Is the fl actually strong? Just asking cause I've been betrayed by the 'Strong Female Lead' tag way too many times…
Yes, she's a really unique character by the standards of Chinese romantic dramas. She's not childish or stupid or anything like that, and her characterisation remains consistent throughout the drama instead of starting off strong and devolving over time.
She's not portrayed as a paragon of traditional femininity, modesty and virtue. She has her flaws, and she can be petty and arrogant. She's not passive and she knows what she wants (in love and in life) and goes after it. I actually think it's a pretty subversive characterisation since a lot of her qualities are more typical of a villain in the historical romance genre. But she's vibrant and charismatic and her priorities are so clear and relatable--she cares about her family and her own happiness--that you can't help liking her.
Watching a drama with a main character like Ban Hua has made it even more difficult for me to get into more typical dramas with their cute sassy heroines who constantly misunderstand situations, cause misunderstandings by not speaking their minds, assume things unnecessarily and make bad decisions. I'm so tired of cute and sassy!
I'm getting kinda tired of the two leads trying to dodge endless marriage proposals from people they don't like while liking each other, being aware of each other's feelings & refusing to just get engaged publicly, which would solve all their problems! It's inconsistent behaviour--especially on Ban Hua's part, since she's been engaged like four times already and has never had trouble expressing her feelings before, yet when it comes to Rong Xia she's both reluctant to get engaged and incapable of making herself clear to e.g. Shi Jin and her grandmother--and it's clearly written this way for the sake of dragging out external conflicts. It's getting repetitive.
At least it looks like this stage of the story may be coming to an end soon, with Rong Xia's sudden heel turn/acceptance of the Xie family's alliance proposal. I think RX's internal conflict and the political situation he's entangling himself in are going to be the major obstacles to RX and BH's happiness for the rest of the series.
I prefer the political intrigue stuff to the marriage nonsense/chain of love triangles, but I really just want to see the main characters be cute with each other! That's all I want! I like their dynamic and I especially like Ban Hua as a female lead. She's not the usual childish, "clumsy," "sassy"/stupid female lead you see all too often in Chinese dramas and she doesn't jump to ridiculous conclusions that cause major misunderstandings or deny her feelings for the male lead. (She's just not very good at expressing them right now!) I really like her self-confidence and honesty. I hope she keeps kicking ass throughout the drama.
(And I really want to see a happy ending for our couple!)
A (kinda) MEDICAL ROMANCE drama about GROWNUPS and there's gonna be BETRAYAL and angst and Luo Yunxi's hot ass is the ML? When is this finally coming to an illegal streaming website near me because it's everything I've been waiting for since Surgeons ended??? They better release it in May for real or else!
Bo Ra is supposed to be a main lead ...the only vibe i get from her is ...it's everyone else fault and not my…
What's especially infuriating is that her parents are enabling Bora's behaviour by pretending that her getting her feefees hurt because a guy she wasn't even dating slept with someone else is just as important as Ahri's pregnancy.
When she asked them if they're really going to "allow" Ahri and Junsoo to marry, they should have pointed out the obvious fact that, even if Ahri betrayed her trust by sleeping with the guy Bora liked, a. that guy had already rejected her! he wasn't even cheating on her! they were not in a relationship! her sense of betrayal may be valid, but there's a limit to how far she can take it and how much others have to accommodate it when she had no real claim on Junsoo, and b. A BABY'S LIFE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN HER FEELINGS!!!
Forget the fact she's treating Ahri like a stranger instead of her sister; that Bora hasn't thought about the baby even once in the context of either judging Ahri's actions (she's going to be a mother! she has other priorities now besides Bora's ego!) or fantasising about getting together with Junsoo (he's going to have a baby with her sister! he's said he wants this baby! if Bora forces Ahri to have an abortion, does she really think Junsoo will just shrug it off and skip into her arms???) shows she has the emotional maturity and life experience of a high-school student.
But instead of saying any of this her parents just stood there looking stupid.
The reason I dislike this character so much really is that there's no one around her who is willing to tell her to get a grip.
If Daero had the guts to tell her these things it would have made their romance more interesting by forcing Bora to confront her flaws and hopefully grow as a person, introducing some tension between them and finally changing their unequal dynamic where Bora uses Daero's crush on her as an ego boost and looks down on him. But instead of stepping up and showing some spine/moral clarity, Daero continues to be a useless simp and just validates Bora's temper tantrums.
I'm afraid the writers are going to give Bora a reality check the hard way, by letting her spiral deep into obsessive second female lead territory and having her do something totally unforgivable to Ahri and Junsoo that will finally force her parents to reprimand her, which will in turn trigger a huge emotional crisis. It would have been better to just pick a character, Haeshim or Daero or whoever, and have them be real with Bora from the start.
This Sunae character is already annoying me. Now this is a female character conceived as a helpless child and someone who puts herself in dangerous situations that she needs saving from and who will be used to guilt-trip Yi-gyeom into doubting his feelings for Dain and to introduce misunderstandings/tension to their romantic subplot, which I will hate.
However, I disagree with people's criticisms of Dain's character. I've seen some people saying she's not badass enough or whatever, which is ridiculous. Do you think real damos were all martial arts experts? She has some self-defence training and uses it from time to time but isn't a fighter, which is fine. Her skills lie in spying and extracting information, which she's clearly good at, as episode 7 showed. She has initiative and smarts, so acting like she's a useless character and a burden to SIG is frankly misogynistic given how much more of a burden Chunsam was during their first mission with his idiotic behaviour (which I haven't seen mentioned anywhere).
Except it does say that the main character has to "hide his identity and live in poverty". This kind of makes…
Even if that happens, I assume the majority of the drama will take place outside the palace, which is already a step up from the endless palace intrigues with which other sageuks fill up screentime.
Bora continues to be the worst. It’s like the drama is deliberately trying to make her unlikeable at this point. The rich grandma and AR and BR’s dad are also annoying. I’m glad Haeshim at least is starting to see that it’s wrong to try to force AR to have an abortion (!). Although it took her too long to get there, she sees what’s right.
I just really hope AR and Junsoo won’t have to end up living with JS’s parents after the wedding like in every other daily/family drama. I won’t be able to stand the extended exposure to JS’s mother and her shitty treatment of AR (that JS won’t do anything to stop and that AR will overcome on her own by being obedient and understanding of her mother-in-law’s abuse to the point of changing her mind, when they’ll become one big happy family and no one will apologise—I already hate the thought of it!).
There’s no soul transmigration/reincarnation tag for this drama, but episode one opens with it. Is it a big part of the plot/does the main character stay aware of the modern world throughout the drama?
I love that his bad guy roles have such good-natured qualities. Oh Yeah, love to see him in a drama!
Same, he played one of the best villains I've seen in drama in Surgeons precisely because he wasn't a blackhearted evildoer but a guy with normal relationships and friendships and complex feelings/motivations.
I know people like this drama and I'm sure it's entertaining, but seeing the "misunderstanding," "obsessive second lead" and "love triangle" tags all in one place is enough to make me nope out immediately.
My enjoyment of this drama has really gone down since I hit episode 40 or so because I am constantly annoyed at how they're forcing the Epic Star-Crossed Romance between Xuanji and Sifeng by making Xuanji extremely stupid. In order for her to consider Sifeng her mortal enemy and to be tragically sad at having to fight him, she needs to believe every poisonous lie out of Hao Chen's mouth--EVEN AFTER HE ADMITTED HE LIED TO HER ABOUT THE VERMILLION BIRD BOTTLE--and to be incapable of noticing the obvious inconsistencies in what the people around her are saying. Also Sifeng abruptly going from the person she trusts the most to the person she trusts the least after she met up with him to clear their misunderstanding/after she broke him out of the cave where he was held prisoner didn't make any sense. They ruined her character for plot reasons, basically. I really hope this stretch of her treating Sifeng extremely unfairly ends soon and King Bailing/Hao Chen gets his comeuppance for all his manipulation because I can't take how frustrating the drama is right now.
Her acting in Begin Again was very natural and she's really pretty. She also has some martial arts skills! I wish she'd find more projects that could utilise them.
Yoon Kye-sang has turned this down and it's now been offered to Kim Dong-wook, reportedly. I like YKS, but KDW would make for a more interesting co-star for Seo Hyun-jin in my opinion. The idea of YKS and SHJ together kinda gives me the same vibe as YKS and Ha Ji-won in Chocolate and SHJ and Eric Mun in Another Miss Oh. KDW has a different, less macho aura that will give SHJ something new to work with, I think.
I think Bo Ra being FL is misleading, because the story is all about Ah Ri.
Yeah, I have the same feeling, and I'm really happy about it since Ahri is much more likeable (not that she's perfect by any means, just not a terrible person like Bora), but even so Bora is one of the two main female leads and someone we're supposed to root for.
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She's not portrayed as a paragon of traditional femininity, modesty and virtue. She has her flaws, and she can be petty and arrogant. She's not passive and she knows what she wants (in love and in life) and goes after it. I actually think it's a pretty subversive characterisation since a lot of her qualities are more typical of a villain in the historical romance genre. But she's vibrant and charismatic and her priorities are so clear and relatable--she cares about her family and her own happiness--that you can't help liking her.
Watching a drama with a main character like Ban Hua has made it even more difficult for me to get into more typical dramas with their cute sassy heroines who constantly misunderstand situations, cause misunderstandings by not speaking their minds, assume things unnecessarily and make bad decisions. I'm so tired of cute and sassy!
At least it looks like this stage of the story may be coming to an end soon, with Rong Xia's sudden heel turn/acceptance of the Xie family's alliance proposal. I think RX's internal conflict and the political situation he's entangling himself in are going to be the major obstacles to RX and BH's happiness for the rest of the series.
I prefer the political intrigue stuff to the marriage nonsense/chain of love triangles, but I really just want to see the main characters be cute with each other! That's all I want! I like their dynamic and I especially like Ban Hua as a female lead. She's not the usual childish, "clumsy," "sassy"/stupid female lead you see all too often in Chinese dramas and she doesn't jump to ridiculous conclusions that cause major misunderstandings or deny her feelings for the male lead. (She's just not very good at expressing them right now!) I really like her self-confidence and honesty. I hope she keeps kicking ass throughout the drama.
(And I really want to see a happy ending for our couple!)
When she asked them if they're really going to "allow" Ahri and Junsoo to marry, they should have pointed out the obvious fact that, even if Ahri betrayed her trust by sleeping with the guy Bora liked, a. that guy had already rejected her! he wasn't even cheating on her! they were not in a relationship! her sense of betrayal may be valid, but there's a limit to how far she can take it and how much others have to accommodate it when she had no real claim on Junsoo, and b. A BABY'S LIFE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN HER FEELINGS!!!
Forget the fact she's treating Ahri like a stranger instead of her sister; that Bora hasn't thought about the baby even once in the context of either judging Ahri's actions (she's going to be a mother! she has other priorities now besides Bora's ego!) or fantasising about getting together with Junsoo (he's going to have a baby with her sister! he's said he wants this baby! if Bora forces Ahri to have an abortion, does she really think Junsoo will just shrug it off and skip into her arms???) shows she has the emotional maturity and life experience of a high-school student.
But instead of saying any of this her parents just stood there looking stupid.
The reason I dislike this character so much really is that there's no one around her who is willing to tell her to get a grip.
If Daero had the guts to tell her these things it would have made their romance more interesting by forcing Bora to confront her flaws and hopefully grow as a person, introducing some tension between them and finally changing their unequal dynamic where Bora uses Daero's crush on her as an ego boost and looks down on him. But instead of stepping up and showing some spine/moral clarity, Daero continues to be a useless simp and just validates Bora's temper tantrums.
I'm afraid the writers are going to give Bora a reality check the hard way, by letting her spiral deep into obsessive second female lead territory and having her do something totally unforgivable to Ahri and Junsoo that will finally force her parents to reprimand her, which will in turn trigger a huge emotional crisis. It would have been better to just pick a character, Haeshim or Daero or whoever, and have them be real with Bora from the start.
However, I disagree with people's criticisms of Dain's character. I've seen some people saying she's not badass enough or whatever, which is ridiculous. Do you think real damos were all martial arts experts? She has some self-defence training and uses it from time to time but isn't a fighter, which is fine. Her skills lie in spying and extracting information, which she's clearly good at, as episode 7 showed. She has initiative and smarts, so acting like she's a useless character and a burden to SIG is frankly misogynistic given how much more of a burden Chunsam was during their first mission with his idiotic behaviour (which I haven't seen mentioned anywhere).
I just really hope AR and Junsoo won’t have to end up living with JS’s parents after the wedding like in every other daily/family drama. I won’t be able to stand the extended exposure to JS’s mother and her shitty treatment of AR (that JS won’t do anything to stop and that AR will overcome on her own by being obedient and understanding of her mother-in-law’s abuse to the point of changing her mind, when they’ll become one big happy family and no one will apologise—I already hate the thought of it!).
I like YKS, but KDW would make for a more interesting co-star for Seo Hyun-jin in my opinion. The idea of YKS and SHJ together kinda gives me the same vibe as YKS and Ha Ji-won in Chocolate and SHJ and Eric Mun in Another Miss Oh. KDW has a different, less macho aura that will give SHJ something new to work with, I think.