justjacky

Hilarious, romantic and thought-provoking story on genre roles.

I started watching this drama as a fun way to pass the time BUT without realising I found myself binge-watching it. It seriously blew my mind how clever, funny, eye-opening and thought provoking this drama is. At first glance it appeared that this is a typical historical rom-com which it is but it's way, way more than that. I've never seen a drama where the gender roles are executed so well - it actually portrayed important real world views and problems in our everyday society. It was very insightful watching this drama as a woman and seeing how this fictional world shows a city/society where women are in power and men below them. I found myself thinking "wow, so this is how it feels to be on the other side, to be a man with power in the real world".

I absolutely LOVED all the characters, and I mean all which is rare for a drama. ML and FL had an awesome enemies to lovers relationship development and many, many cute romantic scenes. The side characters were done so well. I loved the SML and he became my favourite character. There is also a second couple that is totally adorable and I wish we could have seen more of them but I was still very happy with their screen time. The ending of the drama is just the cherry on top. SO WELL DONE.

In short, WATCH THIS DRAMA NOW. IT'S WORTH IT.

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Destined Love rather than Poisoned Love

The drama tells the love story of a man and a woman who are destined to be together no matter the odds. The female lead is a voice actor who suffers from a rare illness (similar to sleepwalking). She meets the male lead who can help her cure her illness however she mistakes him for his brother.

The first half of the drama is very lighthearted with tons of rom-com vibes. I was smiling all the time while watching. The second half of the drama is more angsty and deals with male lead’s darker past and the female lead’s illness. It felt a little draggy and boring at times.

"We met each other the first time
It was a coincidence
We met each other again, the second time
It was inevitable
If we meet each other again, the third time
I’m sure that it must be destiny"
- quote from Poisoned Love

Throughout the drama, the theme of destined lovers is always referred to and we are shown many times that the main leads are meant to be together. I’m scratching my head why the title has the word poison. The romance is soft and the male lead is the only person who can cure her illness. A big part of the plot is the involvement of the second male lead (who the female lead initially believes is the person who can cure her). He is a bit of an obstacle between the leads. But I wouldn’t call it a love triangle since the female lead only likes the male lead.

POSITIVE:
- Fun rom-com vibes.
- Nice and supportive male lead/second male lead.
- First half of the drama made me smile all the time.
- Sweet and soft romance between the leads.
- Romance is the main focus.
- No filler scenes with stupid work stuff.
- Sweet kiss scenes.
- Support cast was good.

NEGATIVE:
- Second male lead’s love for the female lead can get annoying towards the second half of the drama. It's not a love triangle for me but he does get in between them. But he also gets redeemed in the end, so there is that.
- Second half of the drama felt draggy and a little boring.

OVERALL:
If you are looking for a fun rom-com that shows two brothers who are kind and caring towards the female lead and help her heal from her illness, you will enjoy this drama.

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Psychological thriller with a dash of rom-com

I mainly watched this drama because of Gong Jun but also because I do like psychology. The drama is a mix of psychological thriller, detective style cases and a dash of rom-com.

I’ve studied hypnosis and been to many sessions so from my perspective that part was very accurately portrayed. The writers did a fantastic job in showing visually what happens in your mind when hypnotised. The psychology part was also very accurate and easy to understand from my point of view. However the actual cases were a hit and miss for me. I managed to watch the first 4 episodes in full but afterwards I fast-forwarded a lot of the cases. I enjoyed the cases where it involved the supporting cast however the others I had to skip as I simply didn't care about the characters.

The rom-com part was the best. The main leads were mature, super cute with great chemistry and funny interactions. That was the main reason while I managed to finish this drama otherwise I would have probably dropped it early on. I almost wish this was a full on rom-com drama with a dash of psychology as I would have enjoyed it a lot more. There are also two side couples but they don't take too much screen time.

I usually don't pay much attention to the editing but here it was definitely choppy and somewhat weird.

As many people have mentioned, the final 3 episodes with the revenge plot were super boring and I skipped almost everything in order to finish the drama.

Overall, I'll say that this drama accurately portrays hypnosis and has great psychological info however the way the cases were executed and the plot overall was quite boring. The romance was the best part of the drama and I wish it was actually a full on rom-com.

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Love the relationship dynamics but plot is boring

I'm saying this at the start because it's important: make sure to watch episode 37 which is a few minutes of epilogue to the story because in most websites you will only find till episode 36. I was drawn to watch this because it's a BL drama and I've never seen one before.

WHAT I LOVED:
I absolutely loved the relationship dynamic between the two male leads. One is a grumpy introvert with his love for bombastic side eye while the other is a flirty extrovert with his love for crazy eyes (with his loved ones he is a ray of sunshine, with his enemies his looks can kill you). At first glance it does seem like they are the total opposites but later down the story we are revealed a lot of things and see how similar and connected the two are. I love how they were able to portray their love and care for each other even though the drama is censored. Their relationship is the definition of actions that speak louder than words. They also call each other soulmates which is just the sweetest thing. There are also two young characters that are disciples of each male lead - one girl and one guy. The four of them have such a fun and crazy family dynamic that for me is the best part of the drama.

The fight scenes and setting are worth mentioning because they look very beautiful. In typical wuxia style you have people flying around but what is quite different in this drama is that they incorporate parts of the settings to the fighting. You see really cool fights on a bridge, river boat, around pink trees. One of the male leads has his signature belt sword while the other uses a super cool fan. I especially loved seeing how the young girl fought like a true badass.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
My rating went down because unfortunately I didn't like the plot. There are tons of sects and names which I couldn't remember. The backstory is done as a mystery but the reveal is quite confusing because of all the names/places etc and honestly quite underwhelming. None of the other characters interested me and I skipped most of the scenes with the villains and sect talk because it was just boring. The whole plot is about opening an armoury to gain some secrets which does sound realistic but it was just not interesting to me. It is a shame because I love the main characters, if the plot was different I probably would have liked it a lot more.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Overall I think it's a great BL drama and I'd still recommend it because of the relationship dynamics. One of the male leads has become now a favourite character so because of him, the drama is worth a watch.

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Opposites do attract! Rom-com vibes with very realistic and emotional life challenges.

This drama tells the story of two seemingly opposite people who unexpectedly fall in love. The female lead accompanies her father to the hospital where she meets the male lead for the second time. During her father's stay in the hospital the leads heal each other emotionally and fall in love.

The male lead is a surgeon, dealing with his psychological trauma of losing an important patient while the female lead is a college student, striving to become a professional cellist. They are the complete opposites. He is 10 years older than her, mature and responsible, she is free-spirited, goofy and emotional. He is an introvert and a neat-freak. She is an extrovert and a queen of messiness and clumsiness. And yet they find a common ground and slowly fall in love.

The romance is slow burn (but when the leads get together there are tons and tons of cute kiss scenes!!!). The beginning is very angsty and emotional as the story focuses on FL's father who has serious health problems and the ML who is dealing with his past trauma. Around episode 10 the drama switched smoothly to more fun and light-hearted vibes which I loved. From episode 10 till the end it truly feels like a sweet/emotional rom-com but with still very realistic life related issues.

Overall I truly enjoyed this drama, although the beginning was very heavy emotionally. If you want a realistic rom-com, family dynamics and characters who deal with real life issues and overcome life's challenges this drama is for you.

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1 crime case and 5 time loops to save the day! Bai Jing Ting is the star of the show!

This drama is about the male lead, a policeman, who has the ability to time loop 5 times on random days (where the 5th day stays real). The plot begins at episode 2, as he takes on a new murder case. Two of the three CEO’s of the biotech company MOMA have seemingly died by accident. As the male lead starts to investigate, he suspects that the murderer has the same time loop ability as him. The drama follows only this crime case, with each episode focusing on a wide range of characters, all connected to the MOMA company.

POSITIVE:
- Bai Jing Ting was the true star of the show as he totally stole the spotlight. I loved him and his character was a perfect blend of Neo (The Matrix), James Bond, John Wick with a dash of goofball vibes.
- Banging first episode. Truly the best episode was the first, as I felt like I was watching an american blockbuster movie. The script and action scenes were absolute cinema.
- Time loop explained perfectly. I honestly doubted we would be given a real and concrete explanation of how the male lead has the time loop powers but I was pleasantly surprised how well the drama explained the concept and the reason behind it.
- Undercover vibes. I truly loved that the male lead went undercover and was put right at the centre of action, instead of just going to places and chasing clues.
- Lots of suspects. The drama did a great job at making every single character look like the murderer.
- Police team. The highlight for me was the scenes between the male lead and his dedicated team. Sadly, we didn’t get as many scenes as I would have liked.
- Slight romance. As a romance girlier, I was pleasantly surprised by this. However at the same time, I definitely would not watch this for the romance and, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I would have liked to see more bromance instead (especially between the male lead and his boss).
- Bits of comedy. There weren’t that many but what we got was hella funny.
- Ending wrapped up well (if we ignore the very last scene).

NEGATIVE:
- Draggy parts. The middle of the drama (ep 7-10) felt too drawn out as we would get about 5 min of actual information and the rest was just character stuff. Maybe because I knew the time loops were not permanent, everything else felt a bit “whatever”. Perhaps if the drama was shorter, maybe 12 episodes, it would have been much better to tighten up the story.
- Chess pieces given out too soon. Although the drama did well by dripping in information about the case in every episode, by the time something big was revealed, I already knew because of all the given clues. Yes, you could say the drama did well providing the clues but at the same time I kept missing that “WOW what a plot twist” factor. When eventually some of the reveals happened, I just nodded “yep, makes sense”.
- Boring female lead. I get that she is a scientist but still, for such an important character with a lot of screen time, I would have liked to see a more charismatic character.
- The last scene of the drama (if you know, you know). It just made the drama feel unfinished… unless there is season 2 which I doubt.

OVERALL:
I feel the drama has a good plot, script and production but the execution wasn’t perfect. I think most people like me expected to see multiple cases instead of one, which made the drama feel too drawn out. Although the suspense was quite good at times, I was never at the edge of my seat while watching. Mobius had the potential, and it’s actually not a bad time loop drama but it simply cannot beat Reset, which for me is a true masterpiece. Still, as Mobius is not my typical watch, I actually quite enjoyed it and still recommend it.

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Revenge + Romance

The cinematography is what first captured my attention as this drama is beautifully shot. The visuals from the costumes, settings and scenery to the moody night vibes really goes well with the storyline. It's a short drama so it focuses on the main plot of revenge, there are no fillers or annoying/unnecessary characters.

The chemistry between the main lead is top tier and their romantic scenes are really well done. You have steamy scenes, you have cute romantic scenes, you have thriller/murder vibes, you have friends to lovers trope. The male lead and female lead both have masks on and pretend to be other people at first. Male lead appears to be a ruthless, flirty, bad boy but he's actually a good guy and the female lead is first shown as seductress but is actually a sad, introverted girl. Both do everything in their power to get their revenge.

The drama reminds me of a novel in the way the storyline is done. It's got a great plot twist too. For me it's not a full 10 stars because the ending felt a little too convenient. But overall it's a super enjoyable drama and it has a happy ending so I highly recommend it.

Make sure to NOT watch this on Youtube because it doesn't have the original music. And the music makes a huge difference.

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Eccentric and ridiculous but fun

I've never seen a drama quite like this one. It's so bad that it's actually really good. It's pure comedy, breaking the 4th wall (actors addressing the camera), and even has a mystery plot towards the end involving the female lead.

The drama is a compilation of short clips (around 4 minutes each) put together to create somewhat of a storyline. A princess goes to a far away Kingdom as a peace-making marriage but upon her arrival finds out that the Kingdom's tradition involves marrying all the brothers. The five brothers all have distinguished personalities and play off well with the female lead. There is no real romance aside from some cute interactions with the first and second prince.

Overall I quite enjoyed this drama, it's pretty much like a 3 hour movie and I watched it in two sittings. The strongest point of the drama is the relationship between the brothers and the princess. They were some boring bits when the main focus wasn't the relationships but external storylines. If the whole drama was purely focused on the relationships I feel like I would have enjoyed it way more.

If you want something lighthearted, funny and no-brainer drama to pass the time, you will definitely like this.

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Love & Hate. Misunderstandings. Plot Twists. It had the potential but didn’t fully deliver.

This drama had such a potential with its uniquely set up plot but it sadly didn’t fully deliver. Honestly, I feel like Bai Lu and Joseph Zeng are the plot because I only finished this story for them. The main components of this drama is a mix of love & hate, misunderstandings, angst and plot twists. The drama is about the feud between the main leads, who are Gods created from the same source, similar to ying/yang.

POSITIVE:
- Bai Lu and Joseph Zeng slayed. Their performance and on-screen chemistry was brilliant. In fact I’d say they are the plot! I finished the drama only for them. In fact, it was my first time seeing Joseph properly, and I’m now a fan!
- Second female lead. I went through so many emotions with this girl. I hated her, didn’t care for her, loved her. Her story appeared to be cliche at first but ended up being very unique. The daughter-father story arc was unexpectedly really well done.
- Plot twists. Ok I’ll give them that, the writers knew how to fool their audience. Usually in cdrama, they do this stupid stuff of showing everything the bad guys are doing. But this time, it was hidden and only in the finale episodes we got to see who the bad guy was.
- Nice angst. As a xianxia angst lover, the emotional scenes hit me hard and I loved it. But the rest… is another topic.

NEGATIVE:
- Plot/characters. My main issue with this drama is that the script spent so much time creating plot twists, that it neglected to properly fresh out its characters. In general, all the character's interactions (except the leads) felt like plot devices to reach the next plot point. The dialogue either was forced or lacked at certain scenes. There were many characters that popped up just for that one plot point and nothing else. For example, the Goddess of Time was so random. You could argue she was there because of the leads tribulation. Cool, but she still popped up out of nowhere to move the plot forward and then disappeared. Same with the God Elders (or whatever they were, it’s not like it was explained). I’m not asking for their whole backstory but at least show us something to make them look more real.

The plot twists were cool but at the same time the drama took TOO long to get to them. Most scenes, in between the twists, were kind of boring and draggy. The non-linear storytelling made the drama messy. There was a lot of back and forth with flashbacks, timelines etc. The issue wasn’t that it was hard to follow but that it took too long to get to the actual point. Hell, the female lead spent the whole 10 episodes pretending to be someone else. For what? It could have been done in 5 episodes. I get that the writers were banking on suspense and mind blowing twists but the way everything was set up ended up feeling artificial to me.

Another thing this drama focused on was tribulation and learning valuable lessons. Well, I know about human nature, I know about these lessons etc, it’s nothing new. What I wanted to see was characters who could resonate with me on a deeper/human level. And honestly, the only two that did were the female and second female lead. The male lead had the potential but he felt more like a background piece in the second half. The rest were more like cardboards.

- Second male lead as plot device. This annoyed me tremendously. His character had potential to be somewhat cool. But what did the writers do? They USED him for all the plot twists which made him feel like a shell of a character. Seriously, aside from being devoted to the female lead, he literally had zero personality and interests.

- Misunderstandings. Xianxia is known for this cliche trope. I usually don’t mind that but here it took most of the drama to get to it. The reveal of why there is a feud between the leads was delivered in a nice angsty style but at the same time not so shocking because it was literally shown in the trailer.

- Second couple = wasted potential. Instead of the guest couple (disciple-demon), that nobody cared about, I would have liked the focus to be on the second leads. Yes, it didn’t fit the story of them falling in love BUT IF the second female lead’s tribulation happened earlier, it would have left the door open for that too. Or at least friendship if nothing else.

- Visuals. They were decent but at the same time, the producer was totally stingy with the setting designs and CGI. And not even a special episode? Bai Lu deserved better.
- Side characters blah blah Literally nobody stood out, I didn’t care about anyone except maybe the healer Li Mo but even that is a stretch. The human sect disciples, all the immortals in the Nine Heavens, they were just plot devices.
- Dubbing. Minor annoyance for me but the leads being dubbed was criminal.
- Ending. It felt like a cheap trick to satisfy the audience. In general, the final episodes were very underwhelming with a random (but at least hot) villain and lackluster fight scenes. The fact that the male lead was barely there was criminal.

OVERALL:
This story had the potential to be the next Till the End of the Moon but it sadly didn’t deliver. I don’t like to compare but TTEOTM is still the best xianxia of Bai lu for me. In fact, I wasn’t a huge fan of Moonlight Mystique but it weirdly feels like it was more fleshed out. Both Feud and MM have their pros and cons so I feel they are on a similar level. Decent but not that great. I really wanted to love this drama as Bai Lu is my number one Queen. At the start, I was totally obsessed with the lead’s love story but somehow the second half got boring and the final episodes were a let down. In conclusion, it's hard for me to recommend this but if you love xianxia and Bai Lu, I guess give it a chance.

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