Gabriela

"Golden Bride" is a sweet and light story, it's easy to watch and very interesting, the 64 episodes fly by.
Lee Young Ah plays the character of a Vietnamese girl who comes to South Korea as a mail-order bride to a man named Jun Woo who has social phobia due to a trauma.
I really liked the way the story unfolds, with Jin Joo helping Jun Woo recover from his illness and become a "normal" person again. The two start out with a contract marriage, which later becomes a real marriage, as the characters actually fall in love with each other.

The story also explores the prejudice against foreigners, especially since Jin Joo starts working at a place that makes and sells traditional sweets and in South Korea, they really care about lineage, blood and descent. The twist is that Jin Joo meets her father and he is connected to that place, the problem is that he doesn't recognize her as his daughter, causing the girl to suffer several times. But as they say, karma is a bitch and in the end he suffers the consequences of his actions.

The romance between Jin Joo and Jun Woo is so cute, they are a great couple <3

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"Goong" tells the story of a normal girl who finds herself in an arranged marriage with a real-life prince. Yes, it's not a historical drama, but a story where the royal family still exists.

Chae Kyung is a strange girl who is engaged to Lee Shin, the cold prince who studies with her and also has a girlfriend named Hyo Rin. To top it off, we have Lee Yul, Lee Shin's cousin who falls in love with Chae Kyung... and then we have the recipe for a romantic comedy.

The drama didn't really grab me, especially Yoon Eun Hye's character Chae Kyung, she was too silly, like a child and I really didn't understand why two princes would fall in love with her. HAHAHA'
The romance is dragged out and the main characters only start a real romance basically at the end.

A positive point is the soundtrack, Howl & J - Maybe Love is an addictive song.

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"Rules of Love" is a 2005 kdrama that kind of goes off the rails, as the main character thinks she slept with a guy she just met and he's telling her she has to take responsibility... the truth is quite different.

Jae Min is using Geun Young just to get a job with photographer Seo Jun, who her brother works with, but the naive girl believes his words and falls in love. Eventually, she finds out the truth and creates a break-up contract, making Jae Min stay with her until she gets over him. What happens next is the cliché of a romantic comedy, Jae Min falls in love with Geun Young and doesn't want to break up with her anymore, but at the same time, she's starting to like Seo Jun and so we have our love triangle. HAHAHA'

Choi Kang Hee is amazing, I really love her acting and, despite hating the character Jae Min, Shim Ji Ho's acting is really good, as is Kim Min Jong's.
It's a sweet story, it's about relationships, self-discovery and finding what love really is. If you like old kdramas, it's a good choice.

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A beautiful friendship

"The Legendary Witch" is a drama about Soo In, an innocent woman who is framed and sent to prison for a crime she didn't commit.

Soo In was married to Do Hyun, but her family never liked her from the beginning since she is poor and an orphan, so when Do Hyun dies, they use it as an opportunity to get rid of her. She goes to prison and there she meets Woo Seok, he is a baker who is teaching a class in prison and also meets the three women who become her closest friends and basically family.

The characters are captivating, I missed seeing Soo In's revenge, especially after she was wrongfully sent to prison, but I understand that she chose to move on with her life instead of focusing on revenge. The friendship of the women is one of the reasons why I liked this drama, how they formed a bond in prison and helped each other after that. The real problem is with the romance, Soo In and Woo Seok have no chemistry on screen.

I also think it was a bad idea to bring Do Hyun back alive, since it didn't do anything for the story, it was just a hindrance to the romance, but Do Hyun dies again right after he comes back, so for me it was a weird and unnecessary decision.

Despite all that, even though it's a 40 episode drama, the story is good and easy to watch.

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A boring love story

"Abyss" basically tells the love story between Cha Min and Goo Se Yeon.

They have known each other since they were little and their friendship lasted until adulthood. Cha Min has a crush on Se Yeon, but she only likes him as a friend. He works for her mother's company and Se Yeon is a prosecutor. One day, Cha Min is on the edge of a building and a strange thing happens, some "aliens" accidentally let him fall and he dies, so they bring him back using a glowing ball called "Abyss". The problem is that he comes back with a completely different appearance, becoming a handsome man.

Se Yeon is investigating a series of murders and unfortunately, she becomes the last victim. Cha Min is devastated by her death and brings her back to life using the abyss, she is then alive again, looking exactly like her least favorite person in the world: Lee Mi Do. The two join forces to find Se Yeon's killer and stop him from claiming more victims.

The romance between Cha Min and Se Yeon is too childish for me, I didn't really care about them and honestly, I never believed that Se Yeon liked Cha Min before his change, if she really liked him in these 20 years, wouldn't she have confessed already? Her excuse just didn't get me.

This is one of the things I really don't understand about this drama, the changes in appearance after being brought back to life. Cha Min makes some sense, thinking he was a good person and his soul looked beautiful, but how does it make sense that Se Yeon looks like a real person and even someone from her life? What would happen if Mi Do didn't have plastic surgery? Would two people with the same face exist at the same time, not being twins? And in the end, how is it that Se Yeon is living with Mi Do's face but using his real name? Ji Wook was arrested for his murder, how is that possible?

And the whole thing about abyss, we finished watching without really understanding what that thing is. How are so many people who died still alive? Cha Min and Se Yeon were brought back twice and there's also Hee Jin, Ji Wook, Oh Yeong Cheol and others... aren't there consequences to using this? It's almost become a normal thing to die and come back, it's so weird. You can say that Cha Min paid the price for disappearing for 3 years, but the right thing to do would be for him to come back to the way he was before the abyss, it would make more sense and what was that about the abyss disappearing because Se Yeon is pregnant?

The drama isn't bad, but the story is weak, as is the couple. There are some funny moments, which make it worth watching, but it's not something I would recommend.

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A story about enjoying life

"Live Your Own Life" it's the story of Hyo Sim, she's a fitness instructor who basically doesn't have a life outside of work, because she has to take care of everyone in her family. Her mother is always losing money in some scheme as is her youngest brother, Hyo Do. Her oldest brother Hyo Sung is a good person, but his family are troublemakers and Hyo Sim's middle brother Hyo Joon is studying for the bar exam for years and doesn't work, making Hyo Sim work and give him money.
Tae Ho appears in her life and makes her want something for herself, he shows her that life is to be lived.

It's been a while since I watched a 50 episode drama and liked it, but this has the drama's queen Uee, it couldn't go wrong <3
The story is light and easy to watch, the romance between Hyo Sim and Tae Ho is sweet and you ship them since the beginning. The biggest problem is that the rest of the characters are really boring, I just couldn't like any of them, specially because of how much they wronged Hyo Sim and seem to not care about it.

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Third time's not the charm

"The Third Marriage" is a story about a woman named Da Jung. She's happily married and even pregnant, what she doesn't know is that her husband is cheating on her with Se Ran, her best friend. Se Ran is doing that for revenge, she thinks Da Jung's father is responsible for her father's death and wants to take the happiness that Da Jung has, saying that she didn't deserved. The two women ended up pregnant and Se Ran switches the babies, making Da Jung raise her child. That's still just the beginning of the drama, since it's called the third marriage.

Da Jung ends up getting divorced, her father dies and in a horrible twist of fate, Da Jung's daughter Song Yi dies in accident. Da Jung learns that all of this is because of Se Ran, who also tries to kill her. Then Da Jung comes with a plan for revenge and shows up as Se Ran's mother-in-law.
This is exactly what I didn't like. I think the writers should have put Da Jung with Ji Hoon, since he liked her. This whole thing with his father was just weird, since Da Jung has feelings for Yo Han, who's Je Guk's nephew and Je Guk's ex-wife is Da Jung's mother. To complicate things even more, Yo Han's daughter is actually the lost daughter of Da Jung's, who everyone thought was dead.

It was Oh Seung Ah's first time playing the main lead and not the villain, so it took me a while to get used to it.
The fight scenes are amazing, both Da Jung and Se Ran are awesome at that, those moments are so fun. Se Ran really did a lot of bad things: she stole Da Jung's husband, swap the babies, took Da Jung's place as that rich lady's granddaughter, killed Da Jung's father, tried to kill Da Jung, pretended to be pregnant twice, among other things. HAHAHAHA'

The drama's biggest mistake is the lack of romance, there's absolutely none of that between the couple, zero chemistry and I also didn't like what they did with Ji Hoon's character, the poor man only suffered. He had an one-sided love on Da Jung since the beginning, had to see her married his father. Ji Hoon was forced to marry Se Ran and was fooled by her thinking she's pregnant. Then we learn that Ji Hoon was the person that killed Song Yi and he ends up in a wheelchair... it's too much for one person and he wasn't even the bad guy.

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It feels like a fairy tale and not in a good way

"Love Is Sweet" is a romantic comedy drama about two childhood friends: Jiang Jun and Yuan Shuai, they lost contact with each other because of a misunderstanding and reunite when Jiang Jun comes to Yuan Shuai's work for a job interview. In the beginning they fight like kids all the time, but you could see the love is still there.

As the title says, the drama is very sweet and has everything that we didn't see in "Till The End of The Moon". Jiang Jun and Yuan Shuai are really cute together, the story is light, fun and easy to watch, but at the same time, it's a little superficial, it lacks complexity. I think what was missing was seeing more of the character's past, the drama should have built a better foundation for their relationship, to grow from there.
Du Lei is the second protagonist, but he is a character you can't really root for, you can see that he didn't care about Jiang Jun, he just wanted to gain something from Yuan Shuai.

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Cha Eun Woo's best role so far

In "Wonderful World", Soo Hyun is a famous writer that suddenly loses her son in a car accident. The killer didn't show any remorse and didn't even pay for his crime, Soo Hyun lost her mind and in a moment of rage, kill her son's killer and goes to prison.
When she gets out, Soo Hyun finds out that the person she killed wasn't the real culprit and the truth involves a conspiracy. There's also Seon Yul, who's connected to all of that.

I don't think what Soo Hyun did was wrong. Her son was dead and the culprit wasn't even sorry, all she wanted was an apology and in return, she was humiliated. I think I would do the same thing, it's a human reaction, that man needed to die.
We learn in the following episodes that the man is Seon Yul's father and that he approached Soo Hyun to get his revenge, but let's be honest, there was nothing to but avenged, his father was the wrong one. Even that he was following orders, Seon Yul's father was the person that eventually killed Soo Hyun's son, he was still alive when the car hit him. I understand Seon Yul's motives, when he lost his father, he basically lost everything and he needed someone to blame and that was Soo Hyun.

The drama's message is really beautiful, that we need to learn to forgive and move on, instead of holding on to the pain, because that way, we only hurt ourselves.
The acting is flawless, specially Cha Eun Woo's, he is glowing in a totally different role, something he never did before, since he was focused on romantic comedies.

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The story is confusing and draggy and the romance is weak.

"Unpredictable Family" is a family drama, with four characters as the main leads: Sun Woo, Eun Sung, Eun Hyuk and Ha Young.
Eun Sung and Eun Hyuk are half siblings. Sun Woo likes Eun Sung and Eun Hyuk likes Ha Young, but Ha Young likes Sun Woo and this mess is only the beginning. HAHAHA'
Sun Woo's mother is also Eun Hyuk's mother, she was married to Eun Hyuk's father but got divorced. Eun Sung is the daughter of Dong Goo and Choon Young, they were falsely accused of having an affair.
Eun Sung and Eun Hyuk have a sister named Eun Ah, she likes Min Guk, who's Ha Young's uncle... it's a crazy complicated family tree.

At some point, I really thought Sun Woo and Eun Sung were siblings, they should have cleared that way before, it started to get really weird. That was a more reasonable reason for the break up than the whole thing about the affair. To be honest, I couldn't take it anymore, Jung Ae was really being annoying, making herself look like a victim, even when everyone is telling her that the affair didn't happen, that it was a misunderstanding.

Besides everything else, the drama has 131 episodes, so it's not easy to watch, specially because the story is really confusing. Sun Woo and Eun Sung are cute together, but not enough to make the drama interesting. Eun Hyuk and Ha Young are a little better, but not much.
The best couple would be Eun Ah and Min Guk, but they are supporting characters and their romance is not really a priority, even at they only end up together literally at the end.

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It's something you watch, but forgets very easily.

"In Blossom" is a body swap story. Cai Wei is a woman who has always been humiliated by people because of the scar on her face and for working with dead bodies. Pan Yue has searched for her almost his whole life, when they finally reunite, a twist of fate happens and Cai Wei ends up in Shangguan Zhi's body.

The drama reminded me a lot of "A Familiar Stranger", specially because of the story being very similar. The couple is cute and their relationship catches your attention, but the investigations didn't stuck with me.
Ju Jing Yi is a very good actress, but I liked Cai Wei before her transformation, the character was much more interesting being played by Zheng He Hui Zi, but since the whole point of the story was the body swap, I know the actress couldn't keep playing the part.

Overall, it's a good drama. The story is light and easy to watch, but on the other hand, there's nothing really new or interesting.

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A story that's just ordinary, with nothing new to show

"The Legend of Zhuohua" tells the story of Zhuo Hua, a woman who wants to be an officer, she doesn't want the normal life of a woman on these days, she wants a career, to become something other than a wife. Then she meets the general Liu Yan, who helps her achieve that.

I really like Feng Shao Feng, but after seeing "Shining Just For You" and now "The Legend of Zhuohua", it's clear that there is an obsession in making him look younger, to the point of using a lot of makeup and even CGI in his face and honestly, it didn't work. He's a beautiful actor, everyone gets old, this is a part of life and if his age was a problem, the solution was to choose an older woman.

The drama is medium, the story is simple, light and easy to watch. I liked to see a woman in politics, making her way in a man's world and winning her place, but the romance is disappointing, there's no chemistry between the main leads.
The whole thing with princess Rou Jia was a surprise, it was the only interesting thing that really got me hooked.

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A new chance in life

"The Double" is a revenge story. Fang Fei is a happily married woman who's betrayed and buried alive by her husband, who's having an affair with a princess. Like a miracle, Fang Fei survives, assumes another identity and makes her revenge plan, to make Shi Jie suffer the same way he hurt her. She caught the attention of Xiao Feng, a duke who becomes interest in her.

Wu Jin Yan is an amazing actress, her acting is impeccable <3
Fang Fei is a badass, I was rooting for her plan to work, I wanted to see her get even with the bastards that hurt her. That scene, when Fang Fei is playing was truly magnificent, the song and the visuals, combined with her feelings, it was really impressive.

The drama is really good, if I have to find a mistake, i would be the romance. Fang Fei was already married, she wasn't a naive little girl, I thought the story would be more passionate. There are cute moments and some more intense, but Xiao Heng and Fang Fei only stay together basically at the end, it barely gives you any time to enjoy it.

I can't believe it, the moment came when Chen Chiao makes the part of the mother of a 20 year old woman and also the villain... that makes me feel so old. HAHAHA'
The scenery, the photography is really beautiful, i really like the contrast of white and red.

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What makes a real mother

"Green Mothers' Club" is a drama about family. Eun Pyo moves to a new neighborhood and realizes people there are really different regarding their children's education and that influences her in a bad way, specially when the others children start to bully her son, calling him stupid, that's when Eun Pyo changes her mind and tries to be like the other mothers.

Eun Pyo learns that Dong Seok is a genius and that fumes her pride, since she always felt humiliated by Jin Ha, but the problem is that Eun Pyo started to pressure Dong Seok too much, almost at the point to destroy the little boy's mind.
On the other hand, we have Chun Hee. A woman who appears to have the perfect, but the reality is far from that. Her lies, the way she raised her children, when it's all revealed, her life is basically upside down.
The bond between these two woman, Eun Pyo and Chun Hee, is what makes this drama interesting.

It's an exciting drama, it didn't need betrayal, revenge or any kind of conspiracy, only joining mothers and their children, the story hold your attention from beginning to the end, besides being a critic about the way korean mothers pressure their children for success and that sometimes, that can be harmful.

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Don't waste your time on this. It's not worth it

"Sponsor", like the title says, tells the story of a woman who gained her wealth and power from having a sponsor and now she's doing the same with a young man.

Chae Rin was used since a young age, she had to be with that old man to get something in life, she gave up her youth to have success and you think she grow up to be an interesting woman, with a lot of scars, but to me she looked like a teenager. Her romance with Seung Hoon made sense, he was just like her, someone who wanted be famous, to have money, so it reasonable for her to fell in love with him, but the drama ruins it by putting Seon Woo's character. He doesn't make sense in the storyline and Lee Ji Hoon can't act even for his life, it's was ridiculous to see.
The script was weird, so were the dialogues, Chae Rin asks a shocking question basically at the end of every episode: "Do you want to live with me?" in the first episode. "Do you want to sleep with me?" in the second episode and "Do you want to marry me"? in the fourth episode... that girl is too fast, she doesn't even know the guy. HAHAHA'

Besides all that, the drama also stole the soundtrack of "Angel's Last Mission - Love" and honestly, "Pray" didn't match here, it was a waste of an amazing song.
I already watched some bad dramas, but this one overcame all that was possible, it's really bad. Literally nothing works out, the acting is terrible, especially the main characters.

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