Kannadin

True. Thankfully they added other forms of skinship as you wrote...

>_< Does she still get with her love interest or not do you know?

Started to watch K dramas in 2005 ( yes old millenial talking here, hitting 40 next year)... I honestly feel that K dramas were getting better for years: better plots, fresh stories, familiar tropes but with fresh twists... But then
came Squid Game in 2021 and for me that was the game changer.

The US started to see that people were interested and they started to throw in their money and K dramas have been losing what made them so great in the first place. I'm not saying they ALL have turned bad... But honestly there's way less shows, and most of them suck. You really need to filter "the trash" so to speak...

MDL speaks for itself... There used to be a time when seeing 15000 to 20000 viewers per airing K dramas was common and the most popular shows would go up to almost 30000 sometimes even more. But now? the most popular shows struggle to reach 20000. About half the viewers have moved to C dramas. Couple of years ago, there was no C dramas that aired that would even get 10000... The average for the most popular shows were around 5000. Now look at the front page...

It's not that their numbers aren't good, sometimes you even get some surprises ( for instance Lovely Runner and When the Phone Rings last year). But it's definitely dwindling months after months while the number of C drama watchers is rising. There's a trend there.

Some Chinese dramas features tropes that I used to see in these early K dramas. Yes it was clichés BUT addictive. For instance they no longer do melos like "Save the Last Dance for Me" or "Secret" these days... WHY OH WHY?

Sorry. I'm just very sad... I started to learn Korean years ago because of my love for K dramas ( I don't care about K pop AT ALL) and now they're going to sh**.

"China takes entertainment very seriously. I remember when they said that male actors were too feminine and that it was a bad image for young men. Not sure how actors are getting around that one because they look like they could eat some sandwitches!"

That comment made me laugh ^^ I read that as well... But err...
For the weight though, I read that it's more a matter of costume dramas having layers after layers of clothes and if the actors are "too fat" it doesn't look good.

Sad to say... But when I read that, I thought it was ridiculous... Then I watched a historical K drama where the FL wasnt wearing the classical hanbok but some kind of common grab with several layers of clothes on top of the others....

She looked fat. I knew, she was at a healthy weight... Still pretty slim but she still looked fat... I thought to myself they should have changed her clothes because it wasn't like this drama was going for historical accuracy in the first place...

And I know it's shallow of me but really it just didn't look good. That's when I understood why all Chinese actors and actresses that act in these historicals all look like walking skeletons once you remove all these layers of clothes. It's not like they have a choice, because we all know, viewers are gonna comment if it looks bad and fat shaming is pretty much a thing there so...

Anyway, these actors are still very handsome and manly enough for me so maybe it's more the make-up for idol singers? They know if they start to put "manly men" according to men's standard in their shows, they're gonna lose a substantial part of their audience.

Most women love men with some feminine traits, that's not something specific to Asia. I mean Silvester Stallone or Bruce Willis were popular actors for action movies but they were never cast in Rom coms.

Sorry for what happened to you when you did some red tape. Sadly an experience shared by all of us regardless of the country I'm afraid.

Err... I was planning on watching that one... Could you please spoil me what they did?

LOL!!!
Isn't it the drama "Fall in You" ? I haven't watched it, but I know I've seen that title somewhere when I was looking up the name of the actor playing the ML.
Well that's the title I'm thinking about given what you wrote and it's a 2025 Web drama so.................... But the summary on MDL doesn't hint at some SF plot.

Anyway, basically you're telling me it's all a matter of connections and all these rules don't mean anything. It's EVEN MORE ANNOYING!!!

Like again. I dont' think that censorship is always bad. Personally I hate shows which are overly graphic or sexualized. I gave up on Western shows for that, and now my beloved K dramas are being Americanized with graphic violence that just didn't exist 10 years ago.

Which leads to me watching more and more C dramas and less and less K dramas...

But this is one instance where I just can't understand the point of it. I read somewhere that it was because there was a wave of suicides of young people wanting to reincarnate or whatnot. But for me that's BS.
Otherwise WHY not all young people in Asia aren't committing suicide given how many Asians believe in it huh?

I think it's much more political.

China's been cracking down on religions and reincarnation is one of the core concept of Buddhism. Dalai Lama, Tibet...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antireligious_campaigns_in_China

You get what I mean...

BUT THESE ARE DRAMAS! D.R.A.M.A.S
Fudging ship!

I think the rules are just as strict with historical dramas... It's more lax when it comes to the Fantasy Genre though.

This being said in the same comment I mentionned。 I talked about the C drama RESET. This one is set in modern times and the heart of the plot is the main leads dying repeatedly and going back repeatedly in the past to try to prevent their death...

Here, the whole plot is literally about time travel and there was no "they woke up from a coma" or "it was a novel all along" or whatever BS.

Makes you wonder exactly how exactly these rules work.

This is a repeat of a comment I already made, but there's other dramas that have dealt with this issue way better.
Legend of the Female General and The Double have completely erased the reincarnation plot device... Story wise, it actually made both dramas more satisfying on lots of aspects and the angst much more intense. 'Course they had to adjust the plot but the core was not changed which is the most important thing.

In the case of this particular drama... I think it would have been better to do like in the drama "Blossom".

Basically, start the drama with some common incident involving the FL in high school who is in love with the SML and the ML. Let's say, truck of doom, whatever. Anyway, they both fall into a coma... They dream of the future and basically we see what has been introduced in the first episode.
It would have worked easily since we only see one episode in the beginning explaining to us what happened in their lives anyway so no big deal.

Now they wake up in the present with the memory of their dream ( which can pop up occasionally in the story) and therefore change the trajectory of their lives.

Way better in my opinion and much more satisfying for viewers.
'Course we wouldn't get the useless break-up that happened at some point but I doubt anybody would complain about it.

I think some writers are just lazy, because again, it's not that complicated to get past the censorshit and do something a little more creative to bypass this problem.

Like in the Double, for me it's the best example of how to deal with Censorshit and give to viewers something that is SO MUCH MORE SATISFYING than what was originally written in the novel.

Anyway, I understand the rating backlash on that one... Though I think it's unfair to the show because apart from that, honestly, it's a cute rom'com.

I've caught up with the last episode on Viki (currently ep 19), so yeah since my last comment, she did get better. I wish she apologized for her past behavior... but maybe that's asking for too much.

Thank You!

SPOILER REQUEST:

I've been avoiding the comment section to avoid being spoiled but I need to ask:

In which episode does Shi Qian Lu finally die (hopefully in excruciating pain)?

I'm sick and tired of this character, I just need to know when he'll stop parading around and spreading lies everywhere. Btw, I mean his REAL death, not fakeout death.

I don't want the details of what happens to him. Just the episode (I'm behind Viki releases so needless to say, compared to others watching on Youku I'm WAY behind).

Thank you in advance!

Yeah that's what I did. I love Kim Jae Yeong but most of his dramas are hit or miss for me... Hopefully Idol I will deliver... But I'm probably gonna wait until it has fully aired before giving it a try... I've repeatedly disappointed with K dramas this year so I'm not gonna risk my time. I wait for reviews and comments.

SO... Are 16 to 24 ep K dramas officially dead and buried now? I remember a time when SK knew how to make addictive 16 episodes shows in which you didn't feel like they were dragging things out.

Now every any drama that has 16 episodes usually contains 8 episodes of meandering nonsense going nowhere with repetitive and flat stories so most dramas have been shortened to 12 episodes to hide how empty, uninspired and flavorless K dramas have become but shouldn't they add some limits to that dwindling episodes count?

Keep on going on like this, and "K dramas" are gonna turn into 1 episode shows.

Well thank you for this comment. I watched 3 episodes then felt I wasn't in the mood to watch this one and was thinking of picking it up later... but my main draw was Kim Jae Yeong.

Well contrary to what I had planned, I'm not gonna bother then. Slice of Life is not really my cup of tea most of the time but if Kim Jae Yeong is only here for some 10 seconds cameo per episode, it's not worth my time.

The couple is really cute together... BUTTTTTT the kisses are all fake. It's all camera angles and mouth moving in the emptiness even when it's supposed to be passionate.
Not enough to remove most of the cuteness but given how everybody was saying there's lots of kisses, I was expecting REAL kisses and not the usual C drama fake kisses.

Can't have everything I guess. I can see Cheng Jing Ke is really trying but the actress clearly doesn't want to do the job.

I think they should add a clause for "real kisses" in actors' contracts.

When I first started to watch C dramas, I thought it was because of censorship they couldn't have passionate kisses on screen... BUT THEN, I saw Bai Lu in "Love is Sweet" and "Till the End of the Moon"... Also saw some kiss scenes from "Story of Kunning Palace" which I've yet to watch... And guys... This is what REAL KISSES look like.

Now, I'm not expecting that level of dedication from all actors to be clear... But there's a minimum that's not there. Like in Legend of the Female General, it was pretty tame, but you could see the actors weren't faking it even if they weren't "eating each other out".

It's a pet peeve of mine... Takes me out of the scene every single time when actors are obviously faking it.

HAHAHA!

That explains it then!
Well can't do it I guess since I'm already working so >_< ( and also doing other things on the side).

Not a huge fan of watching things speeded up though. I know lots of people are doing this now but I can't understand it for the life of me. I mean I personally think the pace is also part of the experience and it's you know, "leisure time".
I'm already struggling with all the things I have to do in a day, when I sit down to relax, I don't want to feel like I'm rushing again if you see what I mean.

Still pretty impressive though... You'd probably need to divide this list by two if you were watching at normal speed but that would still be a very very long list.

Also you're right to keep track of things... When you've been watching shows for a long time, you tend to forget what you saw. Happened to me several times, even recently. I didn't check on MDL. Watched a movie. Felt like I'd already seen it... But wasn't sure. Finished it... Was about to give it a ratings of 8.5.

Turns out I had already seen that movie when it came out 12 years ago... Gave it the same rating. It was not a bad movie, but not a movie worth rewatching so waste of time. Should have watched another one which I had never watched.

The only issue for me is "dropped shows" which I don't keep track of for a variety of reasons, most notable FOMO and being tempted to give another try to a show I hated but that everybody loved. So far I never made the mistake of rewatching a show I dropped... but given how long my list has gotten ( and that's not counting my Anime list either), this is bound to happen at some point.

Just dropping a comment to say that it's the first time I see somebody with a "Currently Watching List" as long as yours and who is REALLY watching everything listed with keeping tracks of the episodes seen and everything. Usually it's just a long list of shows on hold or shows people are planning to watch with only 1 or 2 shows that are truly being watched by the member.

All that to say... I don't know how you do it. But I'm impressed!

Yeah I know that's everybody's opinion. But again, if you read my review, I explained that for me, it's more a matter of how old you were when you watched it.

On episode 13 and so far the biggest flaw of this show ( apart from the censorshit ending) is how Zhou Shi Yun is just utterly unlikable.

Like Ming Ze is an idiot who doesn't care that Shi Yun has basically done her best to ruin his little sister... That's a big one to swallow... but OK. Apart from that he's not a bad sport to watch. He's a bit of an idiot but the good hearted kind... but with absolutely NO TASTE and NO SELF-ESTEEM.

But Shi Yun? Gimme ONE THING that is likable with this character. She's just terribly written, period. I can't fastforward for the life of me but MY GOD do I want to, she's just a dirty stain on an otherwise very cute drama.

The ex is okay I guess. Obviously he's a selfish ass*** but I doubt he's even aware of how he is in reality. If Xue Jiao hadn't experienced firsthand how utterly selfish he is, she obviously would have fallen. Who wouldn't? He's cute, handsome and athletic. Knows how to do grand gestures to impress. I mean any girl that age would have fallen.

I feel you! I usually don't bother with Chinise shows as they are airing given how many episodes come out in such a short amount of time...

But there's so many shows that I wanted to watch that came out at the same time, I ended up in this mess >_<

His voice does sound deeper in the link you gave. Well the only explanation I see, is him making his voice deeper for the role.
I'm also watching on Viki... But since I've started too many shows anyway ( I usually only watch 2 to 3 dramas in different languages with eventually 1 anime at the same time at most and right now I'm watching 5 in literally the same language..., not counting LOTFG that just finished on Viki), I feel a bit overwhelmed and don't feel like rushing. Quite the contrary. Next time I'm back to watching only one show at a time in Chinese because otherwise I feel like I have to rush from one show to the other and I don't like to feel "obligated" in my leisure time, especially since Chinese shows are pretty long..

If I'm too curious, I just check previews on Youku... I wish I didn't because sometimes it's too much spoilers but I can't help it.