9NineTailFox

thanks. I'm always wary when other reference series like Hidden Love that are so divided, but you make a clean argument.

I won't watch Hidden Love, I've enjoyed many of the cast in other projects. I'm just over this particular trend, or the current way of portraying the 1st love & family trope Cdramas used to excel at. I really also miss their romcoms, it's like the best ones stopped after 2023. Alas, I digress, I really liked Bai Jing Ting in New Life Begins (a fab series!!) and he was serving the best crouching tiger vibes I've seen in a such a young Lead. So I am on the fence about First Frost. I don't want to watch it if it in any way is similar in pace or sensibility to Hidden Love. Should I watch it?

I loved her. What a wonderfully random moment.

Fantastic series. Jasper Liu is a beast of an actor! I love the lived-in reality of the entire production.

" pausing the button and literally caressing his face on the screen whenever he was down." you wrote that. lol, nice.

@Jeana Savage in the best way. hahahahahaha

"I've completely lost faith in humanity after watching this drama. How the absolute fuck does it have an 8.9 rating?" I am dead! LMAO

Oh yes LBFAD 🫶🏾I did watch all of The Red Sleeve, but had the opposite reaction.

Those who have ventured to C-Drama Xanxia land , please take my God Of War survey https://kisskh.at/games/gWo0Tp

Amazing Work!! !

That’s too bad. By fast forwarding your are missing the essential set ups for the plans within plans within plans that this show does fantastically.

“ but still went back once in a while for the jail's hairstylist to trim his hair for free. ” 🤣🤣🤣💀

Pssssst, your haircut is terrible.

Here's a C-Drama Flight if you will, a few series across the genres:
1. Historical/Palace Intrigue: Joy of Life 1 and (lucky you, ppl. have waited 5yrs) Joy of Life 2, Story of Yanxi Palace, Rise of the Phoenixes,
2. Wuxia (Historical/Costume with Lots of Martial Arts and Sword Fighting) The Romance of Tiger and Rose,Who Rules the World, Blood of Youth, A New Life Begins
The Untamed, Wonderland Of Love
3. Xianxia (C-drama equivalent of western fantasy, 3 realms, immortals, fairies, gods of war, etc, reincarnation) Ashes of Love, Eternal Love, Back From The Brink, Love and Redemption. The GOAT is Love Between Fairy and Devil (SAVE THIS FOR LAST!!!!!! or it will ruin you for all the rest).
4. The Republic Era (Costume, Pre-WW1) Fall in the Love (the best!) Arsenal Academy, On the really risqué snd dark side is the brilliantly acted and directed, Circle of Love (not for the faint of heart or prudish, you have to be willing to watch a very dark, somewhat macabre wildly original take on Romeo and Juliette doomed lovers trope).
5. Modern Rom-Coms (Cdramas invented 1/2 of the tropes you find familiar in K-Dramas:
*Domineering CEO/Cinderella (I love a petty arrogant ML if he's done right: Use For My Talent, Begin Again (the woman is the domineering CEO) The Trick to Life and Love, *Contract Marriage: Well-Intended Love (Netflix), Hello Mr. Gu, When We Get Married
*First Love/College Life/Love: Put Your Head On My Shoulder, Meteor Garden, My Unicorn Girl, Love O2O,
*Rom-Com for Grown Ups: The best is the Taiwanese series Before We Get Married.

What genre C-dramas are you looking for, because there are excellent examples in all genre sans cheese and corn.

My Sweet Mobster is an overrated meh of series. A waste of a possibly good storyline, and definitely a waste of an original ML actor.

Love Between Fairy and Devil is the GOAT! I adore 100 Days My Prince (my first sageug) but sorry, The Red Sleeve was painful and slow, it started off good, and I like it was loosely based on a true history, but way too much angst drawn out for me.

I agree. I do not see any overt Westernization in k-dramas with the exception of Season dragging. I find many of these series lose their appeal in 'drag' scenario when they excel in a 'binge' scenario. I agree with a comment here about ML casting being based on Instagram popularity too often. I relatively new to k-dramas and actually began watching the horror genre first (Train to Busan, Kingdom, Sweet Home) and then the rom.coms. The biggest and most frustrating thing I've encountered with the rom.com/melodramas is the increasing lack of maturity over the most basic things like kissing, this just takes away any previous sincerity gained in the series when they act like everyone is a 30 year old virgin, even the humor loses its punch because you can't believe a saucy joke when everyone is addicting so prudish. The older series seemed far more realistic in this aspect and I really appreciate them for it, it's not always about skinship, but chemistry that is palpable, so that the sexy banter feels real and not forced, and the jokes will land. Instead they feel they need to stack the deck to make up for the lack of chemistry by incorporating tired childhood trauma, we met when we were kids, psycho one-side love triangles, and noble sacrifice break-up tropes.

That's why I haven't watched it yet too, I still see them as siblings. And yes, I think this was a well since its going to be a while until JOL2 is done, let's make this.

thanks! I have watched about half of your list lol, but there's lots more!