L13

Well, it’s a historical fantasy drama with a romantic subplot that hasn’t fully kicked in yet, not an office romance about a CEO who’s allergic to women and his secretary or whatever. Wrist grabs don’t happen in every drama…

Do we know why this was held up in review for so long? People seem to assume it's because of paranoid homophobia, but there are plenty of Chinese procedurals with all-male main casts (too many, if you ask me) that don't get the same treatment.

I think it might be because of the drama's portrayal of the police actually. One of the two main characters is a disgraced policeman who's involved in criminal activity--whether he was framed for murder or not, he seems shady in some capacity--and the cops are shown to have made big mistakes in the course of an old investigation. The first part in particular is virtually anathema to Chinese censors; the police are always portrayed as infallible and incorruptible in Chinese police dramas.

If that's the problem, then that's a big issue IMO because moral ambiguity, acting according to a private code of honour, and police failures seem totally central to the premise of the drama. They're not something you can edit around.

This is a great drama for many reasons, but can I just single out the romance here? I’m a huge fan of romance as a minor subplot in action/thriller dramas, but it’s so rare to actually see it play out. Usually it’s all subtextual/implied/at the level of ‘chemistry.’

But in Reset there’s just the right amount of it. I really like the leads’ relationship development and how they go from strangers to people who only have each other in an extreme situation to people who cover up the fact they’re time travellers by pretending to be a couple to, well, people who are actually a couple but haven't quite said it yet. The progression of their relationship is so smooth and understated and really quite sweet, but there are no unnecessary scenes and the focus is always on the main plot, with the romantic development happening under the surface. Yet it is obvious from their body language and eye contact/level of intimacy with each other.

And then in the final episode we get the perfect amount of scenes acknowledging their feelings explicitly to reassure us that they’ll be happy together after the story ends. It’s a very satisfying romantic resolution IMO! Sometimes in action dramas with a romantic subplot it gets resolved in a rush in the final episode, but here, as I said, there was enough fluff to leave me satisfied as a viewer.

Other dramas should take notes!

Wenjie is an extremely frustrating protagonist because he keeps making the same stupid decisions even though they never work out for him.

I dropped this around episode 21 because I got too annoyed by his inability to be honest with the cops and not do illegal shit. Luo Jian has been his supporter the whole drama, but instead of sharing information with him, Wenjie is going to let some suspicious uncle with a criminal record rope him into abducting and assaulting a millionaire for no reason other than the guy knew his father? Like, Uncle Xu is obviously the villain; there's no other reason for a shady character like that to show up 2/3rds into the story and gain the protagonist's trust immediately. Transparent plot twist based on expedient characterisation.

It wouldn’t bother me so much if Wenjie wasn’t supposed to be a. smart and b. determined NOT to go to jail. Like, he has done so many illegal things already, invariably to his own detriment, and I’m supposed to be rooting for him to get his shit together and become a police officer or whatever? Absolutely not! The guy has terrible judgement and should NOT be in charge of investigating crimes!

Speaking of his desire to lead an ordinary life and stay on the straight and narrow in contrast to his father, that’s supposed to be his defining characteristic, yet it gets overridden by a sudden impulse to get justice for his father halfway through the drama and he starts acting even more recklessly even though nothing changes in what he knows/feels about his dad…? Again, poor characterisation serving the whims of the plot.

It would have been far more satisfying to see his relationship with Luo Jian evolve instead of having it stagnate and even regress due to Uncle Xu’s appearance. As I said, Wenjie keeps making the same mistakes in his dealings with Luo Jian/the police; it’s annoying to see no character development over 20 episodes.

This is actually more fun than I expected so far... I wasn't sure about the leads' dynamic and the potential for plot development after the first episode, but both leads have grown on me since then. They're both annoying in different ways--Jae-hee with her snap judgements and one-track mind and Han-joon with his faux nonchalance and childishness--but in eps 3-4 we're seeing both of these facades start to crack. HJH is starting to suspect there's more to NHJ and the story of her brother's death than meets the eye and NHJ's deeper motivations are starting to come out.

I like the humour and exaggerated mannerisms, reactions, body language and sound effects too. They lend a cartoonish air to the story that makes me more forgiving of plot holes and cliches.

Least misogynistic MDL comment.

I think he's supposed to be a cadet at the police academy in that scene, not a full-fledged police officer.

I've only seen the first two episodes, but I'm already thinking of dropping this because there are no likeable characters. The Cheng household's grandmother and her daughter-in-law and her maid are cartoonishly evil, Shaoshang's mother is cold and aggressive toward the daughter she hasn't seen in 15 years, Shaoshang herself is manipulative and self-absorbed and Ling Buyi doesn't have a personality. Might give it another couple of episodes, but the fact there's no one whose scenes I look forward to is a bad sign.

That’s not the official poster, which was released a few days ago.

I didn’t even notice that, but if her name is different, she must have changed her identity later IMO.

Is Lee Elijah confirmed for this? She's not on the official poster.

Yes, it did, the premise was creepy.

I think he might have been a cadet at the police academy at the time, since they also wear police uniforms (or at least I hope so, though his girlfriend at the time looked quite mature, so who knows). But the actress playing Jae-hee's younger self certainly doesn't look 15 to me! I thought she was, like, 11.

The situation is very different from Backstreet Rookie's because there was no romance between Jae-hee and Han-joon in the past. Still, it simply doesn't compute for me because Jae-hee implied she was over 30 when she introduced herself to her team. Even under the most generous assumptions, her age difference with HJ is probably 6-7 years, which usually shows when both parties are in their 30s, yet JH and HJ look around the same age.

It stretches credulity for me, so I wonder what reason they had to make JH so much younger than HJ. The only reason I can guess at is that if she still looked like a kid when they knew each other, he wouldn't recognise her as an adult? But she already quoted his words to her back to him and he had no reaction, so how much is he going to care when he finds out that they knew each other? Or did he already know?

I wish they were closer in age. This age gap is distracting if only because of all the calculations it's asking me to perform to work out the drama's timeline, plus it adds additional imbalance to their relationship dynamic, which is already unequal with HJ portrayed as this flawless schemer who's always one step ahead of JH.

I know, right? I hope JK acknowledges him later on.

He couldn’t refuse a direct request from the king, so I don’t blame him, but when we were first shown that scene I also thought he would never get his body back.

What stumps me is why Uk is supposed to be the king’s son. It’s true the king’s soul was in JK’s body at the time, but genetically, Uk should be JK’s child. I guess that’s where magic comes in.

I'm on episode 11 and I'm liking this a lot so far. It's mostly serious and mature, but it has some genuinely funny, clever gags; it's not just a romcom in the sense that it's stupid and fluffy. It's so rare to find a romcom that really makes me laugh these days.

I really like the two main characters and their personalities too; the way their younger selves are used to explain their personality types and the differences between them is well done and really carries over to the main narrative in the present day. In other words, the flashbacks at the beginning of almost every episode serve an actual purpose and improve your understanding of the characters.

I find Liu Jing most relatable on a personal level, but surprisingly I like Fang Xin and her love story the most. Fang Xin is a really well drawn character; she's supposed to be this beautiful naive princess who always gets everything she wants and doesn't understand how the real world works, which is usually a very annoying character type--as the drama openly acknowledges!--but her characterisation is so detailed and well fleshed out that you really see her as a three-dimensional, likeable human instead of a stereotype. Plus, the drama uses her to show the dark side of being a beautiful woman in a sexist workplace. Despite her timid, non-confrontational personality, she finds ways to stand up for herself and doesn't compromise with her strong sense of justice. (I really liked the scene showing how she can't lie at all and would rather face humiliation, despite her self-consciousness, than do something underhanded. It really presented this as a character trait, like she just couldn't lie because it wasn't in her nature and would rather face the consequences, rather than as more proof of how noble and pure she is.)

As I said, I like her love interest and the way their story is progressing the most too. I hope we see more of them in the coming episodes. (And that the creep who harasses her at work gets his comeuppance.)

The secondary characters, like Song Chao and Lao Gao and Wang Jicong, Wenwen, Liu Jing's mother, etc. are all compelling too. What I like is that each of them gets a moment to shine under the spotlight; Lao Gao when he demonstrates his talent as the Zhuge Liang of nightclubs, Wenwen when she expertly manipulates her father in front of Liu Jing, etc. Even when they serve to advance the character arcs/subplots of the three main characters, the more minor characters get trademark character moments that are often funny and memorable.

I think Xia Meng is an interesting, well drawn character, but so far she's the one whose story least excites me. Her arc has been all about her personality flaws so far and she hasn't done anything to address them. Her ridiculous lies to Lu Bin are also keeping their relationship from progressing, so their scenes together are not that interesting yet.

I was quite put off by the abrupt shift in the leads' relationship in the middle of episode 4. They went from rivals in one scene to working together in perfect harmony in the next and then to drinking late-night wine in their sleep clothes without any transition or explanation. Like, what even happened? Their relationship development could be much better.

She's 13 when they first meet, then there's a time skip until she's 20.

In the webtoon, there's a larger age difference between them because Sookwang is already a university student (I think) while Seulbi is a sheltered 13-year-old, and even though it's obviously not romantic at that point, their first meeting has bad vibes IMO. So I am really glad they changed Seulbi's age for it.

I think her behaviour is explained by how sheltered and lonely her upbringing was. She's not acting like a child; she's acting like someone who was kept away from society for the first 22 years of her life.

He was trying to convince her that some stranger was too old to be called oppa. That’s not concern; it’s jealousy. Same with the overreaction to her song and outfits.

Also, finally, and this isn't a spoiler, I really like how soft Sookwang is with Seulbi. He takes care of her in the webtoon too, but Na Inwoo has added some great flourishes to Sookwang's character here. He tells himself he has no desire to get involved with Seulbi but keeps treating her with so much care. It's only been a few days and he already thinks of her as part of his life. It's really fun and romantic IMO.