Alaskan

The Niao Niao character makes this a great and entertaining watch because she is one of the toughest and smartest drama heroines out there. Although the love story is beautiful, it is watching her stand up for herself and come into her own that makes this drama special. There is a lot of intrigue and fighting and revenge but there is also a lot of humor sprinkled throughout, which makes the 56 episodes race by. Ling Bu Yi makes for a worthy suitor who is just as principled (and stubborn) as she is, but just as emotionally damaged too. Watching the two of them clash and fall in love and clash some more is addictive. There are also some great side characters. One of my favorites was Empress Yue, who deserves an entire drama devoted to her. I also really really liked Niao Niao's interactions with the scholar.

I think this is one of the best, most epic romances around.

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This drama was mind-bending and imaginative and a lot of fun. I liked the fact that I never knew what was going to happen next. The writer was very very clever and managed to pull it off, for the most part. Lee Jong Suk was perfect for the role. After all, he looks like a manga character come to life. I always underestimate his acting ability due to his looks but he routinely exceeds my expectations. No exception here. And I always love Han Hyo Joo, who seems to pick good projects. There were a few particularly inventive things that stood out from the usual drama. The fading in and out from manga drawings was magical, especially due to the fact that they kept the manga aesthetic rather than trying to make the portraits exact copies of the subjects. And I could tell that the writer tried really hard to make everything tie together, while throwing in unexpected delights such as the water in the bathroom, probably my favorite scene. Well done, everyone.

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I watched about half of this drama, spurred on by glowing reviews, but even that much felt like a forced march. From the ML instantly falling so hard for the FL that his love endured through years of separation to the way that the FL’s crush on her idol became a reality because they’d known each other before, the romance struck me as kind of tweenies, and immature tweenies at that. I also kept wanting to shout, “WAIT, THINK!,” whenever the FL’s poor self-preservation skills made her do questionable things. Plus, once again South Korea seems to be the serial killer capital of the world. Because it can’t be true love unless someone wants to kill you.

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Great ensemble cast and female characters

Blossoms in Adversity is a historical drama with a strong Girl Power feel. The main story seems to revolve around the way the women in the extended family come together and find their voices. The female lead, Hua Zhi, is everything one would want in a female main character--smart, brave, morally upright, and hard working. Yanxi, the male lead, has similar qualities, but also killer martial arts skills, beautiful hands, and a cute, bouncing ponytail. Together they make an ideal couple, who actually talk things out with each other. (Maybe this is less of a historical drama and more of a fairy tale.)

I do have some quibbles. There are a number of unrealistic elements, such as the way that Hua Zhi gets away with mouthing off at people in power, the speed with which the Hua family claws its way out from ruin, and the repeated use of poor but virtuous and grateful commoners as plot points. Thank goodness for the emperor, who adds some much needed ambiguity and malevolence to the story.

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I like dramas that offer up something original while including some clever twists and turns. Thus, I enjoyed The Golden Spoon a lot. The drama attempts to illustrate how helpless and powerless the poor can feel and the lengths some might go through to claw their way up to become rich and powerful. There was a lot of good acting in this drama but the biggest revelation to me was Lee Jongwon, who played Hwang Taeyoung. He managed not only to switch convincingly between his rich and poor iterations but also made me care about a character who started off as seemingly entitled, shallow and flawed. I think Lee Jongwon stole the show from Yook Sungjae, who is no acting slouch himself.

I recognize that the Hwang Hyeondo character was one-dimensional and that his apparent omnipotence was not believable. Plus, as another reviewer also noted, there seemed to be an excess of golden spoons floating around towards the end. But the drama was so much fun that I didn’t really care.

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This drama has a Groundhog-type time travel plot where the protagonists have to unravel a mystery in order to save lives. I think that the drama leaves some things unexplained but I enjoyed it a lot. I just wish that they had left the romance out because it did little for me and almost got in the way of the main story. Similarly, the two young main protagonists, as good as they were, were pretty much overshadowed by the acting and experience of the older actors, particularly the mother and father, who were both amazing. I would recommend this drama to anyone who wants a fast-paced drama with unexpected twists and turns.

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I can’t remember a drama with as many beautiful people (young or old, good or evil, main character or random person on the street). Mades it harder to follow the plot, haha. (It’s easier for KDramas. If a guy is good looking, he’s often good; if he’s bad looking he’s bad. If he’s good looking but bad then he gets a sad backstory to explain his badness.)

I like the main character who is funny, smart, principled (but not sanctimonious), and kind but not a pushover---he can, and does, match all of the schemers around him scheme for scheme. There are a number of great female characters, including his faithful sister and a sidekick/rival (whom, unfortunately, I like much more than the primary love interest). The fact that some of the most unlikely characters are actually martial arts experts made this especially fun and interesting.

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The Korean version of this drama is not the wrenching Greek tragedy that the Japanese one was and that is both bad and good to me. Bad because it was not as emotionally disturbing as the Japanese version. And good because … it was not as emotionally disturbing as the Japanese version. The Japanese version left me feeling completely drained. This one is not quite as upsetting. I like the characters in this Korean version better. Kim Moo Young is not as damaged and Yoo Jin Kook is much more sympathetic. I think all of the actors did a great job, particularly Seo In Guk.

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I have mixed feelings about the drama. On the one hand, kudos to the drama for daring to have such a flawed male lead (wonderfully acted by Chen Feiyu). My interest was caught when the drama began with the male lead getting out of prison. I liked the fact that there was no attempt to sugarcoat him and make him the “done-wrong” victim of a conspiracy or of the system (as a typical Korean drama might do). He has lots of problems, but you still root for him. I also liked the female lead, who was smart, strong, and principled, and wore gorgeous coats. And I liked the friends, Ren Di and Fang Shu Miao.

What I didn’t like as much was the romance. Xi Lun was attracted to Zhu Yun because of her smarts and integrity but he was cruel to her multiple times and even when he kissed her, it looked like he was eating her face. I could see how someone like Zhu Yun would be attracted to a handsome brooding genius like him but I also thought that she was too tolerant of someone who was borderline emotionally abusive.

Plus there were parts in the drama that required some suspension of belief. For example, why were the protagonists prevented from entering a competition due to the way they exposed fraud and flaws in the prior competition, yet the fraudster himself could enter and win? I was also skeptical of the explanation for how they managed to walk out of the hacking and virus accusations unscathed. And the whole sneaking around behind the parents’ backs doesn’t work when you plaster your faces all over the news.

But then there would be something that I loved, e.g., when Zhu Yun posted the video and walked out Like a Boss. That was my favorite scene in the drama.

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I loved this. It starts out at a fairly leisurely pace (despite a tragic death) but then takes off with a bang so that the last fifty-three (53!!!) episodes seem to pass by much faster than the first twenty. What sold it to me is the Ming Lan character, who is much smarter and savvier than she appears at first -- plus it’s funny that she seems to be eating constantly. I have to say that it was difficult for me to connect the characters as adults to their child counterparts, with the exception of Xiaotao. I really liked Gu Tingye as a child, who seemed confident but not cocksure, principled, and mature beyond his years. I understand that his abusive family helped turn him into what seemed to be a vain, out-of-control, and immature adult and that he wasn’t really that way but I sometimes sympathized with others, including members of his family, when they found him irritating as hell. But then he would save Ming Lan in the nick of time or prove how smart and wily he was and I would forgive everything.

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