Kannadin

There's lots of good stories featuring red flag characters that end up turning good by the end of their journey. That's literally a staple of lots of these Asian dramas, I don't really see where you're going with this comment. When it comes to fiction, people have things they like and others they don't, it's a matter of taste. I don't see exactly why you feel the need to make this comment: "you like red flags, wtf?" , here apart from implicitly making a judgment about the type of person I am, which says more about you in that case.

Especially since you write that you were rooting for Su Hyeon, when the dude is a typical red flag character. Good for fiction, awful in real life. He's exactly the type of character you can root for IN FICTION and whom anyone should flee from IRL.

For the rest of your comment, we can agree to disagree. I personally think 7 is actually being extremely generous. Had it been a straight show, I'd probably give this show a 5. I tend to be much more generous with BLs in general.

I don't think the drama downplays their roles... rather it sortof gives you a better insight about how THEY think about themselves. The Princess considers that given what she's gone through she's not at fault for turning the way she was and the husband sees himself as a victim.

The drama made it clear it was a matter of choice. The FL's father and brother stayed honest and true even faced with injustice, the same with many other characters who might have been coward but never went as far as hurting others for self-preservation. Even as she took her revenge, the FL never did any of the characters dirty. When they suffered from some damage, it was always from their own making. If they had been true and honest, nothing would have happened to them.

I personally had absolutely no empathy neither for the Princess nor the husband. Actually I think their deaths was an easy way out. I prefer when my villains are sent to rot in prison until their deaths, at least they suffer for a long time.. Sadly though, lots of screenwriters seems to consider that death is a just retribution.

When you're dead, you're dead. Living is hard not the opposite. There's nothing better to me than villains being malnourished for years, dehydrated and living in a cage until they lose their minds than an easy quick death.

I agree with you 100% Buuuuuuuuuut reading other comments some people really enjoyed this role actually and think she stole the show... Matter of taste I guess. Personally, I think antagonists are only good if you don't give them too much screen time. It makes my blood pressure rise too much and then I have to take "breaks".

SO...

I really enjoyed the Korean version though I think the last arc with the ML's evil fiancée was overkill and needless. That's what ended up making me rate the original 8.5 instead of the original 10 I wanted to give it.

It's been almost two years since I've last watched a Japanese drama... Forgot all these tatemae mannerisms and the fact that their female characters are always startled for no reason. Once I got used to the FL apologizing and getting startled every two seconds though I really enjoyed the first episode and a half ( time to sleep... Was planning to watch the first 10mn of episode 2 and ended up watching over half of it).

They've added more scenes with the father and with the ML. I really enjoyed their interactions and their talk about traditional sweets.
The drama's got that "Japanese flavor" (well obviously... it's Japanese). I remember the Korean version being a bit stressful... the FL was determined to make them pay... Here the tone is more, she wants to escape her fate but I don't feel as much hostility towards both of her nemesis.

Dunno if it's just me or simply that Japanese mannerisms make her look softer.

Anyway. Jury's still out... But I'm really enjoying these little differences so far.

Will see how I think this one fares but if anything... it did make me want to get back to watch more Japanese dramas...

The pace of this drama was horrendous. From a strong start to the most boring middle and a very strong finish... You really have to be a fan of Cheng Lei (or other actors) to stick to it without dropping it in the middle.

This being said the cinematography, color palette, light, and photography was top notch. The whole drama was gorgeous served by very strong performances by the main cast. The story was great too although the 2ML did raise my blood pressure quite a bit at some point.

Apart from the pace my biggest complain, which is more personal taste than anything, is that I wished we had spent more time with Prince Annan than with Jin An. Dark and brooding Cheng Lei is the best🥵🥵🥵

The biggest plot-hole remains Cheng Lei's hair length variations which were all over the place during the last arc. Once you start to notice, it's just impossible to unsee.

This would have become an ultimate favorite had it not been for this awful pacing. The pop music surprisingly fitted the show as well. As it stands, it was a very good one-time watch.

8.5 for me.
Liked the journey but I doubt I'll do it twice.

This drama screams "money" and is pretty easy on the eye for sure but the amount of business talk fillers and characters we don't give a sh** about is ridiculous.

We're in for the romance between the leads yet we get mostly family feuds, business talk and political backstabbing in spades. The drama also features quite a lot of filler scenes and these overly long episodes (on average 1h 30 mn... literally a movie per episode) doesn't help.

I've got too admit, I also struggled a lot to get past the ML's controversy. I usually manage to overlook these sort of things once immersed in the story but since this is basically a disguised makjang that proved to be difficult.

Every time I see him acting in love with the main actress, I see the image of a grown ass man grooming a kid 12 years his junior when she was a minor for his sick tendencies so the act of him being in love with an adult woman is just not convincing. Not because he doesn't act well... But because sadly, as much as I don't want to condemn a whole drama for one sick individual, that individual has a main role, so that's not that easy.
This being said... after a couple of episodes, I've managed to reduced my overflowing disgust to a mildly annoying background noise... I think that's the best I can do now with this actor.

Apart from that, fortunately for me, I went with absolutely NO expectations and I'm only watching this for language learning purposes i.e with Korean subs and a heavy use of Naver's dictionary.

I wasn't planning on learning so many technical Korean (and English for that matter) words about actions, shares, private equity, hedge funds and whatnot. Not the most "fun words" to learn but still more entertaining than reading business news.

Honestly I wouldn't recommend this one to anyone. It's overly long for no reason. It's lots of money and no substance. And the way I see it, I'm watching some soap à la Dallas and not the romance I initially signed up for.

HOWEVER if you're learning Korean like me and want to learn some vocab... That's actually a good choice. There's lots of complicated sentences about business and the judiciary system with long and formal sentences...

The English subs, last I checked, usually under-translate or make up sentences in the worst case scenario... lots of idioms are lost in translation so you won't be tempted to check your understanding with the English translations (or other language you're more familiar with) because any sentence you might have trouble with, you can be sure they didn't bother to properly translate them.

They keep the core meaning but remove all the idioms or imagery that make some dialogues a blast ( and I have to give credits where it's due, lots of fillers, but the dialogues are really well written). Netflix is known for their poor translations when Korean is concerned.

Basically they always give precedence to making the sentence as palatable to the wider public at the cost of accuracy and cultural nuance. Which is why, when a series is available on both Netflix and Viki, I always recommend people to be a bit more patient and go for Viki translations made by fans who are truly serious about conveying cultural subtleties in their subs.

Netflix is Translation Fast Food. Viki is Translation Gourmet's.

Also since the drama is not that great but also not that bad, you can take as much time as you want watching it without feeling the "urge to cheat" and finish the rest in English.

Anyway that was my long 2 cents.
I really don't understand this high ratings.... but again, that's not the first time this happened so...

🧡Prince Annan🧡>>>>>>>>>>>Jin An

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Lol ^^ I'm surprised I didn't see a single comment about how Cheng Lei's hair magically grew overnight once he recovered his memory.

I didn't know one's hair could grow or shorten depending on which identity you assume 🤣🤣🤣

Well he looks dashing either way but it just took me out of it. Very C drama typical that: Esthetic over logic.

It's like when you see these female characters supposedly walking for days even weeks in forests but still having perfect makeup on.

C drama logic: As long as it looks good, fudge narrative logic.😎

My Journey to You 😃 His best role to date. His character saved that drama in my opinion... Too bad it's very unlikely we'll ever get a proper conclusion to that story 😑

I'm at episode 30 and I feel the same. Strong start but then it draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaags a lot... Almost dropped it... Hung on for Cheng Lei.

Things are moving on nicely where I am though... but I'm still struggling because I'm just overly ANNOYED with how the Crown Prince is basically third wheeling hard and becoming evil as fudge. Don't mind his evilness for all the nasty court politics, but I find him disgusting whenever he's dealing with Shuang, Jin'An and the Li family. So I ended up spacing episodes a lot... Hopefully he gets less screen time soon because I've had enough of him.

As for Song Yi and Cheng Lei... We seem to be part of the minority here. I was more sold with his romance with Zhou Ye in Legend of the Female General but I've read lots of comments saying the romance was stronger here.

I think they obviously had more romantic and intimate scenes... but I never really could see how both of them fell in love for each other apart from the fact that they're both very attractive people. It feels a lot like insta-love to me which is a trope I utterly abhor.

I think one of the thing that also lessen my appreciation of the series is that Jin An' is this very sweet green flag and I don't know... He's boring?
I prefer Cheng Lei when he's being all dark, brooding and mysterious so I can't wait for him to get back his former identity of the (outwardly) cold-hearted Prince.

THANKS ^^You too! 🥳

Yeah I think that's the main issue basically. If you don't mind or even like Anna's character, you can enjoy the drama but if you don't, it ruins the whole experience.

This type of female characters and innocent romance used to be pretty frequent in K dramas from that period though... But I remember I hated it back then as well.

I think the main story has aged pretty well, but the way her character was written and the romance didn't.

As you wrote, Jae Ah suffers from some "savior syndrom" so whether it's him or Anna, they suit each other and I can't say it's incoherent with how they were written... But sadly that's also my issue.

I think Jae Ah was a great character for Ji Chang Wook... EXCEPT regarding his love story ^^
I'm in the middle of episode 15 so I'm probably gonna finish this series today. Right now, it's either a 5 or a 6 for me...

I regret wasting my time but I like Ji Chang Wook so just for his performance I'm not gonna rant too much about it 😅

So coming back here after a couple of days. I've just finished episode 14...

ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNND I can now fully relate why most people HATE Anna... Since I've also boarded the hate train.
Nothing against the actress but her character is such a blank canvas, boring, non-interesting, dull, insipid etc. that I just get thoroughly annoyed whenever she's on screen.

I think the biggest mistake was giving this marie-sue as much screentime as she got. Honestly, plot wise, her existence is needed but her presence is not.

But let's say we need the romance... I'm still not sold on Jae Ha falling in love with an idiot dancing over a pack of noodles.
But even buying that... She's does absolutely NOTHING except crying, sleeping, putting herself in danger and the few times she took "matters in her own hands" was under the guidance of her Uncle being thoroughly manipulated.

She's a brainless idiot.

Again, that's in line with how her character was written... But the issue is just that: How she was written.

Anyway, I'm going to finish this since I only have 2 episodes left but I'm glad K dramas have stopped forcing in some love plotline in every story. Sometimes it's just not needed and it just ruins the whole thing.

This drama could have been a good one one-time watch if it had focused on Yoo Jin ( who I was hoping would win in the end but I spoiled myself and sadly knows that's not the case) and Jae Ha.

But since they included that Snow White uselessness I think I'm probably going to rate this 5 or less. I'm fed up with Anna.

Definitely going to check it out I don't know when... But I'm being cautious. I was thoroughly disappointed by "Revenged Love" which I ended up dropping so I'm gonna keep my expectations low.

When I say live air it's not necessarily when it's airing though... Rather watching the episodes as they come out...
Love in the Moonlight aired at 3:30pm were I live though... Actually since I'm living at UTC +2. Anything that airs in Eastern Asia comes out during the day for me... Sometimes it does make the wait annoying. What I wouldn't give to wake up and have my long-expected episode directly available 🙄

I get it ^^ My favorite periods of the year are Halloween and Christmas 😎
I can cozy up at home without having to find an excuse not to go out.

Right now, I'm busy emptying my watching list ^^ I'm allowing myself a complete rest day on the 1st of November so I'm already thinking about which series to binge on that particular day...

Currently Im hesitating between Khemjira, the Hearkillers and... this very long list of C dramas: Fated Hearts, Love in the Clouds, Moonlight Mystique, the Story of Kunning Palace, the Untamed, Legend of Samsara, Moonlit Reunion, Feud, Guardians of the Dafeng, the K drama Lovers of the Red Sky AND the J dramas Romantic Anonymous, Alice in Borderland or Marry my Husband [JP version]

Existential problems as you can see 🤣🤣🤣🤣 I rarely allow myself a single day not working ( that's the issue when being your own boss sadly) so when I do give myself a day... I want to make most of it but here I am...

Too many choices...

Thank you ^^
LOL!!!
Most of the time it's not that difficult. You just learn to keep strict hours and you stick to it... The issue is watching shows as they air. If the show sucks that's ok... but if it's too good... I just can't focus and look through comments to find pictures, spoilers, shorts ANYTHING. It's hell.

I can totally relate with you checking out previews at work ( still haven't come to watch that one btw... I sometimes miss the days during my youth where not so much content was available... It was easier to pick what to choose... since there was basically nothing to watch🙄).

At least when all episodes are already available, you can just spoil yourself and that makes the wait more bearable... though the side effect might be... losing one's interest in the series in question 😅

😂😂😂 You know I wasn't thinking of this as a review.... more a commentary but due to your comment I ended up copy-pasting it in the review section.

But yeah... Glad tomorrow is work day as well. I can focus on something else because it pissed me off the whole week and I know it's "just" a drama but I was SO INVESTED!!!

But I swore to myself... No live watching until at least next year. It literally ruined 2 days of work each week for 6 weeks straight... Then I had to catch up by sleeping late etc... Just nope. Not gonna do that again 😅

4 episodes left...

Probably my last comment regarding this one.

This show doesn't know what it wants to be and so it fails at literally everything.

Ji Chang Wook aka the K2 and Song Yoon Ah aka Choi Yoo Jin are the real MVP. I'm going to finish this just for them ESPECIALLY Choi Yoo Jin.

Lim Yoon A aka Anna is a bland character. She's totally dull, uninteresting, completely naive and is being manipulated by everyone. That's in line with her character to be fair... but honestly she's so stupid I don't see why she gets so much screen time.
I don't mind her romance with Jae Ah aka the K2... But I wish we didn't spend so much time with their dynamic instead of the K2-Yoo Jin dynamic that is SO MUCH MORE interesting.

Like I get that Jae Ah likes her but come on'!

Every single character in these series apart from Jae Ah and Yoo Jin piss me off.

Also Choi Yoo Jin should have been the main character. She's such a layered intelligent woman and she's got such an interesting past and dynamic with all characters that I don't understand why the show insisted of forcing all that screentime with that blank canvas that is Anna. I don't understand why Jae Ah didn't warm up to her either. But I guess killing innocents made her unredeemable in his eyes... Still, she at least treated him well, that should have counted for something but he never cared.

Anyway... I'm currently thinking of rating this a 7... But let's be honest... I think my rating is probably going to go down by the time I finish this.

Not worth anyone's time imho, however Ji Chang Wook and Song Yoon Ah deliver great performances and have insane chemistry. I wish the show had only been about them but alas!

Finally came around to watch the two last episodes with subs after watching them live last Monday and Tuesday...

Sadly I'm still pissed.

This series to me has an amazing start. The emotional buildup between Saenkaew and Sasin was chef's kiss. You could see how both of them fell in love with each other... The way they looked at each other was EVERYTHING. However once both got together, the drama gave priority to the classic lakhorn over the top angst and didn't let go. Basically our two mains kept crying their eyes out up to the last episode.

Still I hang on because episode 12 was two hours so they were bound to give us some sweet times between our leads after what they and WE had endured for weeks.

Sadly we only got a few crumbs of fanservice. Most of episode 12 flew by though. Lots of things happening so there was no time to get bored but I was still frustrated. The final episode focused more on all the side characters than our couple...

And the final nail in the coffin... Was how two of the most undeserving characters got forgiven.

I checked neither Pin nor Saenkaew's Father even said the word "sorry" ( But Saenkaew did apologize repeatedly for being a disgusting HOMO until the last minute 🤬🤬🤬). I just can't.

The fact that basically the only reason they finally managed to elope was because Pin "allowed them" to be together pissed me off. These two didn't need anyone's permission thank you very much but I guess the show wanted us to forgive her, so ok. I'll let it go.

While I can let go of Pin's awful behavior, the father though was unredeemable. No amount of crocodile tears can erase the years of mental abuse he put his son through. I was done with this character the moment he blamed his son for his wife's death.

That's the most cruel thing he could do to his own son not even mentioning the fact that he repeatedly called him "disgusting". I don't care that he did it because he was afraid for his son.

This can excuse some behaviors to a certain degree, but the father was a controlling ass**le who never even bothered to even try to listen to Saenkaew's plan to reach a better compromise. And then even trying to kill Sasin... Only letting go because his son threatened to commit suicide. I mean in what way exactly am I supposed to be satisfied with the way he got a happy family picture by the end?

I honestly didn't care for Pin's father's death... But as much as a jerk Saenkaew's Uncle was, he didn't deserve to be killed mercilessly the way he was.

Finally as much as I don't like Pin, this girl still deserves better than staying in a loveless marriage. She deserves the divorce and starting a new life with somebody who loves her... while obviously keeping close ties with Sasin and Saenkaew. After all they're family. This sadly was never shown. But I'm going to assume that's what they did, otherwise, that would be too cruel.

There was this very interesting comment by oddsare which she posted a couple of days ago:
https://kisskh.at/778234-salak-rak-nai-saengjan#comment-23915192

I think it's really on point when she explains that we have to accept that cultural logic trampled narrative logic with how the father and Pin got no consequences for their actions ( except not seeing his son for one year but let's be honest here... That's NOTHING).

I was hoping that a week after the ending, I would have calmed down... But sadly no.

Still. It was an amazing ride. I loved sharing ideas here, weeks after weeks... and ruining my working days because of my obsession ( No longer watching anything live now, honestly it's hell to be disciplined when you work from home, and I failed miserably😭😭😭)

I will try to remember that a satisfying ending for me might not be a satisfying ending for these characters. Sasin is attached to his cousin Pin, and Saenkaew still loves his abusive father (that's called Stokholm's syndrom and he needs therapy) and delulu Grandma. Neither Sasin nor Saenkaew want them out of their lives in spite of what they've made them go through.

So as much as I H.A.T.E.D this ending and think it S.U.C.K.E.D, I'm gonna make peace with it.

I'll try to remember the journey, not the destination. And it was an amazing journey but one I won't go through twice.

Removing 1.5 points for that shitty ending lacking fanservice.

Final rating: 8.5

It's sadly your typical colorism at play that is sadly rampant in all of Eastern Asia but as wrote wheezythew8ve it used to be way less severe since filters didn't exist before.

The more people get used to literally everyone being whytified, the more they unconscientiously bow down to this idea that "whiter is better"... even if it's just not which is truly sad. If it's not your natural skin color... it just isn't, it looks weird.

Can't count the number of Asians I've met that are complaining that every time they're on holidays in their parents' home country, the whole family is literally bulldozing them to use some whitening cream. Truly sickening.

These type of whytified pictures sadly doesn't help.

You know in these C dramas I've noticed... It's always the kindest characters that turn the most evil. It's really unpleasant to watch.

You get attached, you root for them... Only to be repeatedly, no matter the drama, stabbed in the back.

Ans yet I fall for it EVERY TIME. Every time I tell myself, this character is too nice, you can be sure he's gonna turn detestable, I can't help it.

I'm an idiot.