Brogana Sunfrog

Tedious lead female character & Alot of handsome men

This is total female escapism stuffed with handsome men & swoon worthy closeups of them. Pure fantasy fuel.
Even though it's not without it's flaws, this is a fangirl's delight that's embarrassingly addictive & smile inducing. It will have you mesmerized while at the same time appalled at how often you fins youyrself entranced.
I'm going to explain why I only gave it an 8 at the end, but let's start with:
Date # 1 : Lee Soo hyuk - he's coolly suave here & so he has to be first so you can put him out of your mind as the drama continues- because really no one else even comes close to being so heart fluttering. The scenario he's in is cringy & total trope but the truth is the other dates pale in comparison.
(with the exception of Lee Sang yi' : whose frustratingly blink of an eye comedic cameo as a firefighter-who given more screen time WOULD make for an impossible choice if up against Lee Soo hyuk) .
Suffice it to say that the camera gives you plenty of swoonful, heart stopping moments involving Lee Soo hyuk's character & he sets the bar pretty high for the other dates that follow.
Date # 2 made me cringe. School dramas are not a genre I enjoy & not only was everything pink but it was weird as the female lead was SO much older & experienced than her date. He also was more of a boyishly earnest puppy/golden retriever type boyfriend, which didn't appeal to me personally. Additionally, it was a painful episode, raking up the female lead's dating past. Oddly, it didn't make me sympathetic towards her, as both she & her ex had changed as well as both had become mean.
Now about the virtual world:
They seemed to be making a point that being in a fake virtual romance/relationship will leave you dissatisfied with real men, ( I mean isn't that the same expectation vs reality dilemma as with men & porn ? )
As the unmemorable, but good looking dates rapidly fly by in the virtual world, in the real world, Seo in guk hides his charisma in a cave somewhere off camera. He dead pans most of the drama -sleep walking around with barely any dialogue & is bafflingly bland. (Now THAT is acting !!!) Seriously, The blame is completely on how his character is written as we know he normally radiates charisma in anything he does.
Not to despair; his charisma is revived near the end of the series.
I think that it's possible that the very point that the drama is attempting to make is that women may over look a perfectly nice, attractive guy in thier search for exciting & thier definition of "perfect" & that both men & women a fearful of being hurt.

So what makes this less than perfect ?
The female lead is not very likeable. She's only nice when it benefits her. She is cold. Though they do show a reason, I was not convinced that it was actually a valid excuse for how she keeps brushing the male lead
off . Honestly, they don't give a good reason why she's worth the male lead's effort. Further more, she wants him to prove something that he has no control over & make promises that she herself can't make.
So here is where the discontent lies:
As with most other new dramas this female lead only turns nice once she is in love. She will inevitably revert back to her natural unlikeable personality once she's been in a relationship for a length of time- we actually see this occur in her previous relationship.
I found the "follow your heart" trope/theme to be a stagnant & a damaging bit of advice to the plot as a romance as it equates to: "follow your emotions & feelings" and only consider yourself.
For a story to be really good & satisfying you need to feel that there are things that are worth investing in & that "keeping" those thingss/relationships takes effort, which requires commitment & discipline- all things that might not feel good in the moment & you might not want to do, but it's those things that makes great love stories.

Endurance-
that's what this drama is lacking. How long can the couple "live in the moment" ? Once they stop having heart fluttering moments ? So they pretty much are setting themselves up to fail with no thought to the future & a lack of commitment.
That the female lead asks advice from an AI that was created from her own detailed input means that it's her advising herself- so everything is from her persecutive-which seems rather unhelpful to her. AND of course the AI guy will tell her to leave her heart with him as he is programmed to keep her attached to him, to keep her a paying customer for the program! The game is a "Honey Trap" and as addictive as opium. I was glad that there were consequences & that the resolutions didn't take long to get worked through, but I couldn't ever really warm up to the female lead .

**************spoiler***********
this is why I only gave it 8 stars.
The female lead continued to be unlikeable.
At a critical point she could have been honest about the doppelganger boyfriend, but she isn't. That she sees the virtual boyfriend a few times afterward the male lead found out about it, made me like her even less.
I was glad that they were very tasteful in only implying that the leads spent the night together, (leaving a question mark there) but was very disappointed that the end had them implying that she was pregnant- BUT there was no definition to thier relationship- not engaged, not married, just living in the moment. TTHAT's not going to work now, is it!? !

there is enough here to lose yourself in the warm fuzzies, but the rewatch value is only for skipping through the story to get your fan girl fantasy on if that's your thing.

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Oh Jung-Se & Lee Jae-In shine in this campy old school action comedy

This has a campy old school flavor & a cast of familiar faces. The Older American pop music they use in the OST was alot of fun & works well with what's going on! I wasn't much interested in the plot, but I was curious to see Oh Jung-se do something different than the villain stuff he's been doing lately.
I gave it a rather low score because it's just not the genre that I really enjoy. That said, I did watch it once by myself & then a second time soon after to share it with a friend. There is nothing "sloggy" (draggy) about this as it moves along at a good pace, that sacrifices a bit of continuity if you aren't paying attention. The father daughter duo are the most interesting to watch & really Lee Jae-in as the daughter really stands out as she channels her inner effervescent middle schooler .

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Satisfyingly mild thriller/mystery ,but cold female lead. Happy Ending but romance is meh

This isn't a drama you're going to want to watch twice because once the mysteries are revealed there's no unknowing ! I may have missed some key points, but the math kinda got away from me as there were 3 "boyfriends"/ fiancé in a VERY short time frame (1 year? ). This was a big plot problem for me until the end where they reveal just what her relationship was with each man. Still, it's alot of men to be involved with in such a short time span, especially when you consider the addition of the detective-making the number of men she is involved with 4 (+her childhood friend#5!)
That aside; the suspense was well done. The female lead is incredibly skeletal. Her arms, legs & hip bones are so obviously underfed & at times her hip bones actually protrude against her clothing. Besides that, Her character could have been done better, but over all they made it work. The romance felt forced. It really left me : "meh"
I didn't feel chemistry between the leads & the kisses were lackluster -blame it on the cameraman/angle ?
The female lead's character is odd. She let's things happen to her. [Like the kisses- she's ok if he kisses her & ok if he doesn't-no desire, no heat].They show you alot about her, that explains ALOT & yet she's not written for us to like her. [trying hard not to spoil too much of the plot !] .So when they fully explain the death of boyfriend #1, I felt my already lukewarm attitude toward her get even more tepid. When we get the full explanation behind boy friend # 2, it didn't really actually give an explanation that worked for me (relationship wise). Boy Friend/Fiancé #3 's relationship with the female lead also had me taking yet another step back from the female lead. In the end I viewed her as just another attractive female who resented her looks & looked down on the men who were attracted to her. As for being a "siren", the men were shallow in what they wanted from her, but the story is less clear in answering just how much "luring" the female lead did. I struggled throughout the drama with my ambivalence over the female lead's relationship with boyfriend #1 & #3 . So when she reacted (again) pretty much exactly as she had with boyfriend # 1 ,with the final romantic relationship (in the drama), I felt justified in thinking that she's no heroine & she certainly never showed true character growth. I did NOT like the point they drove home at the end about the usage of the word "siren". They throw some feminist message in that's just an excuse for her selfishness. Let's be honest; what she did & what she cared about, was not any different from the other people in her life whom she considered "bad" & "wrong".
The end was "happy" ? she gets what she wants. but you have to conceed: she attracts a certain type of guy, which begs the question: whose actually the siren !?

The OST; had too many songs sung in English that were repeated too often (some were just bad to listen to musically).

Dumb stuff: sign in parking garage : "Praking"
WHY are there no airbags in the very new looking cars ?
Policemen carrying guns (I didn't think that was normal)

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Good really doesn't prevail in this depressing & violent action drama

when I say I completed this, I mean I saw the beginning to the end (but skimmed everything in between.)
Why ?
I watched the first episode & it was depressing. I suspected that this was going to be less action/humor so I Skimmed until the last episode, I watched that & was sad to see that my instincts were right- it was an exhausting drama. I had SO hoped for something more light hearted than Typhoon family, but this is also really really depressing in tone.
Here's what i didn't like:

1) The lead character's romantic relationship...was not romantic, them being together was just lazy on both thier parts.
Character Kang Sang Ung's girlfriend : Kim Min Suk. I particularly loathe this kind of female character. She impatiently takes the lead in her relationships, arrogantly bossing around those she says she " loves" ,(though does she EVER actually say she loves anyone ? )She makes unilateral decisions for her boyfriend as if she's his parent & he is a child. He in turn lets her for the sake of not creating an argument. That sums up their relationship. Feel any romance in that ?

2) The drama highlights & dwells on the normality of the hopelessness of achieving financial stability while living in a city ( in Korea)

3)Lots of violence & whenever good prevails, evil revives itself & the fight starts all over again

There is a "happy" ending of sorts for some characters, (yes, the main ones) BUT let's not forget that the main character will have to hand his curse down to his own child someday, so becoming a parent is not actually all that "happy" now is it ?

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Decent drama with a good deal of sentimentalism

Started this as a "filler" drama & found it more interesting than I expected. I would have given this a higher score but
1) the lengthy farewells of the ghosts at the end of each case were overly sentimental.
2)One ghost inexplicably showed up though there was no needed resolution/mystery to be solved.
Also, it was predictable that a particular ghost was going to show up eventually.
3) The ghost "possessions" didn't always work well in the story & since there was a known remedy it kept begging the
question :"why didn't they use it more!?"
4) One ghost possession had me cringing because of the budding romance between characters - without spoiling- all I can say is that it was a good thing it was a slow burn romance because otherwise the "eu" factor was setting in strong!
5) Leads looked a bit "worn" ( showing thier age in thier faces)-the make up artist mistakenly thought that making thier faces shiny would make them look younger.
6) Female lead looks like she has cheek fillers & they keep putting her in high waisted granny pants that don't make the most of her figure.
An episode or 2 before the end of the series the leads inexplicably look healthier & less shiny.
7) I was hoping for better resolution of the 2nd male lead and his relationship with the leads at the end, but it felt like they might have left an opening for a second season-which I would not recommend as by the end of the drama I was more than tired of the ghost possession trope

all in all the series was pretty well balanced & worth watching but not worth a rewatch

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It's hard to give this a low score when I went to a great deal of trouble to find a copy of it to watch ! The acting was fine. Alot of the comedy : like the multiple shirt ripping/exposing man's chest instances, didn't work for me. For an older movie though, it really brought the creep factor. They do the ghost suddenly in your face really well. I'm not a fan of horror or thrillers & going into this, I had thought that it would be milder on the thriller/creepy side . So the level of creepy influenced my lower rating. I was glad that it had a happy ending, but it wasn't 100% of a warm fuzzy hit because it was contrived, not (completely) chosen. I was dismayed that the male lead only agrees to call his current girlfriend when she threatens to not sleep with him. So, I shouldn't have been (but I was) shocked when 3/4 of the way through the movie the female lead says what she wants to do as a new couple is to have the big 0 (which it's implied they pursue off screen & without further comment). For some reason I was expecting this (as an older movie) to be more innocent & less scary/creepy. So lower score for unrealistic expectations !
Also, a small thing, but some of the music was odd & the song that played at the end (before the credits) was really really weird !!

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Engaging & heartfelt but Rugby IS violent !!!!!

I'm really not fond of Im Se Mi , but she does a credible job here playing her typical "tom-boy" character that's annoyingly disdainful, loudmouthed & physically abusive.

Yoon Kye Sang is infectiously upbeat as the "Peter Pan" man who still acts childish

The Rugby team is endearing

the Rugby itself is horrifically violent -it's more like gladiators going out to fight a fight they know may kill them

SO Rugby hating aside, this was alot more engaging than I ever dreamed it would or could be.

Here are the 3 things keep this from a perfect score:
(Do they really detract, from the drama or how much I enjoyed it ?
NO,......BUT still

****Spoilers****

A) despite seeing a former star player living with disability ( due to a Rugby injury) And knowing that high school players could be damaged for life-Yoon Kye Sang 's character vigorously recruits high school boys to play..& fails to live up to his own ethics & goals . When they are injured he let's THEM decide to still play despite it being against doctor's opinion. Worse, he has been very vocal about changing Rugby to be one that protects the players & teaches them to be better than the generation that came before them when it comes to self care. So, his noble ideals are really a sham. As an adult experienced Rugby player & coach, he should have acted as such when it came to decisions about injuries. That he couldn't notice one of his players constantly in pain- when he had only 7 players to keep track of- & then not insisting in the proper treatment (instead of letting a minor make the decision) was unconscionable as well as failing to uphold his own stated intentions for changing the game for the better.

B) at the end they totally gloss over the fact that Yoon Kye Sang 's character, despite surgery, has a degenerative disease that at best would allow him to engage in low intensity exercise-so letting him continue to coach is pretty un-credible. [They should have brought in the crippled ex star player to co-coach with him-that would have been believable]

C) The question of where Yoon Kye Sang was for the 3 years after his doping scandal is never answered

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Disjointed-felt pieced together with plot holes

I didn't watch the drama of the same title & have not encountered the webtoon, so I had no preconceptions going into it. I see that the female lead is different from the 16 episode series of the same name, which made me wonder why this felt as if it could be just bits & pieces of the 16 episode drama series chopped, spun & thrown at a wall for the end product. By the end I had questions still unanswered. It definitely didn't make me want to watch the drama series ! For me, I would have rather seen the female lead with the second male lead, violent though he may be, at least he was an open book & easy to understand.

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Female centric action comedy had Charlie's Angels vibe but no romance to speak of

if you saw the trailer you've gotten a good sense of what this movie is like. Female centric adventure really has a "Charlie's Angels" vibe with the mix of action & hijinks . I'm giving it a low rating because one of the lead female characters freezes everytime she sees s person from her traumatic past-causing her to basically faint -when she should be fighting. (think kryptonite & Superman) I thought it was a stupid trope. Also, that same female lead will NOT get her romantic happily ever after, (though one of her fellow girl fighters will). I felt like there were some plot holes & even some scene holes. I wouldn't rewatch it. Not horrible, but also, not memorable or all that interesting

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SO many montages ! No romance, but Very Cringy cartoony cat manifestations

If you are here for Ding Yu Xi & you enjoy watching just about everything he does, you might want to rethink watching this. Yes you will get enough closeups to feed any obsession you might have, & yes, he does an admirable job acting, BUT there is no nice way to say that this is a bit of a dud for all reasons Not Ding Yu Xi. Firstly you must set your expectations as there is no romance for his character & really the character that has a whiff of romance in their storyline is really not worth mentioning.
I wonder if Ding Yu XI was tired of being the romantic lead in insipid dramas & wanted to enjoy himself & do action scenes ??
What you need to know is that this tries really hard to sell bromance & present it as a buddy ensemble drama. It focuses on the mysteries that need to be solved in each episode that propel the plot forward as each mystery solves a piece of the over arching puzzle. They mysteries aren't bad, but it's good to know ahead of time what you are getting into.
I did try to like this ,but it was not that entertaining to me.

Where this goes wrong:
One character is a Foreigner & he 's just handsome enough that they don't want you to be distracted by that because they want you to focus on Ding Yu Xi as the male lead, so they give this guy a uni brow, & a hairstyle that will remind you of America's disco era. He is also shackled with a dumb name :Alibaba ( & yes they do seem to indicate that he is from someplace middle eastern) When he speaks his native language, it just dialogue played backwards. He's part of an ensemble of buddies that will eat up way more screen time than they are worth . The group of guys is meant to be a brotherhood of sorts, that provides comedic relief. They are much less than endearing & the humor depends on your personal taste. Ding Yu Xi transforming into a cat doesn't actually happen that often & when it does ,the animation is very colorful but ....it just doesn't work. I'm exaggerating a bit here, but it was awful and the proportions are weird. Thankfully Ding Yu Xi is able to convey dangerous & angry [ cat ] without transforming the majority of the time-which is a huge relief.(honestly& sadly, the CGI cat IS embarrassing)
Another negative is that there are a ridiculous amount of LONG montages, where memories of a character are paraded in front of you & characters don't even have to die for the montages to be thrown in.

I'm not sure that this deserves 8 stars, but it is beautiful looking & then there's Ding Yu Xi & also there are the "mysteries" that get solved that are somewhat interesting [& really the focus of the drama]
***********************
spoilers ahead:
**********************
A big tragedy is that the character that you think is Ding Yu Xi's nemesis really isn't & besides
Ding Yu Xi, that's the character ,(& thier relationship with Ding Yu Xi, ) that you most care about, so when they "off" that character, it taints how you end up feeling about the drama over all.

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Feels like badly edited super short version of a full length drama

There are alot of abrupt flashbacks of things that supposedly happened that we only see in flashbacks & it make you feel cheated because they are flashed on the screen & then gone. This drama reminded me a bit of the Korean drama "Feel good to die", as it uses the "groundhog day" time loop, deals with a disgruntled employee & a supposedly mean boss romance. I wasn't impressed with this drama though, as it suffers from being way too short. I feel like they shrank down a 10 episode (of 40+ min each) drama into whatever bit sized thing this is. [ mini drama seems a bit to generous !] Yes, there is romance, but it's really low key and the kisses are basically just a screen shot & that's all. Though it's super short, it still felt like an unsatisfying waste of time

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Story wise, this drama is a true melo drama & suffers from the bloat. Long winded melodramatic rants & romantic switchbacks, with relationships ping-ponging around & zig zagging all over the place. It also doesn't serve up satisfying relationships, even though there are happy endings all around for the main characters.
Roy Chiu's character starts out with an over the top swagger that has him literally bouncing as he saunters around and it is neither believable or attractive. 20 episodes later he sheds that persona & THEN you see the Roy Chiu you came to see.
The second male lead has 2 faces; happy & morose. He will spend 90% of the drama looking worried & confused as his character pathetically waffles between women. The writers didn't seem to have much imagination as the second female lead ALSO is morose & prone to spacing out.
There are some tired tropes, such as:
the First love gets dibs on their first love, no matter how many years have gone by. Then there are the obligatory relationships with the ridiculous misplaced imposed duty & responsibility (to a relationship that only one person wants): with the ever supposedly "noble" sacrifices being anything but noble. People go around guilting each other into action & unilaterally making decisions for each other (just so the drama can meet it's 42 episode quota!?)
A good edit would have pared down the parts where they just talk everything to death.

I searched for over 4 years for this drama & finally found it on youtube (complete with English subs). This IS a 2014 drama & so it feels dated (I watched it in 2025). The outrageous hair styles (that change with a character's development/maturity) are sometimes distractingly outdated. Zhang Bo's tragic hair style can only have been imposed on him in order for us not to wish too hard that he would over come the second lead syndrome! The makeup artists couldn't figure out what to do with the female lead's beauty mark (mole) on her chin so they initially covered it up (& ding such a poor job of that it actually appears to be a pimple.) The mole continues to play hide & seek with the camera throughout the drama .
The secondary couple get way too much screen time & they aren't even likeable. The main couple get only 1 screen kiss in all 42 episodes (& really, it's barely a kiss at all) the ending, though happy , is bland and you feel cheated.
5 1/2 stars is being generous & is only that much because of Roy Chiu's star quality, which only shows up 1/2 way through the drama

Note: Roy Chiu does do quite a bit of singing both on camera and in the background (OST) so if that appeals to you, you may want to sit through the this mess of a drama

Wine Beauty can be found (Aug.2025) on youtube Channels

Drama Box Exclusive (all 42 Episodes)
Drama Box English -(which only has 40 episodes for some reason)

The Audio & Video quality on both are excellent. But be aware that there are a few times when the dialogue isn't subbed this is a problem whenever anything written or texted on phones is shown on screen. It's unfortunate that the subs are in white as they disappear when the back ground is sold white, [which happens surprisingly often]. The Sub writers also deserve to be virtual noodle slapped for being so bad at thier jobs that they frequently got genders mixed up and present us with words that were nonsensical. Sadly, they also disfigured English grammar to the point where you have to pause the screen so that you can figure out what the seemingly guillotined word might be. The drama is still watchable, it's just annoying at times to have to deal with bad or missing subs.

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Endearingly campy with questionable morals/ethics orated in every episode

Overly enthusiastic rookie teacher cheer leads her underperforming students to graduation in such a way that it amuses everyone around her. Do keep in mind how old this and don't expect much from it! The cheesy preachy exhortations the rookie teacher gives are a bit long winded at time, but delivered in a heartfelt way. The lessons/morals being given to the kids sometimes feel a little propaganda-ish AND are a bit questionable at times, but how seriously can you take them, given that they are delivered so zealously that it's reduced to folderol (silly). Overall, it's a cheesy ,yet heartwarming, " watch the under dogs" zig zag their way to the graduation finish line, while learning life lessons along the way. I came in & out of this, using it as a drama filler & it was a bit over the top for me, so I will pass on season 2.
As for romance; the female lead does get an ending that implies she is on the romance track , but I was not impressed with the object of her affection as he seemed up for being with women casually , too often giving them the wrong impression & not caring.

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Is better after Ep.2, but social agenda of theme & cartoony male lead meshed oddly

I really didn't like the first 2 Episodes. Both leads presented poorly & there were no sparks to make you want to see them together. The tone suddenly changed in Episode 3 , with the female lead doing a 180 degree in her personality. Her softer & higher pitched tone made her seem as if she was trying to persuade a child or give the impression of innocence & femininity. (the drama trope of faux sweet temperament) . It was as if the writers changed! The theme of government officials matchmaking people is timely as South Korea is actually doing that to a certain degree, but it didn't seem like they were actually doing much of that in the drama as it focused on very few couples. Did they intend to show that those in thier 20's & 30's aren't that interested in marriage ? Because that's how it came across. There were really too many "what the heck" moments for me to rate this higher. Sadly, it requires spoilers to explain well, so will add them to the bottom of the page here.
I was disappointed that the *main male lead was like a caricature of some old man from the countryside (who lacked a fully functioning brain !) He & the second male lead were hyper focused on obliging the female lead -which made sense for the one guy (who felt guilty for "cheating" on her,) but the main male lead *"Mr. Clowny pants" was just perplexing. I was really disturbed to see that 2 times men got away with inappropriate behavior & werer not held accountable .[see spoiler at bottom]. It was a bit jarring to have things like that happen in such a light weight drama.
Though I was glad that the element of having young children as part of the main plot didn't prove to be annoying, I was side eyeing the scenes where the uncle was frequently leaving them in the apartment by themselves. It's not like he was new to parenting them, so why are kids under 10 unattended for really long stretches of time ? Also the children were conspicuously missing in the happy ending (see * spoilers at end) The kids were just kind of snarky side kicks there for comic relief & were conveniently just not around alot with no one watching them.
The female lead did waffle around alot when it came to choosing the male lead & that did not make her endearing.
I found the end to be surprisingly lackluster & though the leads get a happy ending, it didn't "hit me in the feels".

It will take spoilers to explain

**Spoiler**

#1
guy targets woman to take advantage of her (in unimplied way) & when she is passed out, he takes photos of her exposed legs & plans to defame her. It is unclear if he intends to do more to her, but when he is caught, he is let off with the warning : "don't do something like this again or I will come after you". !!!! what ? ! Next time !?
another incident is that the deviant's father (the mayor) begs for mercy for his son. (instead of the son begging for mercy) and says to let him off the hook because the son was born out of wedlock & his mother abandoned him so he doesn't know what love is. The son is 29 !!! So really both the son & the mayor (who tried to pin the incident on an innocent person) should go to jail !

Spoiler #2
at the end main couple are together chatting & get into bed together......wedding, what wedding ? when ? and kids, where are the kids, the apt. looks open , no closed doors for privacy...so kids are where ?

Spoiler#3
rich annoying chaebol chick was really brainless & selfish, very intent on what she wants. So at the end when you find out that; Nope, she & 2nd male lead did not even consider dating ( though it was shown over & over again that they were very similar & compatible ) but she is suddenly marrying some guy that never had screen time & seems totally fine with it!

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