Predictable, but still fun
Kidnap was a solid show that, while fairly predictable, was a fun watch. I did hope for a little bit more on the whole...yknow kidnapping aspect? But overall I enjoyed it and am very glad that GMM has announced Ohm and Leng as an official pairing after watching this.Min (Ohm) works as an action stunt double, and with his sick brother, he's in need of some quick money. His agent sets him up on a job to earn a lot of money fast, but it involves kidnapping a rich kid named Q (Leng) for ransom. Min thinks this will be a quick job that he can forget about easily, but when he's told to kill Q instead, Min takes him and hides him. Naturally, Min is going to get in serious trouble if the client finds out Q is still alive, but keeping him quiet at Min's house isn't easy either. The two start to get to know each other and become wrapped up in the drama of Q's father's police investigation with mafia-like criminals.
Min and Q's relationship was very fun to watch develop, and I didn't think any issue was overly drawn out. I did think that pretty much every conflict in the show was predictable - it felt like we were going around in circles where Min and Q would take turns with the whole "we need to break up so you can be safe" thing. I also felt like this was one of the least convincing "poor protagonists" ever. You're saying you need money but you have TWO large houses?? I get he was trying to sell one but still, it felt a little off. Overall this show was a fun watch and the main couple had great chemistry. Even though I felt like it didn't do anything too new, I enjoyed it and am excited to see what Ohm and Leng do next.
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TayNew DELIVERED
Peaceful Property was not a show I expected to like all that much if I'm being honest. Based on the trailer, it looked to be a monster of the week-style horror/comedy ghost hunting show, and I wasn't sure that the jokes would land all that well given the language barrier. However, this show was so much better than I expected!Peach (Tay) and his sister Pangpang (Jan) are struggling to make ends meet after Peach lost his job as a chef due to a car accident that left him unable to work in the kitchen. Pangpang has been trying to make it as an influencer, which ends up working in their favor when Home (New) discovers their ghost hunting show. Ever since the accident, Peach has been able to see ghosts - which is exactly what Home needs after inheriting multiple haunted properties from his recently deceased grandfather. Home is trying to sell the properties asap, and needs Peach's help to exorcise the ghosts; Pangpang plans to film everything and start up their ghost hunting business. Peach and Home don't get off to a great start, but through working together on the exorcisms, they start to understand each other and bond more. However, it seems that there's a lot more hiding in the secrets of Home's rich family, and he has unknowingly dragged his new friends into a bigger mess than any of them could have expected.
While the show did start off very episodic, it perfectly transitioned into drama that spanned for longer. It managed to use the first few ghost hunting adventures to help flesh out the characters themselves, making the twists in their relationships and backstories more interesting and engaging. I love a found family, and that's exactly what this show delivered. If GMM wanted to, they easily could have made this a BL - Tay and New were absolutely wonderful in their arcs and the tension between them was excellent. Even though some of the twists were expected, the way they were done still left me surprised, and there were plenty of instances where I had no idea what was coming next. A really fun watch overall!
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Breaking the Cycle
Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo does a fantastic job portraying both of the main characters as complex and flawed individuals, emphasizing the role that trauma plays in the victim's life. While I do think that the time skip was a bit early and that I would have loved to see more of the high school days of the characters, I think that for the time they had in this show it was absolutely beautifully done and worth watching.Juyeong is sent by his parents to study taekwondo in the countryside, where he lives with his instructor and the instructor's son, Dohwe. While Dohwe is very closed off at first, he slowly warms up to Juyeong. However, the abuse that Dohwe has suffered at the hands of his father quickly become apparent to Juyeong, and Juyeong is unlikely to escape the house unscathed either. The two boys start to develop feelings for each other while trapped in an abusive household, which leads to complications as things escalate. This story also explores the lasting effects of this trauma in both characters - where one is determined to run away and forget the past, while the other tries to cling to it.
This show manages to address two vastly different ways of dealing with traumatic events, and instead of portraying one as right and one as wrong, shows them as simply to different methods of dealing with the past. I found that both of the characters felt justified in their actions the entire time, even if it wasn't what I wanted them to do. The misunderstandings between the leads didn't feel like poor communication, but rather both of them trying to protect the other in the only way they knew how, which made the relationship much more interesting. I thought the chemistry of the main actors was wonderful. My only complaint was that it felt like some parts of the show were a bit rushed - I really wish we could have spent more time with them before the time skip. Otherwise, this show was absolutely worth the watch and the heartbreak is worth it in the end.
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A good direction
Anyone that watches danmei adaptations is aware of the censorship this typically comes with; however, Meet You at the Blossom manages to get around this and delivers on the romance aspect of this wuxia. Unfortunately, I still found this show a bit lacking in the non-romance department, which was in part due to the characters themselves, and in part due to the 12 episode limit.Jin Xiao Bao is nearing marrying age, and is determined to find the most beautiful woman to make his wife. During an unexpected encounter, he watches Huai En face many men single handedly, and instantly falls in love with her. However "she" is actually a man. Huai En is perfectly fine with Xiao Bao being in love with him - but it seems he may be motivated to keep Xiao Bao close for other reasons than his own feelings. The two enter into a relationship claiming they will always forgive the other no matter what, but how far can this promise extend?
The relationship was fun to watch develop, with cold Huai En slowly warming up to Xiao Bao. In this style of drama, I was very used to a relationship being built purely on tension due to censorship issues, so to get an actual relationship in this show was very refreshing. One of my biggest complaints though is that Xiao Bao is utterly useless. Huai En is a great cultivator and very intelligent. Xiao Bao is.....neither of those things. I just wish that Xiao Bao could have stood up for himself once in awhile, instead of always relying on others. I actually really enjoyed the political issues in the show, and thought they were the perfect level of complex for the length of the show. I do think that we could have benefited from a bit more time with the characters to watch them grow, but there's only so much you can do.
In all, I just hope that this opens the door for more danmei adaptations produced by companies willing to keep the romance. This was a short watch with the perfect amounts of romance, heartache, and betrayal, but would have benefitted from a stronger lead character and slightly less toxic relationship.
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A Heartfelt Revenge Drama
This drama really surprised me with how much it was able to do in the short amount of time it had. Reading the description, I was a little worried with how much background and world building we might have to go through, but honestly there was the perfect amount of information given to the viewer to make things make sense, but not too much exposition where it felt like they were overexplaining things.Song Yi Heon is a high schooler who has been horribly bullied for years, and decides to take his own life. As he is jumping off an overpass, 47-year-old gangster Kim Deuk Pal sees him and saves him - except, as he catches Yi Heon a truck drives by and kills Deuk Pal. In a strange occurrence, Deuk Pal's soul is transported into Yi Heon's body. Deuk Pal wakes up in the body of this high schooler, and decides to get back at the bullies and sort out Yi Heon's school and family life (while also attempting to pass high school classes).
I was honestly worried that we would get too much with the whole soul-switching thing, but they discussed it the perfect amount for this show. I loved how Deuk Pal's gang ended up getting involved in Yi Heon's life, and how Yi Heon's family businesses all tied together with it. The twists and messiness of this show was perfect, because they still managed to have everything tied up nicely even with just 8 episodes. I do wish we could have gotten a little more time with high school Yi Heon before his suicide attempt, and that we got more drama with some of the characters involved in Yi Heon's personal life, but overall this was a fantastic watch. The goofiness of an adult not understanding high school kids' lingo and style paired with the intense fight and drama scenes worked perfectly. I would highly recommend this one to anyone who enjoys gang/revenge/high school drama shows. It checks all the boxes and does it well.
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Cute and Sweet
I originally wasn't planning on watching Only Boo, but I kept seeing people talking about it and they finally convinced me. While it may have not been the most innovative or exciting show, it was a very fun watch and a really cute romance. Don't expect too much from the plot or characters, but just enjoy the little romance between the main characters and you'll have a good time.Moo (Keen) is sent to the country side by his mom to focus on school instead of focusing on idol auditions like he has been. His mom says he needs to finish high school before he can think about becoming an idol. However, Moo refuses to let go of his dreams. While in this new school, Moo meets Kang (Sea), a curry rice seller near his apartment. Moo very quickly develops feelings for Kang, and has to partition his time between school work, secretly practicing for idol auditions, and flirting with Kang. However, even after he starts winning Kang over, Moo realizes there a lot more problems to come in this relationship if he wants to be an idol.
Truly the best word to describe this drama is "cute". A high school romance between Moo and Kang develops slowly and eventually turns into a relationship between them, but still has its ups and downs. I think the characters could have had a little more depth, and I wish we got even more back story of both of them to really flesh out their characters more. For a lot of the series, they felt a bit one-dimensional. I also think that the conflicts towards the end could have been sped up a bit just to get some more time with Kang and Moo together. Overall, an easy and fun watch!
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This review may contain spoilers
What makes a good killer?
A Shop for Killers is a very unique take on the contract killer plotline. It was a show that I was very excited to start, especially as a fan of Lee Dongwook, and it was very entertaining all the way through. However, I felt like there were a few parts of the show that felt off. The first bit will be free of spoilers, so I'll mark where they start.The opening scene of the show has Jeong Jian, our protagonist, getting shot at in her home. A very striking opening scene that had me excited to see both what happens next and how we got there. However, it's the latter that I have to complain about. This show jumps back and forth a LOT between the present and the past. Jian has an uncle, Jeong Jinman, who seems to be up to some shady business. These jumps to the past allow us to understand what exactly that shady business is, and how it concerns her. However, it is very non-linear in its storytelling. I think the one thing that bothered me the most about this wasn't the fact that we kept jumping between times, but the fact that they replayed scenes we had seen before so many times to orient the viewer in the timeline, but it was just excessive and unnecessary most of the time. The replayed scenes were so much longer than they needed to be, especially because this is an 8 episode series. If you've forgotten THAT much of the show when it's so short, it's probably because you weren't paying attention.
Another fault brought about by this non-linear storytelling was the fact that the viewer didn't get to learn the truth alongside Jian, but rather knew before her. You learn very early on about Jinman's career as a contract killer, but you have to watch a confused and scared Jian learn this WAY later than you do, at which point it doesn't pack the same punch. I will say though, watching Jian go through so many emotions in the span of just a few days is an incredible watch, and the actress did a great job portraying her.
**Spoilers start here**
My last and biggest issue with this show was the ending. What a copout! You get to watch Jian go through all this internal turmoil of should I kill or should I not, how could I ever run this business, etc. just for all that to go out the window because Jinman is ALIVE?? The entire story could have been avoided. You could argue that that's what makes Jian such a tragic character, but I thought that leaving the storyline right before they introduced Jinman at the end would have been a perfectly fine ending - a young girl, left to figure out the world with no one on her side. Could Jian become a killer like Jinman? Does she have what it takes, or is she only fueled by the rage that her parents' and uncle's death caused? I guess these questions don't really matter, because she doesn't need to be on her own anymore!
Overall, it was a good show and an engaging watch. Besides some issue with the storytelling and the ending, it was very interesting to watch the plot unfold both in the past and present. Frankly, I think this could have have spanned two seasons, with one season being all about Jinman and one about Jian, but the back and forth didn't get too messy. Worth checking out if you like short and dark thrillers.
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Wanted it to be better
As a huge fan of crime/legal dramas, I was really looking forward to this one! Especially since one of the main characters is a lawyer, I was thinking we would get some good courtroom/law scenes that we just...didn't get. I understand that the plot of this one was about figuring out how to catch a killer that has way more power than the victim, but a lot of it just felt like it had been done before in so many better renditions. Plus, the relationship didn't seem to develop all that smoothly? It seemed like at one point they hated each other and then all of a sudden they were together? It felt like a show that could have been done really well if given the proper time and budget, but it just fell a little flat in both the romance and the murder storylines.Was this review helpful to you?
Underwhelming
I LOVE crime dramas and law dramas. Unfortunately, this one failed at both. Do Kyungsoo does a wonderful job portraying prosecutor Jin Jung, who is more than willing to bend the rules in order to punish people for their crimes. As a new prosecutor, he tends to get easy cases that don't involve too much digging - but when a seemingly clear-cut murder case comes across his desk, the more he reads into it, the more complicated it gets. However, it seems there are a lot of people that don't want this case investigated.In the classic "prosecutor takes on the Ultimate Bad Guy" fashion, Bad Prosecutor is set up to be a very enjoyable show where the villain and protagonist go back and forth on who has the upper hand in their series-long battle. However, there a few things that this series got wrong that just made it significantly less fun to watch than most other crime/law dramas I've seen:
1) Predictability. There were very few times in this series that I was actually surprised by a twist (and liked the twist). Most of the time, the ending of the episode could be predictable by halfway through the episode, and that made what should have been cliffhangers underwhelming.
2) Protagonist. While Do Kyungsoo did an excellent job portraying Jin Jung, I still didn't love the character. I was hoping for a morally gray prosecutor who didn't care whether he was breaking the law to get what he thought justice was. Instead, we got a prosecutor willing to go around the law, but still abide by it when push comes to shove. In his eyes, "Justice = Laws", which I feel could have been played around with more, especially with the horrible things the villain in this series had done.
3) Law. Considering the title, I assumed there would be a lot more courtroom scenes in this show. While I still enjoyed watching them chase after the villain, I think my expectations were a bit different considering Jin Jung is a prosecutor, not a cop.
4) Outcomes. There were many times where they could have had bigger and better (or sometimes, worse) outcomes for a character's actions, but they seemed to downplay any repercussions that should have occurred to both the protagonist and antagonist. I was waiting for the ending battle to really kick in and it never really did. It was much more anticlimactic in that sense than I expected.
If you enjoy crime/law dramas, you'll probably still enjoy this! Just beware its more of a cop show than a courtroom show, and you might be able to sense exactly where it's going (and be right 95% of the time) pretty easily.
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WAY better than I expected
Even though I have seen this drama recommended over and over again, I kept putting off watching it because I don't like hospital dramas typically. But then I started watching it and was HOOKED. This isn't your typical hospital drama with the focus on a patient every episode. It's so much better.Tin is a third year resident doctor in the ER. His job is busy - there's constantly people that need his attention, whether that be for some scrapes and bruises or for CPR emergencies. When he's not dealing with that, he has to deal with Professor Sak on his back about prioritizing the right cases and sending the rest to him. One particularly busy day, Tin gets multiple life-or-death cases, and he attempts to help a college student named Tol who was in a car crash. No matter how hard he tries, Tin can't save him and the student dies. Then, when Tin wakes up before his shift, he realizes that he's living the same day over again, down to the last detail. When Tol shows up in the ambulance once again, Tin's attempts still fail to save him. How many times will Tin have to relive this tragedy? How can he change it, and what repercussions will these changes have?
The way that Tin and Tol's relationship develops over the course of the show is absolutely spectacular. It's not the main point of the show, but rather a secondary plotline that helps build the characters they're playing. Watching Tin get closer and closer to Tol, but still having to watch him die over and over again is painful but amazing to watch.
I was worried that it would get stale and that watching Tin repeat his days would get too repetitive but BOY was I wrong! Tin's character continues to find new ways to attempt to save Tol, but this can lead to unexpected consequences. The further he goes back in time, the closer he can get to Tol, and the larger the impact of his actions on his future. This was a series that surprised me throughout the entire show and is not one to miss.
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This review may contain spoilers
Unfinished and Unsatisfying
While watching this drama, I LOVED it. I had recently finished Devil Judge with Ji Sung and wanted to watch something else with him in it and this seemed like the perfect drama for me. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time and it was super fun to watch.Then, as we neared the end, I started to wonder how they could wrap this show up. So many loose ends, so much unsolved still. I was excited to see how they would pull it off!! And then they didn't pull it off at all. It felt like when an American show thinks it'll be renewed for another season but it gets canceled and doesn't have an actual ending to it. If it had a proper ending, it would've been a FANTASTIC drama.
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I thought this was a cute and happy show. I was wrong!!
I LOVED the best friends to lovers plotline. It was done so well, and the longing that Eiw felt was portrayed so well. THe dynamic between Cake and Eiw was done perfectly, and the actors had amazing chemistry.I did think that they could have sped things up a little bit. Earth cried SO much in this series, and while he's a great actor, at some point you get tired of a character constantly being upset about the situation. But honestly, it was so well done that I didn't even mind much. One of the BEST scenes addressing what it feels like to have to come out to people and not know if they will accept you or not. Many BLs don't address the internalized homophobia aspect of this, and it's done so well in this show. The time jump was seamless and perfectly placed, and helped the show a lot. I think the last two episodes should have been moved up by one so that we got a finale centered around the relationship and not external issues.
Overall a fantastic show. Definitely worth the watch!
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It's not a good show, but man is it funny.
As a serious show? It's not good. They could have totally done more with the internalized homophobia bit but they just didn't. Instead, Type never really seems to get over his homophobia, and claims to hate all gays except for Tharn which doesn't really solve the issue here.As a comedy? It's kind of great. The acting isn't the best, the writing is much worse. The sound effects went crazy for no reason. Questionable consent throughout the first season but MAN did they mic them up for those make out scenes. Why? I don't know. But I did have a good laugh at it. The conflicts are repetitive and unnecessary. We get it, you're homophobic.
I can't really recommend anyone to watch this seriously. It's not good. But man, it's fun to make fun of.
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Homophobic stereotypes but in a BL?
Definitely not a bad series, but fairly mediocre. The two leads kinda seem like best bros instead of a couple, which defeats the whole purpose of the plot.Normally, I like a good fake dating plot. But the reason behind the fake dating scheme they come up with seems oddly homophobic? The stereotype of "predatory gay guy" coming on to a guy that has already rejected him in hopes of him becoming gay is just gross and unnecessary.
Then, once we start the fake dating plot, they are supposed to develop real feelings for each other (duh, that's the whole point) but it feels like that never really happens and they just keep pretending. Overall, fairly enjoyable but not one of my favorites.
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Frustrating conflicts but interesting relationship
The amount of BLs that begin with a drunken/mistaken hookup only for one of them to fall in love is a little alarming. Vee, who has a girlfriend, hooks up with Mark, who is too drunk to recognize who Vee is. Bad start.The building of the relationship is actually pretty good in this one though, and I enjoyed it for the most part. The chemistry between the actors is great. Unfortunately, the one major conflict throughout the entire series is the conflict presented in the first episode: Vee has a girlfriend. But somehow, Mark seems to be the only one that cares about this?
I feel like this would have been better as an 8 episode series, where they could have resolved some conflicts earlier and let them be happy for a little while. It got repetitive and frustrating after awhile. Definitely an enjoyable watch, but I feel like if I was watching this weekly as it aired I would've been frustrated enough to drop it.
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