1
This review may contain spoilers
The first six episodes of Business Proposal were literally everything. Lots of supremely well-used tropes that were equally well-subverted. I was constantly laughing at the humor, and anxiously awaiting the eventual romance. But something felt off in eps 7 and 8, something I couldn't put my finger on, so I did something I tell myself never to do, and I looked up spoilers. And I'm honestly glad I did, because they put their finger on what it was that felt off to me.Somewhere in ep 7/8, the writers forgot that their drama was trying to use classic Kdrama tropes differently, and they pivoted to taking classic tropes too seriously, thus creating unnecessary angst. What I got through with 7 and 8 certainly couldn't be compared to the level of angst in a classic early to mid 2000's Kdrama, but it was a very definite tonal shift, and not one I liked. What's worse though is that the eventual story choices I read about were not something that made sense in regard to the characters. They sounded like obvious attempts at adding drama in a story that had been rather delightfully drama-free most of its run. They also just sounded like a waste of our character's time. I mean, the writers had a perfect opportunity to subvert the classic 'family doesn't approve' trope, and they Didn't take it. How uproariously hilarious would it have been for grandpa to pretend he didn't approve of their romance as a little bit of payback for them hiding it from him?
Armed with the knowledge of things to come, I decided to drop Business Proposal. But it's all good, cause Legally Romance (Cdrama) is doing all of the things with my heart right now, and I'm totally okay with it, lol.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
A Warmed Up Love had a promising start. We open episode one with our female lead, Kiki, sharing the difficult trajectory her life has taken, going from a popular J-pop idol to a nobody struggling with purpose and identity. It's very grounded and believable while still having touches of humor and lightheartedness (she's sharing her burdens with a customer service employee who doesn't know how to respond to a heartfelt confession seeing as her job is dealing with customer complaints, lol.) It's a really great opening on what sort of person Kiki is, the struggles she faces, and it immediately hooked me. Mori Nana is also fantastic at capturing what a young woman is really like, an ability she keeps going for at least the five episodes I watched.But while I loved Kiki and wanted to see her succeed, there's very little going on around her in the story that I found either compelling or believable.
For starters, I was completely uninterested in all the business drama. It boils down to people fighting for control of a company because of money and greed, but the drama paints it as some sort of emotionally resonate plotline about believing in the power of sweets and a fight to make quality products and doing what's best for the company. This was kind of hard to believe when no one on the board actually cares about any of these things, not even the male lead. Yes, part of his character trajectory was obviously going to be him 'overcoming' his sweets trauma and learning to care about creating delicious and comforting sweets, but this sort of storyline has already been done so often (and truthfully, better), that I didn't care.
Of course, it doesn't help that Takumi is essentially a cardboard cutout with no real personality. This is due to a combination of minimal acting on Nakamura Tomoya's part and a serious lack of characterization in the writing. Takumi is incredibly bland, his only real personality trait, aside from being stoic and determined in a boardroom, beings that he hates sweets, and for the majority of the five eps I watched, he either had little to no facial expression or a fake smile that screamed acting from a mile away.
I was also completely unmoved by the romance. With Takumi's lack of personality and how believably young and inexperienced Mori Nana's portrayal of Kiki is, I found the age-gap to be distracting and unnecessary. The writers also do little to no work creating compelling reasons for either of them to like each other. For Takumi, it's clearly the typical 'my love interest speaks her mind and is earnest' approach, and Kiki is certainly forthright and determined in her opinions and view of life. But while I don't inherently dislike this romance trope, it's also not interesting or fleshed out at all in this drama. As to what Kiki would find attractive about Takumi, I could never tell. To reiterate, he's as bland as a piece of toast.
Truthfully, her crush on him is a level of intense I found unbelievable. Near the beginning of the drama, Kiki discovers her boyfriend is cheating on her and then in the same moment, he dumps her, pinning the blame for his cheating on her. This would be devastating to most people, but Kiki's reaction is rather subdued. We don't know much about their relationship before that moment, so maybe there is a good reason for her to not be as devastated as you might expect, but then she immediately develops a crush on Takumi, and when she learns that he may still love his ex, she's distraught. She literally sobs in a stairwell. There is a serious discontent between these two responses. Her boyfriend cheating on her and then dumping her is no more thana small blip on her life timeline, but when her boss who's much older than her and whom she knows next to nothing about might love someone else, it's a tragedy?
My last real complaint for this drama is that while I get her interest in sweets and in reviewing them online, and I can totally see how that might transition into a legitimate job of taste-testing products to see which ones should be sold in a store, I could never get behind the idea of how reviewing sweets would give the female lead the requisite skills to actually make them herself. No one even bothers to find out if she knows how to cook. Now, I've been known to overlook details like this in other dramas, so this wasn't a make-or-break issue for me. But when all of the most important elements of a story don't work for you, even the smallest issues are a frustration.
It always leaves me frustrated when a drama starts out thoughtful and introspective before turning bland and uninspired, and that's exactly what happened with A Warmed Up Love. I can certainly see other viewers liking, or even loving, this drama, so I won't say no one should watch it. But man, if you're not going to carry that thoughtful heart all the way through a story's conclusion, then why even start?
Was this review helpful to you?
And it has one of the worst ending’s I’ve ever seen. So awful, it actually made me want to flip a table like Jesus.
But everything leading up to said ending was amazing. So there’s that.
You should definitely watch this movie. You will love it. But you will hate the ending.
Was this review helpful to you?
Definitely don't recommend this movie.
Was this review helpful to you?
(Music is 1 because I don't remember what the music was like.)
Was this review helpful to you?
I'm just against movie's that change their minds halfway through on what kind of story they want to tell.
(Music is 1 because I don't remember what the music was like.)
Was this review helpful to you?
(Music is 1 because I don't remember what the music was like.)
Was this review helpful to you?
They can do it again.
Do yourself a favor. Watch this movie.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
This is a noona romance, pure and simple. There’s some exposition on what it’s like to be a reporter for a magazine, what it’s like to be an odd job man, what it’s like not to earn a steady living, and what it’s like to Earn a steady living, but all of that really comes in second to the noona romance. And the noona romance…is gooooood. The writers really got what real romance is about. Mutual respect, compatibility, excitement, passion, Actually Spending Time Together. Freakin’ real-deal romance. (And Zero asshole behavior, for which I am always grateful.)Unfortunately, the drama did the romance So well, that it was all the more disappointing when same said romance faltered in the final quarter.
I'm talking about the Love Octopus (my name for love triangles).
I know they're common in older dramas, and it’s honestly very short-lived here (about two or three episodes), and yet I hated everything about it.
Almost from the moment he appeared on screen, I was ready for Shi Hoon to leave. From being angry at Ji Yeon for believing his secretary’s lie (don't even get me started on the stupidity of that whole plotline) to expecting everything to go back to exactly the way it had been six years earlier (because obviously, nothing could have changed within those six years; neither of them were different people or anything) to ‘pretending’ to be a ‘noble idiot’ and ‘pushing’ Ji Yeon away. (I didn’t even realize he was being a Noble Idiot until Ji Yeon pointed it out. That’s how good he was at just being an ass.) He literally got more and more annoying as the show went on, and by the end, I just wanted him dead.
As for Ji Yeon, she proved to be frustrating in a different, but all too familiar way to seasoned drama watchers. Leading up to the Love Octopus, she was a fabulous female lead. She’s feisty, she’s driven, she’s smart, she’s no-nonsense, SHE'S BLOODY CONSISTENT! Then Mr. Ex showed up, and Ji Yeon went from feisty and driven to timid and indecisive. She lost all sense of personality, spunk, spark, passion, fire, confidence, independence, and I HATED IT.
I’m not saying I don’t understand why it happened. She had been in a relationship with Shi Hoon for a long time, she’d clearly been pretending to be someone she wasn’t when she was with him, and the end of their relationship had devastated her. But we didn’t get nearly enough exposition into their past relationship for her sudden change in demeanor to feel realistic. I just didn’t believe that a woman so self-possessed would fall apart that easily at the sight of her ex.
But here’s where I sing Dong Ha’s praises as he was the only part of the Love Octopus that wasn't terrible. I love him. I love every single thing about him. He’s perfect. He’s wonderful. He’s kind. He’s caring. He’s giving. He’s hard working. He’s all the good things.
He literally saved this drama.
I will admit here that I might be too harsh in my assessment of this part of the story, but I honestly hated watching our female lead go from feisty and self-assured to a complete doormat within the span of seconds. And what made it so much worse is that all of the sexy, romantic, cuteness between our leads all but disappeared once the story hit the 'My ex fiancé is back, and for some unexplainable reason, I feel obligated to go back to him' arc. We were left with this open-ended, will they-won't they ending between our leads, and neither of them deserved that.
I don’t regret sticking this drama out, but I don’t Not regret it either. I mostly just wish we had gotten a less open ended ending. (Would have gone a long way in making up for the ex fiancé subplot.) I still totally recommend this drama to anyone who likes noona romances. Or just anyone who likes romances where there’s actually a compelling reason for the main couple to Be the main couple. Or just anyone who likes nice guys. Because as much as I hate Shi Hoon and feel like the drama really dragged it’s way to the finish after he showed up, I also think this drama was really, really, really well written and really, really, really, Really well acted and has a Fabulous romance between two people who are Actually compatible. If you can put up with two to three episodes of ex-significant-other drama (which is probably perfectly bearable as long as you’re not me) and a pretty open ended ending, this noona romance is killer.
Was this review helpful to you?
I hate this drama.
(Music is classical so I have to score high out of respect. I wouldn't rewatch this if I were stranded on a desert island with only the DVD's to keep me company.)
Was this review helpful to you?
(Music is 1 because I don't remember what the music was like. Rewatch is 1 because I wouldn't do that to myself.)
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
For a while there, I thought this would end up being one of my favorite dramas. The acting was phenomenal. The characters were phenomenal. The story was phenomenal. It was all so phenomenal. It was also one of those rare dramas from my newbie drama days where the stories outside of the romance actually interested me. Normally, I didn't care about so and so's conglomerate or singing career or whatever other boring and cliché overarching story the writers came up with, because I was there for the romance, damn it. But not this drama. I loved the whole idea of there being this woman who could see ghosts, but she doesn't know how to make them go away, and then meeting a random man who had some unexplained ability to get rid of them. It was compelling and tightly plotted, full of the kind of twisted logic only a drama can deliver.I even got some enjoyment out of Joong Won's kidnapping and betrayal story. The idea of him being kidnapped and simultaneously betrayed by his teenaged girlfriend/teenaged girlfriends evil twin was overdramatic and unrealistic and filled with plotholes, but it had such a great initial setup that I couldn't help but be drawn in. I was excited to see what was going to happen. I totally called the whole thing falling apart long beforehand, so I wasn't surprised when it veered off into left field towards the middle of the drama, but it was still disappointing to see. The whole plotline was total makjang, confusing and silly and hard to follow. Hee Joo, Han Na, Anna, Falanna, Fee Fi Fo, Banana, let's forget about the fact that a teenage girl could not plan out a kidnapping like that (or really any kidnapping) by herself, we were also given very little explanation for Why she did it. At least not a strong one. So your nice twin stole your man without him realizing that was what was happening (although I don't know just how 'nice' that makes her.) Why you gotta kidnap Him for it? It wasn't His fault. The more logical option would have been to just kill your twin and take over her life so you could date Joong Won. Still messed up, but at least the logic follows.
It's in the four main characters and the romance where this drama really shines though.
I liked pretty much all of the leads (minus one) equally. Gong Shil is adorable, hilarious, full of emotional depth, and dogged in her pursuit of relief from ghosts. Her plight was both comical and heartrendingly sad. When she batted away a ghost or reeled back from one in fear, I laughed and felt for her at the same time. Joong Won is obsessive compulsive, highly intelligent, full of emotional depth, and dogged in his pursuit of relief from Gong Shil. His journey of self discovery and growth is superbly done and kept me very invested in his character. He's the same man at the end of the story, same quirks and mannerisms, and yet...he's a completely different person in so many ways.
Kang Woo was too precious for words. Loyal, sweet, adorable, intelligent, in possession of one of the most beautiful faces ever gifted to man, basically the perfect secondary male lead. He doesn't experience any kind of growth, but he doesn't really need to. He's Kang Woo. And once again, let's acknowledge the obvious. Man is DOUBLE FINE. (It's like a double rainbow but better.) Yi Ryung was the only one of the main four that didn't wow me. Spoiled and snobbish and hilarious in the most unintentional ways (intentional on the part of the writers, unintentional on the part of the character), I liked her. But I never loved her. She never experienced the amount of emotional growth and maturity I wanted her to.
Han Na and Hee Joo's teenage versions were interesting (despite the utter insanity of of the kidnapping and betrayal plot). Unfortunately, adult Hee Joo does not get a pass from me. I'm sure it was explained at some point and I just missed it, but I never understood why she showed back up. What did she want? What was her goal? She'd killed her sister, ruined Joong Won's life, and stole an expensive necklace for fun. (Or did she? I've actually forgotten now.) Did she just want to gloat about it?
In what is a rare turn me for me, I found myself experiencing some heavy second lead feels with this drama. This was particularly distressing to me, as I loved the male lead equally as much. Joong Won and Kang Woo were both perfectly acceptable romance options for Gong Shil, having equally compelling chemistry and relationships with her that were very carefully developed and thought through.
Some people would consider Joong Won a jerk and not worth Gong Shil's time, but I wouldn't classify him that way. If I were in a similar situation as him and someone I'd never met started following me around trying to touch me all the time because the 'ghosts' wouldn't leave them alone...I'd call the police. You really can't call Joong Won a jerk for trying to make a weird, kind of creepy woman leave him alone. Yes, his way(s) of avoiding his feelings for Gong Shil later on in the drama were unfair and not particularly kind, but they weren't intentionally malicious either.
Of course, Kang Woo filled the role of perfect second male lead to perfection, and that's the whole reason I had so much trouble squashing my second lead feels. If he'd had the ability to make the ghosts disappear rather than Joong Won and Gong Shil had shown romantic interest in him, I would have rooted for him instead. But Gong Shil and Joong Won liked each other, and he was the only one who could make the ghosts go away, and I really wanted Gong Shil to not have to see them anymore, so Joong Won...won...in the end. (That is a name ripe for puns.)
Intense second lead feels aside, I would say this romance is very well done. Gong Shil's constant need to be in contact with Joong Won contrasted with his desperate desire to get rid of her provided us with a hilarious give and take situation that I thoroughly enjoyed. And then when the tables were turned and it was him who needed the constant contact, it just made my heart go awwwww. The whole 'I love you, so you have to make sure I don't love you' thing was a surprisingly brilliant and effective plot device, even if incredibly silly character wise. Watching him try to deny his feelings was like watching those kids who take part in those experiments where they have to not eat something for a certain period of time in order to get something better. Only in this case, there was no reason for him to wait for something better, because Gong Shil was already perfect for him.
But the 'I love you. Don't let me love you' plot device eventually turned into a double edged sword, and it soon became obvious to everyone that all Gong Shil and Joong Won really wanted was to be together, and no matter how many reasons they came up with as to why they Couldn't be together, there was just no longer a legitimate reason for them Not to be together. Then it became a waiting game; a long, drawn out, waiting game where the only way to pass the time was to place bets on who would give in first.
And what better time for a third quarter shake up then right when our leads are on the cusp of admitting their undying love for each other. (That is a joke. It was not a good time. It was a bad time. It was terrible. I want my money back.) No, I'm not talking about Joong Won dying and then coming back with no memory of Gong Shil. Surprisingly, after sitting down and working out my feelings about it, I realized that that actually happened at the perfect point in the story.
I'm talking about Mr. 'I can see ghosts too.'
I understand why he was there. The drama was extended unexpectedly, and they needed to fill the extra time. But the characters presence is ultimately unnecessary. He adds nothing to the plot, he doesn't help Gong Shil find any answers, and he has it in his head that he has some kind of romantic claim on her because he met her ghost once. Nah, son. That ain't how that works.
In the end, our leads do still get a happy ending, but they also have to suffer through some rather unnecessary heartache before getting there. And they deliver to the audience what is a super weak-sauce kiss. Maybe the writers thought all the casual touching would be enough to satisfy the audience, but they thought wrong. Lame kiss was lame.
Despite it's faults, this drama does have a lot to commend itself, and I would recommend watching it.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Just a Heads Up: This review is being written literal Years since I watched this drama. At least ten years now, if my math is right. That means it won't be an accurate representation of what I thought of this drama just after completing it but more of a reflection of my feelings for it now with all the nostalgia, the frustration, and eyes wide open to the stories flaws.....
Ooooooh, Fated to Love You. What a history we have together. You were my first Asian drama ever, where it all began for me. You were the Definition of a crack drama; over-the-top, melodramatic, ridiculous, and yet somehow intensely watchable. Your female lead hit me in the feels so hard I'm Still feeling it. And you were So. Damn. Infuriating.
I loved and hated you at the same time.
First and foremost, I Love Xin Yi as a character. I know mousy, downtrodden, insecure, damsel-in-distress characters are considered passé now, offensive even, but I like them, and I always will. (Judge me all you want.) And Joe Chen's portrayal of such a character is simply superb. When she cried, You cried. (And don't tell me you didn't, cause you're lying.) Of course, Cun Xi is a terrible person, and you hate most of the things he does and frequently hate him himself, but he still made me like him at the same time, and whenever he did something lovely for Xin Yi, my heart melted into a puddle at my feet. (So sue me.) Anna, unsurprisingly, is one of my least favorite second female leads of all time and probably the main source of ire for me in this drama. She's bloody awful, and you spend most of the time she's on screen thinking up creative ways for her to die. And Dylan may have been a nice (ok, he Was nice), but that doesn't change the fact that I find clingy secondary leads annoying on most fronts, no matter how nice they are, and I did find him clingy.
Looking back at this drama now, I fully recognize the myriad of flaws with the story, and if I were watching it today for the first time ever, I probably wouldn't be able to finish it. I actually tried to re-watch it a few years ago, and I couldn't get more than halfway through. There are a lot of things I love about old-school dramas and sort-of miss, but there are a lot of things I put up with while watching them too. Draggy sections, extreme noble idiocy, wringing every last ounce of drama from a situation as possible to the point of inducing intense rage. I didn't enjoy those things then, and I don't enjoy them now. But I put up with them, because the stories made me care. And that's how it was with Fated to Love You. It may have had extreme noble idiocy, and it may have dragged in places, and it may have spent a large chunk of time trying to wring every last ounce of unnecessary drama from some of it's plot points, but it made me care. I wouldn't care Now, but it made me care then.
So I love this drama. And I hate it. And I will probably always feel that way, lol.
....
I don't remember anything about the music of this drama, so I've rated it a 1, but I'm sure it was like a lot of dramas of it's time and therefore holds some level of nostalgia/cringe of it's own, lol.
....
Original Review:
This is the first drama I ever watched, and I consumed it like it was crack. I both love and hate it at the same time, and it will forever have a special place in my heart.
I tried to rewatch it a couple years ago, and I couldn't get more than halfway through, lol.
Links to my reviews for the other versions:
https://kisskh.at/profile/OhSoEnthusiastic/review/22004
https://kisskh.at/profile/OhSoEnthusiastic/reviews/75009
https://kisskh.at/profile/OhSoEnthusiastic/reviews/274737
Was this review helpful to you?
Lying about 'insert lie here' past the point of it being logical. JUST TELL THE TRUTH ALREADY!
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
I never watch sad dramas. Never. But I couldn’t help it with this one. It just broke my heart in the most terrible of awful of perfect ways.Now, I’ve never had an incurable illness. I’ll never know what it’s truly like. But I do suffer with depression. And there are definitely some similarities between ALS and mental illness. I don’t want to compare my situation to Takuto’s. They are not the same. But watching him struggle with his illness, struggle with communicating with his parents, struggle with being open and honest with his family and friends and co-workers, struggle with finding purpose in life, a part of me just understands.
It was hard to watch Takuto push people away. It was hard to watch as his parents refused to understand. It was hard to watch Shigeyuki smile to Takuto’s face then betray him behind his back. This was just a hard drama to watch at times. But I understood.
There is literally not one character in this drama that I hate. There were characters that I very much disliked, but that was because they were sucky people, not because they were poorly written, or they were impeding the story in some way. Everyone was so real and true to life. Takuto never felt like a caricature of a person with an incurable illness. He felt like a real person. Megumi was sweet and genuine and kind, but she wasn’t weak or helpless. She was a woman who could make her own decisions and who could change her mind. Their friends were aDORable, and I rooted for their romance from the beginning. Takuto’s family, as well as Megumi’s mother, while at turns frustrating and infuriating, behaved in a way that felt pretty normal. Sometimes families aren’t very good at being helpful, and you have to teach them how to be. But Shigeyuki was consistently my least favorite character.
Shigeyuki was so incredibly sleazy. He was clearly prepping Megumi for when he would finally make a move on her, but because he was so nice all the time, she didn’t even know it. Guys like him are the worst. When they just come out and say, ‘You should cheat on your boyfriend with me/break up with your boyfriend for me,’ there’s nothing to muddle a girl’s brain. The guy is clearly a jerk, and she can just kick him in the you-know-where and move on with her life. When he behaves the way this guy did, acting all nice and genuine and seemingly innocent, it’s very easy for a girl to get confused and fall for his trap. He is so true to life that it is frightening.
My only desire, up to the very last episode, was for him to get kicked off a very tall mountain and fall into the ocean where he would then be eaten by a shark.
But somehow, the drama managed to give him redemption without it feeling forced. When he admitted what we already knew about him, that he had been jealous of Takuto the whole time, and then he realized he didn’t want to be jealous anymore…I believed him.
Jealousy is a hungry beast, and it can make you do some terrible things.
This drama will probably make you cry. It is heartbreaking and tragic and yet incredibly hopeful. The performances are some of the best I've ever seen, and the story is incredibly real and honest. Nothing's watered down or turned into a cliché. If I have any complaints, it might be that the ending wasn't where I thought the writers were taking us, but that doesn't mean it's not good. I recommend this drama to everyone. It's a must watch!
Old Review:
Gah. Here. Just take my heart. You can have it.
Was this review helpful to you?
