Bali

This drama is a Chinese spin-off of the 2007 Korean romantic comedy “Coffee Prince”. Although it is a nice watch, the changes done from the Korean adaptation made this drama failed to produce the expected effect of the male lead’s struggles as he finds himself falling in love with his tomboy employee; which made Eric Le Yang’s character (Jiang Shang Wu) seem delusional and his reactions were almost illogical. Xu Lu (as the tomboy Gao Xing) played her character well, but there was no romantic chemistry with the male lead. It seems that the changes to the story were brought about because of Chinese censorship which it would have been better to create a whole different drama. Overall, the drama is nice to watch if the viewer knows nothing about the original story! Aside from the changes to fit censorship demands, even the acting from the second leading couple was not the best as expected from a seasoned actor as Wang Yang.

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“Our Beloved Summer’” is character-driven slice of life drama that revolves around the painful yet beautiful journey of the main characters as they each struggle through their own traumas and try to find oneself without losing what is really important in their lives. The drama is about how the leading couple deals with the remnants of their broken relationship due to insecurities and abandonment. The drama uses very insightful narrative to give the audience an understanding of the character’s state of mind using introspection and also presenting their first relationship through flashbacks, and the epilogues at the end of each episode provide reference on the characters.
The leading cast, Choi Woo-Shik as Choi Woong and Kim Dami as Kook Yeon Soo did a wonderful job bringing their characters to life. Their chemistry was great and they were wonderful in expressing their emotions, not only in their dialogues but mostly in the intense raw emotions that they brought through body language and facial expressions.
Although there are some comedic moments, the drama provokes all kind of emotions as the main characters work on overcoming pain and understanding their emotions to be able to conquer their fears in order to love and trust each other. It is a wonderful drama; enjoy it.

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This is a nice drama that illustrates how children carry the burden of their elder’s mistakes. The drama has a sullen aura throughout all 70 episodes and, although it has its beautiful, lovely, and tender moments, it is packed with characters that are scarred from the actions, selfishness, misunderstandings, and lack of proper communication of their parents and grandparents. The entire drama packs one punch after another on the leading couple and most of the supporting cast. Although it is not a binge worthy drama and the characters take too long to reach emotional maturity, the drama does have some redeeming qualities. The male lead is one of them; he’s steadfast on his love and care for the leading female. The most disturbing aspect of this drama is how most characters failed to see and understand that Jiang Sheng’s feelings and yearning for Liang Sheng stemmed from a sisterly deep, pure, and strong love toward the brother that she grew up with and their symbiotic relationship.

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This is a nice romantic comedy with plenty of melodramatic tones, some fairly good action, palace antics, and a leading couple with a nice romance. It is a nice drama to watch while waiting for a great one to come. The drama moves back and forth from satire to serious and earnest plot and a few heart wrenching moments. There is good chemistry among the leading couple that remains throughout the duration of the drama. The leading lady is the one that keeps the drama going, she is hilarious, tender, loving, earnest, and loyal, not only to the Emperor, but to her friends and family as well. Although the story tries to develop two other romantic stories, the way that the couples come together seems forced and unnatural. Still, the drama is entertaining.

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This is a nice remake of the Taiwanese original story “The Prince Who Turns into a Frog “ with Chao Zhang as Shan Jun Hao/Dang Ou and Joe Chen as Ye Tian Yu . There is also a Chinese remake “Waking Love Up” with Roy Chiu as Xiang Tian Qi and Tiffany Tang as Liu Xiao Bei. The drama is nice but, although the leading couple has good ongoing chemistry, their romantic scenes lack splendor, the plot drags a bit and clichés are abundant, and the characters’ development came and went too quick. All in all, even though it is not a great remake, it is entertaining.

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This is a GREAT romantic drama! From beginning to end, the leading couple shows an explosive chemistry even by just looking into each other’s eyes and brightly smiling! The love story develops fast and it remains fresh and fun to watch. The leading male and female are honest, true to their feelings, and not afraid of becoming vulnerable and strong by loving and been loved by their partner. It is a refreshing portray of two persons that rush into marriage out of their own needs at the moment and choose to make the marriage work by putting their heart and soul into making everything possible to make the other person fall in love by giving the best of each other. This drama is perfect!

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This drama is a very good action, suspense drama with an excellent trio of friends that can fight and strategize. The romance is more about the strong feelings that the leading couple have for each other than romantic scenes between them, but they have a really good chemistry. Although some things don’t make a lot of sense, the drama delivers a good amount of entertaining. The end seems a little bit rushed but it was nice. Anyone interested in watching a film with multiple antagonists that keep the plot going into action after action and ways of surviving, will find this drama enjoyable. The drama is a bit of Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) with a great sidekick (Damon Guo as Shi Yun Hao). Enjoy it!

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Review for Season 1 & 2

This drama is a fantasy, wuxia romance. It is cute, silly, light hearted, and entertaining. The leading couple has good chemistry and, once they realized that they liked each other, they remained steadfast in their pursuit of happiness. Although their intimate moments could’ve been better, there are many cute and nice romantic scenes. The drama has the usual travel back in time tropes that are well worked into the drama. The two male leads have a great frenemy relationship that it’s also well developed throughout the drama. This drama offers a light and nice entertainment. Enjoy it!

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This is a great fantasy thriller drama with a nice romantic storyline. The action scenes are fantastic and, for the most part, acting was done well. There could have been better chemistry between the leading couple but, overall, it was not too bad. The brothers Lee Yeon and Lee Rang’s story and interactions were the best part of this drama. Both actors did great bringing their characters to life. The supporting cast provided lots of funny moments to smooth the thriller moments in the drama and their storylines were interesting and engaging. The most baffled moment is Lee Rang’s unnecessary demise. In an effort to create a dramatic flair, the writer failed to take into consideration that Lee Yeon valued his brother’s life more than his own. It’s paradoxical to have to sacrifice a life for a life that has done the ultimate sacrifice to save his beloved. Although this drama brings about the theme of self sacrifice for a loved one, it is also a tale of obsession. It is disappointing that once one of the main characters reaches great character development and finds the true value of family, his life is seeing as less important and okay to be sacrificed to satisfy an underworld god’s greed and Nam Ji-A’s obsession. Now, the ending might seem confusing to some, but it is a very welcomed twist to the finale. The drama is entertaining, enjoy it!

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This is a nice romantic comedy with a good dose of dramatic moments, some mystery, birth secret, misunderstandings, and a few antagonists but it is good that none of the issues are dragged for too long. Although the leading couple has good chemistry, it is more a playful chemistry of no consequence since their romantic moments lacked intensity and momentum. The drama's romantic line stayed simply cute and lovable. The drama tried to bring forth comedy but the storyline kept the tone more serious than funny. The romance developed slowly and it was centered more on flirting than real romance. If one can throw away expectations of a great romance, then this drama can be a nice and entertaining watch while waiting for a great one to come.

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This is a very good romantic suspense drama. The plot is well developed and it is about a girl that has lost some of her memories and a guy with hyperthymesia, which isabout having the ability to remember abnormally large number of his life’s experiences in vivid detail and sentiment. The drama revolves around the leading couple’s meeting, getting to know each other, falling in love, and having to deal with the trauma of loosing someone they both loved on the hands of a psychopathic stalker. The plot develops slowly as it fleshes out characters and their relationship with each other. The romance is nice and subtle, but also steadfast and endearing. The lead couple has good chemistry and the actors performed their roles beautifully. The drama has other side relationships that flow nicely into the plot. Moon Ga Young as Yeo Ha Jin and Kim Seul Gi as her sister and manager Yeo Ha Kyung rendered their characters fantastically with their strong support, care, and love for each other. Although not a perfect drama, especially because the writer(s) felt compelled to throw in some unnecessary clichés, it’s still very entertaining. Enjoy it!

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This is a romance drama mixed with the usual problems of large corporate governance, birth secret, revenge, betrayal, and misunderstandings. Although the drama is supposed to be a romantic comedy, the funny moments are mostly provided by the hostel extravagant trio and Dough, the little girl. There is an intended love triangle that is more cumbersome than romantic involving two infatuated individuals that end up getting romantically entangled too fast and with a lack proper romantic development. The leading couple’s story starts nice and strong but it loses excitement as the drama progresses and their romantic scenes are insipid. The leading male does a good job conveying his emotions but the lead female shows contradictory facial expressions while trying to convey feelings. Two of the most disturbing aspects of this drama are Tao Lun’s rapid changed in character and emotions and the fast and absurd drastic change of Zhang Jing Zhong [Chairman and Zhang Min's father]. Also, the rushed ending and forgiveness resolution shown on this drama underestimates the graveness of the parents, and other adult’s, decisions when the main characters were children.

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This is a nice drama to watch while waiting for a great one to come. If you don’t mind a leading couple that is both immature and insecure, then you might find some enjoyment while watching. Although in the drama, for the most part, the male main character receives all the blame for the couple’s failure, it’s irresponsible to not focus also on the female lead’s insecurities and lack of communication. The drama intended to show characters development and, although it happened toward the end for both leads, the writer chose to separate the couple for two years to make that happened instead of learning from their mistakes by working together. The fact that the leading lady is portrayed as a moneygrubber and the writer chose to use it as an endearing and comedic trait on her part; it is really a turn off on her misleading personality. The romantic story was going well until they got married and everything went downhill when the couple’s chemistry took a nose dive and they lost trust on their capacity to love and work things through. The supporting cast was nice but they were also a mess in more than one way. Acting was subpar, the music was nice, but the storyline was mediocre.

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This review is for Season 1 and 2. This drama is about palace politics and betrayals. The main characters are trapped by the delusions of the emperor and the princes all fall under the schemes of the bad guys. This is not a love story, although there is a main romantic plot and some other side stories, the plot is more about the fight for the throne. The story is poorly written and the characters went from almost comedic to dark and depressing on the second season. The best acting comes from the antagonist; the rest of the cast did not perform so well and the end, and the good guys end tragically. The leading lady went from very smart on the first season to someone lacking good judgment. Overall, the drama is not that good!

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“Walk into Your Memory” is a fantasy drama with melodramatic, comedic, and romantic moments. Although it is a fairly good drama, it lost momentum for a while and, because of a series of unfortunate events, it started to drag the romance storyline. The leading couple did well bringing their characters to life but there is something missing during their romantic moments. From around episode 20 and on, the story takes upon clichés of misfortune and misunderstandings that are wrapped up to quickly on the last episode. The drama has a nice happy ending, but, for such a steadfast and enduring love among the leading couple, the drama doesn’t deliver a “great” finale. Even then, the drama is entertaining; something nice to watch while waiting for a great one. Enjoy it!

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