Viajero

But this series does it better than that movie

I thought those were among the best things about the show.

Half the male leads in these series also look like weaklings who couldn't hold a stick. But no one complains about them.

I strongly recommend The Long Ballad. It remains my all time favorite Chinese historical series, even slightly above Pursuit of Jade and A Journey to Love (both of which I loved). Just don't go into it expecting some kind of great enemies to lovers period romance or conversely a fantasy series full of magic. While it has a late minor romantic subplot, this is basically a great fast paced action/adventure series that keeps you engaged throughout its entire run.

A lot of great choices, of which my favorites are probably Esther Yu and Dilraba Dilmurat. The only one I would argue with is Zhou Ye in Legend of the Female General, where she was not a general for most of the season, nor much of a warrior.

So does the Early Spring ML. This guy here is a nice guy and a good leader who tries to be fair with his subordinates and genuine in his feelings. The ML in that show is anything but any of this.

I don't hate men in general. I am a man. I just hate manipulative people, whether men or women who take advantage of others, particularly in a workplace setting (and in my years working for multinational firms, I've seen plenty of both). This guy is a classic case I've seen all too often among a few other men (not all, or even most) in different offices I've worked in over the years, and in several different countries. It almost inevitably leads to a negative office environment and can even end careers when the rumours start spreading, as they often do.

The other side of the coin, which is equally bad, are those young woman who think they can get ahead by flirting with, if not outright seducing, susceptible superiors at the office. I remember this one young Czech woman just a few years ago right before COVID who was a great example, only she was so blatant in her attempts to flirt with the men in the office and so visibly frustrated at her lack of success that fortunately the other young female interns (two Spaniards and a Brazilian) ended up making fun of her rather than getting resentful. But we did eventually have to terminate her internship.

In fact, I've seen the forced reassignment and even firing of other men and women for this type of behaviour - even people who were otherwise good at their jobs. Years ago it was almost inevitably the woman who got fired, whether she was the instigator or not. In more recent years this has balanced out as more companies are willing to go after men who take advantage of women who work for them. Rules against fraternization between bosses and subordinates are much stricter and more balanced now (at least in Europe and the Americas).

My eyes were opened to how serious this can get very early on when as a student overseas researching my thesis I got a part time job teaching English to the office staff of the smallish local subsidiary of a European multi-national in a Latin American country. The executive secretary was a good looking young but rather naive woman from a rural town who had been basically groomed by her middle-aged but elegantly handsome divorced boss over a period of a couple of years, until she fell into bed with him after somewhat convincing herself that she loved him and it wasn't just because her family needed the money she sent back home. As the only person close to her age and also an outsider, she eventually opened up and I got the whole story from her perspective (some of which the accountant later confirmed). Her boss kept alternating harsh critiques with romantic gestures until she didn't know which way was up. In retrospect, its crazy how closely her story matched the behaviour of this ML in the initial years of the relationship in this series.

He changed a bit after 6+ years. Doesn't excuse his behavior for all that time.

I assume POJ means Pursuit of Jade? If so, I'm confused. How can you even compare it to Early Spring when its an entirely different genre and the plots are completely different. The fact that I think Pursuit of Jade remains easily the best c-drama of the year (and its not even close), while I find Early Spring to be highly problematic doesn't mean one opinion has anything to do with the other.

A much better comparison would be Early Spring with Love Between Lines since they both deal with the relationship between an older male superior and a younger female employee. In my opinion, while the main couple in Early Spring may have sizzling physical chemistry that in simply unmatched , the couple in Love Between Lines has a much healthier overall relationship. This is simply because the ML in the later is not an egotistical manipulative jerk and the FL is much stronger character who stands up for herself. It helps that Love Between Lines has a much better overall plot outside of the main romantic relationship.

Except that in this case, the man is the main culprit for all the toxicity in their relationship. The most you can blame on the FL is that she's weak and inexperienced, letting herself constantly be manipulated by the ML with his doling out of carrots and sticks as he breaks and bends her to his will. Is she faultless? Of course not. If she were stronger with more self-confidence, then she would have stopped him in his tracks right from the beginning. But that doesn't change the fact that he's the primary person to blame because of the way he purposefully sets out to take advantage of her weakness. And by the way, I'm a guy and don't see this as strictly a problem with just one gender. I've also seen plenty of cases in real life where its a woman who manipulates a man in a similar fashion and I find it equally repugnant.

The chemistry in this show is out of this world. Perhaps the hottest drama I've seen in quite some time. Which makes it all the more disappointing that the ML is such a detestable manipulative jerk. I've had to work with plenty of guys like him over the years - quite capable at their jobs, but socially inept enough that they can't form relationships with women who are more their peers. Instead they pick out some inexperienced pretty young underling and manipulate her three ways from Sunday in some kind of power trip - often leaving her high and dry in the end, while sometimes even damaging her career. Guys like him give men a bad name.

This is seriously good. One of the best k-dramas I've watched this year. I really can't find anything major to criticize. I get that shows with a female protagonist tend to get lower scores on MDL, but 7.9 is ridiculous.

Not so much succession storylines specifically, but similar in they are shows that start well, but go downhill during the season.

It's been a real trend this year and not just with k-dramas. I keep running into the same problem with most c-dramas recently.

It wasn't that bad, but as the season went on we got way too few ghosts, and way too much of a yet another unoriginal chaebol family infighting plot, mixed in with a rather tepid romance. At least they do wrap up the story fairly well in the finale, which is something I can't say about a lot of kdramas and cdramas this year.

There is a Chinese show on WeTV called Forever By Your Side with mature singles 50+. I haven't watched it so I can't say how good it is.

On YouTube

It's only on Kokowa in my region. Don't ask me why Netflix preferred to pick up reality shows like Better Late than Single and The Love Lab, which are far inferior to this show.

The panel was the only good thing about this show and I usually complain when they give the panels too much screen time.

Another quirky cute Japanese romcom aimed at fans of slow-burn wholesome romances, as well as at foodies. The best thing about this one were the two leads and the well written and paced relationship between them. Unfortunately, the ridiculously exaggerated over-the-top secondary characters (particularly our lead's two CEO's) were not even close to as funny as they were intended to be and all too often just interrupted the flow of the story. The detailed descriptions of the preparation of food for the bento boxes was also not particularly of interest to me, but at least it was directly relevant to the development of the relationship between the leads. Overall, I give it an 8/10