Kannadin

I get your comment... To be fair... I never completely got used to it but it gets better though I think it's more the breathy way she talks... It will never be worse than Esther Yu though.

PS: I'm no fan of any of these actors. Story-wise however, the Double is way better but these are two very different stories so comparing them is a bit...

You're welcome 😉

"On top of that, the ones airing recently tend to lean more toward action, noir, or heavier topics."

That's more a question of trend... For some reasons K dramas have always been like this. It's like all the channels are discussing about which genre they should push forward each year and then they push it all at the same time.

Well I wouldn't phrase it like justdoingmathang...
But I do have to agree on the overall content of the post. I wouldn't talk about the First Frost which I dropped nor the Prisoner of Beauty which I found too long...

BUT

There's plenty of C dramas which visual quality, cinematography and stories have absolutely NOTHING to envy to K dramas and are often superior.

As a long time K drama watcher of over 20 years, I thought there was no way China would do anything better... given the few things I saw back then. The first Chinese drama I watched 8 years ago was disappointing at best...

But then I stumbled on a good one, tried others and now I'm down the rabbit hole.

There is no such thing as no competition. It's just a matter of mentality.

If you think about China, you don't necessarily think of animation, yet two of the most popular anime currently airing are Chinese "To Be Hero X" and "Lord of Mysteries".
Story and animation is top notch, way better than most of what Japan is currently producing.

This is the type of arrogant attitude that will be the downfall of K dramas if they continue down that route. Every single country now wants to have a slice of the Soft Power pie.

Dramas, Animation, Music... all of these things have real life economic consequences for the countries in question not only in term of Tourism. The K Beauty industry benefited a lot from it so thinking that China as the second most powerful country in the world is not aware of it and doesn't want to capitalize on that is ridiculous.
I'm sure they're also pushing their content with lots of support money from the Government.

Now do I care about these politics?

I don't. You give me good content, I support the industry.

Another bad move from South Korea is relying too much on platforms such as Netflix and Disney + ever since the success of Squid Game.
Most of K dramas were available on Viki in the past... Now most of them have either been licensed on Netflix and Disney + or other more international and expensive platforms.

Which means, the core most faithful public of K dramas, now has to purchase several subscriptions to get their K drama blockbusters. Of course there's piracy but for those who don't want to bother what happens?

WELL. There's still Viki which content is slowly being diversified... with contents from other countries BUT with an increasing number of Chinese productions...
Chinese blockbuster dramas for that matter.
The most expensive, most awaited Chinese dramas have almost ALL been made available on Viki and the rest are available on iQiyi... which is Chinese. Last I checked by the way it's now called "Rakuten Viki" so bought by the Japanese.. though I don't really know how these things work... Maybe it's Japanese now, maybe still American who knows?

[That includes Thailand which is going full throttle with LGBTQ+ content to get their own slice of Soft Power, and they're right to do so because that's probably the easiest way to compete with other Asian countries since they're still lacking moneywise but are way less conservative than the others]

I don't know what is going to happen to K dramas seriously... But I have to admit that I can count on the fingers of one single hand, K dramas I really raved about for the past 2 years unlike China... and I am honestly sad about it.

The only issue I think with China is its censorship regarding political topics, corruption or whatever. Doing anything contemporary is a bit of a headache hence the fact that they do produce lots of romance and lots of fantasy and historicals...

HOWEVER... that's also what's most popular in terms of audience.
Occasionally you get awesome thrillers that do well in terms of numbers, but they're few in-between and usually don't catch up with the most popular romance.

I've yet to find a good contemporary thriller from China to be honest but again it doesn't necessarily bother me given that's not a genre I enjoy that much. For that, I still think SK is better... for now.

Overall, SK is not better, they've just conquered the market sooner.

But I feel they've become sloppy with the quality of their production. That pie cannot grow more, you either lose some slices or you don't... And I'm sorry to say, at least as far as I'm concerned... and I'm sure I'm not the only one, they already did lose some substantial slices not only in dramas but also in anime.

I did. I'm in favor of "no ratings at all until the show has completely aired"... and no review as well.

Watched it.
Well thanks for your reply... I guess I was expecting something a little bit more plot-driven so I guess this is not for me... I occasionally watch melos but it is definitely not my usual jam... Basically melos are just above the Horror genre... and since Horror is at the bottom of my genre preference that's saying a lot.

Hopefully once this drama is finished, the ratings will go up because honestly it is really off-putting given the MDL average. Might discourage lots of people who likes that genre to even give it a try.

Hopefully they don't drag this particular misunderstanding for too long... but based on the preview of episode 24 (see links in Dedra70's post below)... We're still in for the jealousy trope... They just put it somewhere else now...

Man! Chu Zhao should just get a clue and stop third wheeling.

From what I understand there's basically a jealousy misunderstanding in the novel that has nothing to do with the past RuFei's identity that is not in the drama. Instead they changed it to make it a misunderstanding about Ru Fei's identity.

In the novel, Xiao Jue knows everything before he learns that He Yan is He Rufei of the past, so they don't separate because of it... but here obviously they changed that. I personally find this stupid given He Yan has already proven repeatedly where her loyalty lies... but I'm not gonna hold it against the drama.

I'm not a fan of that change. It also means that there's other changes down the lines... We'll see how they do it.

Never thought I'd see a day on this platform when C dramas are more watched than K dramas... What exactly is happening to Kdramaland?

This is currently the most watched K drama on MDL and the ratings are the worst... out of all the currently watched shows.
I know ratings of currently airing shows don't mean necessarily a lot... but still, going that low is quite an achievement on this platform.

Seriously 2025 has been a series of Kdrama disappointments so far, and I no longer know which K drama to pick.

I was planning on watching that one... But now I wonder if I should bother...
To those of you who have watched up to the latest aired episode, is it REALLY that bad?

Yes but that's exactly it. Regarding these, I prefer the novel version. I don't dislike the show because of it but I wish they stuck with the novel on that particular part.

That's not the same misunderstanding we're talking about. In the drama, they've decided that Xiao Jue discovers He Yan's identity and still doesn't know the full truth of what happened hence the fact that he goes back to having doubts about her betraying her father... Which i not in the novel since he already knows the full truth before confronting He Yan about her identity. In fact the last piece of the puzzle is He Yan being ex He Rufei... whereas here, they've changed the order 1st piece of the puzzle is He Rufei being a woman... which leads to this misunderstanding since he still hasn't made a full inquiry about what happened when his father died.

Lol I cannot count the time people got into stupid arguments with me because I didn't like their favorite shows and even though I explained why, they would wage some "internet feud" with me over A DRAMA seriously... Telling me how IF I didn't like their shows, in meant I didn't understand this and that.

Sometimes you can see the intention behind the narratives, yet can't into the story. What works for others, just doesn't work for you, and that's fine. I hate when people try to force others to bow to their opinions, as if THEY are right and OTHERS are wrong... be it one direction or another.

Also, diversity of opinions is always welcome... Since you've decided to watch it to the end, I think the best way to show others that maybe the show is not for them, would be to write a complete review once you've finished it.

I personally often check negative reviews to see if what triggered the viewer would be something that would trigger myself as well. I've noticed quite a lot of dramas I ended up watching because people were raving about it didn't work for me and often the points that bothered me were already expressed, prior to me watching, in other reviews :D

Anyway good luck to you then ^^That's 15 more episodesto go! Happily for you they're short... Sadly for me, they're TOO short 😭😭😭

When he knows the truth about He Rufei, he already knows the truth and they immediately patch things up, he already has done his research and there's no room for misunderstanding... I read that scene.

Nah it wasn't I checked.

I can't believe they introduced that misunderstanding sh** that wasn't even in the novel 😡😡😡🤬🤬🤬
Makes me mad.
Hopefully they won't drag it for long.

Preview for episode 23

Lol Ok... I guess it's more the way you've phrased it:
I think I would have written " If you take it as an Epic story, which is how it was marketed and labelled, it doesn't fit the bill and hence is a bad show".

To be fair you can't really tag that one neither a comedy nor an epic in my opinion. As you wrote, it's not as Epic as they advertised it, but on the other side it's not 100% a comedy either. It's more in the middle and the focus is definitely more on the romantic aspect.

For the rest, it's more a matter of taste so I won't argue with you. I am personally living for the chemistry between the main pair and I think everyone is terrific in their roles.

Some fighting scenes are a bit over the top and... Yeah... the Wolves were horrendous... Well actually the whole forest leading to the wolves as well... The whole scene basically. You can tell these scenes weren't filmed in a real forest but in a studio... When she falls in a hole it's a real forest, but when they fought the wolves, everything was cardboard papers I've seen in low budget wuxias.
Made my eyes bleed as well to be honest, but that's the only time it happened so I'm able to look the other way.

Hopefully that won't happen again ^^

Hmm...

"Please stop defending this show, its mediocore at best. Just another of those that got hyped and it was marketed well, personally I would never watch it if I knew that its mostly romantic comedy."

I mean I get your point, I just disagree that it is a bad show because you didn't get what you expected. I understand you don't like it because you were in for something epic and it is not, still doesn't make it a bad show in my opinion.

Though of course, regarding that, it's more a matter of personal taste so that's cool.

This being said... Based on your account... you seem to have purchased early access of the episodes so you still enjoyed it enough to pay extra.🙄

I don't agree with you... but it's true it's missing the "comedy" tag. It's not a goofy show but it's definitely pretty light-hearted so I can understand the disappointment if it is what you were looking for... especially since the original trailer was pretty dramatic and serious.

Wow! Respect!
I completely gave up. I'm watching on Viki which is 4 episodes behind but I always end up checking snippets and previews of episodes... of people who have early access. So yeah... I watched the preview for episode 21 and shorts of episode 19... when the last episode I could fully watched was episode 14. I'm desperate.