JustCruisin

*applause* Yup. Yup. Aaaand yup. Tots agree. At some point I started thinking, "may this kind of love never find me." 😂 I found the romance/love angle to the story so unequal and, at times, toxic. She's just there to be cannon fodder, punching bag and hostage/blackmail material for the ML and when she finally becomes a badarse demon her powers are too unstable for her to handle or use 🙄 Lordy, talk about stingy characterisation. The first maybe 15 eps were always "kill" and "die"; the vocabulary was so limited it was boring AF then the latter part was just a whole bunch of inconsistent WTF stories and magic/energy rules that contradicted each other just moments before that x1.5 speed was just the best way to finish it!

Yeah, ratings aren't a great indicator usually. I'm not sure about MDL but with books reviews are mostly rigged. Shows with weak writing generally rely on dazzling audiences with beautiful cinematography and moving soundtracks. Like there was a part where Song Mo blindfolded his eyes to help Dou Zhao dig up the bracelet. The slow mo, wind effects and lighting on the red ribbon on him was beautiful but so unnecessary to the whole story at that point. There were lots of other parts that was directed like that that hinted at the fact that the director knew he had nothing of substance to give so he just threw some pretty stuff in to distract. I agree with you that if based on cinematography alone the score should be higher than a 1. It was visually amazing and some scenes are breathtaking. You're probably astute with aesthetics hence why you'd home in on it. I'm more of a story seeker so I score on the writing and characterisation. Haha, we should team up on reviewing a show!

The time travel thing was literally dumped by the characters themselves anyway. Half of the recipients forgot that past, i.e., Song Mo, and when Dou Zhao laid it all out on the wedding night he ignored it and never referred to it in future strategic planning even. I had a feeling they were going to dump this plot device when she started laying things out in a serial killer vision board thing 🙄

You zoned out in the end? That would be the worst thing for any director to hear about their production 😂😂😂 Have you seen Yin Yang Master: Dream of Eternity? That is a visual feast. So beautifully made and the writing is good; there are some points which are hmmmm but overall, for the constraint of a shorter movie format, the story is well done.

I gave it 1/10. It was a characterisation mess. The time travel thing was like The Princess Royal except unlike The Princess Royal it served no purpose but for Dou Zhao to get insider trading info to build up her wealth. Like buying Apple stocks if we were to go back to early 80s timeline 😂 But the whole exercise became a study in nature vs nurture.

Basically, Dou Zhao's uncle was "righteous" until he got the help from the princess. He didn't have an issue with getting help from her but he had an issue with the kind of help he got 🙄 so he decided to start a villain arc. Seriously? And Song Mo's younger brother just went off the deep end coz he finds himself in the precarious position of being an illegitimate child. It didn't take much for these two guys to turn 180 and their change is not very realistic. It's plot driven writing to serve the story but it treats the audience like an idiot, imho.

Plus, tbh, when we find out the real reason behind the empress's motives I was all for her winning. I mean, at the end of the day, you've got the emperor's 2-3 brothers or uncles (can't remember their r/ship titles) and his wife, second son and a bunch of close cabinet ministers going against him. At which point do you stop and ask yourself, "hmmmm, maybe I'M the problem!"?!? But like most cdramas because it's a patriarchal society the woman is the villain so the empress is portrayed as the evil usurper wannabe who created all this chaos 🙄 Lordy. It's just dastardly poor writing that didn't give a good sense of justice in the end.

Wow. You're generous with the 4/10 score.

Wow. So unnecessary.

Thanks for this MVP comment. Didn't realise her voice was dubbed in WRTW. I'm guessing the male lead's voice was dubbed too then. He sounds so much like Ye Hua from Three Lives Three Worlds.

It's very disappointing the extent to which CDramas dub their actors' voices. The way they speak can be coached instead and it'd be more natural going this route.

Reviews are meant to be evaluative, not entertainment.

Agree with the storyline being paper thin, but point 3 isn't true. In Asian culture they can, and sometimes do, refer to themselves in 3rd person. Haven't seen the whole show. Stopped at ep 2 and don't intend to watch in but if it's the male protagonist you're taking abt then him referring to himself in 3rd person is just rehashing that relationship to her.

OOOH! Sorry to hear that. That's traumatic!!! Only way to undo it is to watch some better kdramas now!

hahaha poor thing! How many eps did you put yourself through b4 you finally decided to break up with this show?

Glad you're enjoying the series :) Chef Gwi was certainly a mature man but, for me, I didn't find his characterisation that unique. The male love interest char who works with a secret ID to help his female paramour, or the female protag, is not a unique feature. Even tho I loathed the series Inspector Koo has the male char, Panda, helping the eponymous detective without ever having revealed whom he is to her and what his real intentions were. In this one, the feelings btwn Panda and Inspector Koo were just platonic. He highly respects her and is happy seeing her happy and gladly puts himself in harm's way often to help her with her work. Another eg I had in mind was in Eternal Love where Ye Hua hides his heavenly crown prince secret ID while using his powers to protect and care for Su Su. He is similar to Chef Gwi too in that he cooks for Su Su. In fact, he insists on being the chef between the two. In Hotel Del Luna, the char Go Chung Myung is the female protag's original love interest. He spends hundreds of years (I think it's a thousand all up, can't remember) being this presence besides her doing whatever he's able to to help her achieve her goals or generally make her life and job easier. In all that time she never knows about it and he never reveals himself. He never revealed the true reasons behind what happened in their incarnated life together as well so he was happy to be the villain as long as she lives. He also makes the ultimate sacrifice of letting her go to be with the one whom she truly loves, which was standing ovation nobility stuff, in my eyes. Another one too is Love Btwn Fairy and Devil where altho Chang Heng doesn't hide his ID he hides his intentions to Xiao Lian Hua in order to protect her. He ultimately also makes the biggest sacrifice of letting her go. The main thing with this is the intention to advance the female char's wellbeing while having the male chars take hits to themselves without expecting anything in return. Despite a lot of toxic masculinity portrayed there are also shows that advance this idea now, enough to normalise it, which is great! Have a check on those if you haven't. If you liked Chef Gwi you'll love the ones I mentioned.

But I get what you mean about how male chars are often portrayed as being entitled to the woman when they make a "sacrifice". I had an discussion with a male reader on a story that had the man "giving" the woman a present that she loves and the woman later confirming her rejection of him. The male reader was offended by her actions citing that he'd given her the gift, could she not have at least reciprocated his feelings? This mentality is enforced by jewellery ads a lot where, if a guy gives a woman some sparkly thing she instantly wants to and should get it on with him. Had to point out to that male reader that a gift is meant to be without strings attached otherwise it's not a gift at all but blackmail. The woman's not a prostitute but if she were, it wouldn't have been a gift, it would've been a business transaction so let's not BS abt the word "gift".

U r too smart!

For Master Lee! And thank gawd for the x1.5 speed on Netflix.

Agree totally with this review, but didn't get the metaphor about a woman who ended up committing suicide. Are you referring to the Room 19 novel? I don't recall a suicide there, just the wife lying about having an affair.

I thought having them destroy their bodies was unnecessary then when I found out they cut out the competition where a woman (stuntwoman Da Young) beat a man I knew this show was going to be all BS. It's not really a fair comp to find the fittest or strongest. Just do whatever to fit in with the Korean society's narrative while getting money off using the competitors for entertainment.

Hi, thanks for the comment. I never said it was an LGBTQ+ genre. I only said it dealt with this subject matter yet never acknowledged that it dealt with it, which was why the ending was disappointing because they could never deal with the LGBTQ+ facet that they've introduced. Like I mentioned they could've just given CJ a choice. We never get to know how he felt abt being with a guy. Plus they (the writers) were starting to make it seem like SY was gone and BH was integrating into the female body anyway. They could've gone with that. But in the end they choose to ignore everything they brought up just to force a happy ending. It's the weakest and most cowardly way to go, imho. Writers should honour their characters' journeys and this didn't honour CJ and BH's journey. For a story that did, check out the Rooftop Prince. Bittersweet ending but it didn't insult the viewers with a forced, nonsense ending and really honoured the characters' journeys. The ending was the only logical conclusion and even tho it wasn't the happy ending we might've wanted, it was still a happy ending in its own way.

I heard abt Go Princess Go. Unfortunately I can't access that where I'm at. Is it good? Have U read the book as well? How do they differ? Do DM me to let me know abt GPG, if you're amenable. I read some reviews on GPG and it sounded like they made it way more com than rom. Sounded interesting.

Hi,

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Not sure why I'm getting this reply though. This is a 1 low review of the show. What did you expect?

I don't see how it's relevant that most people liked it or felt that it was an acceptable easy watch. Not everybody has to like it or think it's an okay easy watch. I didn't and wasn't willing to waste extra hours of my life on it.

"My ID was Gangnam Beauty" was not better because it was better at showing an "ugly fl". It tackled the idea of beauty in more depth. I'm going to write a review on that and U can shoot me down on that too if U want ;)

But with True Beauty, I was aware that it was meant to be an easy watch. I've seen easy watches before, but TB was just nothing. It didn't provide any creativity, surprises or anything authentic. It was highly predictable. There's easy watch and there's easy watch that really kills off the brain cells. TB was the latter for me. How's abt this? U're welcome to DM me and we can thrash this out in private. U seem to love this show a lot. Let me know what you see in it. I'd be interested. At the very least we might just end up with agreeing to disagree but I'm curious as to what anyone sees in this show.

What drew U to it? What kept U watching? I think it started fr a webtoon. Did U watch it fr there? Etc.

Otherwise, thanks for chipping in your views on my views.

Cheers.

Thanks 😁 Hope u didn't have to sit through all the episodes of this series. Have a great day!

Thanks for the comment. I'm so sorry you had to watch any part of this show! I don't understand why ppl rave about this too. Not being Korean, sometimes it makes me wonder if this sort of behaviour is acceptable for girls in Korea as they seem to love this show and the guys in it. At any rate, I'd recommend "My ID is Gangnam Beauty", which is a similarly university-aged demographic show but is MUCH better. Hopefully that will wipe away the trauma you suffered watching this WTF Boys over Flowers. I haven't put a review for that show as I'm going to watch it again. There's so many stuff that's so amazing about it. If you have any opinions about it after giving it a go, feel free to PM me but be warned, I can talk on and on abt Asian shows 😂 Otherwise, do let me know what show u watched to wipe over this ack one! Have a great day!

Heya, thanks for commenting on my review. Didn't expect anyone to notice it as there's hundreds of them.

I didn't get the overworked aspect of her job as much because we get shown that the boss kept a seemingly healthy circadian habit. At least he goes to sleep to have to wake up in a reasonable time. And then he took his shower before dressing up. Plus he has strict times for eating and tea snacks. His control over his habits helped to establish that he was a successful young corporate CEO because it showed great time management and didn't suggest someone who'd burn the midnight oil or be a night owl. So when sec Kim started talking abt her off schedules, it didn't come across as convincing at all because it was more a "telling" the viewers the issues rather than "showing" us, which would've been more impactful. Besides, if it was really as bad as she said we'd expect that he'd need more than an episode to sway her but by episode 2 she was starting to consider staying on already. BUT at the end of the day, whatever convinces you to avoid this series is reason enough! :) For me, it was the bad writing and lack of interest in the characters.

I do agree bosses like that are not cool, and exhaustion from being overworked is a huge issue in Asia :(