timotey

I’m not sure if you can actually call it a “series” considering it’s just 3 barely 15 min. long episodes - you can find them on YT subbed under WarperTV - but it’s so good. Very dark, very, very tragic but also very good. A pretty simple and straightforward story but told in a very weird, almost convoluted way. Beware, though, it’s a horror tale and not a happy one, not in the slightest!

Also, the story is pretty much carried by Jeff Satur and Gameplay Garnpaphon’s insane chemistry - if you have seen Ingredients then you know what I’m talking about. Here they also play lovers and, holy smokes! Now I really can’t wait to see them in Kinnporsche, hopefully playing a couple again! They’re both such amazing actors that you really get Peem’s anger and sadness and Mike’s anger and grief and guilt when he realizes what he’s done, that he took out his anger on the wrong person. Gosh, it’s heartbreaking.

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Boring

Unfortunately, this was just plain boring for me. There were some really good scenes in it - like when Bar set some boundaries for Gun because he didn’t want Gun to work himself to exhaustion - but overall, this drama made me realize anew that “coffee shop” stories, ie stories with little to no angst or drama, just don’t work for me. I need some push-n-pull, some tension, some conflict to happen to keep up my interest.

Or maybe, it was the acting. The actor playing Bar was amazing - but the one playing Gun... wasn’t, to be kind. I felt that Folk Thitiphat who played Bar carried the entire show by himself and, really, when the story is very plain then the drama needs to be build on the actors. And here, one part of the couple was simply lacking in acting skills. Or maybe in experience. Maybe Win Achawin will turn out to be a fantastic actor in the future but here, well, he simply couldn’t keep up with Folk in the acting department. Which is too bad.

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I admit I started watching this drama for New Thitipoom - if I have one bias among Thai actors, it’s Newwiee - and the beginning was rather wonky - you do have to get used to how over-the-top the characters are - but as the series went on, I really got into it, into the story of finding Wang’s mother. Yes, I admit that it dragged a little but the impact the whole thing had on Win and Wang was very intriguing and it let Newwiee and Krist Perawat really spread their acting wings.

My favorite characters were Newwiee’s Win and Namtan Tipnaree’s Pat but for very different reasons. Where Pat was consistently good and likable and sweet and understanding - Win was the character who went through the most obvious change: he started as a spoiled, selfish and rather entitled brat and throughout the drama he learned to be kind and considerate, to apologize for his mistakes and right the wrongs he did. It was a truly fascinating journey.

After several Thai dramas that felt like candyfloss - sweet but empty - this one was a good change of pace. Yes, it was still silly but I loved the family arc and many of the emotional scenes really hit me, they were so well acted I honestly bawled. I’m very glad that I watched this drama.

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Why, oh why couldn’t this Cdrama have focused on Mi Kaka and Qi Mu and their conflict with Poker? Why did it have to focus on Edison who, despite being a spy and a traitor, was the most boring character of the whole drama? Seriously, this could’ve been so, so awesome. As it is, it’s barely a 6/10 drama and that mainly because I really liked Mi Kaka and his relationship with his big brother, Mi Jie, and the madman that was Qi Mu…

So, if I get it right, the secret organization called Poker had built a machine that could calculate anything, even the future. But it needed a human brain to work. And for that, there were two candidates, two kids: Qi Mu - and Mi Kaka. Qi Mu’s mother willingly gave her child up but Mi Kaka’s parents tried to save him - they died in a fire, though. It was his older brother who pulled little Kaka out of that fire and since then, he’d been keeping his existence a secret. But because he never told Kaka any of that, Kaka didn’t know what was happening. Sure, he did feel that something was wrong which is why he kept his real intelligence secret, even from his big brother, but not knowing about Poker, he started playing their computer game, Inference Notes, the one they used to ferret out really smart people all around the world and because he excelled in it, Poker - and Qi Mu - found him…

Gosh, if the drama had focused on that, it would’ve been just about perfect. Qi Mu’s obsession with Mi Kaka - the ending, when Mi Jie saw Qi Mu’s drawing of Kaka! O.o - and Mi Kaka’s relationship with his brother, those were namely the saving graces of this series. And the wasted potential just miffs me to no end… Argh!

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At first, I really liked this drama. There's space for cute dramas just like there's space for realism and/or angst. One isn't better than the other, it really depends on what mood you're in. So...

Like I said, at first, I really liked it. But the longer it went, the less I understood Aoki and by the end, he really got on my nerves. IMHO, Ida hat the patience of a saint. I mean, after one date, Aoki already wanted a love declaration but at the same time, he wanted Ida to lie to his friends about dating him. He wanted to hear Ida say that he loved him, but when Ida did, Aoki told him not to say it out loud like that because it was embarrassing. It felt like Aoki truly didn't know what he wanted and it was no wonder that Ida was so confused. It was really irritating. Aoki could be very kind and selfless but also a complete idiot and the latter was far more prevalent in the second half.

Overall, it wasn't a bad series but not really something memorable.

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This was a sweet, quiet and calm drama, it felt almost serene. There were no big upheavals, no hidden agency, no scheming from jilted lovers or anything like that. It was your typical slice of life Jdrama.

Which made it, well, kinda boring. After several episodes, it felt to me personally that it was dragging a little, the back and forth arguments were of the lather-rinse-repeat variety and I really didn't like the secondary couple - if you could even call them that.

The whole thing was heavily carried by the two leads, Kusakawa Takuya and Nishigaki Sho, and even though Kusakawa Takuya was great, especially in moments when Akira was all flustered or almost halfway seduced already, it was Nishigaki Sho who had the biggest on me, his Shin was simply marvelous and I could really feel the depth of his love for Akira.

Still, I'm not sure I will ever re-watch this one. Except for a few truly exceptional moments, this drama was really slow. Turns out I really like some, well, drama in my drama.

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This drama hit just the right spot at the right time for me. Sweet, funny, tender, touching, sad… It had everything. And I loved all the characters, both Lu Miao’s friends and Jiang Haoyue’s friend - yes, singular - and all the family stuff that was simply heart-wrenching…

I really liked how the drama handled Jiang Haoyue’s disability. It did not make him any less and it didn’t really hinder him in his everyday life but that did not mean that it wasn’t an issue, affecting both his health and the financial situation of his family. And it wasn’t a thing that would ever go away. And I loved that Lu Miao never saw Jiang Haoyue’s disability as a problem because she’s only ever known him with it, there was no Haoyue without it in her memory and so she simply accepted that this was his reality and there was no need to debate it or pick it apart. Haoyue was Haoyue as he was for her.

I read that Zhang Linghe said that out of all the characters he has played so far, Jiang Haoyue was the one that affected him the most. No wonder. ZLH was just amazing here. He gave his all, especially in emotional scenes that were truly felt but never overdone. Fantastic. And when you realize that ZLH studied electrical engineering not acting, that he’s basically self-taught and has only been in the business for two-three years? Wow.

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I picked this drama because of Zheng Yecheng as Fu Jiuyun - and he didn't disappoint in the slightest. There's something about his acting that makes everything he does on-screen feel natural. And as much as I'm usually not into alpha males, there's just something so very... sensual about him asserting his dominance that it makes my heart go all doki-doki.

I wasn't always on board with what Qin Chuan was doing, oftentimes I didn't like it, but I understood where she was coming from and I did appreciate her tenacity, her determination to avenge her people and then her helplessness when she realized that her people didn't want any revenge, they just wanted to move on and live peacefully if at all possible, that her efforts weren't really needed/appreciated because her people needed her to help them rebuild, not run around, playing avengers.

My favorite relationship in this drama was the friendship between Fu Jiuyun and his immortal friend Mei Shanjun. He was Fu Jiuyun's best friend, his confidante, his healer, his ride-or-die. And it was glorious.

There were several moments that made me cry really hard:

- When Xiao Bai, Fu Jiuyun's mirror, sacrificed himself to save him and Qin Chuan and Fu Jiuyun kept it from Qin Chuan, telling her instead that Xiao Bai was just sleeping, sleeping peacefully, and they shouldn't wake him up.
- When Xuan Zhu sacrificed herself. I didn't like her. Actually, I pretty much hated her throughout the drama but I did understand her feeling inadequate, always not good enough, always lost in Qin Chuan's shadow. Her death was really sad.
- When the Spirit Lamp was lit and Mei Shanjun realized that it meant that Fu Jiuyun was about to die. The way he turned away from the lamp and so very slowly looked at Fu Jiuyun who was already starting to disappear, turning into ash as he was burning up. And then, when the lamp was extinguished, the way Mei Shanjun screamed Fu Jiuyun's name.
- When Fu Jiuyun died, turning into these motes of light bit by bit while ignoring the pain of burning alive to watch Qin Chuan sleep for the last time.
- When Qin Chuan realized that Mei Shanjun lied to her and Fu Jiuyun wasn't coming back, that Mei Shanjun only relegated Fu Jiuyun's "dying message" to her, asking her to wait for Fu Jiuyun's return, to force her to live because it was what Fu Jiuyun would've wanted, for her to live.

What I really loved was that Qin Chuan's and Mei Shanjun's grief for Fu Jiuyun was treated as equal. Mei Shanjun cried as much and was devastated as much by Fu Jiuyun's death as Qin Chuan. A friend's grief wasn't treated here as something less.

The ending though was rather confusing and I had to look up what it actually meant in the explanation of someone who read the book. It was rather... head-tilting. I guess they counted on everyone knowing the book?

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Gosh, I loved Cho Yeon Joo. The way she ranted to herself when she got upset - and she got upset a lot. The way she could turn so angry so fast and explode like nobody's business, after which fisticuffs usually followed. The way she didn't let anyone walk all over her...

And, gosh, how much I loved Han Seung Wook. He was the softest. So kind and sweet and loving, despite everything that happened to him. For 14 years he'd been in love with a girl he's met exactly once and on the night his father died, too. And when he found her again, he was heart-eyes all the way. Patient, loyal, supporting, loving...

And Mr. Noh! He loved and supported Han Seung Wook as if Seung Wook was his own child. And Cho Yeon Joo then too. He looked after her and gave her his loyalty and... it was wonderful!

And I also loved Kang Mi Na, who was so very brave and smart and cunning!

This was a fantastic drama. Though I must admit that it suffered from the usual second-half slump. I think it would've benefited from having just ten or twelve episodes and not sixteen. When everybody started figuring out what was going on, it started to get a bit... well, convoluted.

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Another teeny tiny web Cdrama starring Yang Ze (he also starred as a spy in The Killer Is Also Romantic) and another great mix of humor & suspense. And featuring my favorite tropes: older woman/younger man and contract marriage pursued by the (business) woman (a la Begin Again with Gong Jun & Zhou Yutong).

I loved so many things about this one. Like, for example, that she pursued him so hard to marry her - but when he finally agreed, she realized she had to wait till his next birthday because he was only 21 and couldn't marry yet! Or that he wasn't a wilting snowflake either, that he had a hidden agenda of his own. Or that he was, basically, the Cinderella here, with two stepbrothers who abused him and stole his mother's wealth.

Also, the whump! Oh, the whump! For such a tiny drama, it had a really nice amount of whump on both sides, she after her kidnapping and him after receiving a severe head wound at 17.

Also #2! Thumbs up for the bad guy not being forgiven but facing his dues for what he had done to the both of them. That was... I cheered!

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This was such a warm and uplifting movie. It tells the story of a high school basketball player who's forced to change schools because of bullying. And in his new school, he finds not only a great team that teaches him how to love basketball again, but also life-long friends.

It's so sweet and inspiring. And his new team is absolutely precious. That they stay life-long friends - which is mentioned in the movie - despite every one of them choosing a wildly different career path in the end - the main hero becomes a sports teacher, the ex-captain a world-hopping businessman, another becomes a sushi chef, yet another a cop etc. - is just the cherry on top.

Also, I'm glad that the bullying wasn't simply swept under the rug, that it was shown that it left a mark on Yoichi, that he suffered from PTSD because of what his former team mates had done to him. It was a really great touch - and his new team mates had his back!

Also #2, there was very little to no romance, it was all about friendship and overcoming difficulties and it really didn't matter if their team manager, Hiroko , ended up with Yoichi or with Shunsuke, that really had no impact on their friendship. And that was great!

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This was a great drama. The twists just kept coming. And since I went in unspoiled, I was really shocked by some of them!

I watched it mainly and mostly for Fukushi Sota. I love it when he plays Good Boys(TM). And here he played a Truly Good Boy(TM)! So righteous and, well, innocent, I would say - or maybe naive? - about how the world of big time politics worked. What I loved, though, was that a) he didn't let himself get corrupted or swayed from his path to make justice prevail and b) he didn't turn bitter, not even at the end when pretty much everyone disappointed him in one way or another, his closest people included.

Also, I wonder what that last scene with his character meant, when he heard Habu's voice. Was it just his imagination? Who knows...

This is a thriller series where the bad guy is obvious from the get-go but he's also very, very powerful and when he actually starts going after the team, he pretty much demolishes them. The second half of the drama has the team losing on all fronts and it's not until the finale that they manage to wring out some sort of a victory. But it's not a clean-cut one, in my opinion. Though they stop the evil plan of evil, they pay for it and the mastermind still doesn't pay his dues, not really.

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A sweet tale about mature men finding happiness. It's a quiet and calm story with no big upheavals and little drama. Sure, there are a few hiccups there, on their way to happiness, but it's more of a "let me think about it first" rather than "oh no, whatever we'll do, the world is against us!" thing.

It was actually quite interesting that Nozue was more worried about what would people think of him eating sweets and taking photos and being openly happy rather than stoic and whatnot than he was about what everyone might think of him dating a man. I wonder if that was intentional?

Seeing Takeda Kouhei play Nozue was kinda a whiplash thing for me because the only big part I've seen him in so far was in Kamen Rider Build where he played Grease who went back and forth between a stoic soldier and a fanboy, there was no in-between. And Nozue was neither so it was intriguing to see this side of him as an actor.

Also, I really loved that Takeda Kouhei decided to try out this genre after seeing that his Kamen Rider Build friends - Akaso Eiji & Inukai Atsuhiro - both played in BL dramas already. Nice.

Overall, an understated slice-of-life story. Recommended to those who are fed up with big roller coaster dramas.

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This drama was awesome! Short - only 5 episodes 45 or so minutes each - but so good! It told the story of a special unauthorized police unit nicknamed Diver and the cases they solved.

For me, the main draw was Fukushi Sota as Kurosawa. His Kurosawa was a ruthless genius who had no care for his life or his safety, who focused solely on "eradicating evil" at any cost, including dead bodies if need be. Because once, in the past, he made a mistake and it cost someone dear to him his life. And since then, he had no tolerance for mistakes or bad guys - or corrupt cops.

One thing I didn't like much was the very abrupt ending, that there was no "bridge" between the pier scene and the last scene. It felt like there was so much that the drama skipped. I really wanted to see Kurosawa and Sho bond, Kurosawa telling him the truth about what happened back in the past... And also - how was Kurosawa saved, considering he got shot twice?! Argh!

Overall, a great drama with no fillers. Loved it!

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It took me a while to realize that the "4 Minutes" part of the title meant the EMT rule that if you don't start CPR within the first four minutes after someone stops breathing, there's little to no chance that the person can be saved. Duh!

I loved this drama so much. It tells the story of Mikoto who has the ability to foresee people's death. And he has seen that Sara, his step-sister and also the woman he's been in love with ever since his father married her mother, would die. He's known that ever since he was a kid but now that the date's coming closer, he can't keep the burden to himself anymore and so he tells his family. The drama is actually about how the family - the eldest brother Ren, Sara herself, the youngest brother Ai and Mikoto - deal with it, how it influences and changes their lives.

I loved the Hanamaki family so much! Each of their stories was so interesting and touching and sweet, the way they loved each other and were there for each other, the way they had each other's back, gosh, what a family!

Also, funny thing? This drama features Fukushi Sota (Kamen Rider Fourze), Yokohama Ryusei (ToQger) and Asahi Ito (Lupinranger)!

Overall, a wonderful, touching, emotional journey!

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