HafsaMM

How do you live such a miserable life

legit so hard to find a consistent c drama :(

Episode 27 and onward are just complete disappointment. It's as if the drama's writers were switched from the last 10 episodes. The complex and mature characters from the first half of the show are reduced to these typical superficial personalities that you can see in any other historical c drama. The entire "power to women" and feminine independence seems like complete tokenism towards the end

The FL and ML's bestfriends were so toxic. Skipped every single scene they were in. I wish they retracted screen time from Gu Xiao and SanSan's romance and focused more on the FL and her family. Gu Xiao and SanSan are not gonna last. No idea why they like each other in the first place.

The grandfather's acting is a little strange... I'm not sure if he was told to do it on purpose, but he always seems like he's confused although his words say the complete opposite

Yeah that was a little weird considering she practically poisoned the child. But in the end, she realized her presence was hurting Kaew and left by her own volition.

Very subtle romance. It's definitely not the star factor of this show. The underdog story of a slave becoming a high-ranking government official is the best part of this lakorn. Every character was vital to the development of the story and the characters. All the side characters were very well-fleshed out.

The drama takes place along several years and shows the slow and consistent struggle of Kaew, the ML, of leaving the bonds of slavery in hopes of making a better life for himself and ultimately being able to marry the king noble lady whose house he grew up serving.

A lot of my dissatisfaction comes from the treatment of women within the show. I know it's illogical to expect respect for women and monogamy in a period where mistresses and women being kept as side pieces were common. However, it still irritated me to no end knowing that all these women accepted the role of mistress as the only viable option of being able to be with their man because of the discrepancy in their born status.

She gets better. Not the best character, but she repents for her misdeeds and gets what she deserves.

Yup the 2007 one. It's definitely not a mature romance by any means, but I love how it shows progression throughout the relationship illustrating that marriage isn't the final step in a happy relationship. Also, the acting between the two leads was so natural that I felt I was watching a video diary of an early 2000s romance story taking place right in front of my eyes. Lol, a lot of Taiwanese dramas released recently are pretty mediocre imo, but the earlier ones nailed the down-to-earth, heartwarming vibe I sometimes seek from dramas.

For YAMG, I did feel more invested after the two got together. Before that point, it felt sort of stagnant because the FL made obvious moves on him right from the start and it had me questioning why they dragged on the ML's reaction to it for so long.

Lol I completely understand. There are times I'll watch a drama that I deem flawless, but then head over to the comments to find disparaging reviews. Can't really blame anyone, taste is subjective after all.

I rarely re-watch dramas, and when I do, I like to wait a few years before watching it again. Sometimes time and experience do change opinions. But who knows I might give it a go if I have nothing else pending.

As for your question about a couple I thought had amazing chemistry, I'd have to give that distinction to Yuan Xiang Qin and Jiang Zhi Shu from "They Kiss Again". Lol ik many people have a problem with the female lead's bullheaded persistence, but it's a drama near and dear to my heart. Anyways thank you for your respectful comment!

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to watch a drama in its entirety before writing a review. Isn't it better to have the full context of the story before critiquing it? I like to give dramas a fair chance before dropping them. If that means sitting through hours of episodes, so be it. I tend to keep detailed notes of everything I've read and watched over the years. It's interesting to see how my opinions have evolved over the past 6 years of me watching dramas. :)

Moreover, popularity doesn't determine enjoyability. If that were the case, then there would be no need to write reviews at all because the popular choice would be the one liked unanimously by all viewers regardless of taste. A negative review has just as much importance as a positive one. What may be "boring" to me, may just be the quality you are looking for in a drama.

Aww thanks. I will say this drama has a huge following. So it might just not be my cuppa tea. I typically watch romance dramas, so I probs just got bored of the "dating a famous actress" trope. Like Cressida said, the production is phenomenal. They obviously had a pretty big budget for this drama. but because I only start, finish, and rate dramas based on the romance aspect, it was lackluster and too slow-paced for me. But anyway hope you find something you'd love to watch!

Honest to god, the makeup is terrible in most C-dramas. I literally don't understand the obsession of looking like a pasty ghost...

lol yeah honestly I can see how it would be boring. I wish they gave more context to the aerospacial portion for viewers with no background in the subject. Honestly, I had no idea why Godfinder was so important to them until I researched similar projects online...

Also eeww to the group wedding, literally the most unromantic thing I've ever seen in a drama. No hate to those who do it, but who's prioritizing convenience on their wedding day. Also, their reasoning behind holding a group wedding makes no sense. There are so many other ways they could've solved those issues

Extremely dull and in my opinion, overhyped. I didn't feel any chemistry between the two leads. It felt as though they got the two most attractive and popular people in the industry and paired them together hoping to feed off of fan views. Unfortunately, that hope fell through by miles in my experience.

Ik Yang Yang is a fan favorite, but every single drama I've watched with him starring as the male lead is basically the same role. He's the typical cold, smart, and flawless male lead. Granted, in this drama, he does suffer from some insecurities because of his financial state and tough work environment. You don't really care about his problems because for every problem he has, there's an easy solution or fix to it. For example, he's poor, but who cares since he has a rich girlfriend. He doesn't have a lot of time to dedicate to his job, but then again why does it matter since his girlfriend also doesn't have much time because of her career. There is no struggle or pain that I sense from him and therefore, I can't invest any emotion into watching this because it all falls flat.

As for Dilraba, she's basically a Mary Sue. A beautiful, flawless actress with no weaknesses or character growth. As a result, she's a very boring character to watch on screen. Similarly, with Yang Yang, she never needs to face a conflict that allows her to grow as a character. She's loved by the media and her fans throughout the entire show. Even when others criticized her for not knowing how to play a game, she had many fans supporting her to the point that it was almost negligible.

Not to degrade the actors' abilities, which aren't terrible at all, for me, the plot was incredibly boring and I found myself skipping through most episodes. It doesn't help, that I have a general distrust of the CCP, but tbh I don't really find that affecting my rating for other C-dramas that were probably more patriotic and propaganda pushing than this one, so I really doubt that's the reason I felt bored by this.

I would've preferred if they completely focused on the aerospace plot of this drama. The e-sports conflict and arc were completely pointless and the episodes of Yu Tu teaching Jing Jing how to play games dragged on for over 10 episodes. On paper, I probably should've loved watching this, since it combined both esports, aeronautics, and romance. All things I love to watch. However, the story was tedious to watch as it lacked substance.

No one come at me, this is my opinion and I'm free to judge a show based on my own criteria.

For anyone new to gaming and have no idea what all the League of Legend terms they are using mean: https://www.nmact.org/file/LOL_SMITE_Roles.pdf

anyway it's still hard to dislike him. gotta love that tortured hero trope and Leo Luo's acting ;)

For example with Mo Li, he calls her his sister, but he doesn't try to understand her and makes her feel worthless as soon as Qiu Jianing comes along. And yes, what Mo Li did was reprehensible, I can accpet it in the story because the way she was raised was messed up and she never had any proper guidance in life. The only person she could've relied on, Zhou Xiao Shan, made her feel worthless, stupid, and a bad person. When his relationship with Jianing was flourishing, he told Mo Li to embrace being a normal person anf her friendship with Jiaxin, but as soon as his relationship ends, he tells Mo Li that they could never be normal people and that her friendship with Jiaxin, the only person in her life who truly seems to want her and care for her, is a punishment for being a bad person

On episode 24, the most annoying character is not Qiu Jiaxin or Qin Bin OR Mo Li. All of these characters are deeply flawed and bothersome, but at least they are true to their feelings and don't deny what they feel. I can understand their decisions despite them being foolish or annoying. To me, Zhou Xiao Shan is the most annoying character. Not only does he not accept what he feels, he causes the people around him like Mo Li and Qiu Jianing pain and constantly messes with their feelings despite intentionally or unintentionally doing it.