50FiftillidideeBrain

✒The Mysterious Village in the Deep Deep Woods °8.3° °excellent°

For as much as I liked this show, I don't have much to say. In part, that's because not much can be said without spoiling something. I went into MTOS knowing nothing and I'm glad I did. The mysteries undergo a gradual-unravel. The viewer who comes into the show with even half of the answers is MISSING half of the fun.

MTOS follows a string of murders and missing persons - some new, some old, some very old. The viewer watches police as they investigate, and follows the families, friends and the victims themselves. It is utterly heartbreaking, yet it is lined with hope. It is a 2 season 2020 release, rated 89 on AWiki and consisting of 26 60ish-minute episodes. Currently, the very popular S2 is not available for streaming. S1 is just 12 episodes.

The acting is truly superb. Go Soo (Heart Surgeons, The Flower in Prison) is Kim Wook. He witnesses the abduction of a woman which makes him the next target of the gangsters - they saw him seeing what they did, and they don't like witnesses. He must run for his life and his running takes him to a very strange village.

Heo Joon Ho (Kingdom-8.3, Why Her?-8) plays Jang Pan Seok, a man who lives in the village. His life ended when his daughter was abducted over 15 years ago. He spends his time handing out fliers, visiting the police, and chasing leads - most of them false. Ahn So Hee (Thirty-Nine, Eulachacha Waikiki S2) plays Lee Jong Ah, one of Wook’s coworkers. She is super-cool. Her part is cool, but the coolness really seems to be the actress herself. I'm looking forward to seeing more of her. Ha Joon (Black Dog-8.2, Destined with You, Crazy Love-7.8) plays Shin Joon Ho, a cop who appears to have much more head than heart. Two residents of the village are Seo Eun Soo (Dr. Romantic, Duel, Chief Detective 1958) as Choi Yeo Na and Song Geon Hee (SKY Castle, Lovely Runner) as Thomas Cha. Ji Dae Han (Chicago Typewriter) really shines as Officer Baek Il Doo. I can't explain it, but midshow I realized that every line he uttered amused me immensely. I'm looking forward to seeing more of him as well. The director is Min Yeon Hong from Ugly Alert. The screenwriters are Ban Ki Ri from Who Are You and Witch's Romance, and Jung So Young - a first effort.

MTOS is more a crime thriller than anything else, but it is quite unique. While many horrible things happen, it somehow manages to send the viewer off strangely uplifted. It's a horrible world with horrible things going on all the time. We are blessed if we can find any decent companions with whom to brave the elements. Wook navigates heartbreaks while forming firm alliances with worthy allies. By the end, he's missing much less despite his losses. He is able to reconcile with his past and go forward as a better man. Would that each one of us could.


〰🖍 IMHO

📣8.3 📝8.4 🎭8.8 🎨7 🎵/🔊8 🔚8 ▪ 🌞6 ⚡5 😅3 😭7 😱4 😯4 🤢3 🤔4 💤0


Age 15+
Violence and extremely sad subject matter

Re-📺? Yep


In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:

Crazy Love-7.8,
Mystic Pop-up Bar-8.2
Inspector Koo-8.4,
Oh My Ghost 10,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Hotel del Luna-8.4
Black Dog: Being A Teacher-8.2,
Move To Heaven-8.4,
My Mister 9.5,

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✒☀Every Sunflower Needs Its Sun☀ °7.8° °cuteness overload°

Adapted from the novel, "She’s a Little Crazy,” WIFTY is as cute as cute gets. Zhang Miao Yi (Exclusive Fairytale) plays FL Su Zai Zai. She might be alittle crazy, but she's also like 🌞sunshine.

Crazy, in this case, means an uninhibited, hyper-focused go-getter. She's gonna go get herself Zhang Lu Rang (Zhou Yi Ran from The Legend of Zhuohua, Falling into Your Smile-5.7). He's gloomy and more like the 🌘moon, but he likes 🌻sunflowers. Lu Rang is good at every subject but English. Languages are a snap for Zai Zai, but she struggles with everything else. They end up tutoring eachother. After we meet Lu Rang's mother, it makes sense that he likes Su Zai Zai.

WIFTY is a 2023 release that is rated a high-flying 9 on MDL. (Romance fans love it, yo). It is 1 season consisting of 24 cuddly 35-minute episodes. They fly by quickly. Jiang Zhi Nan (The Best Day of My Life) as Jiang Jia & Bian Tian Yang (Bright Time, Song of Youth-7.2) as Gu Ran round out the 2ndary couple. They are fun: “As dumb@$$ he is, he actually didn't fall for my trick. This is so odd. What's more, how does he manage to be so obnoxious?” Actor, Bian Tian Yang, and his part, are adorable. The director is Mao De Shu (Lovely Us) and the screenwriters are Yue An & Tao Kai Xin who also collaborated on Let's Meet Now.

The original creator is Zhu Yi of the wildly popular show, Hidden Love-7.8. Consequently, WIFTY and HL are very similar. They are both low drama ride-alongs. The viewer hangs out with these simple characters throughout several years of their simple lives, but not much happens. That isn't to say that WIFTY isn't lovely. It is absolutely darling. WIFTY and HL are low on complexity, shade and tension, but they are high on romantic charm and the Prozac effect. They both include likable characters with some growing up to do. They both feature a FL who suffers from an instant crush that lasts for (presumably) a lifetime. Both cover from middle school to first post-grad positions. And both promote relaxation and tranquility. The viewer is unlikely to cry, will probably smile but not laugh, won't experience much angst or frustration, and will feel at peace. There will always be a place for such entertainment. To be fair, I will rewatch a feature that is of sub-standard quality yet it touches the heart before a piece that is intelligent and technically perfect but emotionally flat; but when it comes to rating a show, technical skill and the way it moves the heart are both important. A low degree of difficulty does lower the maximum potential score.

What they do in WIFTY they do well. The music is solid. They play a snippet from Brit rockers, Queen for a hot 5 seconds. It was amusing and quite unexpected. Before, by Zeyué is Shazam-worthy. The acting is excellent. The protagonists are engaging and there's some great dialogue. Long before they become a couple, our couple works on English prepositions and contrapositions together.

“If I exist, my love for you exists.”

“If I don't like you anymore, than I would no longer be me.”

It's a sweet scene.

“You don't necessarily have to become the sun. If you're willing to, you could be a star, a street light, or a firefly. They're all capable of shining when they want to shine. When they don't feel like shining they can slack off,” we hear in a challenge to shine as brightly as possible,

WIFTY shines as brightly as possible. Su Zai Zai is as unforgettable as she is adorable. While it's unlikely to appeal to anyone who isn't a serious romance fan, the show is simply delightful from one end to the other. If romance is your thing, make sure to exult in its warmth.


〰🖍 IMHO

📣7.8 📝7.7 🎭8 💓7 🦋6 🎨5.5 🎵/🔊7 🔚8 ▪ 🌞7 ⚡3 😅4 😭2 😱1 😯1 🤢1 🤔3 💤0

Age 13+ It's very clean. They do cohabitate prior to marriage. Rated TV-PG: Parental Guidance Suggested

Re-📺? Probable

In order of ~lite & trite~ to ~heavy & serious~ you may also like:

💓 -
C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love 7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine;
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
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;
Once upon a time in Linglian Mountain 7.5;
Douluo Continent 9.4;
Handsome Siblings 8.7;
Eternal Love 8.3,
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

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Sin City, China °7.3° °weird & D.A.R.K. but good°

Female assassins! A whole city of them! And, boy, are they terrifying. Don't Let the word “Romance” misguide you. Sure, there's a love story in there, amongst the blood, guts, and cannibalism. The secondary romance is between the torture chamber master and the savage, megalomanical City Master. It ain't no feel good love story. It isn't the romance that's going to stick with you later, anyway; it's the horror. This show is every bit as macabre as Sin City. Judge whether you want to watch it through that lens. If romance is your thing, and you don't like frightening situations or gore, skip this one. BR is mostly a drama about power.

For those of you continuing on, the show is worth watching. While it is quite painful at times, it had the effect of making me feel better about the horrible circumstances I was in at the time. BR is gruesome, sad, ROUGH and, well, bloody. It isn't for the faint of heart, and it isn't for most romance fans unless you're one, like me, who also loves action and sum killin, every now and then. If you've been wanting to get a dude in your life to watch a Cdrama, maybe this is the one. (I would recommend Heavenly Sword and Dragon Slaying Saber-9 or Douluo continent-9.1 for that, btw).

BR has its slow moments, but somewhere between eps8&10 BR becomes captivating. The characters inhabit a secret world within our real world. It gets deeper and more layered as the episodes roll by. The best thing is that there are some road trips, or quests, rather. They never get old. There are consistent quality elements tossed into the hotpot by the director including lovely segues, connections, and ironies. One small example is in ep33. Prince Ning comes to the palace. Knowing that around 90% of his goals have been reached, he's decked in emerald instead of the shadowy greys he had been wearing. The 🇨🇳 know how to film flowing silk - it's resplendent.

The soundtrack is exceptionally good & Spotifiable. The musical theme for the primary duo is sad but downright sultry. Tia Ray's rich voice is a perfect romantic backdrop. Gary Chaw has a couple of excellent songs on the soundtrack as well. The fight scenes are clever with thrilling acrobatics. The animation in the opening credits is gorgeous. Recollections, flashbacks, and dreams are done in the same style throughout the show. It's edgy, it's dark, and it's thoroughly bewitching. BR is almost mesmerizing at times.

Chinese villains are fun. One has to remind oneself that these are assassins. Nobody cares if their targets deserve it or not. It's just their job. They're also under threat of death if they don't carry out their missions, preceded by torture. Prolonged, horrendous torture. Once people are desperate enough to take the vow and become assassins, they don't look back. Even among assassins, there's the regular bad guys and then the /really/ bad guys. Of course we want the really bad guys to be defeated, but we should feel conflicted about rooting for cold blooded killers… shouldn't we? Some of the bad guys are more complex than what seems at first glance. We learn that some of them have justifiable hate; their actions & attitudes aren't entirely unrelatable. One of the tragedies of human existence is that it's so rare for someone to break the cycle of evil. One character is definitely /not/ a cold blooded assassin. This character is trapped.

If the show is about nothing else, it's about our duty to get unpleasant jobs done, so let's get the bad news about BR out of the way. This isn't a cult classic like Sin City. Scenes are often too drawn out. There's plot holes, plot flops, and dead-ends in which forecasted actions were halted prior to completion - they didn't finish everything they started, just like a couple characters in the show. BR feels a bit hollow. The ending accentuates that emptiness, so we are left with that aftertaste. The torture chamber master is inconsistent. At times, he sympathizes with others and tries to stop the senseless killing and torture, yet he, himself, continues to perform torture and perpetuate cruelty. The ending is forecasted and the viewer should be cognizant of that. It reinforces the bleakness. The weirdest thing is how they set up some awesome possibilities and then just left them out there hanging, opting for a direction that compares poorly to what was possible.

Forget the above, the biggest issue with this show is that it's dark. It's different from the dark things that Hollywood puts out, which appears to be an effort to titillate with violence and cruelty. There's a clear line between acts that are right and wrong in BR. Every character has legitimate motivations; they just act on them wrongly. The dark elements are meant to shock and horrify us, but not to come through the back door and titillate us. Kudos to the writer, who authentically shows bad guys with complex motivations. In fact, many bad guys weren't born that way. They were tortured into being that way. Conversely, the writer displays good people that do dark things. The complexity is admirable. BR flies around 10,000 feet in the air. It focuses on broad strokes issues as much or more than the individual characters and their arcs. The creators allow only limited emotional investment in these people. That's a positive: Otherwise, the plot turns would HURT. At least the cat gets a happy ending!

The FL is irritating. The suffering saint(ess). She suffers. She doesn't want to kill, which means she wants her shadow (aid) dead. Even given the dire circumstances, it's overly dramatic. Fine, it's understandable that she doesn't want to kill. Was it okay, in the show's beginning, for that assassin to kill the man that was about to kill her? If not, the world would be missing one person with a good conscience and keeping someone destructive. Wait. I should check myself for a moment. Maybe I have too much bloodlust. Her struggle with taking lives is appropriate, but the way she's willing to risk her Shadow’s life is not. Overall, they failed to sell all of their wares, when it comes to her character, so she's only partially completed. In a way, once again, that made watching the show a little easier. I didn't get emotionally invested to the point where their pain hurt me as much as some other shows have. It's nice to get a break from kind of upheaval, or it would be too much. For one example, Love and Redemption, which I consider a 10 among the 10's despite its clunky special effects, caused me sufficient emotional distress that I popped a Xanax (yet I still kept watching). I couldn't handle a constant stream of that wreckage.

Speaking of the characters, Li Yi Tong is FL, Wan Mei. She becomes more relatable as the episodes go on, but they fail to fully form her. This is no fault of the actress - it's the writing and directing. It's obvious that she, the actor and the character, has done what they required her to. Tragically, her part is the least interesting one of the show. Qu Chu Xiao is ML Chang An. His voice is soothing. So many Asian actors barely look Asian to me. His looks aren't far removed from that of Eastern Europeans. It seems like the burden to make a romance work is always on the ML in a heterosexual love story. Perhaps that's because our perception is that men don't love as easily as women, so it's a greater change if a man falls in love? This particularly applies in a world of tough guys… powerful guys… dare I say /masculine/ guys? More likely, it's in my eye, the eye of the viewer, that the male lead is pulling extra weight in selling the love story, because I'm attracted to men(?). I'm honestly not sure… Attraction is an ephemeral mystery inside a conundrum, indeed. All I know is that my favorite romances are usually favs because of the performances of the male leads. Anyway, Mr. Li is particularly good. Wang Duo plays Gong Zi / Prince Ning. He is the most memorable character of the show, and perhaps the best reason to watch it. His story is riveting. He is as sincere as he had the ability to be. As with many characters, he's been pushed hard in many directions.

Everyone has their own agenda. Usually, it's revenge, and it's always futile. All these wants and appetites… The Pride, the revenge, the hostility, the cruelty & the striving - it's all futile in the end. Revenge is explored apart from society, laws, and justice. Otherwise decent people in BR kill wantonly for revenge. It isn't about the person that they're avenging. It's about oneself and satisfying one's own anger and assuaging pain. To kill an innocent person while on a revenge quest is to be a murderer. To do it a second time is to be a serial killer. To give in to anger and its outflow of unforgiveness, vengeance and bitterness, is always most hurtful to oneself more than anyone else. It's best to not let such dark indulgences and appetites, that can never be satisfied, consume us.

BR’s final words:
One glance decides your life. One stroke breaks the wine vessel. One man, one god. A broken scar. A dream intoxicating Heaven and Earth. To respect and pour. When you awake, there are 3 months of spring.

Spring brings baby mice, and our kitty will have to survive on something…


QUOTES🗣

Sometimes, fathoming our own heart is more difficult than understanding another person's heart.

The only logic in this world is that there is no logic.

When we experience more things in life, our horizons will widen more.


〰🖍 IMHO

🎬 7.4🖊〰 6.8 🎭 7 💓6.5 🦋7 🌞3 🎨7 ⚡7.3 🎵/🔊8.8 😅1 😭 6 😱6 🤢5.8 🤔5 💤3 🔚4


Age 16+ Scary images not suitable for kids under 13;Ep1 a father sells his daughter to a brothel. Violence against women depicted & worse is referred to. Cannibalism; Torture; Rape; Sex slaves; Stealing blood from virgins


Re-📺? I don't think so, but if I'm in a dark, nihilistic and masochistic mood, mehbee?

For something light-hearted, check out love between Ferry and devil, or the romance of tiger and Rose. They are not without emotional attention, but they're mostly fun.

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Family Marriage & Sex In The City Seoul °7.7° °VG°

Boo-hoo, Ji-hoo❕

We meet her when she's face-to-face with complete failure; a bona fide low point.

Raised by a patri-to❌ic father & a sympathetic-on-the-sly mom, she needs relief now. What she getz is this: Though she's a talented script writer, the TV station wants to credit her work to a known entity, in order to boost viewership. She needs fair recognition NW.

She lives with her brother. /She/ paid the depo$it / mainten-cent$ / expen$e$ / replaced appliance$ & more↗. While she was mandatorily sequestered at writer #1's office crunchin a deadline, her brother married his preggos GF. Nobody told Ji-hoo that GF-now-the-Mrs has moved in. Upon her return, when she innocently poked her head into her brother's room to say 'hi', Ji-hoo found ☢ut the hard-☹-way. Given that 🗻Dad🗻 is thrilled that Ji-hoo is about to be an aunt - the aunt of a #nephew (IT'S A B✨Y!!), she knows it's Game Over. There will be no getting that won back. She needs =equality=]> RIGHT N✴W.

Even after she'd been sexually harassed at work, she was asked to "Just work with us." They won't give her equal rights N⏱W. "Your time will come. We promise." She needs a new J.O.B. N⭕W.

She quits. N✴W❗

now she can't afford her rent

She.needs.aff⚙rdable.h⚙using.n⏱w#

$he absolutely, most direly needs affordable housing tonight

Engineer Se-hee is a self-isolated loner who has trapped himself in a rigid life, devoid of joy. His only goals are to maintain his strict schedule, save up $, and pay off his home mortgage asap. Nothing is going to work out for him without a roommate, though. He ran those calculations years back. The rental income is required in order to keep his journey to financial Buelah Land on track. ⭕ of his roommates ever work out, though. He even had to call the police on the last. He needs a compatible roommate N☹W…

Right on time, here come their bands of buddies. Se-hee's friends & Ji-hoo's friends are linked thru Ho-rang (Rang) & Won-seok, who have been dating the better part of a decade. None of the women have met the men yet. Based on names alone, each gang assumes they have a perfect landlord-tenant match-up for their bud. They weren't /trying/ to create a coed dorm, which is not as acceptable in conservative K-country . Well, didn't /they/ stumble onto something??

Thus is the show's opening. Ji-hoo & Se-hee are planted within 15ft of eachother with the cat going back and forth between them as a fluffy emissary. It grows from there. As it turns out, they are very✨compatible. Se-hee's ex-roomies never came close to the competence of Ji-hoo-roomie. It's several days of co-habbing before they even meet, due to conflicting schedules. When they discover the "setup", they plan to separate. But... well… things are working out so well...

So well, in fact, that Se-hee, who works for the App: ‘Don't 'Marry, Date', pulls a reverse play & proposes! They should get married! ? !WAIT! That's wrong. He PR⛔-Posed. He wants to marry for 'Not Love'. No one will question their living situation if they do. That way, his parents won't continue nag him about marriage, plus his dad has offered to pay off his mortgage when he marries. Ji-hoo benefits as she'll have the affordable housing she needs to stay in Seoul, rather than go home to live with M&D. CEO Ma always says that 2 are better than 1. Coincidentally, Ji-hoo had just finished writing: A Dork's Love. Is she about to marry a dork?

This writer is a clever devil. Going into the real-but-fake ceremony, Jihoo's mom talks to her about love & marriage in the bridal chamber and causes Ji-hoo to S⛈B. The unfeeling, ever practical Se-hee comes looking for his missing bride and finds her in that state. He says these words to Ji-hoo: "You can't stop crying? Then, we'll go together. It's all right if you cry. Come with me. I'll stay by your side. I will be with you." Sounds like a vow; an intimate vow between the 2 of them, alone in the bride's chambers. It's not yet ♥️. It's genuine friendship & comraderie + a promise of loyalty. It's not a fake marriage. Not really.

BTIMFL sets out with a light-hearted tone~>> a couple's friends eventually meet & interest sparks. The characters are rounded off nicely. There's a generous amount of Mars & Venus (man/woman) misunderstandings. No relationship in the series is w/o static. The romance between Soo-ji and Ceo Ma is the most fun. He's a catch - he even does a musical number! She finally comes to see who he is. The side characters greatly enhance the series.

Like ♥️, BTIMFL hurts sometimes. What's unnecessarily ♥️-rending is how Ji-hoo leaves and stays away - for what looks like weeks, maybe more. While the cutting with the snappy sounds is generally a fun touch, this later sadness is resoundingly out of sync with the quirky elements. Why would she cause such unnecessary pain to Se-hee? There's a clip of her having a good old time with her friends, while his world falls apart. She knows she's returning to him, while at the same time, he's demolished by heartbreak. The viewer feels his pain.

The show became so sad that the ending didn't lift me back up. It comes close to ruining the series, and it didn't even make sense! It's an example of awful Kdrama MSS (Mandatory Separation Syndrome: An overused Kdrama device in which the couple is separated by distance after professing love, but prior to their Happily Ever After). MSS is routinely awful. While there are times it's for the best, usually, MSS is detrimental to a series. How could a couple that has just come together, often after many struggles, bear to be apart? Why, oh why, are they compelled to write it in? Furthermore, in the emotionally wrenching letter Ji-hoo's mom wrote to Se-hee, she asked him to stay by Ji-hoo's side when she cries. Ji-hoo dumps him cold, allowing him to despair alone. What ugly irony.

The primary theme of BTIMFL is equality for women in a hyper-patriarchal society. Ha-rang wears a shirt that says "Raise girls and boys the same." We'll see a 2nd woman sexually harassed while trying to build her career. BTIMFL addresses this tired out, but still "what's happening now" indignity competently - 1 flagrant scene is like a horrible sexual harassment training video that the cubicle overlords foist on their employees. {If that's what's still going on in SK, they definitely need to tweak the power balance somehow. Women's rights were stalled there due to a military dictatorship (1961-1979) that solely focused on maintaining power, giving no thought to protecting the vulnerable.}

BTIMFL features The Disease: Good Daughter i/l Disease, in which dtr i/l's are
treated as slaves by the in-laws. That ain't healthy. Ji-hoo's mom is able to read it between the teas when the family's meet. She didn't want her daughter living her life as a slave to the In-laws. Still, the show is a little cynical about family life. It is entirely appropriate to prevent a mother i/l from bullying a young wife, but it's usually not a reason to withdraw from all family interactions. Their agreement to holiday separately is highly questionable. If a set of their parents is not respectful of them or their marriage, separation is appropriate. Apparently i/l's abusing their kid’s spouse is a pro-sport in K-country, so the writer is proposing a viable solution. We can hope that the separate holidays will rejoin if they have children. That all serves to drag down the production, which is outstanding through 13 episodes.

No show is without flaws. Besides MSS, the last three episodes end the show on a more sour / less sweet note. BTIMFL is amusing until around Ep14, where long, overdone, and wearisome shots framing Ji-hoo's pain-gripped face keep the series from continuing forward. The pacing is otherwise steady. Without that drag, the show's easily an 8+.

The poetry in BTIMFL, the discussions of literature, and "Room 19" add depth. "Room 19" is now part of my consciousness and vocab. This series tricks us into thinking it will be a lite piece, only to punch us later with surprising depth. Some notables are:

▶"We don't even know ourselves, so how could we know the dark sides of others?" 5✨

▶"When a person comes, it is in fact a tremendous thing. That person's entire life comes with them - Because it's fragile, so it may have been broken before - the heart that's close."✨

▶"A heart isn't something that is taken or grabbed. It comes to you." ✨

We can all applaud that, can't we?

Overall this is a VG view. One of the best things can can be said is that it leaves plenty for discussion. Spare us the mindless pap, which this show is not. My favorite FAVORITE takeaway from watching this is when Soo-ji declares: "I'd rather be a crazy bℹtch than a pathetic wench." Amen.

QUOTES⚜️

If I were to tell the 20 old me, would that punk believe me?

Ji-hoo! You should go out and get pregnant tonight. We're going to a club! (Soo-ji. Woman of action.)

Perhaps, if you have some time, would you marry me?

〰 IMHO 〰

Directing 7
Writing 8
Acting 7.5
Romance 7
Flutters 5
Warmth 5
Art 6
Excitement 5
Laughs 5
Thought provocation 8
Ending 4


Age 14+

Watch again? ✅ twice and counting…

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✒ Tae-yo's Bunkhouse For Stowaways ¤ How They Rock The Boat Until They Float. °Excellent°

This breezy series is like riding a skiff, whisking along the 🌊ebb & flo. We all know, though, it wouldn't be a Kdrama without some 🌫 moments, as well as a sad sense of loss for a 'sailor', or two. For all that, MFFL, like a summer shandy&soju, is lite and full of good cheer.

Tae-yo is from a (pause) comfortable family. As such, he gets to live alone at one of the family docks (a spare house) while bobbling through college.

In the span of a dozen bells or so, several of his mates suffer a boarding crisis and show up at Tae-yo's 'gangway.' This mishmash of stowaways all know Tae-yo, but none of them know each other. Aigoo, why did he answer the door? His one friend, Cho-hun, (Hun) played by the charming Kang Tae-oh, boards wearing a 👗(⁉). The Admiral, (his 💰father) you see, had ordered him to jumpship and leave anything Hun hadn't bought with his own money (in other words, leave with nothing). Pushed out to sea on an iceberg, he has no lifeboat... or 👖. Dangerously exposed to arrest, said dress, swiped from a clothesline, is what barely spares him from the MP's and the brig.

All aboard, Tae-yo's fails to take any prisoners or to make anyone walk the plank. He accepts that they'll be 🛌 with him for weeks out to sea. He must keep their enlistment at the quarters hidden from his father, The Logistic CDR, or lose his own cabin. Bon Voyage! 🌊 Wave❕ as MFFL pulls up ⚓ and begins merrily⛵drifting with the tide.

In our spyglasses, we view Tae-yo's Crew adjusting to close quarters, while unavoidably forming a band-of-brothers, and making allies with the broader circle of Tae-yo's friends, while at the same time, keeping each other's secrets (mostly). These shipmates are like warm currents. It's cozy and cheery sailing with them.

There's Song-i, Tae-yo's best friend, who's mom went awol, there's Gar-in, who ran away from her suffocating mother, (Gar-in's cuter than a Pekingese Dog Fish) and you've already met Hun. Hun's an out of work/never worked actor & singer (but not much of a dancer). He and Gar-in are the live entertainment. Hun also astutely marks the 5 stages of Tae-yo's breakup, in realtime live feed. He's wrong about it all, and yet he's so right. Wrong or right, he's adorable.

In MFFL there's another of those ubiquitous Bermuda-love-triangles, but with its own twist. Predictable? Given that they meticulously forecast the weather, it's clear to see where things are headed. (Predictable's generally a tedious criticism of romances & feel-good jaunts. For a thriller or mystery - or an M. Night Shyamalan film - predictability is a shipwreck; but for works like MFFL, it's an empty net). The love triangle is integral to the plot in MFFL, so we shouldn't blame them that so many other productions forcibly wedge it into their scripts. Nevertheless, Kdramas are flooded over with unnecessary formulaic ♥🔺s. While we're swabbing the deck, we can address one more overused device - MoMPs: Missing-or-Misplaced-Parent(s) show up too often as well. In MFFL this is not well used (1/2 the MP story, anyway) and is a plot weakness.

But MFFL doesn't take on water just because, in a house of 20 year olds, 💕pairs form, and 💞reform. Close quarters, particularly on this "Love Boat" leads to such. They're all looking for the perfect oar to go with their rigging, afterall. It's the journey, the swelling attraction, imbibing truth about one's feelings, and the GoPro filming keeping things afloat, along with the smiles and 🌞warmth.

MFFL also dives into growing pains, especially adjusting from kiddie pool friendships to the wide open seas of adulthood. Tae-yo and Song-i have been inseparable since age 3. We watch them each drop ⚓ in a relationship. There's a big adjustment for all parties, given how close those two are.

When Song-i is first dating, she keeps the identity of her boyfriend classified, because he's Tae-yo's friend, and they aren't ready to go public. Tae-yo is thoroughly agitated over everything happening with this phantom bf of Song-i's. He says: 'This jerk let you walk home in the rain' (he had to work). Then Tae-yo comes out with: 'A decent guy would never let the woman he loves doubt herself'. Of course, right then he's causing her, his best friend, to doubt herself. 'She's got to break it off with that dude', He complains to his friend. Said friend and Song-i are each getting dating advice from Tae-yo, who doesn't connect that they are the two dating, even when he comments that their stories are similar. He loves to complain about the jerk Song-i is dating to that "jerk," who can only listen and take it. Cute.

Director Oh Jin-suk is 2-for-2 with me, as I love "My Sassy Girl," (2017). That show is also weatherproofed with straight feelgood joy, despite the usual impossible outlook in Ep1.

Cruisin on this 'houseboat,' and 🚢 with this blended crew, following them on their excursions to school, work, dates (why is that jerk keeping Song-i out so late! Grrr) and back home again, is what makes it skip like stones on a brook. MFFL is not trying to be a tempest. It gently flows, so these friends can coast near the shoreline and stargaze🌌from the top deck. It's a swimmy recess, a winsome escape, and plain old smooth sailing.

In short, slipping away briefly with MFFL is just happy hangout time whilst catching the high tide with bouyant allies. If you hate smiling, just take the next charter.

Now pass that Soju shot!

IMHO...
🎬8 🎭7.7 💓7.6 🦋6 😅6 🎵8 🤔6🎨7 🌞9 🔚8

Age 12+.

👁📺again❔ ✅Did it‼

Originally ✏ 4/2021

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Mars & Venus Go To Court °8.2° °Excellent°

TYK follows a TV personality who is out of work after a scandal. She would call herself an actress, but she's known for her good looks, not her good acting. She begs for a part in a new legal drama. She's told (with great reluctance) to research her role at a real law firm. Under that one condition she'll be offered the part. "On it!" Her manager calls his law-firm-owning cousin, whose immediate reply is: "There's no way - he won't do *this* favor - he will not have any actress come into his sacred company - it's WHO?!? (all without taking a breath) Turns out he's a BIG fan. She must be assigned to the most competent attorney in The Firm. He is all-business-no-warmth, and gives up on Prossy Missy the first day ("Just do what you want until quitting time"), because she can't work the copy machine. Heck, she can't even answer the phone.

If nothing else, watch it for the pickup skills. Exhibit A: "Ms Oh, this letter is for you. I, Kwon Jung-roc, saw you for the very first time on February 6th, 2019 at the secretary's office of Always Law Firm located in Seocho - gu, Seoul.

"As we interacted with each other many times through work, and had about six meals together, I realized that your feelings weren't fake. I realize that they were actually sincere. Therefore, I, Kwon Jung-roc, request you, Oh Jin-sim, to officially go out with me. And I hope you give me your approval."

How do you think our Glamours actress will respond to this plea deal?

Summary Judgment: TYK is the perfect holiday for Kromcom devotees. It frames itself as a descendant of the film Roman Holiday, in which a princess (Audrey Hepburn) trades her carriage for a motorcycle after Escaping The Palace. In heavy contrast to the starched isolation of court, she is propelled by a rumbling hot motor to experience life, citizen-style: Fun. Adventure, + a dear & sincere romance inside a brief run. TYK could be referred to as Legal Holiday… or Office Holiday? A Brief Holiday In Motion? Contempt Overturned In 3 Months?

Exhibit Z: The soundtrack is downright Spotifiable.

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✒⚗Smart Patches Diabolical Minds & Victims' Circles °3.9° °disastrous°

The 1-sentence review: Don't let the snazzy opening fool you. Keep the lid shut on this show or suffer.

Pandora, in legend, was created by the gods as payback for people obtaining fire from Prometheus. As the 1st woman, she carried a jar (or box) that contained all evil. When opened, evil & misery entered the world. Therefore, the title only serves as a metaphor for the show. Open this “jar,” & misery will follow.

Need convincing? We'll keep going.

Introducing Clover, a neural implant smart patch. It's a revolutionary medical device brought to us by Hatch. It allows direct input of data into the brain. No more studying! The chimp they've been testing on, “Red”, has an IQ of 120. After the demonstration that opens the show, Hatch is primed to make gazillions.

What could go wrong here?

The viewer is tipped off that things will go horribly wrong in many ways. The filming is dark & near psychedelic at times, while the soundtrack is heavily portentous. ‘This isn't going to be a lite feel-good watch,’ I was thinking. That woulda been OK. The problem is that 🅿 is patched together worse than Hanul Psychiatric Hospital's worst attempt at reconstructing Frankenstein.

🅿 is overrated at 89 on AWiki, which is just shocking to me. The IMDB crowd is at 6.2. It gets off to a hot start. The opening eps are fantastic. I love how Tae, the main protag, wears a very heavy gold chain that's wrapped around her neck twice. It's emblematic of being shackled. At times the action is great, especially early on. They promised the audience more, but their promises were unfulfilled. The filmcraft is outstanding - truly stunning, at times. (It's a shame that it was wasted on this effort). “So far, I don't understand the low ratings,” thought I. Turns out, the crowd is overly generous & must have weighed in before completing the show, b/c 🅿 is a disaster. It just doesn't become obvious until the 2nd half.

Gradually, it comes into focus that there is no focus, no cohesive plot. They bring up tantalizing possibilities w/o follow-through. 🅿 is not an assassin or girl-kicks-butt thriller; it's not a political nor a science thriller. It dips his toes into varied waters but never dives in. Characters haphazardly shift their allegiances. There's also gross over-acting. Bottoming out at downright insulting, it's so thoroughly incompetent that it really is breathtaking.

These people, who seem so happy, sure do turn on eachother.

The women:

Lee Ji Ah is FL Hong “Tae” Ra. On paper her life is perfect but she has no memory of her past. She's starting to get creepy flashbacks. The actress plays someone who inspires disgust in My Mister-9.5, a show that all should watch. Here she's relatable, which speaks to her skill. She's a victim. Her family life ended when her parents were killed in a car “accident “ that may not have been an accident. As an orphan, her victimization intensified.

Jang Hee Jin (Flower of Evil-8.9) plays Ko Haesoo “HSoo,” a reporter who is also a victim. Her husband & Tae's spouse head up Hatch. Her father is a former president who was assassinated & the crime has never been solved. Heartbreak drove her mother to suicide. HSoo's also an irritating lunatic. It's hard to root for a person who is that toxic & self-absorbed, even if she's been through legitimate trauma. She acts like she's the only one who has suffered loss, but none of these protags still has both parents. Something true of mentally ill people is replete self-absorption. HSoo is unhinged & blind to everyone else's pain. What's more tragically ironic is that too much self-focus only leads to despair, & HSoo crossed that threshold long ago. She's also raising a monster, so we can't even give her credit for being a good mom. Later on, they try to turn her into some kind of mastermind, but it isn't convincing, nor is it emotionally satisfying as she's still so tediously odious.

Han Soo-Yeon is Tae's sister& business partner Hong Yura. She has a new bf, but she's cryptic abt him. She seems perfect ~ at 1st glance. Soon we see that she's horrible. Yura ends up a victim as well. Kyeon Mi Ri is HSoo's mother i/l. She is often the rich mom in shows like Revolutionary Love-5.7 & Backstreet Rookie-6.4. She's a cutie, but she's distasteful in most of 🅿. Shim So-Young (Alchemy of Souls-8.3) plays the loathsome mental hospital director, Kim Sun-Deok. Her laugh is really too much; even for a heavy show, her part is over the top.

Let's hear it for Red, she really wowed the crowd before she becomes a victim.

The men:

Lee Sang Yoon (Lovestruck in the City-7.3) plays Tae's husband, Pyo “Jae” Hyun. They are deeply in love, & he seems unfazed by her shrouded past. He's preparing to take a sabbatical as Hatch CEO so that he can run for president. He's a victim. His mother was killed in the same accident that took Tae's parents.

Park Ki Woong/KiW (The King's Affection-8.3) is Jang “Do” Jin, the other half of the Hatch helm & HSoo's husband. Early on we see that KiW is not the devoted partner that Jae is. When we meet his toxic parents, we understand: He's a victim caught in his family's web. Bong Tae Kyu plays the nerdy creative force behind Hatch"s success, “Koo” Sung Chan. He's weak, which turns him into more of a victimizer. Hong Woo Jin (Squid Game-8.4) is Jang Kyojin/”Kyo”. He's a victim. He's been comatose since a motorbike accident that was prob NOT accidental.

Jung Jae-Sung is politician Han Kyung-Rok. Actors from Korea do the arrogant “knowing laugh” better than anyone in the 🌏, & he's among the best. (A funny guy I know always does a mock-up of the “knowing laugh,” so while it used to make me want to strangle the person inflicting it on my eardrums, now it just reminds me of him doing it for fun, so I giggle instead. Humor is the best medicine, indeed). He's often casted as an @$$h0le w/ power. I've seen him in Hospital Playlist-9, Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency-7.4, My Mister-9.5, Clean w/ Passion For Now-7, The King's Affection-8.3, & Big Mouth-7.4. He's been in many other wildly successful shows that I intend to get to asap. On MDL, his only sub-7 show is The Interest of Love at 6.8. He must have eaten magic beans that make him entirely distasteful but wildly successful to be in that many stellar features.

This is Screenwriter Hyun Ji Min's 1st credited work. The director is Choi Young Hoon of One the Woman, & the original creator is Kim HSoon Ok of The Penthouse series.

The theme is Victims. Sadly, most of us have been victimized in small or big ways. Being victimized leaves a person w/ a choice: Heal & move on, or let the pain rule (and ruin) your life. Healing must, at some point, involve forgiveness. (That has nothing to do w/ justice; for the benefit of society, crimes must be punished). HSoo personifies the concept that becoming a victim does not a saint create. Being victimized will tempt a person to wallow in anger, hatred, unforgiveness & bitterness. It's understandable, but in the end, those dark indulgences will only rot us out from within. Almost every character in 🅿 has been victimized, & almost every character chooses the path of bitterness & revenge. A mess it does make.

In ep2 we go back 15 yrs. The president is being inaugurated… & assassinated. Flashes of this past jolt Tae. A furtive missive, delivered by an untraceable tattooed motorcyclist, entices her to come to the Hanul Psychiatric Hospital, a visit that breaks the lock on her past. Soon we are looking at shades of the show Hanna-7, which is about teen girls being turned into assassins. This isn't the first time such a plot has come out of hiding: The 1990 film, La Femme Nikita, also involves young Iron Maidens. Bridget Fonda starred in 1993's Point Of No Return, which was Hollywood's version of the same film. (The French one is better). Let's not forget the absolute bang-jammy of the dudette insurgent bunch - Kickass. Ooo, the Swedish version of The Girl w/ A Dragon Tattoo (+2 sequels) is also as good as it gets. Once again, skip Hollywood's variant of these flicks. When thugs come at Tae, muscle memory kicks… then punches, slashes & tosses. It's SO (swordless) KILL BILL - for a scant moment, but that excitement goes away & never reappears. Whaaaa?

There's too many logical gaps, eg: It makes no sense that enemies seem to have unfettered access to a helpless person who has suffered a stroke. There's a USB that supposedly contains research files but it's inexplicably necessary to run Hatch's programs. Jae's campaign should have been dead after a voice file was released, but the problem evaporates. It's alittle too easy for enemies to sneak up on Tae, who's flawless until the show renders her impotent to push the plot. It's inconsistent & sloppy: Is she a female terminator, or a pathetic woman in distress? When we are introduced to Tae, we should have seen her vigorous workout routine. It would bolster credibility when she starts kicking butt out of the blue. In ep13, CEO Kummo is sent a packet of shocking evidence. He's elated. The problem is that all of it had already been on the national news - as reported by his own daughter i/l.

In the last half, I no longer cared what happened & rolled my eyes at every development. Eps14-16 status: ‘Officially offended’. This is when they attempt to manufacture emotion w/ some deaths, but it all falls flat. They attempt to wrap it up w/ pretty bows, but it's too little too late. While ep16 is not as painful to watch as the previous 4, it's painful, still the same, w/ a sacrifice that is unnecessary & plain silly. Not that I cared who lived or died by then. Kill ‘em all. Ease my pain.

Another thing that will ease my pain is by helping anyone who stumbles onto this review avoid that pain altogether. Try It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9, Law School -8, My Mister 9.5, or Blood Free-8.5 instead.

〰 IMHO

📣4 📝3 🎭5 💓3 🦋2 🎨8 🎵/🔊5.5 🔚2 ▪ 🌞3 ⚡5.5 😅0 😭4 😱4 😯4 🤢2.5 🤔1 💤4


Poli-wagging: 3/10. They make politicians in, general, look bad. That's fair.

Age 15+ for graphic, heavy violence; Language: R-rated $h!+, b!÷ch F💣s
Rated TV-MA: Mature Audience Only. Not that any mature person would enjoy this.

It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9,
Law School -8,
Call It Love-8.4,
Anna-8.1,
My Mister 9.5,
Uncle Samsik-8.4,
Mine-8,
The King's Affection 8.3,
Parasite-9

Action/Crime/Sci-fi -
Private Lives 8.1,
K2 8,
Vagabond-8,
Blood Free-8.5
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9

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♥️ She comes & goes but it's all about those ❣♥❣ °7.2° °VG°

It's just dinner… Psych! It's more than that. Hae prefers treating patients in a restaurant. Food is happy & comforting. His charges relax more over a meal - they open up. Hmm… Maybe he just doesn't like eating alone.

Song Seung Heon is Dr. Kim “Hae” Kyung. He's a psychiatrist, so he's all alone. I've seen him in Saimdang-8.5 & Black-9. Those shows made me a BIG fan, though I wasn't crazy about his bad guy part in Black Knight-7. Seo Ji Hye (Crash Landing on You-9.1) plays Woo Do “Hee”. They do a couple of cute call-outs to CLOY. She's reunited w/ her CLOY co-star & love interest, Kim Jung Hyun (Mr. Queen-9). Here, he's not the man of her dreams. He is Hee's jerkface soon-to-be EX-lover. Hee seems dignified, but she has a silly sense of humor that pours out into her productions, 3-Stooges-inspired, all. On paper, these 2 are mismatched. In reality, they are ramen & kimchi: The perfect compliment.

It started in Jeju. Actually, it started on the plane ride over, though they didn't make a good impression on e/o then. She's going to get engaged! She's making a big deal about it. He's rolling his eyes, and “NO,” he won't do a video congratulations for her! Later, they end up at the same restaurant where he watches her get dumped - the opposite of therapeutic. One thing leads to another and they end up having dinner together, & staying at the same hotel, but they don't exchange phone #s… or even names. They won't exchange names for around half of the show. They fall in love before exchanging names! She offers a thank-you dinner to him when they are both back in Seoul, but he declines. His recusal was unintentionally unkind. He thought he was being clever when he told her that the next time a hit by Tae Jinah tops the charts, he'll meet her at 8:00 at a certain restaurant. The implication is that it'll never happen.

When she gets back to work, she's given a tough assignment. She must recruit a reclusive but daring & handsome psychiatrist to be on her podcast. It's all about those ♥❣♥, & he will generate them. You get one guess as to whom /he/ is. She doesn't know it yet, though. Neither does Hae.

DM is a 2020 release that is rated 82 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 16 70-minute or 32 35-minute episodes. This show stays small and uneventful, yet it works, somehow. For perspective's sake, I'll mention that I'm working through Prime's catalog and I just finished My Man Is Cupid-5.9, and Heartbeat-4.8, and they were tough to finish. DM was not. Everyone has their own line of demarcation. The show moves forward, linearly. It keeps its focus and doesn't wander.

Hae doesn't do podcasts. He does food therapy. He /ignores/ her email. This leads to a follow-up email pointing out that manners maketh a man, and he appears to have ⭕. An aggressive exchange follows, which then becomes an in-person exchange - an /attempt/ at one, that is. They each go to their other's place of business to finish the argument, but since they do it at the same time, they don't meet up then. They sure as shizzle know they can't stand e/o.

Their quest for an outrage-unload is interrupted when Tae Jinah's ‘She Comes and Goes’ hits the top of the charts! Fate is serving up popovers: Drop everything! They have a date at the fish market.

Soon… “You hate takeout. Why don't you want to go out?” Hae is acting weird. “Oh, I'm afraid I'll run into that weird woman.” “What woman is that?” “One that makes me want to ramble on.” They /refuse/ to accept coincidence after coincidence that keeps them running into e/o, as “fate,” but they finally take the step of agreeing to share meals together as “dinner mates.” No dating, no borrowing money, no TOUCHING, just meals. It's ep5 and they haven't exchanged names yet. (If they had, it would all fall apart because they detest e/o - professionally. His steadfast refusal to be on her webcast has up-ended her career). One thing that drives them to form an alliance is that their exes are back in town. Each of them had suffered a brutal breakup and neither of them wants to be available for their exes to pick their bones.

As they continue to meet privately and spat professionally, the big reveal has teeth that keep growing. They've grown used to e/o. To learn that they loathe e/o will hurt. Around that halfway mark it occurred to me that not much had happened. It is all small plates. I was enjoying the flavor, nevertheless.

Lee Ji Hoon (Rookie Historian-7.6) portrays Hee's ex, Jung “Jae” Hyeok. He's got the hardest job of the show and he handles it well. Son Na Eun (Ghost Doctor) plays Hae's gorgeous ex, Jin Noh “Eul”. Ye Ji Won (Brain Works) is the adorable Nam Ah Young, '2N Box' CEO and Hee's boss. It would be a much more boring show without her. She provides the fun & flash - It would be a much more boring show w/out her. She dresses like an anime character. I love it. She's involved in the most fantastical 2ndary romance. Kim Seo Kyung (My Country: The New Age) is the nervous Lee Byung Jin, Hae Kyung's nurse. The intrinsically affable Park Ho San is Keanu, a mysterious homeless man with a booming laugh that draws a person in like a beacon. He's starred in Departure, Sun & Would You Like a Cup of Coffee? I've seen him in My Mister-9.5, Prison Playbook-almost done - it's wonderful, & Han River Police-7.4. He's a plus in any production.

Ko Kyu Pil (Crash Landing on You-9.1, The King's Affection-8.3) normally enhances any scene he's in. In DM he plays Hee's coworker, Park Jin Gyu. They could have used him better. He's a 2D cartoon in DM. Yoon Bok In is Do Hee's mother. She's always good. In More Than Friends-8 she really showcases her talent. The directors are Go Jae Hyun (Player, Café Minamdang), & Park Bong Sub of The Uncanny Counter (S1-8.4 S2-4). This is screenwriter Kim Joo's 1st effort, and it's based on the original work of Park Jae Bum who gifted us with Vincenzo & The Fiery Priest.

I kept waiting to be disappointed with DM. So many shows flounder in the double digit episodes. DM, admirably, takes on quiet depth. The acting is excellent, as well. It started to surprise me. Hee has to look at her father and say ‘I love you. You're a good dad. But you're so mean to mom. I'll support her, whatever her decision is.’ Respect and loyalty DO NOT mean you're supposed to support a loved one's evil or wrong behavior. Loyalty demands the exact opposite, as the true virtue of loyalty is always first loyal to truth.

“Do you like that man?” Her friend is curious. Hee shakes her head. “I do not want to... I won't. I won't like that man.” Soon after: “That's when I realized that your efforts to deceive your heart come to nothing when you truly like someone.” This is a cozy romance. The main couple doesn't emit sparks but they do emit warmth. They are embers, not a raging fire. The show is comfortable to watch, and this couple feels homey.

“I gave him up... because the person I love must be happy! You guys must have no conscience. You say you love them, but you have no interest in their happiness.” One of the side characters scolds Hae's ex. She is trying to get him back despite the fact that he's clearly in love with Hee. Ditto for Jae, Hee's ex. Here's 2 people ready to love the other and commit to the best for the other. They are contrasted with their exes who want to get back with each of them for selfish reasons. The exes want personal fulfillment and are looking to be physically and emotionally catered to. If they are willing to give in kind, that's one thing. But they aren't and they won't because they are utterly self-involved. Mentally ill people are all 💯% self-involved. Are all self-involved people mentally ill? I dunno. Maybe. Jae certainly is. Eul has childhood trauma she's working through, and she's certainly not “well”.

Hee reflexively covers for Jae when he does embarrassing things. But is she really covering for him? She can't release her shame. He's her past, and she's ashamed of her past. She's ashamed of her failure. She's ashamed that she felt for this messed up guy. She's ashamed that she can't make a clean break. At the core of it is that she doesn't feel worthy of this wonderful man, Hae. Not much is happening in these episodes, yet they held my attention because they're insightful.

One can't erase the past or hide it forever. “My life & my relationships are ridiculous. We love & break up. We fight & resent e/o... I thought my pain wasn't that special & I was doing okay. But it was a delusion. My relationship is a mess.” Hee has unresolved hurts. Once they get together, their past hurts are denying them peace. Not only are their exes physically present, but they are emotionally there as well. I was also angry at Hee. Talk about misplaced guilt, taking on other people's problems, & covering for toxic offenders! What she's really doing is self-sabotage. She's terrified. I hated what she was doing. Yet I was looking forward to seeing how they resolved it.

DM isn't perfect. There's videos of him being a vigilante, but they never follow-up on that motif. It's our Introduction to Hae, and yet that part of him goes into hiding and is never seen again. That is a flaw. They don't do a good enough job explaining Jae, his background, and his actions when he broke up with Hee and then disappeared for 6 years. The flaws are more than compensated for with cute touches and warmth. In ep6 they have dinner together and they're pretty much matching, already. We learn about Panama La Esmeralda Geisha coffee. I looked it up. It's expensive. There's some nice graphics - They have fun with gimmicks and polished effects. They show months of dating by way of a social media page filling up with photos. It's cute.

This director knows how to utilize camera, cutting, special effects and music to augment funny scenes. There's one contest that they film in slow-mo, fan blowing the hair back, and onlookers also being blown away; it's done for very good comedic effect. They totally forget the no-touching rule at that time and hug. “You have a dinner mate!? Is he handsome? Are you sure you're not dating him? Do you want to date him?” Hee's friend is all a-buzz. “At least he's not like that psycho psychiatrist. If he comes near me, that's the end of him.” Hee believes she'll take that rage to the grave 😅.

Hae's finest moment is at work. Sure, she lost her show due to that jerk, but B-class comedy never dies! They all cheer. (Hero music. Fade out). Hee… Hae… Hey, what else should I say? I think this is worth the watch. Is it in my top 50? Probably not. It's still a tasty snack, though.


In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:

Simple & Sweet -

99 days with the Superstar-7,
Mad For Each Other-7.7 ~ silly fun,
Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha-8.2,
My First First Love-8,
My Roommate Is a Gumiho-7.9,
Romance is a bonus book-7.9,
Touch your heart 8.2,
Another Miss Oh-7.5,
Love Struck in the City 7.3,
Our Blues-8.5,
Be Melodramatic-8.7

🎎 -
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

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

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Try 2 Find a Better Answer to the Question ~ How Did You 2 Get Together? °Superior°

~All spoilers are at the bottom in a clearly marked section ~

TROTAR: A New Take on the Battle of the Sexes with Romance, Grace, & Ultimate Masculinity on Display. It is Superior.

This precious RomComDram is about a novice screenwriter whose script has been sold, but she was advised to work with the ML on objections he has to it. She despises him from moment zero. He curtly states he doesn't u/s his character's motivations. He can't see how the lead man/villain, Han Shuo (HShuo), would be attracted to ChuChu (Chu), the heroine. ‘Some people will never fall in love,’ he explains, ‘just like you and me,’ he tactlessly adds. ‘Have you ever been in a relationship/in love?’ she's asked, while she fumes. Oh, one more thing: "Your script seems chauvinistic." Grrrr.

She then scrambles over a feverish, junk-food-fueled weekend to make 'corrections,' even though she thinks /he/ is completely wrong. Exhausted, she passes out (with a tissue still up one nostril) and wakes up in the world of her script. It isn't a dream: She's really there, and she's stuck there.

YIKES! She's a disposable character, the 3rd Princess, Xiaoqian (XQ), who has the restraint and thoughtfulness of Udai Hussein. More importantly, she's scripted to get whacked in ep3! She decides to not risk finding out if dying in her vision equals real death. As the black hearted HShuo, her perfect villain, is to poison her on their wedding night, she'll tackle that 1st.

She's shocked to see that HShuo looks like that rude actor! He's excellent at playing up his heart condition and taking on other false personas - He can really act. Hmmm. While XQ manages to avoid being murdered on schedule, she'll have to watch that villain, while also trying to set him up with the heroine Chu, all while being married to him, so she can conclude the story and go home. HShuo is essential to her plot, so he must not die.

She penned HShuo, the ruthless prince of Xuanhu, w/ a bad heart that will kill him by age 20. Her plot calls for Chu & him to fall in love. In order to heal him, Chu will steal the Dragon Bone, Huayuan's most precious treasure. Ultimately, he betrays Chu to conquer Huayuan, and Chu kills HShuo in battle, taking the city back.

The filming is next level elegant. The sets are arrayed in perfect detail. The costumes〰 I was unable to avert my gaze from the resplendent rainbow of silks. The fluid dance of the fighting scenes along with exalted acrobatics & flowing robes augment the actors' movements w/ stunning results. Luxi Zhao, as the script writer/Xiaoqian/ XQ, is radiant & sparkling. Her smile lights the screen. Ding Yuxi, as HShuo, displays phenomenal skill. He just has the goods when it comes to acting. He can be ruthless or adoring. It's not his words that project how he feels about XQ, it's his body language, his focus, and his eyes. He has intensity.

The script reflects XQ's frustration over the disparity between the sexes. She created two adjacent cities. Xuanhu is ruled by men, which is the case in most (all?) of our collective history on this planet. The women are to serve the men and manage the home. In Huayuan, however, the situation is the exact opposite. Women do every important job and those worthless men manage the home and serve their wives. The actors were tasked to embody male-female roll-reversal as citizens of Huayuan City. They did an amazing job. Women are boorish and contemptuous of men. The male actors are mind blowing. Every muscle in their bodies mirrors a woman that is gentle, doting, & subservient. It's worth a rewatch just to focus on the performances.

The entire role reversal is handled deftly. XQ snickers in glee at first analysis. It's funny, until it starts to feel uncomfortable, and then horrific - in both cities. Very few citizens are truly pleased with their lives. Watching men being beaten and treated as pleasure slaves brings no respite to those that decry violence against women. Each city is extreme, and each one needs to be balanced out.

As things unfold, we see that HShuo, has the most attractive form of masculinity: a strong protector who loves his woman so much that, if necessary, he would give his life for her, and would never let family or politics get in the way of their relationship. He would definitely help with the housework, too. As it's the opposite of toxic masculinity, let's call it Ultimate Masculinity. This manliness is tempered by love. Together this couple is the equilibrium that the two cities lack.

HShuo falls for XQ episodes before she reciprocates. She's too busy with her plotline to notice his - or even her own - feelings. While he's trying to make their marriage work, she's trying to fix him up with her sister Chu, the heroine. At the same time, every opportunity he has to be alone with XQ is blocked by his kind, but idiot servant, Bai-ji. XQ hurts him repeatedly, and confuses him with her attentions to other men, particularly her long time fiance, Pei (XQ's favorite character). Pei hates the 3rd Princess and has delayed their marriage. This isn't the same princess, though…

She created the script with its flaws that manifest themselves in front of her. She devised uh the characters with their disabilities, problems, and deficiencies, only to now work tirelessly trying to fix (undo) everything and everybody that she constructed. That's seriously entertaining. Her only advantage is that she knows the story, as well as each character's background and motivations. It shouldn't be too difficult, right? To her dismay, the changes she makes start to change the story and, thus, the characters' reactions. This alters their trajectories. She, herself, is tragically misunderstood at every turn. Xiaoqian is just trying to preserve her life, but the rewrites push the first Mahjong tile. Now they are all ting-ting-tinging to the floor, albeit in a beautiful pattern.

Due to Xiaoqian's efforts, Chu does fall for HShuo, who reciprocates with dismissiveness, as he's in love with XQ. In addition, the revised 3rd Princess is solving problems and winning the hearts of the people. Their mother, the city owner, dotes over XQ, but always criticizes Chu, who freefalls into hurt-jealousy-hate-&-obsessive-devouring-rage. As Chu plummets, the plot gets out of control. XQ must get help! She runs to 3 story writers (who else?!). Every time she has a crisis they all meet together. She only gives them the barest info, though. She grabs some fruit and presents the main characters: Miss Apple, Miss Orange, and Mr. Banana. Yep, they went there. The fruit sets up a collection of silly, but quite amusing metaphors. As her character is the Miss Orange, when offered one she exclaims: "PEEL the orange? That's bad luck." Given that at that moment she's angry with Han Shuo, her next statement is: "Peel the banana." Not so much later, after saying: "I don't want to see you anymore," she slips on the banana peel and goes airbourne, but of course, he catches her in his eager arms.

She's charged to eliminate the threat of bandits along the trade route. The whole trip is delightful. At one point she gets caught up in some excitement and seems to have completely forgotten her mission. I won't spoil it. Expect to laugh. There's another hilarious scene where characters meet at a restaurant/playhouse to have a discussion, meaning an argument. There's a stretch where the characters say nothing. They just stare at each other as the actors in the play voice exactly what each is thinking. The scene is high flown comedy.

TROTAR is a commentary on men and women's relationships and the tragedy of the out-of-control battle of the sexes. It has thrust the sword through romance and made so many relationships miserable. It's a zero-sum contest.

This show is romance-porn for women because of the way HShuo loves XQ and how he looks at her. From what I've been told, what HShuo might want back is to be respected (don't we all), even looked up to a little, to be a tiny bit nurtured, and to be treasured above all. As proof, he asked her flat out if it was him or her mother more than once. At a (fake) funeral he makes a joke to her that if she doesn't keep her promise, he'll let her know 'who wears the pants in the family,' which is a top-10-worst of historical chauvinistic statements. Should XQ flip out? Remember, this is HShuo. As much as he adores her, do you think he'll call even 20% of the shots in the family? What's wrong with her quipping 'yes, dear,' even if she winks while she does it? It's a bit of a dance. Marriage is optional. If one is to marry, giving it the best chance to succeed by providing embedded core needs for each other is as much smart as much as it is love.

We've probably all seen men marry a beautiful woman and then crush her by jamming her into a mold. Wives can do that to husbands by belittling them, completely losing a sense of humor, or nagging. Kudos to the show creators for shining light on those insidious patterns, as perfectly illustrated by the first couple of Xuanhu. In the role reversal, however, women becpme every bit as bad as men. The author is saying that we don't have a gender problem, or even a racial problem. We have a human nature problem. XQ gives the women of Xuanhu the answer: Work on yourself. It isn't that injustice shouldn't be called out, but too much focus on other people's ills can subtly allow us to feel superior, like we don't need to improve ourselves. That's self-deception. If we don't like being disrespected, sure, call it out, but the longterm answer is to show respect and work on ourselves. The more we improve, the more respect we garner. We will not complain ourselves to a better world. Perhaps exercising patience & choosing happiness, contentment, & forgiveness will usher in peace & love.

That's enough of the deep thoughts. The show is funny, then heart wrenching, and finally buoyant. Romantics will be swept away by this series. As almost every line seems to carry significance, there is foreshadowing, metaphors, excellent (superb!) editing, skillful juxtaposition and other devices utilized, TROTAR is a production of the highest quality. It could hardly be improved on. The show has so few deficiencies that the minor ones stand out a little more. While on the runaway horse in the show opening, close-ups of Xiaoqian are out of sync with the moving background. They overplayed the cute, but kitschy, theme song. Otherwise, the soundtrack is lovely. In the last couple scenes Xiaoqian's makeup looks ghastly pale and uneven. In addition, they have a bad habit of not putting makeup on the back half of the actors' necks, so they appear red and sickly on screen.

Finally, I think the last line in the show should be: "Are we married?"

Sweet dreams, all!

〰Quotes〰

Pain is unavoidable.

Great sorrow comes from great joy. Tragedy and comedy have always shared the same root.


〰IMHO〰

Directing 10
Acting 9
Thought provocation 7
Action/Excitement 8
Art 10
Music & Sound 7
Age 11+


⛔️Spoiler section⛔️
While XQ exiled HShuo to save him from being killed by Chu, HShuo & Chu end up joining together to invade Huayuan. When the city is taken back, HShuo is sentenced to death. He and XQ consummate their marriage in the jail cell. The next morning, the city owner refuses XQ's plea for mercy, so she drives a knife into her stomach. That stops everything.

Hey! Unclench! It's a prop knife! She's faking her death so they can escape to Xuanhu. They get a brief time to enjoy married life there.

They are forced to invade Huayuan in order to liberate it from Chu, who's starting to mirror Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. The plot won't be denied. Chu pierces HShuo's sternum. Lungs punctured, he's dying. XQ starts vanishing. Gasping, she can't reach him.

She awakes IRL with the tissue still planted in her nostril & quickly learns that the leads actor is in the hospital with near deadly lung damage from an accident. She rushes to the hospital. When he sees her, he jumps in shock and tells her to get away from him! He had the weirdest dream, he explains, and woke up thinking about apples, oranges, and her all the time. (No wonder HShuo was not evil and he could act so well!) She runs into the arms of the rude jerk who had said the two of them would never be a couple.

She had penned the perfect romantic hero.

XQ revises her script to save ChuChu and give Xiaoqian & Han Shuo a happy-ever-after. The End.

〰Romantic Fantasy Recs〰

K: My Only Love Song 8.7 excellent comedy; The Legend of the Blue Sea-7.2; Hotel del Luna-8.4; Live Up To Your Name-7.6; Oh My Ghost 10. C: Love Between Fairy & Devil 8.9; The Sleepless Princess 9.1; Ancient Love Poetry-8.6; Love and Redemption 10.

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A Delectable Mash Up Of Tim Burton Wes Anderson & Rainman °Flutters Superior°

Bring your own smores.

I won't try to describe this. Just get in the camper and journey with these characters.

This review, and the show itself is not about splitting hairs over the level of accuracy vis-a-vie certain mental ailments or whether the plot is plausible. Trust me, I understand the pain mental illness brings home. The show creators are giving us a little therapy and laughter in the hurt. It's entertaining enough to mute outside interference and provide a safe space for a little escape.

Every element is a win: Acting, costumes, characters, character arcs, sets, plot, dialogue, writing, directing, and soundtrack. (I want to jump in and have my own nice, long, cathartic, airing-out-my-lungs argument with this gang. What an emotional high-colonic that would be.)

It all comes together to make something that is truly stylish, sad, sagacious, sanguine, and... SUBLIME. It is way better than just okay.

IMHO〰

Directing 9
Acting 9
Romance 8
Flutters 6
Warmth 7
Art 9
Action 6
Thought provocation 7

Age 14+

Re-watch? Absolutely

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Ou·ch ✈️ Just Keep Swinging °7.6° °VG+°

Arranged marriages? A bitter fight for the throne? One that turns otherwise decent people and caring siblings into mortal enemies? This is exactly like a Chinese historical feature. In TBWY, they exchange the word “corporate” for ”palace”.

He's on the run, but it half-looks like a circus performance. In order to evade his pursuers, he's flipping over tables while diners’ repast is undisturbed. He's that smooth. The opening seconds remind me of the 2004 French film District B13 (Banlieue 13) in which the street kids are all amazing acrobats (It's on Prime! Ima watch it again. Hey! We're in Paris, too!) Mei was just setting the cafe's sign out on the sidewalk as part of her opening ritual when Ou pauses for a microsecond to decide his next move. Then he flips right over her. Mei screams and ducks. She didn't have to do either, though. Mei is getting ready to return to China. She misses her bf. She's saying her goodbyes. Ou is headed back, too. Those pursuers? They were sent by his Fughee, chairdad.

TBWY is a 2019 release that is rated 7.7 on MAL. Lin Ji Dong (First Marriage, Hi, 30 Years Old!) is the Screenwriter & Director. It is 1 season consisting of 65 45-minute episodes, which is a bundle. Could it have been shorter? But of course! Unlike so many shows, though, they keep the pace steady and keep marching forward. They don't wander around. I didn't find myself getting annoyed, which is something that seems to be happening more quickly these days. There are so many shows that start to drag due to empty filler and plain silly stuff. None of that happened here. Chinese modern-day dramas aren't for everyone. There's a premium on simplicity & stress relief. They love their melodrama, too. Simple doesn't mean “dumb.” They have a good handle on human nature. Like old black and white movies, watching at first seems foreign (unintended pun) but the only way to assess if it is for you is to dive in. Precursor: China does NOT do realism. If your white sneakers are always 🥛⬜, and you tend to prefer realism, China is not your place. I love fantasy and sci-fi most of all with romance being a close 2nd. I would argue that a good romance IS fantasy, but I digress. Anyone who argues this show and ones like it are too low IQ is really saying that s/he prefers realism. That's hard-wiring. It isn't a matter of right or wrong.

In some ways the cutesy-wootsy dynamic of the 2 leads reminds me of my marriage. I was married to a guy who was always making jokes, always teasing, and always poking fun. I was more focused on goals and accomplishing things. He would pick on me until I laughed or yelled at him to 🛑! At that point, he would start laughing and say: "You're so much fun.” I'm not the fun one! He is! Ou thinks Mei is the fun one, but Ou is the FUN one, and he's always good natured. She's become his favorite plaything. He thinks she's a blast. It's adorable. He's adorable.

Of course, headed back to China from Paris, she's next to him on the plane. She doesn't remember him from the sidewalk, nor the way he made her scream. With all the security detail around him, she figures he's a star. So, she drinks too much champagne and bugs him for a selfie with her, and his autograph. He's had enough of her! It's a shame that he grabs her suitcase instead of his own. He's going to have to see her again.

Sun Shao from Long Bad Daddy is Ou Yang. There's no way this guy isn't naturally happy IRL. Ou's a good natured kid who recognizes a good girl when he sees one. This actor is a great male lead and he makes the show. His father is the chairman, a ruthless businessman who has stepped over the line a few times. His mother is what would have been called a “handsome” woman. That's all I'll say. She isn't happy. She's been drinking heavily. Wan Si Wei (The New Painted Skin) portrays the truly good and lovely “Li” Dong, Ou's bestie. He's darling and delightfully debonair. Chai Bi Yun from Be Your Own Light is Lin Mei Ya, our FL. Mei was a sickly child. She learned to endure pain and hold it in with a bright smile. She was in the hospital bed, but it was she who was cheering up her own father. Now, Mei is bright, sweet, and adorable. She leaps into her boyfriend's arms when he picks her up at the airport. She missed him so much! She's so happy to see him! It's a shame he's been cheating on her.

Mei's father runs an outdoor eatery and he's sweating over a hot stove when she arrives at home. We intermittently go between Mei's reunion and Ou's. He's eating with his father, mother and sister at a table that could fit 20. The food is hot, but the climate is cold. His father's displeased with him for going to Paris and never telling the family. Zhang Qiu Ge (Xi Shi: Beauty of Spring and Autumn, 1911 Revolution, The Glorious Era) plays the Ou dad, Ou Chang Lin. The hairrrr. His hair says it all. Politicians wish they could coif like that. It's ramrod straight in the air and black and white like Cruella Deville. His head is quite large and the hair is doubly large. “Baba Ou” has largeness, but he has no largess. He seems oily and greedy, and he's thoroughly unlikable. Ou’s sister, Rui, always looks miserable, and his mother is detached. Fuhgee starts lecturing Ou about what he needs to do if he ever wants to take over the company. Rui is doing a great job, Ou points out. She should just have it. Sis, fed up, leaves. Mom then drops a comment like cold acid: “You don't want to give the company to her because she's not your real daughter, correct?” 🌬Brrrr. We cut back to Mei who is showing off her new cooking skills. Everyone is smiling and warm. Everyone but Mei's bf “Chen” Zhe (Zhang Tao from Nothing but You, The Old Dreams).

Later that night they discover the bag switch. They sort of get to know e/o by rifling through the suitcases. She watches his MMA fights. He reads her prose. When they finally begin the exchange, she goes to Ou’s company and learns that Chen works there! He never mentioned the new job that she can recall. She seems not to notice how uncomfortable he is with her there. By the end of ep3, Chen has broken up with Mei. WOOSH! He's gone. It's SO SAD. He did it at her father's restaurant. Right across the street, there's Ou, hanging with Li. They see everything, including Mei sobbing in the middle of the road. Ou & Li scoop her up. Li has been watching their interactions all day in near amazement. He seems interested in Mei himself. He's been watching her work the food stall from his family's restaurant across the street for years. Now, he sees the tension between these two.

One of the many trolls in the cave is Li WeiWei, Li's little sister (Shen Tao Ran from Stealing Dragon and Turning Cat). He got all the goodness & she got all the brattiness of the family. She sees Ou as her property (She claims he promised to marry her if she completed her 4 years of study in Japan without bothering anyone. He doesn't recall that). She notices that Ou is too differential to Mei, and he's spending entirely too much time with Mei, so she tortures Mei. Li has to step in and re-educate his spoiled brat of a sister. She keeps pulling deranged stunts and gets herself (and others) into no end of trouble. WeiWei is spoiled. At some point, though, Mei decides that Weiwei is cute and treats her well no matter what she does. It's a working strategy.

Ou is also immature. He doesn't want to work. Fughee is forcing him to. When he sees Mei pour wine on top of a snobby girl who insults her, he asks her to be his secretary. She needs a job and he does love a good fight. Also, he needs a secretary who can stand up to pushy interferers. Immediately, these two are comfortable with e/o. One could have guessed that as Ou's secretary, Mei is kickin’ it! He loves to tease her but he continues to reach out to her and help her. The ugly break-up Mei suffered is also weighing on Ou, who does NOT like Chen. He pieces together Chen’s career path; his stratospheric rise at the company can't be random. The way everything played out, he believes Chen has a rich and powerful female backer. He suspects one of the department managers. He has no idea it's his own sister.

DAYAM! Ou's sister and Chen get U.G.L.Y. - they ain't got no alibi, they UGLY! It's very weirdly typical of people who have done somebody wrong. Feelings of guilt make them angrier at the person they've wronged and they get even uglier, convincing themselves that somehow, this person deserves it. All they're doing is taking out their misplaced anger at themselves on the other person. Rui ends up pausing and changing course, which most people can't do. Chen remains selfish until the end - Chen’s insecurity led to pride which led to greed which led to him turning himself into a gremlin. It's a tale as old as time. As we watch Chen reflect on his life we'll see that he wants alot of things. He was an orphan with nothing. He doesn't want to love like that again. The temptation of marrying into the rich and powerful is too much for him.

In the head-scratcher-and-other-notables department is Ou's hair, which is an uneven disaster. Additionally, Mei's Aunt comes to live with them. The fact that I couldn't reach the screen and choke her out was causing me major stress. Fate? We have a long string of coincidences bringing these two together, but when the show is 2/3 completed everything blows up on our couple. There's shocking revelations and shocking events. It doesn't look good for them. Ou goes on a fact finding mission but leaves Mei in the lurch without a word. This is the worst time of her life, and he's ghosted her! It doesn't entirely make sense, and it's brutal. The car chases, fight scenes, and action in general are quite respectable. Ou's father's dirt brown pinstripe suit may be the ugliest suit I've ever seen. Du Ruo Nan (see spoiler section for more on her) and her friend wear outfits that hurt my eyes, but Siyu's wardrobe is to die for. In ep37 Siyu's ensemble is stunning. She has an asymmetric hemmed off the shoulder white dress with a high slit and star earrings. The outfit set my heart aflutter. {Still ~~> Siyu- SEE YOU! So sorry, but they've been through a near death experience together. They've been forged together by combat. That's an unbreakable bond. You don't have a chance.} The proposal! Oh. My. It's inspiring.

There's some gems tucked away. The potential resolution is rather obvious, but that doesn't detract from the storytelling. The plot is on the intricate side & it feels like a cousin to the amazing Kdrama SKY Castle-9, which is a bit of a heart-stabber. One character goes to Li for advice, wondering if a situation is too hopeless to even try. Li says that the outcome shouldn't be the focus. Enjoy the process; nobody should give up before they try. Nice. “Can an emotion be given to others? Do you know what your kindness means to me? That is cruel. It's even an insult.” One character tries to step out of the way from a potential romantic relationship to make room for another interested party. It was a cruelty to try & give away that person's love. Very nice.



QUOTE🗣

We should be honest with ourselves in front of love.


IMHO〰🖍

📣7.5 📝7 🎭8.3 💓7 🦋6 🎨7.5 🎵/🔊7.5 🔚🤗6 ▪ 🌞5.5 ⚡5 😅3 😭4.5 😱3 😯2 🤢2 🤔4.5 💤1

Shazams: tried. No results. Spoti doesn't have anything either. There's a couple of very nice songs.


Age 14+ Language: R-rated w/ f💣s - not much.


Re-📺? It isn't impossible

In order of ~lite & trite~ to ~heavy & serious~ you may also like:

🌐💓 -
C🇨🇳:
Find Yourself 8.9;
The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8; Everyone Loves Me-7.4,
I Hear You-7.3 ‘19 so cute but with many flaws,
The Sleepless Princess 9.1;
Meteor Garden-7.4 ‘18- 70% flowing 30% dragging,
Overlord-8.4 ‘20,
A Little Thing Called First Love 8.5;
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


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




⛔Spoilers⛔

⛔️
⛔️
⛔️
This is more of a venting session than anything else.

Our FL also plays “Du” Ruo Nan. We don't learn about Du right away but hints are dropped early on about her. In the teen episodes we learn that Mei has a twin. Mei was adopted out because of her heart condition. Her mother could not afford to get her treatment. Ms Chai plays two completely different roles in the show. Du is a warrior and her fight scenes are better than Ou's. She has to go up against the tide gangster at one point and that gangster dude is truly scary.

They bring the pain after episode 40. When dad's in the hospital, it makes no sense that none of these wealthy people in Mei's life help out. Ou's leaving for Thailand without a word hurt badly. They claim telling her that she's Ou's half-sister would devastate her, so they leave her alone and penniless to deal with her father in the hospital. It's awful, and it doesn't make sense. Then she's fired. She demands an explanation and he treats her cruelly, supposedly to protect her from being hurt worse. Boo-kan-aw! This is ridiculous. And it HURTS! Sure, he asked Li to take care of her, but it's still too cruel. Siyu is acting like complete trash, but what Ou is doing to Siyu is wrong. He's using her.

Why didn't Pops rat Chen out? What would he cover for him? Chen’s face when the family meets up and Chm Ou says Mei & her sister are his daughters. OH SNAPPITY-SNAP! Irony is a cruel joker.

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The Fan & the Sash and the Locust & the Cricket & the ◾️bird & the ◽️bird °7.5° °VG°

WRTW is a 2022 release that is rated a whopping 8.7 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 40 45-minute episodes. Based on the novel: "Qie Shi Tian Xia” / Let's Try The World, by Qing Lengyue, it's directed by: Yin Tao, Yu Yonggang & Shi Zhanli. Director Yin Tao is a master - a grand shifu. His credits include Ancient Love Poetry-8.6, Love and Redemption-10, and Under The Power-8.6 - powerhouses, all.

I've seen a few of these actors before. Yang Yang plays Feng Lan “Xi” / Hei Feng Xi, the ML. This is the show where I had determined to decide ~ once and for all ~ if he can act, other than playing a smug know-it-all. {I wrote that prior to his 1st appearance in the show. Right from the start, he's a know-it-all😏, but he's not excessively smug, at least} As beauteous as he is, long hair does not suit him. That I already knew from Love 020-6.8. This especially applies when it is done up tightly. When it's loose or disheveled it looks better. His acting ranges from thoroughly acceptable to VG, but I think that on acting sk8ll alone, he's high average. He gets his gigs for his looks. He is a beautiful man. Here, he has some nice moments as a romantic lead. Zhao Lu Si is FL “Feng” Xi Yun / Bai Feng Xi. She's a natural, and she keeps getting prettier. She walks with an athletic spring here and her backbone is ramrod straight. Feng is wrapped tightly.

Kai Jiang plays the Tianshuang Sect leader, where Feng makes her home. He played the emperor in the marvelous Rebel Princess-8.5. What’s interesting is how he looks much healthier and younger here, just a year later, so it must all be by design. Leon Lai is the prince, Huang Chao. He was in Ancient Love Poetry as a wronged husband as well as a devoted disciple and father. In Overlord-8.4, he's a fussy, downright persnickety clothing designer who has his world turned upside-down by a street ruffian, and in The King's Avatar-7.9 he's a gregarious gamer who's not afraid to take fashion risks. These parts are all nothing alike, and he is wonderful in all of them. I am a fan. Feng Qi Wu, the proud and strong matriarch of the Feng family, is played by Xuan Lu. In The Untamed-9 she plays the quintessential sweet and feminine sister. I hardly recognize her, so it's easy to recognize her superb acting skills.

WRTW is the same old fare: A jumble of factions, a fight for the throne, decades old machinations, and wheels within wheels. It's all still tasty to me. Our leads first build a tentative trust and see that their goals are aligned. Teamwork quickly becomes love, but the heavy weight of responsibility may not leave any space for love to thrive. Their relationship is truly cute. They generate sincere warmth, but most of the time, it stops short of actual heat. There's a whiff of perfunctory ceremony about them, but that does fit their parts. WRTW is not really a romance, though it is /about/ a romance. This is not a political thriller, either. It is supposed to be both but it stays on the surface and never reaches any depths. There are funny moments on the way to love. A lady minister of the court is interested in Xi but he only has eyes for Feng. He introduces the two women, and they end up getting on so well that Xi can never get Feng alone to confess his feelings!

WRTW suffers slightly from big-budget disease. Is Tianshuang Sect any good? It's hard to tell. At times they are vanquished rather easily. The fact that it makes us wonder is a problem in and of itself. Yin Tao is exceptionally talented - probably a genius. His past successes cleared the way for bigger and bigger budgets. At times, the money and the expectation to deliver can create an environment where creativity is stifled. WRTW is a visual masterpiece, but it doesn't have the plot intricacy and range of human emotions that some of Yin Tao’s past works have. I settled into watching one episode per day. That was enough - the show never created the fever or the hunger to keep going in order to see what comes next. I won't be in a hurry to rewatch it. It doesn't have the Yin Tao magic that has enchanted me in the past. WRTW is good - it's VG, but not excellent. The last handful of episodes even started to feel a smidge like a chore. I found I was not emotionally invested in the characters. Not one of them. Love and Redemption has some decent special effects but, with 55 action-packed episodes to fill, most of the effects are clumsy to the point of being uncomfortable. I talked my son into watching an episode and he shook his head at Sefan's first fight scene with a CGI beast in ep1. CGI and special effects are important, but they won't make me want to watch a show again. I watched L&R twice in a row, despite the sometimes deficient effects, because the story, acting, and dialogue are superb. WRTW is more visually sophisticated, but I feel indifferent as to whether I'll ever watch it again. I expect I'll watch L&R 10 or 20 times before my life is over. That is the essence of big-budget disease. All the $$$ distracts from the matters of the heart - the essentials.

No doubt, WRTW is worth a watch. The filming is gorgeous from the start. The costume set my heart aflutter. The towns and sets are gorgeous. The art in the show is sublime. One of the Interior sets has all the woodwork painted a pale green. I may just copy that. Batsuits! We see a ninja flying around in a bonafide BATSUIT. That's straight FIRE! It's cool how their fighting styles reflect their personalities. Feng is compact, tidy, economical, and understated. Yet, she's shockingly effective. Xi's style is flashy, expansive, sweeping, and downright showy. It all leads to cool fights, super cool weapons, and bad@$$ moves. Ep37 has particularly impressive battles and fights.

So, fantasy fans will definitely enjoy this sampler platter. For fans of this show, wait until you see some of the even better features! China rules the fantasy world, and a world of wonders awaits you!


QUOTES📢

The more powerful you are in cooperation, the more benefit you'll get.

Have you convinced yourself of your own lies?


〰🖍 IMHO

📣7 📝7 🎭7 💓6 🦋7 🌞7 🎨9 ⚡6.5 🎵/🔊6 😅3 😭5 😱3 😯4 😖3 🤔4 💤3 🔚7

Age 12+ Rated TV-PG-13: Parents Cautioned

Re-📺? It's likely since I'm such a fan of the director and the FL.


In order of ~lite & trite~ to ~heavy & serious~ you may also like:

🔮🐉-
C🇨🇳: Love Between Fairy & Devil 8.9;
Once upon a time in Linglian Mountain-7.5,
Douluo Continent 9.4;
Handsome Siblings 8.7;
Story of Yanxi Palace-10
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

Read More

⚙⛓ Games Ghosts Guys & Fierce Glaze ⛓⚙ °6° °high average°

20 years ago, Rong Xuan was killed at Mt Qingya. The fabled Armory he left behind would make anybody invincible, but it can't be opened without the glazed armor trinket. That Lyminster was smashed into half a dozen pieces and distributed around the martial arts sects. To open the Armory, one would have to collect all the pieces, /find/ the Armory, and unlock the door. So, e'erbody and their uncle Bai is looking for the pieces, including Prince Jin. He's been secretly training assassins and planning a revolt. They're killing e/o over rumors.

We watch Shu (Zhang Zhe Han, who starred in and directed August, is our ML, Zhou Zi Shu)
tell the royals that he can be their sword but he only has talent for fighting. He cannot help rule. He asks for a quiet death - alone in his hometown. He's already inserted 6 of the 7 nails, you see, to prevent him from ever being used as a weapon of mass destruction again. By inserting them over a period of months, he'll retain half of his martial arts and most of his reason for most of the 3 years until his death. The viewer is left with so many questions. Who is this guy? Why is he loyal to this King? Why did he go on a 10-year Journey past the point of no return? Why did he kill everybody he loves? “Whey-shima?” And why, oh why, did he don a face mask, disguise himself as a beggar, and proceed to live the life of a bum, drinking in the streets? That's what he was up to when Xing & Xiang first lay eyes on him.

⛔Mini spolier: The Window of Heaven leader (Norman Chui) will not submit to Prince Jin. The prince demands that Shu kill his Shifu and the sect leaders or he would kill them anyway, and wipe out the 81 remaining disciples along with them. Shu carried out Jin's evil orders. He saw no other way to save the lives of his followers. Instead of a quick death, Shu inserted the nails of seven torments in his Shifu. The nails slowly take the senses, reason, and then life itself over the course of 3 years. His final move: Punish himself with the nails of seven torments and go live as a bum while he waits to die. That's how Xing stumbles over him. Thus, they meet.⛔

WoH is a 2021 release that is rated 8.6 on MDL. The directors are Gary Sing (Eagles and Youngster), Jones Ma (The World of Fantasy), & Li Hong Yu (Please Don’t Spoil Me). Screenwriters Xiao Chu & Qi Ming worked on Miss Ye in Wonderland, and this was based on the original work by Priest, who also brought us Justice in the Dark. It is 1 season consisting of 36 45-minute episodes, and ep1 is not an easy one. WoH has been associated with the masterpiece, the Untamed-8.6. They're both based on novels involving BL stories in a typical Chinese fantasy template, but that's where the similarities end. TU is a five-star Michelin meal while WoH is Panda Express. The depth of the 2 leads’ devotion, in TU, is breathtaking. WoH is too sprawling. It wanders and is unfocused. Slow paced things are fine, however this teeters on dragging. The bond between the two MLs is not established well. WoH is an outline when held up to the rich tapestry of TU. It is lightweight, and flirty, and never leaves the shallow end. TU is so complex that I couldn't rate it a 10 because it is confusing, but that's actually a good problem. I'm looking forward to the day that I watch TU again because I expect to be rewarded with more insight in the second go-round. No one could ever accuse WoH of being complex.

Zhou Ye (I loved her in Everyone Loves Me-7.4) is Gu “Xiang,” and Gong Jun (Begin Again) plays her master, Wen Ke ‘Xing”. Xing recognizes Shu as a “variable” and takes him back to Mirror Lake Manor. About Xiang: She's so dang cute. She's partially comic relief, and she handles it well. About Xing: He acts like he's 35,000 ft up in the air, looking down on everything. He's good natured, but he's a touch snide and condescending. Is he joking or mocking? It's a bit of a hybrid. Every now and then he gets a glint in his eyes that's downright scary, and we'll see that he can be utterly menacing. This is not a guy that one wants to anger. Yet, he claims his nickname is “Philanthropist Man.”

One of the martial arts sects in the mix is actually a group of ghosts. Chen Zi Han plays
Tragicomic Ghost or Xi Sang Gui. She is gorgeous, and her first credited work was from 1988, so she's been around for a while. Her look is the most beautiful of the show. Some of her highest rated pieces are A Happy Life, A Dream within a Dream, & New Life Begins. In Ghost Valley, Hanged Ghost has stolen the chief Devil's piece of the glazed armor! He demands EVERYONE work on retrieving the rest of it as well as eliminating Hanged Ghost. The one who is successful will be the leader of The 10 Devils. Ghost Valley's first target for searching is the Mirror Lake Manor. Their raid and razing of the place wakes up Shu and Xing. The Ghosts Prevail.

Shu gets rooked into escorting the youngest son of the manor, and sole survivor, to the safety of his uncle's nearby alliance. Xing knows there's something interesting and mysterious about Shu, so he tries to get them all together as a traveling party. Shu refuses, at first. Nevertheless, they keep running into eachother on the road and Xing’s fascination only grows. They each suspect the other is looking for the glazed armor. At the end of ep10 we learn more about who Xing is. It's doubtful that Shu is unaware or would be completely surprised. Both of these travelers have been very short on curiosity and very long on observation. They each know they're dealing with a martial arts master. Probably a master among the masters. Neither one of them is simple. Neither one of them is completely good, and neither one is completely evil either. They're complex people.

Sun Xi Lun (A Love So Beautiful, Looking Up) plays Zhang Cheng “Ling,” the young master of Mirror Lake Manor who has now been orphaned. His family's sect, of the world-renowned 5 Lakes Alliance, was wiped out in a single night. Xing ends up assisting Shu in escorting him to the closest family he has. This kid is a bit of a wimp. He's practically effeminate. It doesn't make sense that the child of a high level martial arts sect wouldn't know how to take or land a punch. Shu & Xing deliver this kid to his relatives. They aren't the warmest bunch. His uncles are only thinking about how they can use him to their advantage, and one of them arranges for him to marry his daughter. The sect doesn't accept him because he's behind in his martial arts (the show made it clear why that would be, so they are bullying him and he's miserable. Xiang visits him so she's aware of this.

I knew Huang You Ming looked familiar as Ye Bai Yi. When I looked him up I realized I've seen him in Song of Youth-7.2, Boss & Me-7, & Love, Redemption-10, and Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace (which I abandoned at a perfect ending at ep 49. Up until that point, it's outstanding, but then I learned only heartbreak was coming and I decided to put that on hold till I was ready for it). He plays the kind of guy who is not up to any good, usually. Here, he's an ancient master (He was Shu's master's master). Xing can't stand him, however. These two end up spatting constantly. Their comedic timing is exceptional, so it's amusing. When he shows up, things begin to get a little more interesting. The show borderline drags until the late teen episodes. As it approaches episode 20 it becomes more tolerable.

I go into shows cold, most times I don't even read the synopsis, because even when I do, the opinions generated by doing so rarely align with the show itself. By now I've loved too many shows that wouldn't have appealed to me based on the synopsis alone. WoH is based on a BL novel which isn't my dopamine factory. I'm watching it for its value as a fantasy piece only, and it feels gutted. When factoring in Heaven Official's Blessing-8.8 and Legend of Exorcism-8.8, which are shows of striking beauty and better romantic moments, I'm 3-for-4 in liking the BL pieces I've seen. I just don't like WoH. I do appreciate the significance of fighting against heavy government censorship and oppression. Many fans of this show clearly place a high premium on what it represents.

As for romance, it's surfacey, just like the rest of the show. Xing is a brash flirter, and he never lets up. Shu is stoic - he's miserable, actually. He's probably the type to fall hard, once his resistance is whittled down. (With him, everything is forever). The secondary couple is cute. Xiang was just using Cao in the beginning. He's too easy and naive! At some point, she realizes not only how much he'll miss her when she's gone, but also how much he'll be taken advantage of when she's not there to protect him. That really p!$$es her off. She then takes her anger out on him. That ain't fair! 😅

“Are they even human? The righteous clans of the martial arts world? The difference between them and the Ghost Valley is that one is blatantly evil, while the other is wearing a cover of benevolence, justice, and morality. As soon as they see flesh, they can't wait to tear off their human skin and start barking and biting! How exciting.” Shu looked the villain in the opening. Slowly, the viewer realizes that he is not an evil person. Whatever he did, there must have been good reasons, whether it was the right decision or not. Around the halfway mark we see that another character, who posed as someone kind and decent, has actually been pulling the strings in the background with nothing short of evil genius. He is a mass murderer. He murdered his own. It seems that he's being held up in contrast to Shu.

I wouldn't go as far as saying WoH isn't worth watching. Arguably, WoH is worth watching just to see the loud-mouthed, snide, red haired dwarf. Maybe it's just me, but he really tickled my fancy. The Longyuan Cabinet kid also tickled my fancy. There's plenty of great elements. They just failed to tie it together well.

What else is there to like? Scorpion Sect, Five Lakes Alliance, Window of Heaven… The Chinese are just better at naming things. So many elements are familiar, but unique. I am enthralled with the elegance and artistry of Chinese features. There's a cadence that seems to hail directly from ancient times. The acting is always superb. Turning a Chinese fantasy piece is usually like walking through the looking glass. It's a complete immersion into a magical land. The sect that got my blood stirred the most is Longyuan Cabinet. They devised all the fancy booby traps, machinery and thinganaobs. It was they who designed the World's Armory. Their leader has a disease that keeps him in the size of a child and wheelchair-bound. He's pasty and extremely arrogant. He's absolutely a delightful character to watch, and the kid’s acting is excellent. The costumes are gorgeous. The women are gorgeous. The men are, too.

The filming and artistry is excellent. In ep22 they crank up the action with some rousing fights. It's fun to see how Ling's training is paying off. They've been working him relentlessly - on just footwork - and none of the bad guys can land a strike. They're helping out an orphan, and it turns out one of them was an orphan who was not helped out and it had wide reaching negative effects. We see poison coursing through Shu's veins and the special effects are pretty good. China has come a long way in that arena. I've seen laughable special effects in shows that are otherwise, some of the best things I've ever seen. Hollywood is the opposite: Glorious special effects, but empty and soulless content. I'll take the shows with souls, please. Paper medallions fall like snow. They are weapons that kill and we see many embedded in the trees. Cool. The beggar sect are fearsome and well organized fighters.

The martial arts are thrilling, tbf. Knowing this is a Danmei novel is messing with my head, though. As Shu is fighting 75, or so, beggars, Xing feels no need to get involved. He sits at a table with a cup of wine and yells out encouragements, such as: “Your soft sword is too soft.” (Seu was smacking down foes with a wet towel). Then Xing yells “Get out your weapon.” These lines have to be /intentional/ double-entendres, don't they? Then, there's all that flute playing… “I did not expect this man to blow this type of flute.” 😜😜😜 That's straight out of the g@y joke book!

The ending is pretty good. The wrap-up is too brief, but the last couple episodes are better than what came before. I'm left with the impression, given WoH's popularity, that this will appeal to those for whom BL is a particular passion more than the general.public at large.



QUOTES🗣

I was strong in will but weak in power.

Reasons are no more than excuses in a nice disguise.


IMHO〰🖍


📣6 📝6.8 🎭7.6 💓5 🦋5 🎨8 🎵/🔊7 🔚8 🤗3 ▪ 🌞4⚡6 😅2 😭5 😱3 😯3 🤢4 🤔4 💤4.5

The music is truly lovely

Age 14+ D@mn, Throat slashing, sexual content. Rated: Everyone


Re-📺? No


⚡/🔮
Ancient Love Poetry-8.6 21,
Douluo continent-9.1 21,
Eternal love-8.3 17,
Eternal Love Of dream-7.4 20,
Handsome siblings-8.7,
Heavenly SWORD-9,
House of Flying Daggers-8.5,
Legend of the two sisters in chaos-7.7 20 the ending is bittersweet,
Love and Redemption-10,
Love Between Fairy & Devil-8.9,
Once upon a time in Linglian Mountain-7.5,
Overlord-8.4,
The Princess Royal-8.3,
The Princess Weiyoung-8,
The Rebel Princess-8.5,
The Rise of Phoenixes-9,
Ruyi's Royal love in the palace ‘18 (episodes 1 - 49 are a 9.3,
The Sword and the Brocade-8.6 ‘21 (in the style of ancient Chinese opera),
Under the Power-8.6,
The Untamed-8.6 19,
Who Rules The World-7.5 22,

Netflix's Marco Polo-8

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


🇰🇷:
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

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Nao & Ue @ U °7.6° VG

S2 opens with Nao dreaming of a wedding. First comes college. They're going to colleges across the street from eachother. Neo spies on Ue's campus the first day. He's voted the new campus hottie (of course). Someone comments on how ✨ all the girls are in college. Neo looks around and notices that all these girls do seem to sparkle. She's getting nervous.

Nao picks up a new friend at her campus. Yoshida Madoka from Fujoshi, Ukkari Gei ni Kokuru plays the adorable Ota Kayo, who is known to sport two high ponytails that she's fashioned into buns. They almost look like fairy horns.

Another friend they pick up is Natsume, who seems like an insincere and cavalier womanizer on the surface, but he's actually a good guy. S2, in part, revolves around him and Neo getting into all kinds of situations that would be considered romantic if they were each unattached. In this case, it's only fodder for Ue's jealousy.

Ue & Nao each separately get talked into going to the matchmaking mixer, though he was only told there was a party with food. Nao was a little bit angry at him and decided to step out on her own. Ue walks in just as Marina is lying, saying that neither she nor Nao ever had a boyfriend (😳❕). Ue's voted most popular, Neo is voted most submissive.

Ue ends up working in the school lab. The main lab assistant is a beautiful but nerdy woman who is borderline unhinged. She's a blast. Takahashi Maryjun from Avalanche & My Dear Exes is Kumanomido Saeko. Yes, it sounds like “Psycho.” She's got some luscious lips for a woman in a lab coat.

In S2 it becomes clear how much growing up this pair has to do, emotionally. They started as roommates, so they continue to live as roommates, and do not get very romantic with eachother. Neither one of them seems to know how. Neither one of them has very much experience. Ue seems to think it would demean him to be jealous. Nao takes that as him not carrying at all

Abe decides to write and produce his own play. His prince and princess become ill at the last moment and have to back out. Nao ends up being his new princess. Ue refuses to play the prince so (🥁🥁🥁) Natsume gets the role.

This time around I thought eps6-8 started to drag slightly. Nanase's pained expression gets really old really quickly. Weirdly, the first time I watched I thought the entirety of S2 was pure confection and the payoff for suffering through S1. So, please don't argue with me. I'm doing fine all by myself. The mood one is in when watching a feature factors heavily into the perception.

“Don't make me laugh. You're afraid, right? That she might leave you herself. And that the other guy might make her happier. That's your excuse. You're just running away to avoid getting hurt. In the end, the thing you hate the most is getting hurt. You still love yourself more, right? Right,” says psycho. She stabbed him. She pierced Ue's 💔. His jealousy makes him believe something because he /fears/ it's true, even though the irrefutable evidence is that she's only loyal to him.

Nao doesn't know how to tell Ue about a pass another guy made, so she keeps it quiet. Her friend tells her it's smartest to say something right away. ‘The longer you wait to tell a secret the more important or big it seems’. That's good advice. Another method, though, is when a guy (especially your boyfriend's friend or family member) makes a move, punch him in the jaw, or opt for the low attack. Done and over. Easy peasy.

S2 ep5 is entitled: “Playing a tragic heroine is fun.” All that attention is fun, until it's not. It only satisfies for a few moments. Furthermore, when everybody else catches on to that, then ALL we have is tragic heroes & heroines (just look at social media). Furthermore, more and more minor things get built into tragedies. If we're all tragic heroines, then almost none of us are. We're miserable because we're totally consumed with our own miserable selves. The key is to forget yourself once in awhile. One of the best ways to do that is to go volunteer or help somebody. Another way is to watch Chinese dramas. They'll teach you about suffering, lol. They make me feel better.

It seems like all Neo talks about is her love life. While she tries to help her friends, even a lot of that is about her. Her kindness is at times about her. We see that in society today. In the name of kindness, alot of it is actually about feeding pride. Many kindnesses undermine people and hurt them in the end. Nao really does love everybody around her. That doesn't mean she can't be prideful and her actions aren't wrapped around her ego. There is nobody among us who does not have a pride problem. That's part of being born 100% selfish, as we all are. It chameleons into many different colors.

Onlookers can sense fragility in their relationship and most try to help. Two others concoct a plan to split them up. The 2 plotters come around in the end. The look of relief on their faces is noteworthy. When you Let It Go - all those pretensions - the selfishness, the devious plans, the lying - especially lying to ourselves - When you Let It Go, it's such a RELIEF. Take all that energy and work on yourself: physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. People get pulled away from the light by what they want: Jealousy and covetousness. Hand in hand, they're of the fabled seven deadly sins. We get to see them under the microscope in S2. In this beautiful but flawed world, we are always tempted to do wrong. That's because we're born 100% selfish. Maturity is all about learning to be unselfish; to have a loyal, kind, forgiving, and true character. Doing the right thing & choosing the right thing is always the hardest thing to do, but it's worth the effort for the freedom it supplies.


QUOTE🗣

You're the type that hurts others without even knowing about it.

You decided all on your own and went ahead changing it…. That means you're only thinking about yourself.


IMHO〰🖍

📣7.8 📝7.5 🎭8 💓7 🦋5 🎨7 🎵/🔊7 🔚 ▪ 🌞7 ⚡3 😅4.5 😭2 😱1 😯3.5 🤢1 🤔4.5 💤0 🤗5.8


Age + S2. sexual situations and discussion

Language: F💣

Rated S1-G, S2-15+

Re-📺? Did

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⭐ A Stage of Their Own ⛩️ °8.5° °Outstanding°

OH, the acting, The Acting, THE ACTING! Every episode that's what I thought. Every muscle twitch of Ra Mi Ran's set my heart aflutter.

It's 1931. It's COLD. Kang So “Bok” and her father (played by Choi Jung Woon & Lee Deok Hwa) stop at the local theater. Dad needs his daughter to have a place to call home - times are tough. The theater owner looks skeptical, but when Bok begins to talk, it's obvious that someone special is before them.

Next, it's 1956. Wartime.

Jeong “Nyeon” has an astonishing voice. She's digging up shells in low tide with the rest of the women. When her mother finds her singing along with them, she drags her daughter off. “I knew she would get angry as soon as Nyeon started humming along,” says one of the marms. We then watch thugs selling “protection” come through, upending stalls, and terrorizing the smallfolk. Nyeon distracts the gangsters by singing. That's what got Moon's attention.

“Moon” Ok Gyeong (Jung Eun Chae from The King: Eternal Monarch-8.3, Pachinko & Anna-8.1) is riding in the back of a car, like a celebrity. That's because she IS a celebrity. Here's the shocker - she's dressed as a man, and it's pretty convincing. This was a time when the men were off to war and the women kept everything going, including live theater. Moon plays male leads, as gorgeous as she is ~ and this gurl is a looker. Straightaway, after complaining that everything is boring for her now, even singing, is when she hears Nyeon's warbling. Moon exits the car to hear Nyeon demand money before she'll sing again. No problem there. Moon makes sure Nyeon will gladly sing again.

Directed by Jung Ji In (The Red Sleeve, Late Night Hospital) and adapted from the webtoon "Jeong Nyeon," about Pansori theater. Written by Seo Yi Re, JTSiB is a 2024 release that is rated 92 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 12 70-minute episodes. Per AI, “Pansori is a traditional Korean narrative singing style where a vocalist (sorikkun) and a drummer (gosu) tell a story through song, narration, and stylized gestures. It combines expressive singing, spoken narration, and dramatic movements, accompanied by the rhythmic drumming of a buk. “Cheonguseong" refers to a clear, pure, and melodious vocal quality, often associated with traditional Korean singing, particularly pansori.” In the show they describe it as a clear and strong voice, gifted from the heavens, immersed with a feeling of deep sorrow. "Gukgeuk refers to a unique genre of Korean all-female theater. It emerged after Korea's liberation from Japan in the 1940s, gaining popularity in the 1950s, particularly during the post-war period. In gukgeuk, women perform all roles, including male characters, often blending traditional pansori with Western opera influences.” Of all the Cheonguseongs in the world, Nyeon‘s voice is the Cheonguseongiest - just like her mother's. Moon gives Nyeon tickets to that night's performance, but MOM threatens to shave Nyeon's head as a punishment for singing in public. Mom sure does hate singing. Waddup with that?

On the other hand, the village women are quite impressed with Nyeon's singing, and they're /very/ impressed with the tickets. Nyeon wasn't sure what she would do, but their begging her to take them to the performance spurs her to attend. It's not hard to guess that Nyeon was blown away by live theater. Moon played the prince. The entire theater erupted in glee at the closing - they sealed the performance with a kiss.

Enticed by Moon's coaxing, Nyeon dramatically escapes her mother's clutches and passes through the audition - barely. Ra Mi Ran (Black Dog-8.2, Reply 1988-8.6, The Good Bad Mother) is grown up Bok, whom we met in the opening. She now manages the theater. She explains to Nyeon that, since Moon brought her, she has to work from the bottom so that everyone can see that she made it by merit, not connections. She then asks what her mother's name was? Bok looks surprised when she doesn't recognize the name. Nyeon's singing had taken her right back to her friend from her youth. Nyeon seems like the ghost of Pansori past. The whole audition scene is mesmerizing.

Nyeon‘s presence, on the other hand, is disturbing to most of her classmates. She's a bumpkin. She's a fishmonger. She smells! Yet MOON brought her /personally/. They are disgusted AND jealous. Kim Tae Ri from Space Sweepers-7.6, Revenant-7.4, & Mr. Sunshine-9 plays Nyeon. She really shows her range here.

Shin Ye Eun (Revenge of Others-8.1, More Than Friends-8) portrays Heo Yeong “Seo”. She wouldn't admit to breathing the same air as Nyeon. Her background is OPERA. Her mother and sister are FAMOUS. Her family's RICH. Her acid reflux is in major flux: She is appalled by Nyeon ‘s presence. So, she pulls a stunt to try and set Nyeon up. The trainees are putting on a show in 10 days. One of the girls who had a lead part as the jokester, Banja, had to back out of the role, so they need a last-minute replacement. Seo offers it to Nyeon, hoping she'll crash and burn. This is not an easy part. Nylon doesn't mind a challenge, though. It doesn't look like things are going well, because Nyeon skips the last two practices. She's even late for the performance! But she goes out and knocks ‘em dead. She's been practicing with a street performer all week, and now she's got ~moves~. The audience loves her😍. Her enemies hate her all the more😬. The competition between these two is beginning to heat up, and it's one of the major drivers of the plot.

Kim Yoon Hye portrays Seo Hye “Rang.” She's ruthless as the star FL player in the troupe. I've seen this actress in My Sassy Girl-8.5, which I consider to be woefully underappreciated. In MSG she's haughty, cold, and not given to many words. It's not completely dissimilar to Rang, yet she keeps the personas thoroughly distinct. I've also seen her in Vincenzo-7.9 and never knew it was her! She plays someone geeky, quiet, and slightly goofy. For the record, e'erbody in Vincenzo is slightly goofy, at a minimum. Here, they never have her looking her best. Her makeup is always thick and garish while her hair is over-coiffed in 40's permed perfection. They don't put her in complementary colors, either. She's her most beautiful when she's broken down and crying; when she's not in neon makeup, her natural beauty shows. Her crying scene is exceptional.

With regularity, art imitates life in JTSiB. The play in ep10, along with the lines that Moon and Rang must deliver, mirror their current reality. “How could the heavens only gift him with this great talent, but curse me with only the eye to recognize such talent?” That's a line from the last play that they perform, and the dialogue mirrors Seo & Nyeon's situation. JTSiB is about competition, hard work, not giving up, and legacy. The rivalry between Nyeon and Seo is the primary vehicle. Jooran (Woo Da Vi from Poong, the Joseon Psychiatrist & Dear.M) gets caught in the middle. She and Nyeon are close, but after she co-stars in a play across from Seo, Seo starts to rely on her, too. Nyeon has the talent, it's harnessing it that is the challenge for her. She makes mistakes, and her enemies among the thespians instinctively know to capitalize on them.

Nyeon nearly goes off the rails in ep8. It's difficult to watch. I suppose if I have a complaint, it's that we see mostly struggle, while a bit more triumph would have lifted the weight. JTSiB is heavy. Nkw, I feel like a hypocrite since I frequently complain about shows dragging because they have too many episodes for the available content. JTSiB should have been 1 episode longer to allow it to breathe more. I guess I'm never happy, sigh.

As is, the show is superb. The acting is especially superb. The directing and editing support it crease-free. Does mid-century and 40's fashion get anybody else's heart racing? When they finally do the changing room scene and update Nyeon's look, it gave me a thrill. The color palette is soft and often borderline overexposed like an amateur snapshot. JTSiB, itself, deserves to be “overexposed.” It's is one of the best Kdramas on the Hulu stage.


QUOTES🗣

He's a… WOMAN!?

The path of an artist is very long. You'll be going through countless ups and downs in your life. As you endure all of that you'll find yourself at the highest summit looking out further than anyone.

I do not understand myself either.


IMHO〰🖍


📣8.4 📝8 🎭9 💓5 🦋6 🎨8.5 🎵/🔊8 🔚8 🤗7 ▪ 🌞6.5 ⚡4.5 😅2 😭3.5 😱2 😯4 🤢2 🤔5.3 💤0


Age 13+ Rated: PG


Re-📺? Would


In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:

Dabbling in the Arts

My Only Love Song-8.7 ~ excellent comedy,
My Runway-7.5,
My Secret Romance-7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks);
99 days with the Superstar-7,
Her Private Life-8,
Touch your heart-8.2,
Oh My Ghost-10,
Run On-7,
Romance is a bonus book-7.9,
Be Melodramatic-8.7,
Hospital Playlist-9,
It's Okay Not To Be Okay-9,
More Than Friends-8,
Nevertheless-7.6,
Saimdang-8.5,
Anna-8.1,
Hymn of Death-8.4,


〰 Hulu Catalog 〰

A Shop for Killers-8.7
Big Mouth-7.4,
Blood Free-8.5,
Call It Love-8.4,
Crazy Love-7.8,
The First 1st Responders-7.8,
Flex X Cop-8.5,
Gangnam B-Side-7.2,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Han River Police-7.1,
High School Return of a Gangster-7,
The Judge from Hell-4.5
The Legend of the Blue Sea-7.2 (this show is marvelous except for taking a quality dip in eps 20-22)
Light Shop-8.6,
Link: Eat, Love, Kill-6.7,
Maestra: Strings of Truth-6.8,
Moving-8.5
Pandora: Beneath the Paradise-3.9,
Parasite-9,
Revenant-7.4,
Revenge of Others-8.1,
So I Married the Anti Fan-6.8,
Uncle Samsik-8.4,
What's Wrong With Secretary Kim-6.8,
Why Her?-8,
Wonderful World-7.8,
The Worst of Evil-7.7

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