for eps 20 &21 it's an 8+),
My Roommate Is a Gumiho-7.9,
Reply 1988-8.6,
Oh My Venus-7.4K,
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Oh My Ghost 10,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Love Struck in the City 7.3,
Hotel del Luna-8.4,
Uncanny counter S1 only °S1-8.4 S2-4,
Be Melodramatic-8.7,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Because This Is My First Life-7.7,
Move To Heaven-8.4,
Misaeng-9.1,
Missing: The Other Side-8.3,
Hospital Playlist 9 (give it 3 episodes to get warmed up),
Itaewon Class-8.9,
My Liberation Diary-8.9,
SKY Castle-9,
My Mister 9.5,
Wonderful World-7.8,
Parasite-9,
Mother-8.8
The Wailing-8.8,
Romance junkies only -
My Secret Romance-7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks),
Boys Over Flowers-8 ~ melodrama to the max,
The Bride of Habaek-7,
Heirs-7.3,
That Winter, The Wind Blows-7,
Something in them Rain-9,
C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love-7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine,
When I Fly Towards You-7.8,
Wait, My Youth-8.4,
A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5,
Find Yourself-8.9,
Hidden Love-7.8
Consider a Chinese 🎎/🔮 romcom: The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8, Love Between Fairy and Devil 8.9, Love and Redemption 10 or Japanese romcoms: Maid Sama 10, Mischievous Kiss Love in Tokyo 7.8, Love, Chunibyo And Other Delusions 8.4, or Toradora 8.5
Was this review helpful to you?
✒ ☀ A Warm Family is Wealth ♨️ °8.6° °Excellent°
Ahh, the 80s. Even without the internet men learned to wear pink. Ice sculptures were mainstreamed. No PCs existed, let alone laptops or tablets, but Trapper Keepers were cool. Cameras were a family treasure. Weather forecasts were much more unreliable. Business was booming. The opposite sex was a complete mystery.R88 is a 2015 release that is rated 91 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 20 episodes ranging from 76-113 minutes. That makes it as long as a Cdrama.
Stresses always mount, no matter the era: Siblings, their stuff, & borrowing it, money, love lives, getting into college, dreams, money, singing contests, new Western style restaurants, money, money, MONEY!… Money isn't the only pressure. School, studying, grades, protests, jobs, counterfeit designer goods, dating, international Go tournaments, THE OLYMPICS! Even food … “In some ways, one's own family is most oblivious… But what's so important about knowing? In the end, what helps you overcome obstacles isn't brains, but someone who will take your hand and won't let you go,” we hear. To live is to experience problems. Problems aren't so bad when we have people close who face them with us.
Director Shin Won-Ho has directed Prison Playbook-8.4, Hospital Playlist-9, and the Reply series, all of which are extremely popular. (HP starts alittle slowly. Give it to ep3. It's exceptional). The writer is Lee Woo-Jung, who wrote HP and the Reply series. The characters in R88 are likable - downright lovable, actually. These actors have gone on to wide scale popularity.
Hyeri (My Roommate Is A Gumiho-7.9, May I Help You-6.3) is Duk-Sun. “Kids these days only know the quadratic formula, not life. You don't know either,” her friend remarks. She's not the best student, but she's the type to bring people together. She's the show's serotonin factory. I almost teared-up in ep1 when she had her moment. In Duk-Sun's family we have sis, Sung Bo-Ra, played by Ryoo Hye-Young. She is one of the leads in Law School-8. It's an amazing transformation from one part to the other. Their brother, No-eul, is the youngest, even though he looks 20 years older. He doesn't sound like it when he talks, but his singing voice is wonderful. Sung Dong Il is Deok Sun's father. With credits going back to 1993, he gets alot of work. My first look at him was the show Sisyphus-8 and I became an instant fan. Lee Il Hwa (The King's Affection-8.3, Lie After Lie) is Deok Sun's mother.
Ryoo Joon-Yeol (Lost, The Night Owl, Alienoid) is Jung-Hwan. Duk-Sun treats him like the last man on earth she would fall for. Ahn Jae Hong (Be Melodramatic-8.7) plays his brother, the obsessive Kim Jung Bong. He is delightful. The more he's on screen the more I love him. Ra Mi-Ra (Black Dog-8.2, The Good Bad Mother) plays their mother, the ”Cheetah Lady” Kim Jung Bong & Jung-Hwan's mom. She can sing and dance! Kiim Sung Kyun portrays that family's dad. He's happy and harmless. Married to Ra Mi-Ra, he's terrified of her. This actor is wonderful in Moving-8.5 & DP-8.4.
Ko Kyoung-Pyo (Flower Boys Next Door-7, Strongest Deliveryman-6.6, Private Lives-8.1) is Sun-Woo. This guy is darling. Kim Sun Yong is Sun Woo's mother. I'm a big fan of hers. She's fabulous in Crash Landing on You-9.1 and Her PrivateLife-8.
Taek is played by Park Bo-Gum, who is a good looking guy. Taek is a dork. He didn't finish school because he plays Go. ALL he does is play Go. He wins, too. Just ask any Japanese or Chinese citizen. They ALL know him. They can't beat him. He needs looking after, though. He would starve if nobody fed him. One can tell he's handsome, but he bears little resemblance to the gorgeous ML in Record of Youth-5.8, where Mr. Park plays a handsome actor/model and is clearly the reason ROY is overrated. He's a cutie; it's understandable. Choi Moo Sung is Taek's father. He is wonderful in Prison Playbook-8.4 and also appears in Stranger S2 & The Nokdu Flower. He can play a bad guy, but he's super-lovable as a good guy.
Lee Dong-Hwi is Dong-Ryong. All he craves is the home life that the others have, but his parents are stern, impersonal, and successful. They're /never/ home. He never gets a home cooked meal. His parents never notice what he's doing or even when he's not there. He doesn't even refer to them as mom and dad, he only refers to them by their professional titles: Chief Jo and the Dean. (BTW, the Dean blows his image when he starts dancing). At one point Dong-Ryong gets a case of piles. I have to look that up; it's just hemorrhoids. What's truly shocking is that it made the paper! The paper was a BIG deal back then. People actually read it. Dong-Ryongcan can sing respectably, too ~ Well enough to win the singing contest, perhaps? Not telling. Yoo Jae Myung plays Dong Ryong's father. I've seen him in Itaewon Class-8.9, Uncle Samsik-8.4, and am currently watching him in Vincenzo. He's different in everything, and he's absolutely superb. His part here is small; it's almost wasted.
R88 is about nostalgia and the warmth of a good family and caring neighborhood. Only one family has some extra w💰n, but even without money, life gets no better. It's time to watch Knight Rider together! Beepers! (I'm proud to say I never had one). They kill time with Cats-in-the-cradle (the string and fingers variety) board games, origami, games played with pen and paper…. There's no phones and video games are strictly at arcades. Speaking of life without cell phones, 2 people arrange to meet on a date. They wait all night on different floors at the same restaurant. They never find out because they can't text e/o.
The dad's work and the moms tend to the home (except chief Jo). When one mom has to visit her family, the 3 men in the house devolve into neanderthals the moment she exits. How they got the place back in shape in time is a harrowing tale and practically a near-death experience.
They make fun of the Korean penchant for keeping the score “even.” One mom needs rice for dinner and sends her kid to get it from a neighbor with some food as thanks. The neighbor sends back kimchi with the rice and this starts the kids on countless food exchanges before dinner. The viewer can't be certain they will even get to eat! Problem solved. They decide to go eat together on the street.
First Comes Family. Then Comes Love. The most crucial decisions kids face are choices of mate and profession. “If you love someone, tell them now, before your fleeting days become filled with regrets,” is the sage advice. One party will hesitate and be out maneuvered by a more determined and proficient strategist. Consequently, we see some truly great kissing in ep19.
They outdid themselves with retro colors, wardrobe, and hairstyles. The kids are RAD, but the moms look like the 1950s. One day they make the best snowman ever! The unreliable weather forecasts play a hand in that episode. Looks like ttey borrowed a motif from Superbad-2007 in ep11. One of the dads does a living room dance that's hilarious. It's pretty good, actually. 🥁“Soonguri dang dang, soong dang dang…”🥁 Woo Hyeon has a cameo. It's a knee-slapper.
The edge of seventeen: Ep17 is the heartbreak episode. Many get their hearts stomped, but ep19 is great, and the wrap-up is wonderful. I took my time working through the show. At first, the sheer length of it was slightly daunting and it took a few episodes for me to decide how much I liked it. Well, I like it. I like it alot. There's really no weaknesses; it's pretty rare for a show, especially a long one, to have nothing to complain about. We'll let the teenagers do all the complaining while the audience can just sit back and enjoy the show.
QUOTES📢
When people get stronger, it's not through their pride, but when they throw away their pride.
Loving someone doesn't mean that you don't hate them, it means that you can't hate them.
Don't act thoughtlessly. A real man should conduct himself calmly, with prudence like a grand mountain.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣8.5 📝8.5 🎭9 💓7 🦋6 🎨6 🎵/🔊7.5 🔚8 ♦ 🌞7 ⚡3 😅5 😭4 😱2 😯2 😖1 🤔4.5 💤0
Shazams: Even If a Memorable Day Comes by Sughum Hong & Lovers Who Struggle by Shin Hae Chul are both good.
Age 12+ for language- B!+ch, @$$, $h!+, f💣s - multiple, but in just 2 scenes. Rated TV-15+
Re-📺? 🆒
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Boys Over Flowers 8 ~ melodrama to the max;
Strongest Delivery Man-6.6,
The Miracle-7.7,
Racket Boys-8.3,
Private Lives 8.1;
Familiar Wife-8.5,
Cheese in the Trap-7.7,
Law School -8,
My Liberation Diary-8.9,
Was this review helpful to you?
✒ ☠ Pawnshop Ghost & Garbage Girl: Dark Knight On Fire ❣ °8.9° °outstanding°
He came outta nowhere… TMFN opens to a 2 month police sting in which only the police get stung.Won Bin (Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War) is Cha Tae-Sik, the “Pawnshop Ghost”. He lost a wife and child. A child ended up finding him. Kim Sae-Ron (Heaven's Garden, Bloodhounds) portrays Jung So-Mi, the child - Garbage Girl. She's yet another brilliant K🇰🇷kid actor. Her performance is world-class. We are treated to some truly scary psycho bad guys, regular Joe cops, and some Kpop hairdos. Screenwriter & director, Lee Jung Beom, also brought us Samjin Company English Class.
TMFN is a 2010, 119 min release that is rated 90 on AWiki / 💯 on RT. My son has only seen a couple Kdramas. He joked in the beginning of this show that many Korean actors in this film look like Michael Jackson - or perhaps MJ was trying to look Korean? (Korea does have the most beautiful male leads in the world, imo). He quickly settled into the story, though, as the film is fantastic.
So-Mi has a mom who is only 25% there. Most of the time, she's turning tricks and taking drugs. So the little girl often visits the ghost, eh, /guy/ at the pawn shop. He doesn't talk much, and he doesn't seem overly friendly, but she knows he's decent. He frequently feeds her and buys all of the random junk that she sells him. So-Mi's mom doesn't trust him, though. It's obvious that there's something a little different about him.
That police sting? Just when the police were on the brink of making a huge arrest, a rogue criminal element came in and took everything from both parties, the police and the target of their criminal investigation. These criminals got away with lots of drugs and ALL the money. Now, everyone's after them. The police and the jopok (mafia).
So-Mi's mom is caught up in the net and dies while she's being questioned by jopok thugs. They haul off So-Mi to child traffickers. It's heart😳breaking. All of these kids are put to work. Some are sold. Some of them are used to harvest organs. Stories like this are worldwide. Millions of children go missing every year. It looks like this all really goes on. Pause your busy life for a moment and reflect on that…
Tae-Sik learns what's happened to So-Mi and he hits the trail to find her and bring her back. From this point, the film is reminiscent of the excellent movie, Man on fire, starring Denzel Washington. The bad guys have no idea who's coming for them. We're all gonna find out.
The craftsmanship is excellent. Film is a visual medium, and this is a man, and a film, of few words. The story is mostly told visually. You'll have to put down your phone! When he agrees to “run an errand”, things suddenly take on a blue glow / turn a neon blue outside. The director uses a blue filter over some scenes. The color blue is associated with trust, dependability, and stability in Korea. The color palette is, otherwise, heavy industrial grey, which suits the subject matter. Handheld camera work in the action scenes builds tension and excitement. We follow him right through a 2nd storey window down to the street. Hold onto your hat!
TMFN is the perfect Friday night flick. It's inspiring, scary, exciting, and fulfilling. It's also an excellent choice as an introduction to 🇰🇷Korean programming for your unexposed friends and family.
As the film ends, the sun is coming up in Seoul🌇. Warm light bathes the screen. Strength lends strength. So-Mi will live, and So-Mi's life will never be the same.
QUOTES📢
The ones living for tomorrow get f💣d by the ones living for today.
I only live for today. I'll show you just how f💣d up that can be.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣9 📝8.2 🎭8.5 🌞3 🎨7.5⚡9 🎵/🔊6 😅0 😭6 😱5 😯5 😖8.7 🤔5 💤0 🔚8
Age 17+ for Rated R language; Drug trade torture; Torture of a woman in front of her child; A body that was organ-harvested. Rated R - restricted
Re-📺? Did
~ you may also like ~
My Mister 9.5;
K2 8;
Private Lives 8.1;
Sisyphus 8;
Tunnel 8.1;
Signal 8.6;
Black 9;
Squid Game 8.4;
Kingdom 8.3;
Sweet Home 8.4
Was this review helpful to you?
✒♥️ The Cutest Jailhouse Romance Ever ☘ °8.9° °Adorable°
Ah, bad boys. I've never understood the attraction. Just because it's not my poison doesn't mean that it's not a /thing/. We all have our crosses to bear. LBF&D is a high fantasy romance. High fantasy is a genre in which the whole world is new & fantastical. Almost everything in this world is magical in some way.Not only is the universe in which this show takes place a fantasy, but the concept that a good girl can reform the bad guy is also a fantasy. Beyond the fact that it's a fantasy, it is also disrespecting oneself. You. Deserve. Better. Enjoy a story that's based on that idea here, but don't go chasing after /that/ magic sword. You'll only end up piercing yourself.
The premise is adorable. Imagine the most powerful being who has ever existed on earth. His enemies manage to lock him up, but they were not powerful enough to kill him. While they were resealing the weakening roof of his prison, a fairy falls in there! What's /she/ doing here? (She was chasing after her crush). Somehow, in that deep pit, the little orchid fairy and the big, bad felon were subjected to a frightful spell. Now, he /feels/. He feels everything that /she/ feels. And she's an emotional little cutie. He's experiencing everything (emotionally and physically) that she is. Now, killing him is easy - all that someone needs to do is kill her and HE dies.
“Boo’-can-aw!” Balderdash! No one is more powerful than he! This will not control him!
Dylan Wang is Dongfang “Qing” Cang. Qing will get retribution against his tormentors, wake up his 100,000 soldiers, and wipe out his foes. He will burn the world down!... As soon as he can break this curse and shake loose from this simple-headed orchid 🌱 fairy. Until then, he'll have to keep an eye on her. He must keep her safe BY ALL MEANS, and since she's a delicate orchid, she needs all kinds of special care. ("I can do everything in this world," he says. As for raising a plant, how difficult can it be for me?) Little Orchid assumes he has a crush on her and tells him: "There's plenty of fish in the sea. Why don't you go find someone else?"
So, we have the arrogant, very angry, “evil” overlord being controlled by an innocent (who thinks he needs her help 🙄 - What can /she/ do? She's even afraid of the dark!). He'll have to protect her to stay alive, and keep her from harm to keep himself from being harmed. Among odd couples, this is an odd couple. She thinks she's in love with someone else (Chang Heng), and she's trying to get promoted in the Heavenly Realm so that she can be closer to the object of her affection. Her early successes aren't her's at all, though. Qing is helping her from the shadows while she's oblivious. It's silly but not idiotic. It's fun yet still beautiful, and though it's lighthearted, the directors took their work seriously.
All the acting forwards the story. There's no under or overdoing it. She is cuter than the little white cub she finds in the forest, while his fervor for her touches our hearts. Dylan Wang (Meteor Garden-7.4, The Rational Life-7) is a nice looking guy, no doubt. But he's no Dwayne Johnson. So what makes him special? Qing is stereotypical as the condescending, aloof, perpetual bully, but that's because he was love-starved as a child and became emotionally stunted. Underneath that hard shell there's a cupcake. Mr Wang makes a nice romantic lead because he conveys love and (poorly suppressed) desire with intensity. Because of their occasional role reversals, he must act like a woman. He can play a girly-girl! He is fantastic. Later on, though he loves her, there's a point when he has to erase her memory, including her memory of him. We can see the hurt in his face. The eyes are what takes good acting to superb acting. He handles his eyes well.
The romance is a gem. Capital "R" good-girl-bad-boy Romance. It's a separate haven, like Arbiter Hall, tucked away from a world of war that springs up from hatred, revenge, and fear most of all. In ep13 there's a delightful kissing scene, being both fun and funny. His expression is probably overdone, but it packs the comedic punch. Although their lips locked a couple times prior to then, it's difficult to say what qualifies as a first kiss in the show. However, one could argue that the first truly romantic (mostly) mutual one isn't until ep26. The camera moves to show they are also holding hands. Flutters, for sure.
Qing's guard, Shang (Charles Lin from Romance with Blind Master & N Generations) looks like any guy walking in the neighborhoods of Philly: Italian, with a little bit of Irish in the mix. Esther Yu (My Journey to You, Love Game in Eastern Fantasy) is Orchid. She's cute. She plays a spoiled kid in Find Yourself-8.9, a show that I love. Her career seems to be taking off. The handsome-almost-pretty Zhang Ling He (Story of Kunning Palace, The Princess Royal-8.3) is Orchid's crush as the story opens, Chang Heng. Xu Hai Qiao (The Legend of Zhuohua, Marvelous Women) portrays Rong Hao, Chang's BFF and regular chess opponent. Hong Xiao White (Cat Legend, Rising with the Wind) nearly steals the show as Jie Li (When Orchid says her name it sounds like “Jelly” and it's darling).
Screenwriters, Cao Xiao Tian (The Glory) & Bai Jin Jin (Love Game in Eastern Fantasy) adapted original creator, Jiu Lu Fei Xiang's novel. She has several credits, including Back from the Brink & The Legend of Shen Li. The directing by Yi Zheng (Falling Into You) & Qian Jing Wu (The Silence of the Monster) is sheer competence with fresh elements, snappy cadence, and smooth segues. I've already watched this twice. In the second go-around connections, forecasting and ironic lines that aren't as perceptible upon the first watch popped out. It's a tidy work of art with a huge fun factor. Ep2, provides a metaphor: One guy /loses/ the handkerchief he treasured, as it was from his crush. Another man /finds/ the person he loves. The first guy was hesitant, and he lost, while the latter would define hesitation as weakness. He won.
LBF&D's dreamy fairyland is fanciful, magical, & delicate. Most Chinese features are 25 to 80 episodes long, which is lots of time to fill up. The effects budgets generally can't live up to Hollywood standards. Clunky special effects can break up the flow, but the excitement in this show is seamless. They get a lot of bang for their ¥uan💴, particularly with the action; most of the special effects in this are fantastic. The opening episode is quite pretty with impressive effects. There's a battlefield with 100,000 sealed soldiers who look like statues. Qing desperately wants to unseal them, which is a cool concept. The effect that impressed me most is when Chang Heng & Rong Hao take a break from chess and enter an antique pen & ink on faded parchment. They take a 2D boat ride on the River of Oblivion. They, themselves, become 2D. It's wonderful.
There are some minor flaws. Most transitions are excellent, but some are a little bit choppy, or awkward. They pick on an orphan again. Asia is not kind to orphans, and one of the bad guys is an orphan. The pain of his early life's loneliness is part of what drives him. Some actions and motivations aren't sufficiently explained. There's one rescue where we must wonder how the rescuer even knew he was needed. When the two leads body switch, their power doesn't seem to switch fully, but we never get an adequate explanation for it. The ending is too brief. A ten-second wrap-up leaves the viewer feeling cheated. Why they DO dat?! My biggest head-scratcher was Qing failing to grab one of those paintings to take back home with him after their visit to the mortal realm. Thankfully, the flaws are minor and few.
The main theme is how we are led away by our desires. We see the progression: Pride. Self-righteousness - which goes hand-in-hand with self-delusion. Prejudice - which brings hate along for the ride. The Heavenly realm is not heavenly. Though they presume their superiority, they are backbiting, spiteful, and ruthless. Orchid is the only one who appears to have true kindness, along with Chang, a truly good guy.
One of the baddies is just a dupe for the real evil boss His motivations make no sense on one level. Many of us can see someone treading the wrong path and wonder what they're thinking. In this case, this person is drawn away by h/h own desires while lying to h/h self that this is for somebody else. People have a habit of creating big knives that end up in their own backs.
The nature of weakness and strength is another theme. "I am so weak, I have no skills. I'm just an orchid fairy; I can't do much," Orchid says over and over. "She is my biggest weakness," says he. She's more powerful than she realizes. When she stops the whinge and starts working on herself, she gets stronger. Who is the most powerful one in the show? We begin to wonder. Futility is also a theme. War and revenge are a never ending cycle that just foments misery.
All in all, LBF&D is a personal River of Oblivion and a constant flow of smiles. The art is magnificent, the acting, directing, and writing are excellent, and the romance is unforgettable. This is one bad boy who is reformed for good!
QUOTES 🗣️
I will never make my past mistakes again.
Love makes everyone a better version of themselves.
I never thought bringing up a plant could be so troublesome.
〰🖍 IMHO
🎬8,8 🖊️〰8.6 🎭8.5 💓8.7 🦋7.8 🌞7 🎨9.3⚡6.4 🎵/🔊8.5 😅5.5 😭6 😱5 🤢2.5 🤔5.7 🔚 8.5
Age 12 +/- It's practically a kid's show, but there are some scary moments and heartbreaking moments as well
Re-📺? 🔛
Recs:
Douluo Continent 9.4;
Handsome Siblings 8.7;
Ancient Love Poetry 8.6;
Love and Redemption 10
Overlord 8.4,
Under the Power 8.6,
The Rebel Princess 9.1,
The Sword and the Brocade 8.6 (in ancient Chinese opera style),
The Rise of Phoenixes 9
Was this review helpful to you?
✒ ☄Incompatible☄: A Little Bit of Nonsense ✴6.8✴very cute✴
Here's to the long-distance relationship. Sometimes Love is incompatible. At times, it's downright impossible.The handsome Fukushi Sota is Toyama Mitsuru, an alien who has been stuck on earth for 400 years. Like The Highlander, he doesn't age, so he has to set up new identities every half generation or so, and he has accumulated enough wealth to live /comfortably/. He actually has enough to live like a movie star, and he lives /exactly/ like one - A popular actress just moved in next door. Together they occupy the entire 30th floor. Sota has many extra-human powers, from spoon-bending to stopping time. He keeps them well hidden - mostly by maintaining a low profile.
Yamamoto Mizuki plays celebrity Sasahara Tsubaki, and she's a universe away from low-profile. Sure she's somewhat spoiled and entitled, but she's actually a decent person, Her mother helps keep her that way. Mom is such a selfish and narcissistic pill that Mizuki doesn't want to be anything like her. Nevertheless, for Sota, who is more like Dr. Spock than not, Mizuki is irritating. She's the type to stumble into his place uninvited, while drunk, and pass out on his couch. He is still drawn to her against his will… She is so like that human girl he was compelled to rescue all those centuries ago. As a college prof, he is NOT drawn enough to her to put up with her stuff, though. When she returns to school to boost her image, he doesn't hesitate to give her a zero for plagiarism. (To think, she paid /good/ money for an originally written paper, too!).
As we get to know them more, we see that their fates may have been intertwined for a long time. Could she really be the reincarnation of that woman he saved so long ago?
MLFTS is a 2022 release that is rated 7.4 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 10 40-45-minute episodes. After the credits roll, there's commentary and actor interviews and deleted scenes.
The Bad guy, Imai Tsubasa, is a pop idol IRL. He'd never played a bad guy before. He's almost unrecognizable in his post-show interview; that's some nice acting. The screenwriter is Seki Erika, and this was adapted from Park Ji-eun's original work for the Kdrama, My Love From Another Star, which was released in 2013. Ms Park is also screenwriter for Legend of the Blue Sea-7.2 and Crash Landing On You-9.1. Good stuff. The director is Matsuki Tsukuru, whose most popular piece is the film, Rika: Self-Proclaimed 28 Years Old's Pure Love Monster. Ima plan to watch that. I love the title.
Actresses' lives are loaded with drama. Sota, though he doesn't know why, helps Tsubaki out of a scrape. Then he helps her with another. Now, it's a habit. A rival ends up dead… It looks like a suicide, but the police get involved. Tsubaki is the top suspect. Soon the police are wondering: Who is this strange man appearing and disappearing on the surveillance footage? As part of the investigation, they've examined all the relevant footage. The most suspicious thing they've seen is Sota, because they see him, then they don't see him, and then he appears somewhere else.
A drawback to love is that Sota is allergic to human blood and saliva. Another trifle Is that his ship, after 400 years, is returning with the comet in 3 months. He's headed back home. He's allergic to human blood & saliva, but they make no mention of sweat… it's not optimal, but I think we can work with that. In the anime Fruits Basket, the “men” will transform if a human girl merely hugs them. There's no making that work.
Another obstacle is that he's not very social. “Don't give. Don't receive. And don't expect. That way, you'll never be let down,” he muses. She doesn't understand that philosophy. “Isn't that kind of lonely?” She may not be a good student at school, but she's a better student of life than he. Another roadblock to love is her attitude. “I understand why other people turn away from you. You're simplistic and impulsive.” He forgot to mention that she is fairly self-involved, as well. Unfortunately (or not) for him, his argument is logical but his heart has already boarded and strapped in for the ride.
This is a simple show meant for turning off the brain and relaxing. It is nicely done for that effect, but such simplicity does lower the degree of difficulty, and thus the top score. It also has its outright shortcomings. They're sloppy with the rules that govern his existence. Human blood and saliva make him sick, but he, otherwise, seems completely human. Springing new ideas and developments on the viewer without laying down sufficient hints, foreshadowing, or other elements that constitute good filmmaking is something they rely on. The effect is that it seems like they are making some of it up as they go. It's not a show where nitpicking will make a difference, as there's little mental exertion required to watch and enjoy. Thinking will actually ruin it. Turn off your brain for this one. Just don't look for thoroughness, clarity, or explanations.
The fun factor outshines any problems. Some of the fashion is wonderful and some is weird. Her jewelry is snazzy. There's an excellent sort of frozen kiss in one of the later episodes. She makes an allusion to Hunter X Hunter, my absolute favorite anime, so I appreciated the show from that point on.
Will these 2 reach the point where they soar? Or will they crash to earth? Sota is a natural problem solver, and he's decided the 30th floor is close enough to heaven (and the heavens) for him. He's lost enough, and he refuses to lose Tsubaki or anything else. He's going to iron out this warped drive.
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Modern Day:
Mad For Each Other 7.8 ~silly fun;
My Secret Romance 7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks);
A Witch's Love 7.8;
Love to Hate You 8.9;
Her Private Life 8;
Touch your heart 8.2;
Romance is a bonus book 7.9;
Boys Over Flowers 8 ~ melodrama to the max;
Crash Landing On You 9.1;
Oh My Ghost 10;
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9;
Love Struck in the City 7.3;
Hospital Playlist 9;
My Mister 9.5;
More Than Friends 8;
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9;
Something in the Rain 9
〰🖍 IMHO
📣7 📝6 🎭7.5 💓6.5 🦋5 🌞5 🎨6.3 ⚡4.9 🎵/🔊6 😅4 😭3 😱3 😯3 😖2.5 🤔2 💤0 🔚7
Age 12+ PG language; A pregnant woman dies and the police must investigate whether it's suicide or murder along with other violence
Re-📺? Who knows? I have no strong feelings about it. I do want to see the Kdrama, which is immensely popular. I'm still working through the Prime, Hulu, and Netflix inventory before taking the Viki premium plunge. We're talking months until that happens, not years. I've already got my watchlist stacked up.
Was this review helpful to you?
⛈ Follow the Light ⛅ If You Will ⛈ °8.6° °Outstanding°
Every night, she's sitting at the bus stop. He tried to assist her once, but communications broke down. The next night she was there with her suitcase, as usual. She's soaked. It's pouring. She says she's freezing and asks to go home with him. We see her later leave his apartment, suitcase in tow. Blood drips onto the walkway marking her path.At school, some girls are having a discussion. ‘You know there are students… selfies, photos, & video clips is where they show up, and nobody knows who they are. Every class has empty seats. I think that's where they're sitting. They have to be ghosts.’ Hyeon is mortified.
LS is a 2024 release that is rated 89 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of just 8 51-minute episodes. This is the fledgling directing effort of Kim Hee Won who had roles in many features, including Misaeng-9.1 & Moving-8.5. Screenwriter Kang Full co-wrote Moving-8.5, among others. LS is sleepy and hypnotic. It's also scary, but with a dreamlike quality that mutes the fright. It's not agitating. Straightaway, the opening credits are eerily beautiful. I think it's the way things look to the ghosts that haunt the alley. Ep1 is lite bites from varied small plates. It's a sampler. Ep2 is more of the same. They will tie it all together later. In eps1-4 we meet the players, dead and alive. In ep5 we'll meet the ghosts as they lived. Watch to the end. Ep8 is your reward.
“I never noticed the light shop during the day, but it really stands out at night as it's so bright. Are you always open this /late/?” “You could say that.” In between vignettes, customers are coming in and out of the light shop. Jung Won Yeong (Ju Ji Hoon from Kingdom-8.3) is the mysterious proprietor behind the counter in dark glasses. He's all perfunctorily business-like with the patrons until a schoolgirl enters. They're old friends. He offers Hyeon some candy. She mentions that his shop is the only reason she can walk on the street. Otherwise, she'd be too scared: There's rumors of a ghost there! He studies her quietly for quite a while. ‘It seems like you can see things that most people cannot,’ he cautions Hyeon. “It's important that you look at people very closely and if you see something that isn't ordinary, just act like you haven't seen anything. It's best to not let those that you shouldn't be able to see notice that you see them at all. But if they do, make sure you act like nothing important is going on and that you haven't noticed…”
One can't help but notice, it's an all-star cast, folks.
Park Bo Young (Oh My Ghost-10, Strong Woman Do Bong Soon) plays ICU nurse Kwon Yeong Ji. She had an NDE of her own. She's been to the light shop, as not only the dead pass by there, but also the nearly dead. She's met the proprietor. She does everything she can to guide her patients to the light and WILL them to live.
Lee Jung Eun (Oh My Ghost-10, Parasite-9, Our Blues-8.5) is probably my favorite actress right now. She portrays Jung Yu Hui, the mother of Hyeon (Shin Eun Soo from Twinkling Watermelon). Hyeon has an emotional scene with her mother, and she's fantastic. Ms Lee & Mr. Ju put on a non-verbal acting master's class in ep8. I teared up. I recently watched Ju Ji Hoon in Blood Free-8.5 as a romantic ML. He looks meaner, younger, overall completely differently, and it was released in the same year. Here, he looks more ancient and less handsome.
Park Hyuk Kwon (Wonderful World-7.8, Uncle Samsik-8.4) is a bus driver. His performance in Mine-8, is unforgettable. Kim Ki Hae (Duty after School) is a student who seems to be lost. Kim Dae Myung (Misaeng-9.1, Hospital Playlist-9) plays one cool but, according to the detective (Bae Sung Woo), very suspicious short order cook. Kim Seol Hyun (Summer Strike, Awaken-8.7) plays the woman with a suitcase. She spends almost the entire show with long wet hair. Uhm Tae Goo (A Taxi Driver) plays her fiance, Min. Kim Min Ha (The Call, Pachinko) portrays Yun Seon Hae & Kim Seon Hwa (My ID Is Gangnam Beauty-7.5, The Glory) portrays Park Hye Won. There's nowhere to go for them to feel comfortable in their relationship.
LS, on paper, may not be anything particularly special. The script is well written but perhaps not a standout on its own. What makes LS brighter than most offerings in the genre is the superb artistry and acting - it's expertly crafted. Sets, camera angles, cadence, crepuscular light & shadows - it's moving art. The light shop is, at the same time, warm but not too bright, with a variety of lights, lamps, and bulbs. Some are beautiful, some are common. It's hard to describe how the light shop makes me feel. Most of the shots feel closed in and close up. We got a couple pans around, but most shots feel linear and claustrophobic. All I can say is that it's both pretty and unsettling.
LS is old-timey and almost gothic. Is that because the street that the light shop is on is a set? It evokes Hitchcok, being mysterious & soporific. Its cadence is practically narcotic, but it breaks out with genuine scares. There's a big-budget bus crash, which is a big part of the plot. The tall lady ghost in ep2 is super creepy. At one point the detective's eyes are loose. He shakes his head and they move around- it's super freaky. (The Guardians of the Netherworld have reptilian eyes. It feels a little passe but we'll give them a pass). In an ominous touch, a shot of stormy skies fades out and a handprint or clasping fingers fade into a chilling effect. It's super-eerie.
We will frequently see the wet haired Lee Ji Yeong sewing, or weaving some stitches. The whole show is weaved together. Be patient because ep8 is the payoff. These beings are living solitary existences, for the most part. We find out that they're more interrelated than it first appears.
The will to live, or the lack thereof, is the theme. The funeral director looks at his assistant and asks: “Do you know why it is that we hold a three-day wake?” Koreans have had this custom for centuries, he explains. They want to give the dead 3 days to wake back up. (Theologians say: “hmmm”). It's their final goodbye, and a final chance to be reunited with the lost. “Not just the living say goodbye,” he surmises, “but also the dead.” The other theme, obviously, is to not let your light go out. As long as you are alive, let your light shine so that others may also find the way. This is embodied by nurse Kwon. She received a second chance at life and she's not going to waste it.
LS is no waste of time. It's got an old soul while still feeling crisp and fresh. It embodies the longing of humans and the persistent feeling that this life is not all there is. It also reflects the desperation of people living in a pressure cooker society that, with the 3rd highest suicide rate in the entire world, Korea currently is. Park Hye Won & Yun Seonones wish to stay in that dark, creepy alley. It's the first place where they can live together comfortably as a couple. It makes me sad to see people who have been so pressured that their dreams are small. The longer I live, the less appealing this world of woe is. When I think of eternity, I want to experience perfection. The end of misery, sickness, and death. If we'll shine as brightly as possible, perhaps we can get a better taste of the possibilities now.
QUOTE🗣 The light is nice.
IMHO〰🖍
📣8.6 📝8 🎭9 💓5 🦋2 🎨9 🎵/🔊8.5 🔚8.5 🤗7 ▪ 🌞5⚡5 😅1 😭6.5 😱3.5 😯3 🤢4 🤔6 💤0
Age 15+ Language: he!!, f💣, $h!+ - not much but with some regularity. Scary elements, violence, adult themes; Rated 15+
Re-📺? The performances call for it
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
🌐💘 -
Oh My Ghost 10,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Familiar Wife-8.5,
Move To Heaven-8.4,
My Liberation Diary-8.9,
My Mister 9.5,
⚡/🚀 -
Flex X Cop-8.5,
Mystic Pop-up Bar-8.2,
Hotel del Luna-8.4,
Glitch-8,
Inspector Koo-8.4,
A Korean Odyssey-7.2,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
The First 1st Responders-7.8,
Missing: The Other Side-8.3,
Uncanny counter S1 only °S1-8.4 S2-4,
Move To Heaven-8.4,
Daily Dose of Sunshine-7,
Birthcare Center-8.2,
Moving-8.5,
Awaken-8.7,
Anna-8.1,
Hymn of Death-8.4,
D.P.-8.4,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
Mr. Sunshine-9,
Oldboy-9,
The Wailing-8.8,
Black 9,
Sweet Home 8.4
Consider a 🇨🇳Chinese 🎎/🔮 fantasy feature: The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8, Love Between Fairy and Devil 8.9, Love and Redemption 10 or 🇯🇵Japanese romcoms: Maid Sama 10, Mischievous Kiss Love in Tokyo 7.8, Love, Chunibyo And Other Delusions 8.4, or Toradora 8.5
Was this review helpful to you?
✒ ❗️Maverick Amuck °VG°
🚨Looks like there's a maverick on the force.A firefighter, a paramedic, and a cop walk into a bar. It's not a joke. It's a script. It's pretty exciting, too. Watching them investigate is entertaining.
TFR is a 2022 release of 2 seasons consisting of 24 65-minute episodes and S3 is expected to be announced. It is rated 91 on AWiki. The name seems especially generic, so I wasn't convinced when I started it, but Kdramas with boring titles are often a pleasant surprise. These ? stories are downright arresting.
Kim Rae Won (Decibel, A Wild Apricot) is Jin HoGae, one of those universally cool types. His first credits are from 1998; he's been around for awhile. This is my first look at him and I get the appeal. He has several interactions with his father, and it's never been less convincing to me that two actors were related by blood. Their scenes seem slightly off, they're so unlikely to be father and son. HoGae must take after his mother. He's our maverick, and he's completely unpredictable.
In S2, HoGae is being promoted to head of the NOI investigation team. He's at the fancy ceremony. The auditorium is full. He suddenly stands up and announces that he can't accept the promotion. As he walks out of the building, somebody chases him outside and asks what he's doing? “I don't like the color of the building,” he quips. He rides off on his motorcycle. James Dean has nothing on him.
Son Ho Jun (Was It Love-7.4, Go Back Couple) is Bong Do Jin. He's got a nice presence. Both he and HoGae are interested in Song Seol (Gong Seung Yeon from Circle, Re-Born & My Only Love Song-8.7). This actress is a charmer. I'm a fan. There are, once again, amazing child actors. In ep5 a little girl steals the show. She completely upstages our ML. Director Shin Kyung Soo also brought us The Nokdu Flower & Six Flying Dragons, while screenwriter Min Ji Eun penned Partners for Justice.
In S2, ep1, Choi Won-Young plays an arsonist. He's brilliant. I've seen him in The Golden Spoon-8.1, Mystic Pop-Up Bar-8.2, The Heirs-7.3, and the excellent SKY Castle-9. He's different in everything; a real talent.
Oh Eui Shik makes an appearance towards the end of S1 and takes on a more regular role in S2. I've been a fan of his since Oh My Ghost-10, one of my gateway Kdramas. I love it so much that I love every actor on the cast. This guy really does seem to be sprinkled with fairy dust because he's in a lot of features, and they're all successful. I've seen him in While You Were Sleeping-7.3, Familiar Wife-8.5, The Hymn of Death-8.4, Romance Is a Bonus Book-7.9, Touch Your Heart-8.2, Hi Bye, Mama-6.5, My Unfamiliar Family-7.9 Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha-8.2 & Big Mouth-7.4. He gets to be more than a sidekick in S2. I just want to see more & more of him, now.
First responders are police, fire, and paramedics. The ME and prosecutors will also be at a live crime scene. We follow all these careers in the show. Cases that pop up are arson, kidnapping,
suicide under suspicious circumstances, statutory rape, a hit-and-run, missing persons, and all the while there's corruption teeming In the background. Among the decent folk there's the everyday clashes that must occur, especially among sleep deprived adrenaline junkie types who exist on instant food and soju. Jin stops a helicopter with a fire hose~>> B@d@$$. There's the promise of romance, too.
It has its lapses. In the last motif of S2, some things don't make sense. Two of the characters overheard the bad guy on a speaker and they should have been able to recognize him. Furthermore, Detective Jin had an opportunity to tell them who the bad guy was. It's inexplicable that he did not. While they address it later, it is less than satisfactory. The plot gets a tad outrageous in S2, which begins as a seamless continuation of S1. It's still quite a bit of fun. I didn't find it difficult to take the ride with them. Some certainly will. They kill off cats in both seasons. That's a problem Hollywood has had for decades. It's leeching out into Kcountry now.
Overall, TFR is a great ride. S2 has even more high budget special effects, particularly grand conflagrations and massive collapses. S2 also has a good old-fashioned gangland beat down showing about 50 men fighting with fists and sticks. It looks like a 1970s rumble.
Can a maverick go-it-alone forever? To the fiery end? Watch and see. You probably won't regret it. .
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
💘 -
My Only Love Song 8.7 ~ excellent comedy,
Crazy Love-7.8,
A Witch's Love 7.8,
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Her Private Life 8,
Touch your heart 8.2,
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
Oh My Ghost 10,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Love Struck in the City 7.3,
Be Melodramatic-8.7,
Was it love-7.9,
Hospital Playlist 9,
My Mister 9.5,
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9
⚡/🚀 -
Flex X Cop-8.5,Missing: The Other Side-8.3,
K2 8,
Private Lives 8.1,
Inspector Koo-8.4,
Revenge of Others-8.3,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Uncanny counter season-1 only °S1-8.4 S2-4,
Han River Police-7.4,
When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Moving-8.5,
Law School -8,
Sisyphus 8,
Tunnel 8.5,
Signal 8.6,
Blood Free-8.5,
D.P.-8.4,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
Black 9,
Squid Game 8.4,
Kingdom 8.3,
Sweet Home 8.4
Was this review helpful to you?
✒ ⭐ Upstaged °6.5° °mostly good°
"I didn't look like this a day ago." Our FL is disheveled with dirt smeared cheeks, clothes sloppy, and hair a clump of matted weeds. She just pushed a total stranger against a building and smacked one on him. This was her desperation move; she was eluding pursuers, and they were gaining on her… Desperation? Or was this 💋 from her special reserve power?These two have more in common than they realize. Each is fleeing (his father's / her grandfather's) chasing band of security, which is a common thing in Asian dramas. She's fleeing her engagement party - but this fool and her money had been soon parted a short time earlier, and she was already reduced to begging for food. Never fear! This maven-of-moxie is not even close to giving in to grandpop just yet. After the immediate threat is passed, our ML, Si Tu Feng, decides she's the perfect way to get revenge against his dad. Before Chen Qing Qing (Amy Sun) realizes what's happening, “His Highness” has dragged her into his father's wedding (his absence being the reason he had been pursued) and announces she's his fiance. Some quick negotiations and the realization that being his “fiance" means she can hide out and EAT, seal the deal. She's engaged for real now. For real profit. That's where it starts, but this whirlwind cruises through classes, jobs, projects, crusades, and iterations. By the end of the show she threatens to upstage °him°, a pop idol.
AIL is a 2018 release that is rated a generous 7.9 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 30 30-minute episodes. As is typical for Chinese modern-day features, AIL is seriously flawed, yet it's endearing, winsome, sweet, fun to watch and oddly relaxing. Guo Jun Chen, who plays Si Tu Feng / "His Highness", isn't bad looking but he would never get a (typical) romantic lead role in Hollywood. He looks like an Irish boy with funny ears. He does have a beautiful voice. He makes a pretty girl, too. He can't do math, but he passed grandpa's tests, and grandpa's tests are the hardest. The best looking male actor (by far) is the rebel (Zhao Yi Qin). His voice is dreamy, too. It's gorgeous. His highest rated streamable shows are Fake Princess and Wait, My Youth, so they go into the queue. The FL does look like an entirely different person when she is in disguise. She's supposed to be "ugly” but she's a cutie, and much more alive when in her casual & gaudy garb. Our leads get pressured from all sides: difficult parents and grandparents, nosy classmates, jealousy, a teacher called the witch, crazy fans, and a troublesome talent agency. He falls for her first. By the time she slows down enough to realize she's attracted to him it's too late to reveal her true identity without making him angry. Quandary😞.
AIL is frequently cute but painfully inept at the same time. There's poor acting, bad dialogue, logical faux pas, and general laziness about the quality. There's also some great acting. The leads and Zhao Yi Qin, who plays Feng's enemy, Lin Yi Yang, all do a wonderful job. Guo Jun Chen's Si Tu Feng is a convincing romantic lead. The viewer can feel his attraction to the vivacious Qing Qing. Most everyone else is wooden or stunted😑.
Things might be loosening up slightly, but the documented fact is that 🇨🇳society is not free. There's a fascinating split between the dialogue and acting of modern-day Chinese features and historic/fantasy pieces. In the latter, the characters are fully rounded with a full range of emotions. In modern-day shows and movies they are stiff with stoic expressions. The dialogue is simple to the point of being inane. They never get into deep explanations or deep explorations of intellectual, emotional, or philosophical topics, while the 🔮fantasy and 🎎period pieces can be quite intricate. Everything seems set up to subdue the brain and emotions rather than stir them up. They often have glaring logical gaps utilizing what I've tagged as dream logic: The viewer is required to know or accept things as so without explanations even when things look otherwise, like in a dream when you see your aunt Mabel but you somehow know it's really your younger sister. When your brain and emotions are already frenzied, Chinese modern-day features are weirdly soothing. There's Chinese 🔮 & 🎎 pieces that are among the best things I've ever seen, but there is not one modern-day feature that I would suggest to a friend or use as an introduction to Asian programming. Yet, AIL is surprisingly bright and carefree. The comedic timing is solid. It's actually a good recommendation for ✳10-16 year olds, as it's on that level.
One example of an irritation that must be dismissed is when Chen Qing Qing is looking at photos of her parents with a former schoolmate. She points out a photo from the first night they met, which was at a dance. In the photo her mom is wearing a long white dress, but in the later flashbacks mom's in a short red dress. Another annoyance is how our FL continues to dress up after Si Tu Feng knows her secret, including wearing glasses she doesn't need and drawing freckles on her face. He fell in love with the freckled cutie. Easing into a new look would be understandable, but as is, it's nonsensical. This is the type of sloppy stuff that frequents modern-day Chinese features and makes me slightly crazy - and I'm not fastidious. I can only imagine that people who are cannot abide shows like this, at all. You all know who you are, so be warned. Additionally, AIL drags alittle after the opening episodes and into ep10, but it then starts to get better again. Ep13 is adorbs. For the school dynamic they borrow from Boys Over Flowers, which is like calling out to a classic. They stumble into a gender-fluid school play version of Beauty and the Beast that is pretty amusing. There's also a bit with 2 guys fighting near a leaking helium tank that's funny.
In the balance, AIL is cuddly, spritely, and amusing. The romance is touching. The FL is inspirational - so much so that she's collected her own fans by the show's end. As many fans as His Highness? Maybe not, but give her time; there doesn't seem to be an upward limit to her reach.
QUOTE📢
Don't hurt yourself for a man who doesn't love you.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣55 📝52 🎭60 💓60 🦋50 🌞50 🎨40 ⚡30 🎵/🔊67😅45 😭25 😱25 😯15 😖0 🤔35 💤35 🔚77
✳Age 10+ with the following cautions: PG-13 language + in Ep21 they drop an F💣 and in ep24 they use the word pr!(k.
With what I now know, would I choose to watch it again for the first time? I might skip it, despite its cuteness. The female lead is fun, however, and it's a close call.
In order of ~lite & trite~ to ~heavy & serious~ you may also like:
🌐💘 -
You Are My Destiny 6.5
The Kings Avatar 8,
The Oath Of Love 7.6,
I Hear You 7.3,
Meteor Garden 7.4
🇰🇷K -
A Witch's Love 7.8;
love to hate you 8.9;
Touch your heart 8.2;
Crash Landing On You 9.1;
Oh My Ghost 10;
It's okay not to be okay 9;
Hospital Playlist 9;
My Mister 9.5;
🎎 -
Overlord 8.4,
The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8,
The Sleepless Princess 9.1,
Under the Power 8.6,
The Rebel Princess 9.1
🇰🇷K -
My Only Love Song 8.7 excellent comedy;
Mr. Queen 8.5;
My Sassy Girl / Yeopgijeogin Geunyeo 8.5;
The Kings's Affection 8.3;
Mr. Sunshine 9
⚡/🚀 -
Love Between Fairy & Devil 8.9;
Douluo Continent 9.4;
Heavenly Sword 9;
Love and Redemption 10;
Originally 〰🖊 11/2023
Was this review helpful to you?
⏱ Analog Daze ⏲ °7.1° °good+°
〰 “How is this old thing still running?” 〰 “What do you mean, it's brand new.” 〰 “Where's your helmet?” 〰 “Nobody wears them!” 〰 “Can I use your cell phone?” 〰 “If you want to make a call, go to the closest phone booth.” 〰 It's 1989. Regular folks don't have cell phones yet. “Let me pay for that with a credit card.” 〰 “Didn't Visa just launch in Taiwan? How do you have that?”B289 is a 2016 release that is rated 8.1 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 34 or 21 episodes, depending on how they cut them. The overall length is in the neighborhood of 26 hrs. The setup is scant. Our ML, Che, is successful and in between jobs. He's being recruited, so money isn't his concern. What he really wants to find out who his dad is. He visits his failing grandfather in the hospital, who is mumbling pieces of the puzzle in his delirium, but his mom won't talk about it. WON'T. He has a heated argument with her, hops on his motorcycle and rides away, after declaring “I don't have a mother!” She's been nothing but miserable his whole life, anyway😤. Inside of a tunnel he has an accident. When he wakes up, everything looks different. You just have to accept it. He's gone back in time. It's 1989, and he's about to be conceived.
When he lands on 1989 asphalt, our FL lands on him with her moped. This leads to the conversation above. Che doesn't have much cash, and his credit cards won't work, so now, money's a problem. He needs to get a job. Nothing's more perfect for the savvy time traveler than the stock market! Looks like it's time to invest in tech.
The acting is a mixed bag. Most is wooden and stiff; some of it is pretty good. The characters are still more likable and relatable than not. Marcus Chang (Lost Romance, Mysterious Lotus Casebook) plays Chen “Che”. He's a very nice lookin guy, and an overall excellent romantic male lead. Ivy Shao (Hello Ghost!, More than Blue: The Series) portrays Ye Zhen “Zhen”. She's girl-next-door cute. “Are you so gullible?” 〰 “I am! How did you know?” 😆 Che agreed to help her with the moped repairs, but she doesn't even have his pager#! With no valid id, credit history, and a resume that appears faked, Che ends up at Zhen's house, renting a room from her parents. Zhen is his mother's BFF, so being around Zhen is perfect for surveillance. “So this is what it's like to have a father in the house,” he realizes.
Mini Tsai (W Series: The Way You Shine, Young Days No Fears) Is Chen Ya Juan, Che's mother. Yorke Sun (Piggy's Counterattack, Home Sweet Home) is the boyfriend that her b!+ch mother doesn't approve of, Li Jin Qin. Chang Chieh (Love, Timeless, To My Dear Granny) as Wang Zhong En, competes for Ya Juan's affection. Ray Yang (The Nipple Talk, Let It Fly) rounds out Zhen's love triangle as the too exuberant Lin Xiao Long. The director is Ker Choon Hooi of Falling Into You, and the screenwriter is Joyce Liu who wrote the amazing Age of Rebellion-9.5.
As the attraction between Che and Zhen builds, she can't understand why he insists that he doesn't like her. Finally, he has to admit the truth to her. This sets up her struggles to figure out a way that they can be together and /stay/ together. All this while he's trying to protect his mother and ensure that she doesn't end up living the miserable life that he remembers her living. As for the romance… this hurts... I really hate to say this... I like the leads;, but they don't completely sell the romance. And he's one fantastic male lead. The love story takes a backseat to the rest of the drama going on.
As with many time-travel stories, the theme is regrets. People don't want to travel back in time to NOT show love. One doesn't /need/ to time travel if one shows love, consideration, caring, forgiveness, and generosity from the start.
“If he were my father, I'd rather not be born.” Our male lead keeps an eye on his future mother who is living as a 20-something girl. She's pretty, sweet, and hopeful. She's nothing like the spiky, cold, and distant emotional icicle that raised him. Toxic women tend to drive the plot of many TwDramas. In this one, Che's grandmother is just awful. She's likely the reason his mother grew up to be so miserable. Ya Juan's mother is overbearing, even for an Asian mother. She tries to dominate every aspect of her life including Ya Juan's friends, whom mom shoos away. At one point, she extracts a silly vow. I hate it. Mom's setting Ya Juan up on blind dates. Our two leads decide to follow along to see if she needs any bailing out. Che's just hoping to get a look at his father. He's never met him, and he doesn't know who he is, so he's watching the situation very closely. The truth ends up being a difficult pill. Another theme is realizing we don't understand everything about our parents and we should try to give them the benefit of the doubt when we can.
There's some fun stuff in the show. His plaid jackets are stunning. Most of the wardrobe is hideous. Every time I reacted strongly I had to remind myself about Wild Wear and what everybody else was wearing in the '80s. Still, some of the clothes hurt my eyes. The music is WAY above average. I Shazamed songs by Alien Huang, Nine Chen, and Gary Chaw. The opening credits song is great. Zhen falls on the way to a party and they do the rip-the-bottom-half-of-the-dress-off thing. She goes from frumpy to adorable. They discuss the barbarism of shark fin soup, which is a relief to me. Many Chinese features mention it favorably, which hurts, because it's cruel.
Apart from the average acting, it could be better. Some Taiwanese / Chinese shows try to get away with feeble writing. At one point there's a mini drama because Zhen screws up a stock order by spending 40K on the wrong stock. The narrative is that she owes the client $40,000. The money is still there, she just brought the wrong stock. Even if it went down in value, the value wasn't erased. Stuff like that drives me nuts. Other people don't care. We all have a different threshold. Our ML’s grandfather happens to be a physicist and this is his realm of study so as the story unfolds we meet him. (He's on a business trip until episode 13). They never give an adequate explanation from a scientific sense, but they provide a reason for the timeslip from an astral sense. By ep23 things seem like a right mess. And all-the-while, we are hurling towards that fateful day when Che will be born.
This probably would have been better at 25 to 30 episodes. They resorted to filler in the late 20s and early 30s. Just when I was getting very discouraged, eps33 & 34 make a full recovery. There's a nice twist and things are wrapped up very satisfactorily.
Overall, the show is plain cute. It will pass the… time. The final episode involves Che looking at a photo album and his mother (who exudes warmth and peace) recalls his life. Not everything was exactly the same as he remembered it. There's much less to regret.
QUOTES📢
Being in love is like catching a cold. By the time you're aware of it, it's already serious.
Q - Why doesn't he ever take the next step? A - Everyone has their secret. Maybe he has reservations that he doesn't want us to
My future happiness is my responsibility.
From another perspective, all the barriers to love are there to prove that love exists.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣7 📝7.2 🎭6.8 💓6 🦋5.5 🎨5 🎵/🔊8.3 🔚8.5 🤗4 ▪ 🌞5 ⚡3.7 😅3 😭4 😱2 😯4.5 🤢1 🤔4 💤2
Age 13+ there is a sexual assault and other adult themes. Rated TV-PG-13: Parents Cautioned
Re-📺? Doubtful
🇹🇼Taiwan
Age of Rebellion-9.5
Autumn's Concerto-7.2
Back to 1989-7.1
Black & White-6.8
The Fierce Wife-8 - worth sticking with
Inborn Pair-4.2
Love, Now-3.6
Love You-7
Office Girls-7
Two Fathers-7.5
In order of ~lite & trite~ to ~heavy & serious~ you may also like:
🌐💓 -
C🇨🇳:
A Little Thing Called First Love 8.5;
Find Yourself 8.9;
The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8;
The Sleepless Princess 9.1;
Wait, My Youth-8.4
K🇰🇷 :
A Witch's Love 7.8;
Love To Hate You 8.9;
Touch Your Heart 8.2;
Crash Landing On You 9.1;
Oh My Ghost 10;
It's Okay Not to Be Okay 9;
Hospital Playlist 9;
My Mister 9.5;
🎎 -
C🇨🇳: Overlord 8.4,
Under the Power 8.6,
The Rebel Princess 9.1,
The Sword and the Brocade 8.6 (in ancient Chinese opera style),
The Rise of Phoenixes 9
K🇰🇷:
My Only Love Song 8.7 excellent comedy;
Mr. Queen 8.5;
My Sassy Girl 8.5;
The King's Affection 8.3;
Mr. Sunshine 9
🔮🐉-
C🇨🇳: Love Between Fairy & Devil 8.9;
Douluo Continent 9.4;
Handsome Siblings 8.7;
Ancient Love Poetry 8.6;
Love and Redemption 10
⚡/😱/🚀 -
C🇨🇳: Heavenly Sword and Dragon Slaying Saber 9-Kung-fu!;
K🇰🇷:
K2 8;
Private Lives 8.1;
Sisyphus 8;
Tunnel 8.1;
Signal 8.6;
The Man From Nowhere 8.9
Black 9;
Squid Game 8.4;
Kingdom 8.3;
Sweet Home 8.4
Japanese🇯🇵 lite romcoms: Maid Sama-10, Mischievous Kiss Love in Tokyo-7.8, Love, Chunibyo And Other Delusions-8.4, Toradora-8.5
Romance junkies only: Accidentally in Love-6.5 ‘18 B-level scripting, acting, and directing, but still fun/strangely relaxing to watch,
Well-Intended Love-7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine but many object to an outrageous stunt the ML pulls,
Boss & Me-7
When I Fly Towards You-7.8,
You are my destiny-6.8 cute and sweet and 1/2 padding,
Meteor Garden-7.4 - 70% flowing 30% dragging and BOF is better,
Hidden Love-7.8
Was this review helpful to you?
✨ JACKPOT! ✨ °8.9° °Outstanding°
‘I know a rich woman who hired a young gigolo; she said his skin was as smooth as a 🍼Baby 🐬Dolphin'’s,’ Fan's BFF wistfully recollects〰FY is a fairytale for older single chicks. The story of Fan reminds me of the Princess Bride as I imagine it starting w/ the 32y/o Fan sitting in bed. Grandma, sitting bedside, pulls out a 📖 (entitled That 🍼🐬 is Mine). ‘Tonight we'll read about the director & the intern who loves her,’ starts grandma…
Soon it's all hitting the FAN. Or should we say she FANS the 🔥 of a walking lawsuit? Even in 🇨🇳, “doing” the intern is a no-no, so here we go!
”If humans all live the same way it would be boring, wouldn't it?” Marriage & kids, marriage & kids. It's all the older generation knows. The young-gen isn't much better 〰‘You're pretty & you have it all together. Why do you want to go on blind dates?” 〰 ‘At age 32, you are considered a leftover woman.’ 〰 ‘Look at your age - Don't be so picky.’ 〰 “A virgin can't reincarnate, right?” This is what Fan is up against. She's reaching an expiration date, like the 4th yogurt from a buy-3-get-1-free deal. ‘What others say about us is not scary. The scariest thing is when you believe it,’ she despairs. What might be scarier is falling for your baby brother‘s student.
Victoria Song is “Fan”. I 💖 her. In ep1 she meets ML#2. David Wang is “Ming”. Sure, ML#1, the waif thin Song, is beautiful w/ skin as smooth as a 🍼🐬 & a compelling ML, but I fell hard for this Ming guy! Domineering? He isn't that, so much as driven. He can take it too far, but as a bf he's absolutely lovely. The handsome actor is manly while being funny & a tad ridiculous. He's also the Sun Tzu of human relationships. Ming's firm is a client of Amazing Decorations, Fan's employer. She has to apologize for a screw-up, which places her in his office. He's repugnant. Fan is submitted to a tirade of insults along w/ the news that AD is fired. Fan starts sobbing (it's a really bad day). He relents, but 1st impressions are cemented in. This starts a string of junctures between them.
He's convinced she's stalking him. By the time he realizes his misconception (falling for her utterly in the same moment) she's already fallen for Song. So when they meet up yet again (blind date), Ming switches gears & adopts the “Let's be friends” ruse. He wants her badly. He pre-ID’d his blind date & showed up ready to seal the deal. The viewer almost hears screeching brakes as he wriggles into her life. He ‘came to this blind date to mollify his sister’. He ‘already has someone’ he likes, too. They ‘can be friends’. She confides in him as she thinks he's a disinterested party. He jumps on her fumble & runs it back to the 5 yard line➡ he offers to be her romance coach.
The acting excels. Expressions & lines are full of life & wit. We like these people. Song Wei Long is Song. He's perfect at being a sexy, winsome puppy - sweet, loving & cuddly, but not too compliant, w/ a touch of the 🐕 in him. Yang is Fan's brother. He can really yang&bang - he's a college prof & a total playboy. Esther Yu (Love Between Fairy & Devil 8.9) is “Cai”, Ming's niece. Her wavery voice is adorable.
Here's the seating chart: FL/Fan is Yang's twin & Song's boss at AD. Yang is Song's college prof & got him the job at AD. Yang is Cai's prof as well. Ming, client of AD, is Cai's uncle & guardian as she attends school. She stays w/ him on the w/e. Cai is in 💘 w/ Song. This leads to scenes in which Cai & Ming are both mourning over the same thing - their crush is in 💘 w/ someone else - but they don't know that their crushes are in love w/ e/o.
Fan cannot resist dating Song who is 10 yrs her jr, but 〰 ‘Do you think that's his gf?” 〰 “No way. She's too old.” 〰 ”She's not that old.” 〰 ”Maybe she's rich & he's a paid escort.” Standards; Ideal mate; What do you want in a spouse? There's so many topics that Fan now finds uncomfortable! Fan is not a salmon. Going against the current is exhausting. She demands they keep /them/ a secret. She doesn't want to deal w/ professionals, coworkers, college frenemies, family, nosy neighbors, & random people on the street w/ their snark, condescension & judgment. She can't take the pressure! Song's a beautiful 🍼🐬; she's not that, either. She wants to try a relationship in a sedate & carefully cultured koi pond. Ming convinces her to try dating him to distract herself from her 💔. She breaks it off w/ Song. Yes, on 📑 Fan & Ming are perfect for e/o. Analytics will only get you to the playoffs. It doesn't necessarily win championships. When it comes to matters of the heart, the intangibles are what scores the 🏆
“Didn't you play flip the box in Kgarten?” “No, we played minesweeper & the loser had to buy lunch.” FY depicts generational disconnect & how rigid the mindset of older people can be. Yet it's gentle w/ the elders & reinforces our obligations of deference & patience toward those who worked & sacrificed before us. Other themes are the disparity between the sexes & tossing out silly taboos along w/ the societal pressure that keeps them in place. Most of all, it's abt lies, including the struggle between truth as we want to see it & actual truth. FY is Fear>Deceit>Pride>Secrets>Relationship hierarchy>More lies>Gossip>Judgment>Expectations>Responsibilities>Finally, Freedom.
”Relationships between adults are usually maintained w/ white lies.” 〰 ”Where is the line between hiding & deceiving?” 〰 “Sometimes, a lie is like quenching thirst w/ poison.” Fan gives it serious thought. “Perhaps lies are ice melting in truth. Eventually, there's no difference.“ Why do we lie? It's almost always for our own short-term comfort. Lying is like taking drugs. Comforting effects are temporary & the residue left behind is enslaving. Thus the adage: The truth will set you free. Society actually runs on lies, but that's not a good thing. James Spader, who falls for an older Susan Sarandon in the film White Palace, plays a reformed habitual liar in the movie Sex Lies & Videotape. He stopped lying altogether. It's portrayed as shocking. He was still kind - people who won't lie must know when to say nothing.
We lie to ourselves first, & the biggest lie we tell ourselves is that we're okay. The truth is that we all have lots to work on. We're all damaged, hurt, or spoiled in some way. To let go of lying we have to let go of pride. We're all better off without it; pride only obstructs 💘. Humans tend to complicate things endlessly. Fan must sort through heaps of societal garbage to arrive at what's really important. At the end of the day, things are simple. We just have to toss out the trash that's been thrown on top of us by family, friends, society, & ourselves, and grab onto the good.
The writing is excellent. There's humor & an understanding of human relations. The dialogue is snappy. The director is skillful w/ cutting & segues. He plays it well for comedy & there's a bright crispness to the flow. The pace is almost methodical - in the best way. Early on the viewer might wonder how they will fill 41 eps. They do it steadily. I can get a teensy bit stressed when I like a show, waiting for it to go downhill, as so many resort to padding & idiocy to fill the required eps. FY doesn't merely hold the line, it improves as it goes on. It's 1 of 2 modern-day Cdramas I've seen that aren't significantly flawed, (the other is A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5). 🇨🇳 is not a free country & it has seemed like they were at a loss as to how modern people should behave. It appears they've reflected on themselves & decided to get more real. Perhaps we can thank K🇰🇷. FY makes positive references to Kpop & dramas.
Now for the Scooby snacks:
〰 “Being friends w/ your ex is the highest level of break-up.” Seriously, can it get more 🇨🇳 than that?
〰 On the wall of the office is inscribed: If you are always trying to be NORMAL you will never know how AMAZING you can be.
〰 The family dynamics are cute. Fan's overprotective brother got in the way of all her romantic relationships when they were growing up. Ironically, he introduces Fan to her first 💘 after blocking 💘 for so many years.
〰 The wardrobe contains some duds but has lots of winners. They had fun reinventing mens collared dress shirts. Fan accessories well.
〰 Fan & Song play badminton. Determined to lose & not embarrass the other, each claims s/he is not a good player, though Fan could have made the nat’l team. Soon the competitive juices fire up w/ video game animation overlay to enhance the scene. It's very funny.
〰 Ming's cousin is his assistant. They strictly set familial vs work boundaries. She keeps it all business on the 🕰 unless she requests a time out to talk to her cousin. Then their expressions, body language & demeanor will change instantly while they talk as family for a tad. Then it's back into work mode.
〰 Ming only knows half of the equation & he says, “could it get more complicated than that?” Lol - It already is.
〰 Fan protests- “I'm only 31… & 1/2…” The actress delivers superbly.
“A sense of belonging is, ‘I am yours.’ But a sense of security is, ‘You are mine’.” Young people want someone they like, older people want to find the right one. What does Ming want? He admits that he's childish, but he wants his destiny. FY tells us that's like hitting the jackpot🎰. Love at first sight is like winning the 🎰. Finding 💘 on a blind date? 🎰. Finding 💘 when a woman is over 30 is definitely like hitting the 🎰. Fan hits the super~🎰~schizzle. Cha-ching!
QUOTES📢
Men have a bad habit of being w/ their exes even if they don't have any feelings left
Siblings are debts from a prior life
Parents’ tears drown relationships
〰🖍 IMHO
📣8.8 📝8.8 🎭8.5 💓8 🦋8 🎨7 🎵/🔊7 🔚8 ▪ 🌞7 ⚡2 😅5.5 😭3 😱0 😯3 😖0 🤔7 💤0
Poli-wagging 2/10
Age 14+ by Hollywood standards this is positively chaste but the primary couple does get it on prior to marriage and they do 😚 generate some steam.
Re-📺? 🔛
Older woman & toy boy 〰
🇨🇳The Rational Life-7
🇰🇷A Witch's Love 7.9;
Just for fun 〰
🇰🇷My Only Love Song 8.7 excellent comedy;
🇰🇷Mr. Queen 8.5;
Was this review helpful to you?
Somewhere I Don't Want To Go °5.4° °avg, & not a romance°
Xue Tong's father died a hero as she was preparing to enter college. “I found a new burden being added onto my shoulders,” she explains. “I must score well in exams because I'm the hero's daughter. I have to be considerate all the time because I'm the hero's daughter. I can't afford to make any mistakes because I'm the hero's daughter. I can't bring shame to my heroic dad… I realized that this burden has become a part of my personality. For the past few years I've been a timid coward. Today, I decided to put down that burden to become a brave yet ordinary person. Only by doing so can my dad's bravery bring light into my life.” She's crafted an extraordinary manifesto.Xue Tong was framed. All she did was pick up a piece of paper. But the exacting exam monitor, Mu Cheng He, accused her of cheating. XT's Professor knows she's not the type to cheat, so he does not render a verdict, but rather takes time to look into the issue. Ep1 is about how she goes on a quest to clear her name & find the true culprits, but even moreso, it sets up a clash between her & Mu. She “doan” like him. Notta bit.
Li Ting Ting from Unique Lady plays FL, XT. Without a sense of style, she's no fashionista. More Sporty-Spice than any other, she walks, talks, & quacks like a jock, but they didn't put her on any team ~ other than the infamous dorm room 323. She is smart, down-to-earth, & she's girl-nextdoor cute. Protect yourself & hit the mute button when she sings. She & her two beasties, Bai Lin (Baby-Spice) & Song Qi Qi (Surprise-Spice) remind me of the 3 friends in the amazing 💘anime Maid Sama(10). The FL is a tough, smart overachiever, then there's the studious, bespectacled QiQi, & finally the ponytailed fan-girlie, Bai Lin, who always seems to make trouble. Unlike the rule-enforcing Misa from MS, XT is not a great rule follower. She's downright disruptive sometimes.
At some point they get Scary-Spice as a roomie. She's a model, she looks like Joan Jett, & she's as cool as her too. They are in their 3rd year. 21 year old XT is really popular this year. All kinds of guys are approaching her - to pass messages & gifts to her new super-hot rommie, Zhao Xiao Tang. As it turns out, the guy XT is interested in only sees her as a buddy. Tang is his kinda tangy, he thinks. But, YO! Tang is totally Tangsta.
XT's thing is languages. She's an English major, but she's also learning Russian. When she shows up to her first Russian class of the semester, guess who's filling in for the professor who is out of town? The show teaches us about the alveolar “al ‘vee lar” trill, or rolling of the r’s. Those w/ ankyloglossia (tongue-tied) aren't able to do it, but ethnicity is not a risk factor for that condition. Asians simply aren't used to making that sound. (How many of us in the USA can reproduce most of their consonants? According to Google translate I'm hopeless). Anyway, XT's alveolar weakness is exposed promptly. Extra homework. Mu will be keeping a close eye on her. She ends up as the class representative. She'll be in his office daily…
Zhang Chao is ML, Mu. He looks like Michael Crawford's Cornelius Hackl from Hello Dolly. He's not a bad guy, he's just a physics major. They're precise & rely on what they see. He's been skipping grades since he was young, So he's always been surrounded by people older than him. Nobody played w/ him when he was little. “I didn't care. I don't need others to play w/ me. Because I knew in my heart that physics was the most interesting topic,” he insists. When he wants to speak romantically it might be something like this: ”Time is irreversible in general relativity. The only ruler of time is the transfer of heat. But when the heat begins to pass, What happened can no longer be erased.” Just fan yourselves, ladies, before you pass out! Left-brained folk aren't known for their touchie-feeliness. As a physics PhD student & teacher, Mu is in a position of authority at school. He & XT end up clashing many times. He even has to pick her up at the police station. So when he needs to break into the lab, who's he gonna call?
SOWK is tagged as a romance, but it's more a college drama about XT & her roomies. The romance is low-sizzle. This isn't where you get your dopamine fix. (For that I recommend Well-Intended Love-7.5, which is rom-porn. Just be warned that the ML pulls a very offensive stunt. The two best modern-day Cromances I've seen are, A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5 & Find Yourself-9.2) The show sort of acts like a scientist in that we observe these characters more than identify w/ them; our emotions are not fully pulled in. The viewer might get irritated w/ Bai Lin, but our feelings are not subjected to intense wind resistance. This isn't hot love, it's cool fusion.
While XT remains oblivious, the viewer sees Mu start to smirk at her. Next, his gaze lingers on her. She's been helping him as a way to apologize & say “thank-you” in the aftermath of their various run-ins. He invites her to the planetarium. She's in bummy pants & a t-shirt w/ an oversized plaid button shirt hanging like a moo-moo over the ensemble. She skips & scampers from one exhibit to another. When she sees all the tweens making a model she wants to do it, too. She just had her heart bruised by being placed in friend-zone by another dude, yet here she is doing it to Mu. Or is she? Soon it's obvious that they are each attracted to the other & they are self-aware. They aren't people that talk about feelings though. They keep it lowkey.
For a nerd, he does a nice confession. Once they are dating, XT gets frustrated because he's slower than the sea turtles they observed while diving. Not only is he a scientist, but he's 10 yrs her senior. Who can blame him for moving slowly? Her youth & inexperience make her look like a bomb to him. Does she really love him? Will another guy catch her eye? Is she going to stay? That coupled w/ his old-fashioned tendencies & the deference he shows to her don't pave the way for anything hot-&-heavy. In fact, when they go on their trip, the couple next-door to them asks for a condom & he claims he doesn't have any. Is he even attracted to her? Little does she know, they are one good scare away from getting much closer, until… “He can't accept anyone in his world.” When his experiment runs into problems, He becomes obsessed. He abandons XT on Mars.
Thematically, there's no central message here. To the extent that there is a central theme, it's growing pains. “Your life belongs to you. People like your parents, best friends or even your partners can't be held responsible for your life.” QiQi may have the hardest time w/ that concept. For a girl w/ her nose always in a book, she perhaps has the strongest emotions & the toughest time sorting through them.
XT is upset at one point because she & one of her close friends will have to compete for a scholarship. Her friend’s been going through hardship & XT almost prefers to lose. The pragmatic Tang breaks it down: “You are not showing kindness by avoiding the problem. That's hypocrisy. If I was your competitor, the way you were behaving now would only make me think that you were looking down on me.” In the USA, individualistic nature makes us think that we have more importance & influence in situations & we actually do. We have a drive to fix things. Before we act we should look at our intentions from all sides.
There's lightly sprinkled quality tidbits. In ep15 he says they can brave the rain together. He's talking about the weather, but it feels portentous… They go on a trip to Malaysia & it's gorgeous. They even take out a transparent kayak. Mu Hai (Li Jiu Xiao) proves that hair does make the man. Bai Lin is disappointed by yet another guy. She's on a school outing so she climbs up the mountain. It's an overcast morning. One of her classmates close out to her & she raises her head. “Look, the clouds have parted! “ Maybe the one who won't disappoint her is right behind her. Or is something else going on? It's a nice little scene. The music is well above avg but I couldn't find any of it by way of Shazam or spotify.
Here's a quote from the show: “Scriptwriters these days aren't reliable at all.” Just as Voyager 1 will soon run out of battery & transmissions to earth will cease, SOWK ends up doing the same thing. SOWK isn't deeply flawed, but these characters don't draw the viewer in sufficiently to make up for what it lacks. We don't dislike them, but are they likable enough? There was a promise of more. I'm writing this as ep20 closes. 20 hours in & I'm starting to feel disappointed. The show hasn't given me enough to compensate me for my time. Instead of floating higher, it's gotten water-logged. Now I'm looking at 4 episodes to go, & I'm already done.
Update: At ep23’s close I started to actively dislike SOWK. XT is hard to read - does she care at all? It's impossible to tell. At times I think she's horrible. She goes too toxic on one character without sufficient reason. I'm starting to find her distasteful. Bai Lin is frustrating. The urge to slap her is making me frustrated. (To be fair, she does mature before the credits roll). QiQi is a big disappointment. SOWK has a low degree-of-difficulty. There's no buildup or foreshadowing or meaning to it. It doesn't make for high quality entertainment. Many viewers love it - for more than half the show I thought I did, but it slipped out of my orbit long before its allotted time.
QUOTES📢
There are many kinds of love but there is only one kind of breakup.
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause & reflect.” -Mark Twain. (Amen).
〰🖍 IMHO
📣5.8 📝4.8 🎭7.5 💓4 🦋3 🎨5 🎵/🔊7.5 🔚6 ▪ 🌞4.5 ⚡3.3 😅3 😭5 😱3.5 😯2.5 😖1 🤔4 💤3.5
Age 14+ Violence, sad situations, adult situations
Language: he!!×2, b@$+@rd+1 pr!ck×1 d!(khe@d×1
F💣×1
Rated TV-PG-13: Parents Cautioned
Re-📺? SOWK is fine for one go-thru but it's largely forgettable, & like a college elective, there's no reason to go back again. I wouldn't opt to watch it again for the first time w/ the benefit of hindsight.
Originally 〰️🖊 May 2024
Was this review helpful to you?
☠ What Lies in the Forest °8.3° °Excellent°
Well, this certainly exceeded my expectations. I'm not familiar with the director, but I've seen writer Yeon Sang-Ho’s other works, Hellbound-5.5 and Train to Busan-7.8. I like T2B very much, but consider HB to be half good/half bad which adds up to average. A Stephen King type, Mr. Yeon started with webtoons and anime but is just getting warmed up when it comes to live action. His inspiration for TC was an actual ritual. What I appreciate about TC is that they aren't trying to 1-up every previous occult horror feature. They go for authenticity, and the effect is truly chilling. They set out to tell a good story in a quality way - They pitchforked it with gusto and tossed it with great verve. Well executed.This show opens with a brief look into the past and how our younger FL’s childhood formed her womanhood. This child’s gift has brought her nothing but horror. Ep1 is a decent set up. Ep2 gets ghoulish in more ways than one. Episode 3 turns the screws alittle more. So far, so pretty good. TC is a 2020 release that is rated 79 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 12 60/70-minute episodes. The director is Kim Yong-Wan. His first credited work is the movie Champion. Since then he's put out the film, The Cursed: Dead Man's Prey, and shows, The Whirlwind and If You Wish Upon Me, along with this show. All his works have solid ratings, and he's just starting out. TC displays his competence at every turn.
Sung Dong-Il (Sisyphus-8, Reply 1988) plays “Jin” Jong-Hyun. I don't know why, I just like the guy. Watching him as the embodiment of evil is not my favorite look on him, though. He's the type of actor who can play a bad guy, a truly loathsome one, that the viewer, somehow, cannot completely hate. In TC he is dragged into a ritual by his mother. He doesn't even want it, but he exits the back-end forever transformed. (Mom opened doors that should have remained closed). I do feel sorry for him. That aside, Mr. Sung is not the perfect fit for the role. This is an excellent show, and the only thing that feels off is him. Jung Ji-So (Doom at Your Service, The Glory, Parasite-9) is Baek SoJin, the younger of the 2 FLs. She must play a cheerless girl that has had a bitter life. She sells it with every cell of her body. She gets a crying scene and she's amazing in it. Im Jin-”Hee”(Little Women) plays reporter Uhm Ji-Won & Jung Moon-Sung is her policeman husband. He was investigating the Forrest Company and her investigative reporting led her to look into them as well. Within mere hours, it seems, they are both told to abandon these efforts and work on something else. Mr. Jung plays a painfully subservient and obsequious doctor in Hospital Playlist-9 (an excellent show with a slow start. Give it 2-3 eps minimum). This is a completely different role which showcases his acting ability. Jo Min-Soo is the shamaness, Jin “Kyung”. At first glance, in ep1, I didn't think much of her… but /wowie/. She slays that part. She slays alot of things in TC. Kim Min-Jae plays Forest CEO, Lee Hwan. He's close to magnificent. He is the diabolical-part-psychopathic CEO. So convincing. Though it's a relatively small part, Kim Shin-Ro, as So-Jin's mother, does an excellent job.
Badguy Jin is the Chairman of Forest which is about to launch their IPO. One of their subsidiaries is “weird.” It's a consulting Co led by Shaman Kyung who is also Jin's spiritual guide. When one of their compatriots ends up dead in a twisted, cursed heap, she is able to reverse-engineer how it happened. From there, they form defensive and offensive strategies. Now they are on the hunt to eliminate their enemy who resides in the shadows.
Who is their enemy? Our 2 FLs have formed an alliance - the reporter/Hee and the HS shaman/SoJin. One demonstration (that dead-twisted-curse-heap) is enough to convince Hee, just as it's enough to alert their enemies.
They seek out expert help on spirits and hear: “At first, it heals the sick and helps women get pregnant to show off its magical powers and make believers out of the monks. And once it succeeds in that, the evil spirit steals the souls of the monks and kills them.” That's a better description of evil than we get in Western entertainment. We should always remember that the evil are liars.
TC's main focus is curses, & not all these curses are supernatural. It draws a parallel between cursing someone to death by way of evil spirits and cursing someone to death through cruel behavior. It draws a parallel between human behavior and demons. Each person must choose whether to emulate angels or demons. Regardless of your belief system, people know what the right thing to do is, yet the right thing to do is rarely the easy thing. We're all drawn to the dark side. Moral strength is much like physical strength. We must exercise it regularly or it will wane. We need not teach our children to lie or lose their temper or think about themselves. We need to teach them goodness, and we need to practice it ourselves. Then it gets easier.
One thing I applaud is, at one point, a character no longer accepts the rules as they were laid out, and goes the other way with surprising results. It's a reminder to reevaluate your presuppositions once in awhile. For instance, we often see the separation of horror and technology, as horror is often connected to ancient things. It's so old fashioned, right? There's a growing body of work that depicts the forces of evil utilizing technology and the power structure of society to advance its cause. It actually makes sense. Archive 81-7.8 does it well.
KRISHKIM interviewed 📝Yeon Sang Ho, for Zapzee. “Director Yeon began writing TC with a subject of “Bangbup” curse that he found interesting since his childhood. He melted his opinions of the current world into his drama. He stated that “this society allows the people to detest others for their own justice and legitimacy.” He also added that the fact that the drama empathizes with the “hatred society” is the reason behind breaking the 6% viewer ratings.” I couldn't find anything else on the “Bangbup” curse to elaborate more, but the rituals depicted in the show feel entirely authentic. They have similarities to what is shown in the outstanding film, The Wailing, and the director of that movie claims strict accuracy. It heightens the creepiness.
The relationship between Baek So-Jin and Im Jin-Hee becomes more touching as the show goes on. Each fills a left by the other's tragic loss. There's some cool shots including off-eyeball reflections. The sets are full of detail. They put care and craftsmanship into the production. It's a thrill when they bring a variety of shamans in from all over the world. They created an array of looks and personalities.
The end of ep8 was a shocker. Where do they go from there? How will they fill 4 more episodes? They set it up in ep9 and manage a couple twists.
Immediately upon being possessed by evil, CEO Jin is inspired to start a new social media platform - Forest Co. What makes Forest different is the Forest of Curses, which enables users to curse someone. We will see a group of teenage girls inviting the evil spirits to come to them and curse their enemy. From the outside looking in, this practice is either a waste of time or opening doors that are best left closed. (So don't try it!) It may be more sophisticated to laugh this stuff off, but I do not. We are born 100% self-absorbed. Maturity is learning to be unselfish, but in this narcissistic society, most people never grow up. Thus, people think they can exert control over things of which they know nothing. Self-absorbed, immature people think too highly of themselves, their abilities, and their futures. Talk to a high-schooler. Most of them think the world is a place that will welcome them. They will be rich, successful, and contented. They don't believe they can be deceived.
They manage to be truly sinister. We see rituals that obviously link us back to past millenia. Worship of spirits is commonplace around the world, and it is commonplace in Asia. The occult is one way people attempt to exert control over their existence. But we don't have any true ability to control such things. Like UFO sightings (99% nonsense and 1% credible reports and occurrences that can neither be refuted nor explained) it's hair-raising. Have you ever been in a place where you felt an overwhelmingly horrible vibe, even if like me, you aren't one to get vibes? I've experienced it twice, and I'm normally oblivious to my surroundings. It was almost like I could feel the heavy air. I've accepted that my subconscious is picking up on a full spectrum of things that my oblivious conscious mind does not - both the supernatural and the mundane - and I've learned to trust that vibe and be wary.
Most people have a sense of the supernatural and eternity. Most believe there is more to existence than this 3D world. Many who scoff at these ideas are doing so to be welcomed into the “right” circles. They ignore anything that cannot be explained rationally and scientifically, but there's just too much out there that is unexplained, though - too much to be /certain/ that this 3D world is all there is to it. Don't overestimate yourself, don't let yourself be snookered, and don't open doors that are best left closed. Do watch TC. It's excellent.
QUOTE📢
There are things that cannot be explained by science.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣8 📝7.3 🎭8.3 🌞3.5 🎨8 ⚡7 🎵/🔊7 😅2 😭5.7 😱6 😯7 😖6.4 🤔6 💤0 🔚8
Poli-wagging 2/10. The shaman determines that no such evil spirit came from Korea. This one has come to them from Japan. Such evil lurks in Japan, not K-Kountry. The Japanese shaman is used to augment the creepy feel, particularly for Koreans. Korea will never love Japan. The history is too poisoned.
Age 16+ occult, gore, violence, language, horror
Re-📺? This is one I would pull up again to show to someone else, so yes, it's likely.
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Modern Day:
A Witch's Love 7.8;
Love to Hate You 8.9;
Her Private Life 8;
Touch your heart 8.2;
Crash Landing On You 9.1;
Oh My Ghost 10;
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9;
Love Struck in the City 7.3;
Hospital Playlist 9;
My Mister 9.5;
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9;
Historical/Period:
My Only Love Song 8.7 ~ excellent comedy;
Mr. Queen 8.5;
My Sassy Girl / Yeopgijeogin Geunyeo 8.5;
Saimdang 8.5;
The King's Affection 8.3;
Mr. Sunshine 9
Action/Sci-fi/fantasy:
K2 8;
Private Lives 8.1;
Sisyphus 8;
Tunnel 8.1;
Signal 8.6;
The Cursed 8.3
Flower of Evil 8.9
The Man from Nowhere 8.9;
Black 9;
Squid Game 8.4;
Kingdom 8.3;
Sweet Home 8.4
Originally 〰️🖊 May 2024
Was this review helpful to you?
✒Nice Shot >>>➖♥️➖▶ Fate Ain't Yoda °5° °terminally average°
Shot through the heart ♥ and you're to blame ♥ You Give Love a Bad name.>>>➖💔➖▶So does this show… almost
Cupid, draw back your bow ♥
And let your arrow go ♥
Straight to my lover's heart for me, for me ♥
>>>➖💔➖▶He missed!
Somewhere in a smelly, messy apartment in Seoul there's a band of misfit cupids. They lost their wings 500 years ago in a Joseon Era world-class screw-up. “Do you ever think that woman was reborn? The one who caused all our trouble?” “I'm sure she's probably been reborn several times over by now.” Their arrow missed, the intended couple ended up ill-fated, and the Cupids were demoted. They're working their way back; their progress is marked by a golden arrow on the mantle. Once they turn it completely gold again their status will be restored. The Cupid who actually shot the arrow is now in dog form most of the time. He snaps in and out of it as their redemption draws near. Unfortunately, it happens at the worst times, like on a date or while in the veterinary office.
MMiC is a 2023 release that is rated 89 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 16 60-minute episodes. It hypothesizes that fate doesn't know everything. It's not perfect. Neither is this show. I liked the characters and many of its elements, but it not only doesn't have sufficient content for even 10 episodes, it Isn't tight enough. It's not exciting enough. It's not funny enough. It's not romantic enough.
Obviously, from the premise, it's clear that this isn't a serious show. The backdrop Is a murder investigation with hooks that are latched into both of our leads as well as the detective investigating the crimes, Seo Jae Hee (Park Ki Woong of The Bridal Mask, Rookie Historian-7.6, and the unfortunate Pandora: Beneath the Paradise-3.9) plays the detective. He was a king in a former life, and he was fated to be with our FL then, but the arrow missed and e'erthing went bollix. His story is actually tragic. 💘🔺 alert! They can't seem to help themselves.
Jang Dong Yoon (Daily Dose of Sunshine-7, Please Be My Ear) is our Cupid, Chun Sang “Hyuk”. Most girls wouldn't want a fairy boyfriend, but dang, he smells nice. Our FL comments on his pleasant redolence often. He's alittle tired, about now; it's been a long 500 years. He actually opines in ep1 that 💘 is a curse.
When a coworker offers a ticket to the Cupid Exhibit, saying ‘maybe you'll get shot with Cupid's bow’, our FL replies: “They better not show up in front of me. They have a lot of explaining to do.” Broken finger, struck by lightning, massive blood loss, choking - all were the FATES of her various boyfriends. Every attempt at love has been cursed - since she was 9. Nana (Confession, Kill It) is our FL, Oh ‘Baek’ Ryun. She's not gluten intolerant - she likes her Tteokbokki made with wheat flour. She's beautiful, but deadly, by no fault of her own. She became a veterinarian to counterbalance the unintended harm she's done. ‘You committed a grave sin in your past life. You've been living lonely lives for 500 years. Go to the top of Inwangsan cliff and beg for forgiveness for 1,000 days. On the 1000th day, your true love will appear. A man who knows the past will come to you.’ So the fortune teller tells her. That was 3 years ago. It's no small task, but she was convinced to do it. In the meantime, she keeps running into this weird dude. He's handsome, but his aura screams there's much more going on with him. When she realizes how sturdy he is - he came out of an extreme experience that should have almost killed him, yet he had nary a scratch - she's undone. She attacks. A whole life of bottled up frustration springs from her lips onto his… his cheek. I thought she was going to go for the gold, but she opted for silver.
It seems like Gong Min Jung is in everything I see, lately. In MMiC she's An Do Ra who is, once again, the BFF of the FL - a common role for her. I've seen her in Marry My Husband-7,5, Daily Dose of Sunshine-7, Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha-8.2, My Holo Love-6.8, and not too long ago, the marvelous Familiar Wife-8.5. She and her secondary romance are the best thing in MMiC, but it's not enough to make it fly.
Moon Ji Hoo (Single & Ready to Mingle) as cupid Chun Dong Chil is transformed into a sweet golden retriever. He assumes human form only sporadically. The Ladies LUV him, much to the dismay of cupid Chun Dong Koo (Park Myung Hoon from Ssanahui Sunjeong, Money Heist: Korea - Joint Economic Area, & Crash Landing on You-9.1) who is the more muttley (and muddled headed) of the two. Muddled headed people need love too. They make this poor guy wear polka dot sweaters😱! Most wouldn't make a dog wear that! The sweaters must be a tie-in to the ‘polka dot murder’ case in the show. Eom Se Ung (Govengers, Triple Fling, Best Mistake) is cupid Chun Dong Pal, but they, pretty much, waste his part. Kim Pub-Lae (Children of Nobody, Bad Man) has a voice for the ages as the fate god, Samshin. The directors are Myung Hyun Woo (Miracle) & Nam Tae Jin (Lovers of the Red Sky), and the screenwriter is Heo Sung Hee (One More Happy Ending).
“My dear friend, you are in love. You are suffering from a new pain. It's getting darker in your head. But it's getting brighter in your heart.” Baek leaves no space for misconceptions. She likes Hyuk. He isn't thinking in those terms, however. Actually, he's actively resistant to it. He's interested in her as a person, though he doesn't let himself delve into the reasons why. He spends time with her. He goes to the veterinary clinic. Her hopes are up. So, one day he tells her: “I'm the man you're looking for. Trust me.” Her hopes soar until she realizes what he's about from his next sentence: “I'm going to find the Perfect✨Mate for you.” (He's cupid, after all ~> that's what he do). He can't understand why that got her so angry. She tells him what she wants in a mate, (it's not what she wants, it's an impossible list devised to make him give up). He tries to send her prospective mates based on her stated parameters: She rejects them all. He's very confused. That's only fair; she's confused too. Viewers each have h/h own tailor-made buttons. MMiC pushed none of mine, romantically. It never takes flight.
There's truly lovely filmcraft and special effects. This is not a low budget feature. They have a meal together, though it's not officially a date. Afterwards, when she tries to keep the relationship going (he shuts her down), she storms off. Later that night they're both in bed having a tantrum. He is sleeping in charcoal gray sheets with light colored pajamas and she's in a charcoal gray dress against light colored sheets. The optics are quite nice in that scene, which is a ying & yang representation. At this point, she hasn't even completed her 1,000 prayers. She still has a few days to go. The music is REALLY good. Gorgeous piano music is the usual background. Shazam didn't work. I made at least 3 attempts for 3 different songs, but got no results. The Playlist will probably show up on Spotify eventually.
If you can do 1000 trips, you can do 2000. The main theme is power of the will, for good or for not-good. “From now on, I'm going to fight against my destiny,” claims Baek. I like that. Don't accept things just because you've been told “it can't be done.” Unfortunately, the message gets muddled. There's some golden arrows pointed at the audience, though. An Do Ra, Baek’s roommate, does a dating podcast and also teaches classes. She makes a lot of mischievous jokes, but when she's giving serious advice almost every word is golden. “An emotionally guarded man isn't attractive.” “Clothes are the most basic means of respecting yourself. When you wear something that suits you, you feel good to start with.” She's not going to teach dating skills, she explains. She's going to teach personal appeal. Finding our personal appeal is about making us the best version of us and not focusing on tricks or others. Working on ourselves is always the answer. Every word is a keeper.
And now for the quiver of misses. On a snowy night, An Do Ra invites Hyuk up for a drink with the two of them. The whole sequence is a constant stream of Do Ra doxing and teasing them. It should've been cute, but it's too silly and it didn't sit well. In flashbacks to old Joseon and prior lives, the two MLs are fighting over a girl. They use a different actress (Kwon Ah-Reum of Missing: The Other Side S2 & Body Parts). She's fine in the role, it's just unclear why they use a different woman when the men are the same actors. When cupids are fading out for a metamorphosis they can't pick up physical objects or turn doorknobs, but one of them beats up some guy in a bar. That's inconsistent. In ep15 we get an information dump with new parameters and rules they never hinted at earlier. That isn't good writing. It lacks complexity and makes it look like they are making things up as they go. As the episodes rolled on, this show kept my interest less and less. I really enjoyed the secondary romance and the dating school sequences, but everything else floundered. I cannot point to many specific negatives, there's just a dearth of positives. It's more like a broad outline that moves from point to point without engaging the heart, quite ironically. This goes beyond not having sufficient content for 16 episodes because it never even spreads its wings. MMiC is terminally average. The best I can say is that it will fill the time, but I'd rather watch any of my recommendations listed below again, rather than MMiC or the first time.
QUOTE📢
You'd be perfect if you were more humble.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣5.3 📝5 🎭7 💓4 🦋4 🎨7 🎵/🔊8 🔚6.5 🤗3 ▪ 🌞4.5 ⚡5 😅2.5 😭2.5 😱3 😯2 🤢5.5 🤔3 💤3
Age 14+ male female relationships and sex are the theme, though it's never raunchy. There's also murders being committed and investigated. Language: b@$+@rd
Rated TV-PG-13: Parents Cautioned
Re-📺? Notta chance
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Inter-species 💞 or something like it -
My Roommate Is a Gumiho-7.9,
Boys Over Flowers-8.3 ~ melodrama to the max,
A Korean Odyssey-7.2,
The Legend of the Blue Sea-7.2,
Hotel del Luna-8.4,
Oh My Ghost 10,
The Bride of Habaek-7,
Alchemy of Souls-7.9,
My Mister-9.5,
Sweet Home 8.4,
Black 9
Modern Day -
A Witch's Love 7.8,
Love to Hate You 8.9,
Her Private Life 8,
Touch your heart 8.2,
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Love Struck in the City 7.3,
Be Melodramatic-8.7
Hospital Playlist 9,
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9
🎎 -
My Only Love Song 8.7 ~ excellent comedy,
Mr. Queen 8.5,
My Sassy Girl 8.5,
Saimdang 8.5,
The King's Affection 8.3,
Mr. Sunshine 9
⚡️/🛸 -
K2 8,
Private Lives 8.1,
Sisyphus 8,
Tunnel 8.5,
Signal 8.6,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
Squid Game 8.4,
Kingdom 8.3,
Romance junkies only -
My Secret Romance-7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks),
Boys Over Flowers-8 ~ melodrama to the max,
The Bride of Habaek-7,
Heirs-7.3,
That Winter, The Wind Blows-7,
Something in them Rain-9,
C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love-7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine,
When I Fly Towards You-7.8,
Wait, My Youth-8.4,
A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5,
Find Yourself-8.9, Hidden Love-7.8
Consider a Chinese 🎎/🔮 romcom: The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8, Love Between Fairy and Devil 8.9, Love and Redemption 10 or Japanese romcoms: Maid Sama 10, Mischievous Kiss Love in Tokyo 7.8, Love, Chunibyo And Other Delusions 8.4, or Toradora 8.5
Was this review helpful to you?
✨️ Beauty & The Nerd ⭐ Crossed Star Love Circles Back On Itself ✨️
99DWTS is pure escapism of the geek-gets-the-girl variety. Only 10 episodes, it's not a long-term contract, and it shoots by quickly. Just like Kohei wants to find new stars, I'm on the hunt for a new word rather than using cute so often. Alas, this show can only be described as cute. So CUTE! Adorable at times, charming at others, and silly toboot, but in the end, it's quite simply "cute".Namiki Kohei is an in-between-jobs astronomer, who is picking up side jobs while he ,ooks for one in his field, so he's working as an agency bodyguard. He is hired to protect a KorJapean half-Japanese/Korean national, Han Yuna, who is scheduled to film a series in Japan. She is more like a quasar than a star, being enormously popular in both countries, and winsomely beautiful. Filming is scheduled for 99 days, thus Kohei has a 99 day contract.
With a dream is to work at a famous observatory, Kohei is an everyday nerd, and at the same time, he's a kind, decent man. The observatory would give him the best chance to discover a "new" star and name it, which is his only goal at the opening of the show. All he cares about is /those/ kind of stars, and those heavenly bodies. Like many obsessed geeks, he's oblivious. We learn that girls and women may have shown interest over the course of his life, but he's never taken notice. He loves the constellations, and has no interest in ogling filmstars or even pursuing women. It's precisely why he was selected for the job.
Quickly, Kohei realizes: Han Yuna doesn't want to be confined, nor will she tolerate being guarded. Kohei finds himself chasing 'person' Yuna daily, when he'd rather be chasing scorching hot 'places' & 'things.' Yuna's relentlessly aggressive manager won't allow for any going off script. No excuses! Kohei must keep Yuna tethered. Complaining bitterly about the assignment, Kohei cannot wait for the 99 days to end. He pieces together that Yuna's been looking for someone, and resolves to help her find her long lost love. Then she'll stop trying to escape.
Meanwhile, Kohei's sister has dropped her kids at his place to traipse off with a new boyfriend. We learn she's actually traveling with new boyfriends more than she's at home with the kids - Kohei's teenaged niece, and an elementary school pair, 1 of each. While the romance is half of the "cute' factor, the young neice and nephew are the other half. To Kohei's unnerving, they are gifted with exacting perception and a high social IQ. Coupled with their loquaciousness, they embarrass Kohei's as easily as they down a triple sized slice of cake on a too small plate. They love their uncle and seem to prefer living with him. Additionally, these 2 heavenly cherubs are full of love, happiness, and exuberance. They make friends with everybody, including Han Yuna, when she chances meets them.
{Commercial Break}
This show is fiction. The odds that these children would manage to be happy not knowing their fathers, and watching a parade of men marching through their home, while regularly being abandoned by their mother so she can fo "play" without them, are worse than the Powerball lottery. This show is family appropriate. It provides a perfect opportunity to discuss family, marriage, and raising children with your children. It's a parent's job to equip their progeny with critical thinking skills, to enable them to make informed decisions in life, afterall. It's also important to discuss entertainment, in general, with your kids, to ensure they understand that they should not take cues on how to live from what they see on screen. Furthermore, they should not assume that behavior on screen is always an acceptable way to conduct oneself. {Commercial concluded}
Before we can say 'supernova', Yuna is visiting Kohei's place to hang with the family and eat at the restaurant (dive) underneath his apartment. People crave family, and Kohei's family is extra warm and joyful. Besides, with a delicious restaurant below, they are always eating delicious Food Food Food. Eventually, Yuna's co-star tracks them down because he's interested in Yuna, himself. He starts to worry that he'll lose to a bodyguard. That cannot happen. Consequently, Kohei's place becomes a hangout for the stars. Things start revolving around him, revealing that Kohei's gravitational pull is no trifle.
One thing that is refreshingly different is that side characters are the best looking men in the show. Kohei isn't bad looking, but he's no Song Kang. As we get to know him better, he looks better and better.
The show creators do a great job playing around with plot advancement. We'll see the characters' real lives intertwine with the drama that is being filmed, creating a loop: Is life imitating the drama, or is the drama imitating life? While the storylines aren't exactly the same, the lines of the script weirdly reflect precisely what's going on between Kohei and Yuna. Yuna is acting out a drama with her costar, and living out one with Kohei.
Furthermore, though Yuna is in a scripted drama, the most dramatic scene she plays is a private one between her and Kohei. The way it was shot and edited was so obvious, I had to chuckle. The director is visually yelling to the audience: "Here's the real story, the real drama", like the yolk in the egg. Or was that the chicken and the egg? It's a loop, wherever you hop on.
As soon as Kohei starts nearing the azimuth of realization regarding his feelings for Yuna, they are assaulted by the most formidable solar storm of all: Fame. Kohei feels as far from Yuna as the distance from earth to its closest star; 92 million miles. Can either of them have a life together with the black hole of the paparazzi sucking them in? It's going to be a spikey Endeavor for our Brave Challengers. 💔
99DWTS is a low-challenge, just veg and take a break series for viewers. It's perfect for when you aren't sure what to watch next, or are in need of a mental break. It's akin to a Hallmark feature, only better. The romance is sweet, but the real paycheck is the warmth. 99DWTS will warm you up better than a pot of tea on the surface of Venus. It's yummy, rummy, chummy in the tummy warmth.
As always, resist dubbing. You only get a fraction of the acting. Subtitle competency is immediate. One has to look beyond the known, to experience the new. In short, if subtitles are a force field keeping you away from foreign entertainment, you are missing some of the highest quality features out in the great beyond. For your own sake, try to get beyond it. 😢
99DWTS isn't one of those high quality features, but it is a high-in-the-sky series, given the great smiles and snuggly warmth it radiates. It gets a little draggy towards the end, but it will still light up (and cozy up) your night if you can take time to relax and look up.
QUOTES🗣
If you forge ahead in life, someday something good is bound to happen.
I guess he understands feelings when the right time comes.
Kids: “If they get married, Ya-oona will be our mother-in-law! Yeah!” (She'd be marrying their uncle).
IMHO〰🖍
🤔 5 💓7 🦋6 🌞9 🎭7 🎬7 ⚡6
Age 10+
Originally 〰️🖊 2/2022
Was this review helpful to you?
✒He Only Plays For Keeps °6.8° °Good°
Gamers don't need a dating website because they can make good matches while gaming🎧. Our protags are fans of the RPG (role playing game) Chinese Ghost Story/CGS. FL, Wei Wei, even has an in-game spouse - until she gets dumped. She won't be in the dumps for long, though: Her white knight is in the wings.Computers don't just facilitate hook-ups; they make identity theft pretty easy, too. While Er Xi may not have stolen Wei Wei's 🆔, she did borrow Wei Wei's CGS game character, which leads /Wei Wei's/ crush to pursue /Er Xi/ in the game, thinking he's hanging out, virtually, with Wei Wei. It also leads men at Er Xi's summer internship to believe that SHE'S the top female CGS player. Er Xi, unawares, is getting all kinds of attention in the name of Bei Wei Wei, and Bei Wei Wei wouldn't have it any other way-way-way.
L020 is a 2016 release that is rated 8.3 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 30 45-minute episodes. It's obvious that the show was a precursor to the King's Avatar which also stars Yang Yang. (KA is great, but it contains no romance. It's about a RPG competition). Many players suspect that our FL, Bei Wei Wei, is not really a girl because she refuses to post photos online, and no other chick has come close to her top-tier ranking. She's jilted by her in-game husband in ep1. Because of laptop problems she ends up having to complete a duel at an internet cafe where our ML, Xiao Nai, (the elusive top-ranked player) gets a l👀k at her in the middle of her spectacular gameplay. He knows who she is now, but she didn't look back at him to see him looking back at her, as it says on Mr. Girlie's shirt. She don't look like no dude! She's😍gorgeous. When Bei Wei Wei's game character shows up to her ex's new in-game wedding, our ML is there as well. He proposes marriage to her. It's just a gaming marriage, but for her it's Cinderella✨time.
Xiao Nai, or Yi Xiao Nai He, as he's known in the game (Yang Yang), is a student of legendary popularity. He's the best looking, he's the smartest, and he's even good at 🏀. But he's as cold as a snow leopard's claws in January. He and his roommates/his bros have designed a new game and are preparing to launch it soon. Zheng Shuang plays FL, Bei Wei Wei / Lu Wei Wei Wei. She's a computer major and she's also the “Belle” of the Computer department. Between school, tutoring, and gaming, she has no time for love. Being pretty attracts jealous attention from other women, especially a couple of the mean girls on campus. Wei Wei and her dorm-mates apply for an internship at one of the big software companies that, perchance, wants to buy Xiao Nai's game. Her identity, in part, gets switched with her perky and adorable roomie, Zhao Er Xi (Mao Xiao Tong) because Er Xi panicked in her interview and gave them Wei Wei's game 🆔 as her own. This leads to identity mix-ups. Several people believe they've met the gamer Lu Wei Wei IRL, but they've actually met Er Xi.
Wei Wei's new game marriage is wonderful💖. She starts to wonder about who the person is behind her game husband's character. Should she meet him? In the meantime, back at school, Xiao Nai unexpectedly sits next to her in class(?!). Game-hubby wants to meet. She goes to the rendezvous point… Why is Xiao Nai, the untouchable legend, hanging around here today? Imagine her shock when he scoops her up, takes her to the inter-department 🏀 game and then lets e'erbody know they are now dating. The way it plays out is fun. They already got to know eachother online. He's way ahead of her as he's been able to observe her IRL for awhile, and when he makes a move, it's for the win. The rest of the show is dealing with the petty tricks, jealousy and fallout that happens when these two popular items are removed from the shelf. They are each taken, now, and not everyone has an easy time accepting that without a fight.
For a modern-day Chinese feature this is pretty good.
Yang Yang,who plays the ML, Xiao Nai, does sell the viewer on his attraction to our FL, and he manages some top notch romantic moments. His voice in L020 and You Are My Glory sounds deep-fake. I think his voice in Kings's Avatar is the real him. Can he act? I wasn't sure that he could, going into this show. I've only seen him play all-powerful all-knowing slightly smug male leads, and I've only seen him in modern-day Chinese features, which are completely different from Chinese fantasy and historical features. It's time to watch Who Rules The World to crystallize his assessment. Regardless of acting skill, he's quite beautiful, and he also contributes to the soundtrack. He's no Kun Chen (from The Rise of the Phoenixes) but he'll do. His game hair is awful, like Qin Dynasty politician hair.
Zheng Shuang is the FL., Bei Wei Wei. She's sweet and demure. She remains too demure throughout the show which gets a tad tedious. Mao Xiao Tong plays her BFF Zhao Er Xi. Despite references to her average looks, she is an adorable pixie. She actually does look like Cao Guang's (Bai Yu) 🐱, Coffee. They usually have her hair and costume looking dreadful. She has short hair that has grown too sloppy and needs 2" taken off, but she is routinely referred to as plain or even homely when she's actually a knockout.
Speaking of Bai Yu and Yang Yang, the show has lots of beautiful men. Bai Yu, sans glasses and curls, is a very handsome man when inside the game, CGS. Xiao Nai's friends are well casted. Zheng Ye Cheng is "Girlie," Hao Mei, and he might be better looking than Yang Yang. He's stern, masculine, and sexy in The Sleepless Princess-9.1. I never recognized him - that's good acting! Vin Zhang as K.O. (he is fabulous in Eternal Love-8.3) & Cui Hang, playing Qiu Yong Hou, compliment the visual feast, and Niu Jun Feng is not only a nice looking guy, but he has an endearing quality as Yu Ban Shan. Hao Bo plays the gynophobic Ah Shuang. His fear of women is why the fledgling company cannot hire females. Xiao Ling (Qin Yu) & Yu Yao (Guan Xin) are the other two girl dormies. They don't get as much screen time as Er Xi. They never bring everybody together, which is a shame. I kept waiting for it, but it wasn't to be.
The primary romance is low drama and pleasant as a warm breeze. Nothing much happens, and the show has that "Prozac" effect that Chinese modern-day dramas all seem to have. While Chinese historical and fantasy pieces are superb in every way, their modern-day stuff is weirdly relaxing to watch despite being deeply flawed. There are at least two secondary romances that are quite cute but left mostly unfinished - they absolutely should have been wrapped up better - that's not a minor flaw. The 🐱 appears to be in serious distress in a couple scenes. In the States, I think it would have created a stir; I was concerned for that kitty. He's a gorgeous feline. Just as in You Are My Glory-5.9, which also features the comely Mr. Yang, L020 is too focused on the good looks of the leads. 20% of the dialogue seems to be about the exterior appearance of the characters, and that is so skin-deep. (I realize that I may have committed 20% of this article to what the actors look like… perhaps that's hypocritical🙄, but script & dialogue and critique & commentary are not the same thing). The acting is often stiff, the dialogue is often unimaginative and witless, and the plot drivers such as game dynamics, corporate maneuvering, and technical workings are not explained in the least. Don't expect to learn anything interesting: This show will only bring on rhythmic breathing - and that's enough.
They play completely respectable 🎸 riffs during some of the action. I've seen China rock-out better than Japan, at times. Both of them rock out better than Korea. Korea, on the other hand, reigns supreme in the realm of pop and soft rock. Anyway, the soundtrack isn't bad at all. All-in-all, L020 is a show that romance junkies, who don't get too prickly over technical mediocrity, will like. With the benefit of foreknowledge, I would still watch it again for the first time. Technical excellence alone doesn't make a show good. It must speak to the heart as well. L020 is food for the heart, not the brain, but its true payoff is its Prozac💊effect.
〰🖍 IMHO
📣6 📝6 🎭7 💓6 🦋7 🌞6 🎨5 ⚡4 🎵/🔊7 😅3 😭3 😱2 😯4 😖0 🤔3 💤4 🔚7
Age +no age restriction with the following caution: There's a few oblique non-direct references to sex and waiting for it plus some kissing scenes.
Re-📺? This one's in the good-to-pass-the-time category, but I may never pass this way again….
In order of ~lite & trite~ to ~heavy & serious~ you may also like:
You Are My Destiny 7.3,
The Kings Avatar 8,
The Oath Of Love 7.6,
I Hear You 7.3,
Meteor Garden 7.4
Historical/Period:
Overlord 8.4,
The Sleepless Princess 9.1,
The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8,
Under the Power 8.6;
The Rebel Princess 9.1
Fantasy:
Love Between Fairy & Devil 9;
Douluo Continent 9.4;
Heavenly Sword 9;
Love and Redemption 10
Was this review helpful to you?
