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Decent Watch

So let me begin my review with the fact that I was pretty disappointed with the way it turned out, the premise had a whole lot more potential and the cast have shown so much more potential before and it felt quite forgettable. Regardless I gave this an 8 because when independently reviewing this drama for what it is (and pretending I was watching it objectively with no external influences like past dramas) I found that it was a decent watch. Not Excellent for sure but yeah.

So just like the summary on MDL, the story revolves around our 2 main characters Kim Mubee and Ko Gyeom and the Actual show is exactly like the summary except with the addition of Ko Gyeom's brother who I think should be mentioned there for sure because of how big an influence he is.

Now moving on to the pros and cons,
PROS:
1. The OSTs were nice
2. Loved the cinematography
3. Pretty good acting and I think the actors did exactly what they were told to do
4. Realistic approach to psychology
5. Pretty good interpretation of surviving a life threatening situation
6. Unique family dynamics

CONS:
1. The biggest con to me is the sheer waste of potential, Ko Gyeom's career as a film critic and Mu-bee's actual unfiltered journey to being a director was not aptly shown imo and it felt like a heap of wasted potential...You get a whole lot of time skips and at times the pacing feels too fast ( could be attributed to the fewer eps ) either way there were many uncharted and interesting ways to approach it that would have made it more unique.

2. The characters: so lets be honest here the characters in my opinion lacked depth. They were too boring and rather than peeling them apart layer by layer over the course of 10eps all we get is the fast spoonfeeding of their psychologies. I personally think that for these type of dramas it is imperative to take things slow and leave hints for the audience to figure out why they are the way they are.

3. Lack of comedy: Sure not every drama needs comedy but there was so many instances for comedy that just got misused in a way that made me cringe (especially the interviews) idk like you either have good comedy or you don't period.

4. Romance, didnt get into the chemistry for some reason, they felt more like friends or siblings and idk rather than what we saw i thought the chemistry should have been more intense but there were no electrifying gazes exchanged or any interactions that made me feel like they were more than just friends

5. It could have been a movie: personally there was no reason to make it a 10eps drama, a 2hr movie would have sufficed as long as the removed the secondary couple who were unnecessary either way imo

All in all if you haven't watched a whole of dramas or you don't get bothered by the feeling of deja vu you will definitely love this but as someone that does not come under either category, I found it to be boring but redeemable to some extent

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This drama is like chewing gum, the more i watched - the more flavor it lost.

I'm going to be honest when I started this drama I was quite excited because while watching hierarchy (despite how mediocre it was) I personally wanted them together in another project as leads and honestly I want to take that back after watching this horrible actualization of my wish.

Cons:
1. Overloaded with clichés : I can usually overlook frequently used tropes in dramaland when executed well but it was almost like the scriptwriter and director were competing to see how many tropes they could fit into a single show. At some point certain things didn't add up and I honestly didn't have the energy to care.

2. Bunny and her boys or as usual Bunny and THE boy? : I absolutely hate it when writers give us the perfect second/third leads but make the character end up with the male lead simply because HE IS THE MAIN LEAD UGH!

3. Lacking chemistry: sadly i did not feel any significant chemistry from the final couple and I frankly could not see why they liked each other besides each other's looks. They also sounded like little kids in elementary for majority of the show and it was so difficult to watch.

4. This show also distinctly felt like a teenager's fantasy after getting rejected by their crush, like why did all the popular guys suddenly take notice of her after she got humiliated and dumped her bf?

5. There were also not much to develop in terms of characters, their backgrounds/personalities/relationships are all pretty 2D and have no depth as such and so there was no personality development or growth.

6. Introducing a New guy: Now we already know she ends up with someone else but they still brought up yet another contender from the past who is also MADLY in love with her YET only confesses to her when he notices she's in a possible relationship? Like whats up with the men in this drama acting out impulsively like men in in love only when they get jealous??

7. Acting: Like many have pointed out both actors are pretty mediocre at conveying emotions via acting but esp the FL, she had absolutely no facial movements, every single shot she either looked like a lost child looking for their parent or like she was spacing out.

8. Storyline: Felt like a typical web drama/soap opera was being marketed as a high budget coming of age show for drama lovers and it was genuinely difficult to watch because I forgot it was airing every other week

Pros:

1. Pretty visuals

2. Supporting cast: Ji-won was a great guy and watching him and yeol's friend was the highlight of every episode


Conclusion:

All in all just like with the chewing gum analogy, if you want to chew just for the sake of chewing something, similarly if you want to watch anything just for the sake of it this drama is perfect. I watched this drama as it was being aired and honestly it was very very difficult to complete but maybe if you binge it might be better.

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One of the best c-dramas in this genre released this year

This drama started out strong and ended strong and that is something we rarely get to see these days.

PROS:
1. Realistic reactions to unrealistic situations
2. Great world building
3. Great acting
4. Amazing chemistry (despite the lack of skinship)
5. unique backstories to all characters
6. Amazingg ost

CONS:
1. I felt like the ending could have been less rushed? Even though I loved the ending I wish they gave us a lot more time to process everything
2. The fantasy - reality connection didn't really make sense....The logic behind it was completely left open ended (or un-logical) and I was really interested to see how she transmigrated there
3. lin fuyi felt very unnecessary: I dont know if this is a personal bias but I felt like his acting was lacking compared to his co-stars

Overall I really loved the drama and the cons were very insignificant compared to the pros and this drama is definetely something memorable...I would definitely recommend that you watch this provided skinship (or lack of it) is not a deal breaker (there were only 1-2 kiss scenes and that too wasn't in reality *sigh* )......The plot is not very unique but very well executed and the main cast did a great job and all supporting cast had their own stories to tell...

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Generic

This drama started out with plenty of potential but somewhere down the line I just lost interest.

Potential:
1. I feel like if they chose something less generic regarding the FL's past and misunderstandings that ensue it would have been much more enjoyable
2. Side characters could have had much more intense and engaging backstory
3. They could have incorporated something idk, unique?

Pros:
1. Cute Happy ending drama
2. Good looking cast
3. (more skinship than the general c-drama? but I have noticed this in many of Xu ruohan's dramas) this could be a pro/con
4. FL that takes no bs from others
5. ML and FL who (atleast in the beginning) are very open and talk about all their issues

Cons:
1. The most confusing part for me was the flashbacks, both the ml and fl look quite young (and the actors are very young!) they resemble college students and it honestly took me longer than I'd like to admit to figure out if it was a flashback or not (only the uniforms were a give away)

2. This is an issue i have in general but recently I have noticed that some c-dramas have a lot of whitewashing in the dramas and for me its a huge con because some characters look fake because of it and it takes away my viewing experience since i focus on their skin instead

3. Maturity. This is the biggest issue, since highschool the 2 haven't matured or reflected on the past and they are still as clueless as before

4. the producer's daughter that is out to get the FL...What did she even do? like her character was just entitled and liked the ML because she got screamed at by the FL..pftt no way

5. No depth to any characters...other than the one person i mentioned earlier everyone (leads) are 2 dimensional, their reason for falling for one another and staying together are just as vague to me

6. Using skinship to compensate for lack of originality. Xu Ruohan's previous drama "Forbidden Flower" also had its fair share of skinship but in that genre it felt right (if ykyk) but in this drama it just felt like a cheap attempt to make a fluffy basic drama into a "mature" one

All in all I think some will like this some will not, I found myself skipping a lot of scenes but that could just be attributed to the fact that I have seen quite a lot of shows with similar plots. So, if you have a lot of time but nothing to watch, watch this..I would recommend binge watching since you might forget it exists if you don't watch it for long💀

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Started out unique ended up average

When this drama had initially started airing i thought they would ruin it by making the gay character the ml (fl made him straight or something ridiculous like that) but i was pleasantly surprised when they not only openly mentioned that he was gay but also ensured that he was not the fl's love interest, regardless i was hoping he and his future lover could be the second couple which did not happen.

From the beginning i felt there was something off with the drama, i cant pinpoint exactly what it was but the line delivery felt too stiff and serious and it felt more like i was watching a melodrama like call it love rather than watching a rom-com..I could never feel the attachment between ah-jung and do-han for those who claim to have been best friends for over 15 years and they felt more like acquaintances rather than close friends (but ig you could attribute that to their seperation but even in the flashbacks they dont look close to each other)

MY BIGGEST ISSUE THOUGH IS NONE OF THIS ITS THE FACT THAT THIS SHOW CLEARLY USES THE LGBTQ+ TAG TO ATTRACT VIEWERS
lee do han is clearly a tool to bring the two leads together and the lgbtq tag is literally just to make it so that there is absolutely no reason why there would be a love triangle because lets be honest if he was straight there would be a love triangle and his younger brother having feelings for his fiancee would be plain creepy and her actions in a way, could be seen as cheating...They completely throw him away after he admits his sexuality and they dont really talk about his love life which makes me realise that his sexuality is not even an aspect of the story but rather a way to distinguish the plot from an average plot....I also could not feel the chemistry between the leads and it felt more like temporary attraction rather than 'true love'

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Revenge, Romance and Second Chances

As someone who has read (and absolutely loved) the webtoon i was so afraid that the show would ruin the story but i'm happy to say that it didn't. Although it was cliche and predictable it was just the right amount of both.

I loved the casting choice for soo-min and min-hwan, the two of them literally emulate their webtoon counterparts so well. Park-min young also lost A LOT of weight for her role in the beginning and that shows the remarkable amount of dedication she has towards the role. I found myself smirking every time ji-won got revenge on soo-min and i loved min-hwan's monologues. ( spoiler: JI WON LOOKED SOO PRETTY ( LIKE A LITERAL QUEEN ) IN THE WEDDING PHOTOS!!!)

So if i loved the show so much then why did i not give it a full 10/10 rating? Thats because personally i felt like all though the revenge arc was amazing, i felt like they dragged it out unnecessarily with yu-ra (i get that they needed to push his fate of death to someone else but i wish he had died the same way as he did in the original plot (it was so much more romantic and tragic). And i also some scenes were waay too cliche and overused in kdramas.

Also i loved that they didnt just end the show with the wedding (or before) like they normally do for kdramas, their life 10 years in the future is seriously couple goals (and body goals lmao).

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If spicy scenes could decide a drama this would have been one of the best

Ok so i'm going to get right into the pros and cons:

✅ Great OST
✅ Pretty Good Chemistry
✅ Great Visuals

❌ The female character makes no sense, she slept with her husband despite "hating" him and continues sleeping with him and falls for him but can't seem to understand that he is actually a "good" person. Following this she wants a divorce because he hates his wife and tells her he doesn't love her

❌ No character arc for anyone and all the villains are just basic 2D

❌ Mother-in-Law doesn't have a redemption arc and just naturally accepts her and vice-versa

❌ The second lead who showed up had little to no purpose

❌ Ending was rushed despite the previous 15-20 eps being unnecessarily long

I will say though that the actors obviously worked hard despite it being a non-sensical plot and you can see that they are pretty good at their job.

All in all if you're watching for a plot LEAVE. But if you want some cute chemistry and spicy scenes with a cliche little to no logic plot this might work. Watching this drama felt like eating cotton candy, it tastes sweet and you know its bad for you but its addicting and at the end of the day you don't really feel like you ate anything.

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One of the best republican Chinese shows out there

I started this show purely for wang yibo but stayed for the plot, The plot is not particularly unique but the setting and the cast definitely made a huge difference...

the good
The plot was very intricate and the cinematography was very good, i also liked how there were some morally grey characters like wei ruolai's neighbor who didn't hesitate to treat him like her son when it was beneficial for her and blame everything on him when she was in trouble. I also liked the fact that most characters are pretty normal, Wei ruolai for instance used his fiancee back home to reject women but at the same time when he started moving up the social ladder he became embarrassed of her whereas if you take lin qiaosong, he wanted jinzhen as his trophy wife when he was powerful and did not care about his "lowly" mistress but as soon as he lost everything he learned the value of the one that was by his side

the bad
The issue with this drama is that all the morally grey or bad characters are not communist, the communist are shown to be very upright and caring people. If you notice throughout the story there is not even one "bad" communist and all the non communists are shown to be morally gray or power hungry. Another issue which was purely from my point of view is the romance, If the show has no romance i'd prefer it if they didn't give unnecessary hope to viewers by showing cute short scenes, it makes it so much worse when you think they have a chance of ending up together(ToT)

conclusion:
overall great show but i wish they showed more "war" of faith by making sure that the non-communists also had valid points or good people because one side is never always right, but i get that they probably can't due to censorship and other issues but i wish that it was harder to choose sides because it makes the show more interesting (acc. to plot so far communist party is the only right choice)

the only thing getting me through the pain of a certain someone's death is this edit:
https://youtu.be/5ph57bSYMpg?si=hODy7zjm6ZOlpZ5H

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UNDERRATED DEFINITELY DESERVES A HIGHER RATING!!

When i started this show i literally had no expectations, for one it was a female centric chinese family drama(most of which are generic), there was an ex-bf and his annoying family, the fl's annoying mother and worst of all the pathetic ratings on mdl..But dont let any of these stop you from watching this show


pros:

1) All the characters are realistic and their reactions to situations also seem human, no one is excessively kind and they react the way a normal person would in most situations

2) parallels between characters: i think that there are a lot of clever parallels drawn by making certain similar characters in order to prove that the environment you were raised in matters more than money, xie jialiang's father's mistress grew up in poverty just like MCH but she turned out to be greedy and cunning whereas MCH is caring and diligent, we also see some comparisons between MCH's ex and Zhiming, although both of them are rich, zhiming was forced to be independent and opportunistic and he learned to cherish his loved ones due to all the loss he faced whereas xie jialiang turned out to be timid because he was used to always getting what he wanted and not having to fight for anything(hence not being able to protect MCH)

3) The pacing: I have to say the pacing was absolutely perfect for most of the show and i think that the breakup/resolving of issues with mom all took the perfect amount of time

4) One of the biggest issues i have with certain female centric shows is that they force the fl to choose between love and career (although this may be realistic) but im glad that the fl didnt have to give up on either and got the best of both worlds

5) The ML....YAO ZHIMING OMLL...He is the epitome of husband material, there are so many shows where the ml ends up "helping" the fl and basically the intelligent fl is dumb in comparison but this man was so respectful, he never made decisions for her, he always stood by her side when she needed him, he tolerated her mother even when they were not together and he was RESPECTFUL. after hearing his grandmas will he did not throw a tantrum or make some plot to steal the hotel(this may be the bare minimum but its still so gentleman like) and he always lets her know when hes jealous or uncomfy with a situations (hes literally such a green flag)


(may contain spoilers below)
cons:
I only really have one con and thats a pro in itself in a way? SO the fl's mother never really got the retribution but on the flip side i think that its very realistic she didnt(so technically not a con)

she lived in the country side and was very uneducated and she got married at a young age for a better life but was still stuck in the circle of poverty and she lived most of her life as a mother, she had no other identity besides a mother/wife and so her only job was to worry about her husband and children and make decisions for them....I wish they hadnt given a her mom a terminal illness at the end because that literally felt like they gave her physical pain in return for the emotional trauma she put her kids through, it feels really weird hating on a sick character and i felt like she should have changed more.....BUT I personally also feel that the chances of an asian mother changing her personality and habit of nagging is one in a million (lmfao) and most people cant change the way they behave so yeah i think it wasnt that bad

one other thing that was weird was how many rich people were around her, shes like a real life rich person magnet(I'm still waiting for my grandma to tell me she is secretly a millionaire T-T)

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THE BEST AND MOST REALISTIC LGBTQ+ SHOW I HAVE SEEN!!

I already had pretty high expectations considering the cast, budget and the fact that this is based on an acclaimed novel but this show was so perfect!

Pros:
1. love the cinematography

2. LOVE THE CAST

3. IT IS SO REALISTIC LIKE OMG

4. real people with real problems

5. even though I am neither male nor gay I felt like i could relate to their issues on a very personal level

6. I could see love: Nam yoon soo is a great actor and his co stars are just as brilliant because every person played their role....The way he looked at his co-stars made me think he was in love with every single one

7. The depiction of his character: I love how his character incorporates certain stereotypically gay characteristics in a naturally and in-excessive ways (usually you get to see them being overly "girly" or extremely "manly" as an attempt to distinguish them but I like that he is a mix of both)

8. The way they brought up "kylie" (if ykyk) it felt so REAL...kylie was unwanted and he ignored her but she is an undeniable part of his life and I love how he showed his reactions

9. Mi-ae: after seeing mi-ae and go-young's friendship I felt like I NEEDED IT...The way their relationship progressed was also
extremely natural and her future is also a less talked of circumstance

10. NAM YOON SOO'S SMILE: THIS MAN'S SMILE BE SAVING THE UNIVERSE BECAUSE HE LOOKS LIKE A LITERAL ANGEL

Cons:
I didn't have any particular cons but I do wish they had a special OST that would remind me of the show every time I heard it.

Its high time that korean media had some diversity and I think rather than judging something based on the LGBTQ+ aspect we should see it as a show with great storytelling

All in all I loved this drama and I will recommend anyone and everyone who likes realistic shows (without any biases) to watch it...

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Cliché

This drama started out...decent...it wasn't extremely captivating or unique and i remember watching the first 5mins and thinking it was a low budget drama and clicked out...that was until i saw on MDl that Ju ji-hoon was part of the cast (that was when i realized it wasn't a web drama tbh)...So I went back and watched it and I finished it with mixed feelings.

THE GOOD:
1. the younger cast had great chemistry and they embodied their characters really really well...tbh I wish they kept the youth part a bit longer rather than short flashbacks
2. The redemption arc of many characters
3. Pretty decent chemistry

THE BAD:
1. The friend gaining/losing feelings was rushed....she was manically in love with ml but after she gets to know ml and fl are dating she just forgets about them? makes no sense.
2. The comedy was not funny, they overused the grandpa's feud to make it seem funny but it felt really boring and i found myself skipping those scenes with fervor
3. Random characters randomly being introduced for no good reason and there was too much going and no real direction
4. The chemistry between the adults was just not there- I couldn't sense the spark of attraction when they reunited after so many years nor feel any real romantic tension until just before they started dating
5. The characters experience waay too many cliches and it was very predictable
6. Unnecessary 2leads
7. Very forgettable, no impactful scenes

All in all it wasn't horrible, infact it was a textbook version of enemies to lovers, wouldn't recommend it to everyone, still if you are in the mood for enemies to lovers this won't particularly disappoint you (though I can't guarantee you'll love it)

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Pretty Good

While starting this show i did not have high expectations since the cast was quite unfamiliar for me (i have only seen one of shin se-kyung's drama's "Run On") but i was utterly mesmerized in the first few episodes.

Pros:
1) The biggest pro for me is the ml's acting skills, his eyes are so expressive and his line delivery is impressive, i found myself rewatching his dialogues because they were so powerful
2) The struggles of being the king was described really well and the king's predicament was also well written
3) Wave by Taeil which is one of the main osts of this show was soo good, its very melancholic and the tune was stuck in my head for days
4) I also really liked the fact that court lady dong was not a one dimensional villainess who always conspired to do evil but rather had feelings of her own
5) The queen's story was quite tragic and im glad that they didnt portray her as an obstacle to the main couples relationship but rather as a noble girl that got unlucky and her relationship with the grand prince was also really cute

Cons:
1) The ending didnt really feel like a proper ending, after seeing it i felt like i was seeing the second last episode rather than the last episode, i had certain hopes for what their relationship would end up as and i was sad that none of it came true
2) It got very fast paced towards the end and very draggy in certain parts as well
3) I remember being so annoyed when the fl kept having the deer in front of headlights look for every scene and the fact that she kept going back to revenge when the ml was baring his his heart out to her
4) I still dont see why myung-ha's character was necessary to the plot
5) I dont know if its the bad/biased writing but the fl's scenes were so unmemorable, on one hand you had the ml's POWERFUL line delivery and emotions and the fl consistently had the deer in headlights look and her lines were just not IMPACTFUL enough

Overall i would say that its a pretty good show, the first few episode were easily a 10/10 but the later episodes changed my mind. All in all if you like angsty romances with very less skinship but a lot of meaningful looks then this show is definitely for you. I do think that i liked this show more due to the fact that i waited every week rather than binge watching the whole thing since the wait at the end of every cliffhanger and the numerous predictions i cooked up were definitley a huge part of the experience

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