I do agree with a lot of the other comments that say this season feels a bit discontinuous with season 1: for…
I utterly LOVED this season. To me, there was a perfect balance of seriousness, realism, angst, heartbreak, maturity, romance, devotion, and in the final ep we got some sweetness. I liked the addition of the hometown characters and I liked the progression of the story: Jiwoo and Seojoon clashing again and again but ultimately coming back together. I liked that it wasn't an easy road for them, and I liked that their problems and concerns were familiar to anyone who has ever been in a relationship. Jiwoo was a jerk but you know what? It made for a good story because by the end he recognized what he did and how he had to act in order to become a better person. I thought the editing was witty with the flashbacks and flashforwards, and I thought the cinematography and music choices were good too. All in all this has definitely become a favorite of mine.
I do agree with a lot of the other comments that say this season feels a bit discontinuous with season 1: for the first few eps I just couldn't believe that Jiwoo would leave like he did, or that Seojoon would do what Jiwoo accused him of. But, once you kind of let go of that feeling of "this isn't in line with season 1!" and you just get immersed in the story that is presented to you here, it gets a lot more enjoyable. If you like angst, you will love this!
To me, Why R U is like peak Thai bl craziness and I can't see it translating well to South Korea's general more serious/elegant cinematic style. I think the plot lines are generic enough (rivals to lovers, friends to lovers) they could be easily rewritten to suite the Korean style, but would it really be Why R U without all that crazy stuff?
This movie came out a few months prior to Japan legally recognizing gay partnerships and the movie touches on one of the most fought for rights: hospitals informing your (gay) partner of medical issues as next of kin. I like that this point was included in the film and Kurosawa's reaction to the whole situation was incredibly well acted. But I feel like the other major plot points (moving in together, coming out to family, coming out to coworkers, getting married) were a bit rushed. All in all this movie is sweet and fluffy like the original series, but it isn't really given enough breathing room to really make us cherish these characters and the situations they find themselves in.
unrelated question, but has anyone here read Captured Prince? I heard it's as angsty as 2HA
I don't think it is as bad as the first commenter makes it seem when you take it in the context that the book is supposed to be a tense and dark ero novel. It features the prince of one country (vaguely France) keeping the prince of another country (vaguely Greece) as a sex slave. It has danger, violence, political intrigue, angst and whump, and a lot of dubcon sex. If you like scandalous stuff you will love Captive Prince.
I have seen this twice now and I am always surprised at how romantic this show is. It feels like some old, classic romance story from a bygone era. Is this the best historical bl out there? No, things like Winter Begonia or A League Of Nobleman are far better made. But there is something very charming about these characters and there is enough suspense in the show that you really get caught up in hoping they all make it out alive. Definitely worth a watch!
I absolutely adored the first ten or so episodes of this show: the first two crimes covered then were so interesting and the way the clues unfolded kept me glued to the screen. The show was visually stunning too, rich colors and settings and creepy imagery. I loved the touch of supernatural that was incorporated into those first crimes. I loved the goofy way Zhang Ping and Lan Jue interacted (the jujube scene? perfect).
After ep 10 the show declined a smidge. The focus at that point shifts to figuring out the mystery surrounding their pasts, and I thought it was a bit repetitive and dragged out a liiiiittle bit. I was hooked again for the final few eps but was bummed that some elements (like Zhang Ping's supernatural abilities) hadn't been used to their full potential.
All in all a great watch and I definitely will watch it again, probably soon! But it wasn't quite the Sherlock-like crime solving thriller I was expecting based off the first few episodes.
I found it kind of difficult to follow the storyline, partially due to the editing in the first half of the movie which jumps around between scenes (some of which are dreams or flashbacks, with no differentiation from the current-time) and partially because the characters didn't obviously enough spell out what they were doing do so I had ??? above my head when watching them go about. About halfway through things began to clear up and I did get pretty invested in the characters.
I wish they had made this instead into maybe a four-part miniseries, taking more time to flesh out the different arcs of waking up the guardians, solving the hair-demon mystery, figuring out who tried to assassinate the empress, the final revelations and battle, and so on. It all happened so quick here and I wish I could have spent more time in this story.
It was visually spectacular though, from the costumes to the cgi. The actors are handsome too. One of the prettiest movies I have seen in a long time.
I went into this thinking it was going to be a silly romcom (netflix has it tagged as such) and was hit by the melodrama hard in the first ep. I ended up watching the whole thing but came out the other end pretty dissatisfied. Yeah, this is not a romcom this is a somber look at relationships, broken trust, stress from work, stress from family, growing up, making and learning from mistakes, etc. Even the "funny" moments like the fights between Kijun and Siwoo fell flat for me. I hated Yoojin and Kijun pretty much instantly and nothing they did throughout the entire show ever endeared them to me again. Every time I saw them (and you see them a lot! they are the secondary characters) I would be reminded of their past relationships and what they had ruined and I could never be happy for them.
There were elements of the age gap relationships that I enjoyed watching. I liked the scenes where their differences in age and life experience clearly showed, such as when Hakyung had to pragmatically explain to Siwoo that it isn't so easy to immediately cut someone out of your life after a ten year relationship: she and her ex are listed on the same insurance plan and paperwork like that takes some time to work through! I liked how the couples tried to bridge their differences and explain their views to the other.... although most of the time they still got confused about each other's motives or feelings and ended up wallowing in messes of their own creation so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
If you like serious adult dramas about heavy topics then you might like this. It was also an interesting look into meteorology (how accurate it was portrayed idk but it was a unique setting). But don't watch if you want a romcom or lighthearted watch!
Loved this drama! I found it to be a good balance of comedy, romance, angst, and excitement.
Daqiang/Dongfeng Qingcang is one of the most interesting characters I have seen in a long time. I love his emotional growth (*teehee*) throughout the series and how he genuinely and earnestly wants that growth. I love how the makeup and wardrobe department garbed him to suite each scene, and how the actor gave his all to show the highs and lows the character goes through.
I also want to laud Ronghao. Such an interesting character with unique motives who you once again saw genuinely emote and be gentle and caring as well as raging and powerful. I think it the dynamic emotional range these guys were capable of showing that made them all so compelling to watch.
Also, huge kudos to the dramatic entrances in this show. LBFAD really knows how to make a splash in the drama department!
I loved this! It was over the top drama and spectacle: characters really know how to make an entrance in this show! I am a sucker for fanfic soulmate au's so the whole "she gets hurt, I get hurt" thing was right up my alley. There was humor, drama, suspense, romance, awesome costumes, lovely main actors, what else could you want? I do understand some of the comments that say this show went on a little too long --there are ten or so episodes in the middle where no cosmic-war-plot is furthered-- but since I was mainly here for the shenanigans between the main characters I enjoyed all those episodes nonetheless.
This drama has everything I should love: costumes, wigs, awesome historical sets, political intrigue, martial arts, cross dressing, and attractive leads... but I didn't love it. I feel like from the get go we know too little about our main characters and so even 10 eps in I wasn't too interested in them. Like, Nokdu's goal is to find out why his family was targeted by assassins, but that plot line plays out veeeery slowly and you don't learn too much about Nokdu's life prior to coming to the women's village so it is relatively easy to forget he has plot going on at all. I found that there were too many plots and partnerships and I couldn't keep track of who was who and who was working with who and for what goal. The editing of the show also made things more confusing for me, because the show often cuts quickly between multiple separate scenes playing out. And then you wonder "wait, wasn't that character over here? Why is he now over there? Is that the same guy? Why is everyone so coincidentally at this house, who on earth is that lady? Wasn't ML dressed as a woman just now, so who is that guy, isn't that our ML? Is that the old man who did x or the old man who did y? Oh, is that a third old man?" And so on. Also, I think there isn't enough build up to romance between the mains, so it came pretty sudden that ML kisses FL. And since I didn't really care for the characters yet at that point I wasn't thrilled for them it felt like just another confusing plot point.
The one thing I really want to praise about this drama though is the comedy. Going in I expected it to be a full-on comedy but it most certainly isn't. The moments of comedy are sprinkled here and there and when they happen they're fantastic! I think the rest of the show is a let down compared to all these brilliant little moments: I wish the whole thing had been a light hearted comedy.
I am not sure whether I am critiquing this show here or general Chinese standards, but one thing I really disliked was how pink and blue the whole show was. FL is soooo feminine and skinny and beautiful and virtuous and brainy and she is pretty much perfect in every way. ML is sooooo masculine and handsome and lightly buff and gentlemanly and smart and capable and he is pretty much perfect in every way. Together they make the perfect couple who can do no wrong and they are beatific and everyone loves them and is in awe of their smarts. The perfect summary of these problems are their respective dorm rooms: one glance at the cutesy pink room versus the blue sporty room will sum up their entire characters.
All the girls take part —to some extent or other— in sajiao: they whine and stomp their feet and act cutesy and are babied by the men in their lives. Even a character like FL who is supposed to be a rising genius in computer engineering is often patted on the head and told to go off and have cake with her best friend instead of staying to help the tech company with a major problem that cropped up. I tend to hate sajiao and find it frustrating and it is one of the quickest ways to make me dislike a character: but that is absolutely my western viewpoint coming into play so make of it what you will.
Relationships like this, of the beautiful and elegant woman and the dashing princely man, are common across most Chinese romances. I like classic romances as much as the next person, however here these attributes of the perfect couple felt pushed to the extreme to the point of being laughable at times. I do think these issues settle down a little once FL and ML get together, but watching through the drama to get to that point was a bit of a slog. In general I wish FL was given the chance to show her smarts more often, or if she was a little more grounded rather than being perfect all the time. I do prefer the movie version of FL: I like how movie-FL jumped around and hung out with ML and his friend group like, ya know, how a human would hang out with friends rather than series-FL who kind of floated around and smiled serenely at their antics.
They've added new (hidden) videos into the Bad Buddy playlist, so I think it is supposed to air as normal. They might be having problems because the Safe House livestream is currently going on, and it is difficult to wrangle multiple livestreams on a single channel on youtube.
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After ep 10 the show declined a smidge. The focus at that point shifts to figuring out the mystery surrounding their pasts, and I thought it was a bit repetitive and dragged out a liiiiittle bit. I was hooked again for the final few eps but was bummed that some elements (like Zhang Ping's supernatural abilities) hadn't been used to their full potential.
All in all a great watch and I definitely will watch it again, probably soon! But it wasn't quite the Sherlock-like crime solving thriller I was expecting based off the first few episodes.
I wish they had made this instead into maybe a four-part miniseries, taking more time to flesh out the different arcs of waking up the guardians, solving the hair-demon mystery, figuring out who tried to assassinate the empress, the final revelations and battle, and so on. It all happened so quick here and I wish I could have spent more time in this story.
It was visually spectacular though, from the costumes to the cgi. The actors are handsome too. One of the prettiest movies I have seen in a long time.
There were elements of the age gap relationships that I enjoyed watching. I liked the scenes where their differences in age and life experience clearly showed, such as when Hakyung had to pragmatically explain to Siwoo that it isn't so easy to immediately cut someone out of your life after a ten year relationship: she and her ex are listed on the same insurance plan and paperwork like that takes some time to work through! I liked how the couples tried to bridge their differences and explain their views to the other.... although most of the time they still got confused about each other's motives or feelings and ended up wallowing in messes of their own creation so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
If you like serious adult dramas about heavy topics then you might like this. It was also an interesting look into meteorology (how accurate it was portrayed idk but it was a unique setting). But don't watch if you want a romcom or lighthearted watch!
Daqiang/Dongfeng Qingcang is one of the most interesting characters I have seen in a long time. I love his emotional growth (*teehee*) throughout the series and how he genuinely and earnestly wants that growth. I love how the makeup and wardrobe department garbed him to suite each scene, and how the actor gave his all to show the highs and lows the character goes through.
I also want to laud Ronghao. Such an interesting character with unique motives who you once again saw genuinely emote and be gentle and caring as well as raging and powerful. I think it the dynamic emotional range these guys were capable of showing that made them all so compelling to watch.
Also, huge kudos to the dramatic entrances in this show. LBFAD really knows how to make a splash in the drama department!
The one thing I really want to praise about this drama though is the comedy. Going in I expected it to be a full-on comedy but it most certainly isn't. The moments of comedy are sprinkled here and there and when they happen they're fantastic! I think the rest of the show is a let down compared to all these brilliant little moments: I wish the whole thing had been a light hearted comedy.
All the girls take part —to some extent or other— in sajiao: they whine and stomp their feet and act cutesy and are babied by the men in their lives. Even a character like FL who is supposed to be a rising genius in computer engineering is often patted on the head and told to go off and have cake with her best friend instead of staying to help the tech company with a major problem that cropped up. I tend to hate sajiao and find it frustrating and it is one of the quickest ways to make me dislike a character: but that is absolutely my western viewpoint coming into play so make of it what you will.
Relationships like this, of the beautiful and elegant woman and the dashing princely man, are common across most Chinese romances. I like classic romances as much as the next person, however here these attributes of the perfect couple felt pushed to the extreme to the point of being laughable at times. I do think these issues settle down a little once FL and ML get together, but watching through the drama to get to that point was a bit of a slog. In general I wish FL was given the chance to show her smarts more often, or if she was a little more grounded rather than being perfect all the time. I do prefer the movie version of FL: I like how movie-FL jumped around and hung out with ML and his friend group like, ya know, how a human would hang out with friends rather than series-FL who kind of floated around and smiled serenely at their antics.