Juelin

One step forward, three steps backwards

This drama should serve as a cautionary tale for women to choose wisely in a marriage. It tells a story of empowerment, healing, and new beginnings. Lin Shuang gives up her brilliant career to be a housewife and a mother just to find out a few years later that her husband is unfaithful. Instead of sulking in depression, she picks herself up and pursues self-improvement for the sake of herself and her daughter.

The plot moves between different storylines of friendship, marriage, workplace, parenthood in a very realistic way. Lin Shuang achieves through trial and error overcoming multiple roadblocks all the while having to deal with her soon to be ex-husband's dirty schemes. She is kind and likable, hard to anger, and tends to avoid confrontation, which makes her an easy target for manipulation, especially by her overbearing in-laws. But, while I enjoy a good tale of female empowerment, Lin Shuang's character is just too good. She lets a lot of things slide for the sake of dignity, which is unsustainable and quite often hard to stomach. The breaking point is when she checks Wei Ming's parents into a nice hotel after they abducted her daughter to use as a bargaining chip in the divorce proceeding.

The pacing starts to drag as soon as the drama introduces secondary and tertiary characters nobody cares about. I couldn't care less about Jiang Xi mom's cancer or a continuous marathon of her brother's failures. I am here to watch a woman brave through a divorce, not filler characters being ridiculous. Another issue is that Lin Shuang has to deal with too many roadblocks. It's a drama, not someone's life story. For every step forward, she always takes three steps backwards, which makes the drama tedious to watch.

Lastly, the story reaches its logical conclusion at around episode 28 when the divorce is finalized. Everything moving forward is Wei Ming's new set of matrimonial problems with the next missus and Lin Shuang's incredibly slow and uninteresting romance with Gu Xu. The romantic development with Gu Xu should've been part of the story much earlier. After the divorce, it felt like the writers tried to scramble the plot because they forgot something.

Overall, this is a good slice-of-life drama with likable characters and semi-decent pacing. I recommend having a fast-forward button on stand-by.

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A pleasant surprise

After watching several fantasy k-dramas that were totally disappointing, this was a pleasant surprise. At first, the story centers around lighthearted ghost stories. Then, the plot makes a connection between the supernatural and police corruption involving a 20 year old hit and run accident and focuses on uncovering the mystery behind the accident and a string of murders surrounding it.

The story moves at a very good pace. There is a nice balance between comedy, horror, and romance. Some ghosts are very scary and have compelling stories. The main couple has cute and funny moments without both acting like infantile nincompoops. Their chemistry is excellent making them convincing as a couple. There are a lot of genuine interactions involving kissing, flirting, and touching resulting in very believable romance.

I liked that the side characters had their own stories giving them some depth, however, they were also the weakest point of the drama. While I appreciate that the writers gave Baek Nam Goo and Go Seong Ho backstories and made them more than just goofy sidekicks, their arcs took an obnoxious amount of screentime slowing down the plot and dragging the story for more episodes than necessary. The main plot reached its conclusion in episode 14 when the good guys won. That's when the story should've ended. But, because of the side arcs, we had to sit through two more episodes of boring secondary plotlines watching Baek's wife being sad and Seong Ho's ridiculous ghost romance with Bom's friend. Moreover, the writers had to invent more plot with the netherworld to make it seem like the story was still ongoing.

But, I would still recommend this drama because the pacing is mostly good for about 14 episodes, the plot is engaging, and there is plenty of romantic chemistry.

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A slice of happiness with zombies

This is not a zombie apocalypse drama but a slice of life story showing how people deal with each other in the midst of chaos. Influenced by the events of Covid-19, the drama somewhat delves into the problems society faces when having to deal with an unknown deadly disease, the balance between safety and individual liberties, and people's biases.

The show starts off with a virus putting people into a zombie-like state making them crave blood. The first two episodes are about the spread of the disease until the plot switches to the main characters getting quarantined in a massive apartment building with no access to the outside world. The story mostly focuses on the best and the worst of human nature showing various residents dealing with their own problems and human-made happenings around the building. This reminded me of the movie "Clue" where a group of strangers got stuck together trying to solve murder-mystery.

If you are looking for passionate romance, you won't find it here. Although, the two main characters eventually kiss and become a couple, the romance is very subtle and focuses more on how Yoon Sae Bom and Jung Yi Hyun treat and protect each other without the use of cheesy romantic cliches. There are no tropey moments of staring and forlorn glances. The characters are very mature. They are not afraid to be alone and have physical contact without awkwardness.

The biggest problem with the drama is pacing which slows down somewhere in the middle. This is not so much about the plot, but the setting never changing. Characters run around various locations around the building and do the same things in every episode. This makes the show a bit tedious to watch.

The best thing about the drama is Park Hyung Sik. He truly shines as a serious character proving that he can play something other than stereotypical semi-comedic heroes. Here, he is a badass cop and a total stud. I want to see more of him playing generals, kings, and other males in positions of authority.

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Like a big sneeze waiting to happen but never happening

This drama had its good moments but a draggy plot and poor writing made it a lot less entertaining and a whole lot frustrating. The bossam part wasn't even the story but rather a mechanism for the main couple to meet.

The romance started great with a promise of a touching love story, but it completely fell flat. Even though Ba Woo and Hwa In didn't start their relationship on a positive note, they were never truly enemies. They bickered, cried, supported each other and had some of the most touching moments. I liked how their romance was portrayed as a love story between two mature people trying to survive. Unfortunately, in the second half, all of the emotion and angst completely disappeared leading to a very vanilla relationship completely devoid of passion. They basically became an old married couple who barely touched. And there wasn't a single kissing scene.

Poor editing was the drama's biggest flaw. It had 20 very long hour+ episodes that felt like they would never end. The political intrigue plotline was interesting and the villain was compelling enough to keep me engaged. But, then the writers started introducing filler characters and plotlines. There was a little bit of a mother-in-law from hell who wasn't quite evil, and baby momma drama that only served as a plot device to move the story forward. None of this was necessary, because the writers already had enough material to work with instead of creating new plotlines that were not particularly interesting.

In the last few episodes, everyone started doing stupid things leading to people getting hurt, killed, or captured. Dae Yeop was a terribly written character. I cannot stress enough how much I hate the rejected lover trope. His unrequited love for Hwa In dragged on for the entirety of the show. He just wouldn't move on and kept carrying the torch for a woman who will never love him. On top of that, he single handedly got himself killed because the writers decided the show needed a last minute emotional response from the audience. But it wasn't a heroic death fighting in a battle or sacrificing to save a loved one, but the dumbest death possible that should've never happened.

The ending was disappointing. The political intrigue culminated in a rebellion which ended before it started. The happy couple reunited and lived happily ever after. The end.

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Zombies in Joseon part 2

The story continues with a kingdom being on a brink of collapse in the midst of a political struggle and a bloody war between people and monsters. The plot is well balanced between corruption and war without overwhelming us with too much with court politics.

Season 2 also introduces a more well-rounded villain, the queen, who doesn't simply exist to usurp power. Being the daughter of a ruthless official, she takes the level of cruelty to a whole new level. But, although she commits countless atrocities, some of her motivations add depth to her character, unlike her father who was a stereotypical power-hungry villain.

The story is still well paced full of intrigue and interesting characters, but the ending leaves a huge cliffhanger with no promise of a season 3. Lee Chang gives up the throne in favor of an infant with no royal blood. While the infant grows up in the palace to be the future king, Lee Chang sets off on a quest to track the resurrection flower and everyone who distributes it. That seems like a nonsensical decision completely undermining everything he's done so far. But, there is a method to his madness. A kingdom must have a king. A kingdom with a history of a zombie apocalypse must have someone to ensure the dead stay dead. This decision culminates his complete character development where he becomes a selfless hero putting the national interests first rather than his personal ambition. As the show approaches the end, he comes across an eerie shack full of monsters and finds a mysterious woman there. Meanwhile, in the palace, a eunuch witnesses a worm crawling under the young king's skin towards his brain. This is where the story ends with no plot resolution and a brand new character we don't know enough to care about.

I normally don't watch zombie shows because of the gore. But here, it was manageable for me because the amount of gore was enough to be convincing without being overwhelming. The drama was so well executed, it kept me engaged from start to finish. But, the ending was disappointing because there is no season 3!

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Zombies in Joseon

This was certainly different from other Korean dramas, a mesh of a political thriller and a horror zombie apocalypse.

The crown prince, Lee Chang, is the central figure trying to escape from the court corruption in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. He starts out as a pampered but a well meaning prince who goes through a massive character development becoming a hero trying to save a dying nation. The story is well paced with a good amount of twists. Every character has a unique role without anyone being unnecessary. I liked that the writing did not focus on backstories and instead showed Lee Chang struggling against the zombie plague to help his people and at the same time repelling a corrupt minister trying to usurp the throne. The plot stays true to the genre, an action horror thriller, without turning it into a draggy melodrama.

The villain, a ruthless power hungry official, is a bit cookie cutter without a personality or any motivation other than power. But, the action packed and well paced plot more than made up for it.

Overall, if you don't mind gore and like zombie movies and political intrigue, this is it.

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Short and sweet

This was a cute and sweet drama that would have benefited from having more episodes. The story was largely undeveloped and moved too fast.

Even though I liked the chemistry between the romantic characters, there wasn't enough time to properly develop any of their relationships. I wanted to see how the king actually came up with the writing system, the romance, and the friendship between Dan Bi and the queen. The queen was portrayed as a lonely young woman who just wanted to connect with someone, so she intended Dan Bi to become her friend by making her the king's concubine. This was an odd choice, but there was meaning behind it. The writers also teased us with romantic-ish relationship between the queen and Park Yeon, but it was largely unexplored. The gender bender trope lasted for longer than I wanted just to be explained at the end that the king always knew that Dan Bi was a woman. Hence, him rapidly falling in love with her without questioning his own sexuality was justified.

One interesting thing was that many characters in the past looked like the characters in the present, but I didn't feel like there was much explanation given as to why.

Overall, this is a cute piece of fluff with a happy ending, that doesn't offer much depth because of the short length.

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Lets play a game of pick-a-plot

This is the first time I watched a drama where a plot felt like a combination of several dramas glued together, as if a bunch of different people wrote it without communicating with each other. There were several parallel storylines with characters that often crossed paths, but their stories were completely independent of each other. You will miss nothing if you skip entire scenes and focus on the characters you like. So, to save yourself time and sanity, start a game of pick-a-plot and make friends with the fast-forward button.

Li Qian was a valiant and brave soldier. Baoning was a spoiled princess. But the difference in their status did not prevent them from building a loving relationship based on trust and communication until, towards the end, they regressed into complete knuckleheads who refused to communicate, jumped to conclusions, and threw asinine accusations. In the last 5 episodes, Baoning's character drastically changed from a spunky young woman to a calculating persona resembling Wang Xuan from The Rebel Princess. This change showcased Ju Jing Yi's ability to play more serious roles. But, it wasn't necessarily good for the story, because it happened without any actual character development showing Baoning's transition from a care-free princess to a mature woman with experience dealing with scheming villains.

The first 12 episodes were very engaging showing Baoning and Li Qian's blossoming romance. But then, the plot suddenly got hijacked by secondary characters and became a continuous onslaught of love rivals' deranged schemes to break up the happy couple. A love obsessed and jealous villain is one of the worst, most uninspired, uninteresting tropes to manufacture conflict. The writers threw in every cliche and rehashed idea instead of writing an actual story. Zhao Xiao was a nobleman with a bright political future. But, every single action he took was to get into Baoning's pants. And, Miaorong's slimy schemes resulted in the same predictable outcome again and again. The writers did not even try to create compelling villains, but love-obsessed psychos who just wouldn't get the message that the object of their affection couldn't care less.

More often than not, I ended up throwing my hands in the air and screaming "FFS!!" When I did not suffer from second-hand embarrassment, I pressed on the fast-forward button. The drama is a convoluted mess of jealous lover tropes, scattered plot, and a marketing scheme for the supporting cast.

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How many husbands do you have?

The drama followed an old face swap/identity switch formula with a slice of revenge. Jiuling was a princess who assumed the identity of her deceased friend to plan revenge against her emperor uncle for the death her emperor father. Along the way, she met four men to whom she was either engaged or married. I actually enjoyed that the drama did not take the harem trope too seriously and constantly made fun of it. The question "how many husbands do you have?" led to hilarious back and forths.

The face-swap explanation was pretty lolsy - a super secret non-surgically invasive technique performed by a physician in ancient China. Gotta love Chinese tropes.

Jiuling was portrayed as a mature young woman, a mix between the heroines from the Story of Ming Lan, the Double, Rebel Princess. It was very refreshing to see a more mature heroine, rather than the typical infantile stereotype.

I normally don't like harem or reverse harem formula because of all the extra drama and love triangles/rectangles. What I appreciated about this story was that Jiuling had entirely different relationships with all four men. From the very beginning, it was obvious that Zhu Zan will be her one and only love interest. Chengyu will be like a younger brother, Yunzhao will be her friend, and, Yunqi will be her enemy. The story did not have her flip flop between the four men making it confusing whom she will end up with.

I enjoyed her chemistry with Zhu Zan. Even though he didn't look like a typical hero because the actor also played villains, he had enough charm to hold his own and develop great chemistry with Jiuling through their spicy bantering.

One thing I didn't like was Yunqi's character development. The writers decided that nobody died in this show, although Yunqi was the one character who should've died. He went from having obsessive romantic feelings for Jiuling, which lasted for way too long, to going full psycho by kidnapping and locking her up. Then, he suddenly had an epiphany and started helping her. Considering his complete mental breakdown, him trying to be a good guy at the end was pretty unbelievable.

Overall, the drama was very enjoyable, the romance had plenty of chemistry, and the story was well paced.

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A great take on old tropes

The drama takes a stab at the rehashed switcheroo brides trope but still manages to give a refreshing take on xianxia. One sister, born under a lucky sign, gets to marry a heavenly prince, another one born under an unlucky sign gets to marry a demon prince. On the day of their wedding, they get switched and hilarity ensues as the drama develops two parallel love stories.

One thing that I really liked was a focus on sisterhood, family, and women working to uplift each other, instead of sisters and friends competing for men, money, and power. Although, the drama also rehashes a jealous side chick trope, it's very minor and pretty forgettable. I really liked the chemistry between each couple, as they got to know each other, develop bonds which led to love. I liked that the story blurred some lines between good and evil and allowed some characters with a questionable moral compass a chance to grow and make good choices. Chaofeng started out an an anti-hero, not entirely bad but someone with questionable morality. Through his growing love for Qingkui and exposure to her purity and goodness, he developed a conscience. Youqin gaining back his feelings allowed him to realize that protecting the heavenly realm wasn't just an arbitrary duty but a desire to protect family.

The plot was mostly interesting, but some arcs were better than others. I thought the shards arc was too long and kind of boring. My biggest criticism, after the shards arc both Youqin and Chaofeng were reduced to house husbands. Youqin spent most of his time waiting for Yetan to come home from school. It seemed like attaining the perfect celestial body was the pinnacle of his development and he had nothing else to do, although he was the most powerful being in all the realms. Chaofeng was told to look for work now that he had a wife. Twirling store signs pretty much undermined his position as a badass prince from the void. The writers could've come up with something better for immortal beings with ultimate cosmic power than this.

The acting was very good. Chen Xingxu showed his versatility where he didn't just portray a stony faced Empyrean Xuanshang, but a lover, a materialist, a pyromaniac, and a romantic. The character came to life as soon as he gained his feelings. Everyone else was just as good.

Some people were not happy with the ending, but I thought it was fitting for the xianxia genre leaving off the story on a positive and hopeful note. To me, that was a good ending.

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Great start with some plot holes

Overall, the drama was entertaining, but, there was a visible disconnect between the first and second half.

The first half was a comedy telling a story of a modern man traveling back in time and helping his wife in ancient China succeed in business and navigate through family intrigue. Ning Yi reminded me of Forest Gump, a seemingly obscure individual full of great ideas. He used 21st century business techniques to grow the family business and undermine the competition, had an answer to everything, and helped a whole lot of people. It was clever, funny, and very entertaining. The uncle and cousin were funny caricatures and Wu Qihao was a great villain to root against.

The second half switched gears and became more of a political drama. I really did not care for the bandit arc. All the previous villains became irrelevant, and Wo Qihao was fully written out of the plot. The story wasn't as funny and interesting and it completely removed FL from several episodes. The new villains were boring and had no real motivation. Certain decisions made no sense and looked like the writers had no concrete idea how to move the plot forward. The story meant to be darker with more violence and death, but the writing was clumsy and made serious scenes look more lighthearted. Also, some plotlines absolutely did not need to be repeated. Taner was incredibly unlucky being almost raped twice. Here, the writers completely lacked any sense or imagination and force-fed us attempted rape scenes of the same character multiple times, instead of coming up with something new.

Certain arcs had plot holes. At the very beginning, ML used boxing techniques in a fight making it look like he was a skilled fighter. Later on the boxing techniques were mysteriously forgotten and he had to ask the assassin lady to teach him martial arts. She gave him one lesson without actually teaching him any martial arts and the story ended there making the whole thing utterly pointless.

The romance plotline was a minor side story. ML and FL were cute together and had chemistry. But, if you are looking for a romantic melodrama full of passion and angst, this is not it.

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Mediocre

The drama couldn't decide whether it was a crime drama, a political drama, a mystery, or a romantic comedy. The writers threw everything into the plot turning it into an incoherent mess. Starting out as a romantic comedy, it quickly devolved into a very complicated mess of political intrigue, mystery, murder, conspiracy, and extremely boring romance. All the characters were uninteresting. ML would apologize to FL in every episode for withholding information and then doing it again. The love triangle between the crown prince, ML and FL was pointless and really really boring. The plotline with the underground alcohol distillery was not even the main story, the main story was political conspiracy.

The show would've been so much better if the writers just kept it simple, a romantic comedy with the inspector trying to uncover an illegal alcohol business during prohibition with FL being the ring leader. What a waste of potential that could've been a really fun drama.

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Fun show

This is not a historical drama. This is a drama set in a historical period while applying modern concepts of female empowerment, which will never work in ancient China. Take this drama for what it is - entertainment, not an accurate representation of history.

The acting and chemistry between the characters was great. The relationship between Yin Zheng and Li Wei was endearing, wholesome, and very cute. They were the whole package - mutual respect, understanding, devotion, and love. Yin Zheng was unspoiled and dutiful. Li Wei was optimistic and loving. Even the side characters were fun.

The only minus is that the drama did not really have a coherent plot. I guess the central idea was the relationship between ML and FL, except most of the story centered around female characters and sisterhood. At the beginning, ML and FL met and started liking each other. Then the story switched to female characters, making the romance kind of a side story. And, towards the end, the story switched back to the relationship between ML and FL. Some characters wholly disappeared after they reached a certain milestone. Song Wu was completely written off after she got marred, even though she was a constant semi-annoying presence at the beginning. The same was with the second prince after he was exiled. It seemed the writers were not too focused on the conflict. Nevertheless, the drama had a pretty good pacing, character development, and wholesome relationships. This is one of those rare stories were women do not undermine and betray each other for men and power, but instead, help and uplift each other.

If you are looking for a feel-good story without a deep plot, this is it.

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Mostly good

Honestly, the drama should have ended after 12 episodes, after Min Hwan and Soo Min got married. That seemed to be the logical conclusion to the main plot of revenge and second chances. Instead, we got new characters and convoluted plotlines for the next 4 episodes involving an evil ex-fience and greedy parents. Those elements were completely unnecessary and felt very forced just to stretch the story until the last episode.

The acting was mostly good. The villains were very convincing. But I was not so sure about Ji Hyuk. I liked Na In Woo in River Where the Moon Rises, but aloof characters just don't work. Even the most stiff-looking character needs a personality and he cannot fully hide emotions. Ji Hyuk was uninteresting most of the time and that affected his chemistry with Ji Won. The kissing was hot, but everything else in between was kind of bland.

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Weird plot development

In the middle of the drama, the writers decided to throw everything in, including the kitchen sink. Romance? Check. A hint of a love triangle? Check? Multiple side characters with multiple romance side stories? Check? Anti-fandom villains? Check. Parental abandonment? Check. Crazy obsessive fans? Check. Bromance? Check. A dead friend trauma? Check. I ended up skipping through most of the scenes because this was too much!

The first half was very light hearted, filled with silliness and comedy. ML and FL were figuring out their feelings for each other and then became a couple. There wasn't any real conflict outside of the romantic development. After that, the writers suddenly decided to introduce a conflict - the anti-fandom, the crazy rich lady, ML's estranged mother and his childhood trauma, the dead best friend. The only downside was that the writers forgot to actually develop the plot and make these storylines interesting.

I did like ML's and FL's relationship, the love and support she gave him, with no cliche tropes involving misunderstandings and silly love triangles. However, it was very one sided. She was always taking care and supporting him because he was the celebrity and the center of all the controversy. But, he didn't do anything for her. She had virtually no personality and purpose outside of her role as his PR manager. The writers should've developed her character separately from his with her own story to allow reciprocity in their relationship where he could be there for her equally as much during hard times and trauma.

I ended up skipping most of the scenes with the side characters because it felt like filler. They were not developed enough to be interesting and the show gave them too much screen time.

Another cringey thing was the characterization of women and how they responded to romantic situations. These were not high school girls, or even young adults. These were adult women well into their careers, and they spent too much time running away and screaming when faced with awkward romantic situations. A little bit of awkwardness is ok, but this was a totally immature and childish response from grown-ass adults.

Overall, the romance was very sweet and cute, but there were too many filler scenes with forgettable side characters and a convoluted plot. The kissing was hot!

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