Intense, well-written and a bit disturbing
This is a rather intense show to watch. The story is well-written, with a good flow that keeps you hooked. It has a slight sci-fi element to it, and the kids-parts can be a little disturbing.Note: The synopsis here on MDL is a little inaccurate, I would say.
Brief synopsis per my POV:
30 years ago a village on an isolated island was struck by a terrible tragedy. Now, a series of mysterious deaths of rather prominent people ends up being investigated by police special task force led by Do Jung Woo. He has a brilliant mind, but a rather controversial appearance and behaviour. Criminal profiler Jamie Leighton is called in from the FBI. It turns out both she and Do Jung Woo has a hidden past, and who is really behind the events unfolding, and the deaths? Can the past be "set right"?
Cast:
Namkoong Min as the male lead (Do Jung Woo) is brilliant. I can see similarities in how he portrays this character and his role in The Veil. There was also one scene in particular that made me think of his character in Beautiful Gong Shim. I guess all the roles I have seen him in so far have been characters that are strong individuals and doesn't necessarily conform to society's norms and expectations. As for his portrayal in this series in particular, I found he balanced it well: The thin line between "genius or crazy".
Kim Seol Hyun as police officer Gong Hye Won is convincing. She shows the right amount of righteousness, and more tender moments with her family.
Lee Chung Ah as FBI agent Jamie Leighton was a bit weaker, in my opinion, but that might be due to how her role was scripted. I just found her a bit "too flat" – not all the time, but enough to not be "wowed" by her acting.
Yoon Sun Woo as Moon Jae Wong was good, although his part was somewhat smaller. The shift was just spot on (will not elaborate to not give spoiler).
As for the other supporting cast, there are several strong actors and good performances, so I won't mention in detail.
The storyline:
It is a rather intense story, with some different hints and clues keeping your interest and weaving the story together, sometimes by small surprises. Sometimes more is revealed when scenes seemingly are repeated, so do not skip!
The sci-fi elements to the story isn't apparent straight away, but becomes more prominent as more comes to light.
The story shows how wicked people can become in their quest to pursue own goals.
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Good, but some weak points
I was quite conflicted about the score on this…does it deserve an overall of 8? I mostly liked it, but the story had some weak points as it progressed.Brief synopsis from my pov:
Career oriented, indrawn aloof CEO of food company gets bad publicity for using body double in cooking show. Several staff resigns.
Kind hearted, caring PR staff member gets sudden promotion to handle this mess. She manages to convince him to cook on the show himself, and signs a contract for cooking lessons aside from work.
She doesn’t like to work late, as she prioritises to cook for and look after her mum with kidney problems and diabetes.
Of course the two start to develop feelings for each other, but they are both carrying emotional baggage. Add some side characters and you’ve got not a love triangle, but a love-mess.
Cast:
I like the ML; Gao Han Yu is a good cast for the role as Yu Hao. He fits and portrays the role as a rather emotion-less, cold acting CEO well, and he manages to appear softer as the character develops. I haven’t seen him in many things, but are a bit curious if he can pull off other kind of roles.
FL is also well-casted; Jade Cheng is convincing as the sweet and caring Su Ke Lan; the kind of girl that is easy to love.
Supporting cast was also mostly good.
Story:
It kind of revolves around the role food and good meals can have in our lives, even if this has a minor focus. Several of the sub-plots were kind of obvious. I like how they try to show the importance of balancing work and life, and also that it is not too prudish (without showing much).
Episode 13 is where the story weakens, in my opinion, it just seems a bit too unrealistic the whole part of being unreachable for so long (I won’t write any more to not give spoilers).
All in all, I did mostly enjoy it, and I probably should not have read reviews with spoilers as that made me nearly drop it dreading the appearance of the ex.
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Stellar performances and great storytelling
I must say: What a cast! All the main actors are delivering stellar performances. Combined with the great cinematography, fitting music, and a solid script, this is a quality production resulting in very good storytelling. It evokes emotions, builds bonds with the characters, makes you curious about the historical background events …The only think I struggle a little bit with is the jumping between decades - especially in the first few episodes when I hadn’t refreshed my memory good enough about the different characters.
Having read the book some years ago, I do have some recollections about events, so I am really hoping for at least one more season. I am not sure I would have enjoyed this as much as I do if I hadn’t read the book, though.
It is a bit slow, so it might not be for everyone, but for me the overall quality throughout everything outweighs this.
As for the cast:
Youn Yuh Jung as old Sunja is blowing my mind; the depth of her portrayal for this petite, rather frail looking old woman is so strong.
Kim Min Ha as adult Sunja delivers a consistent convincing performance. There’s just a few instances where she looks a bit too young, but that’s not down to her acting skills.
As for Lee Min Ho as Koh Hansu - I think this must be the best role I have seen him in. I have not been a superfan of his before (more like «he’s OK»), but here his acting skills really comes to light. Hansu is a complex, interesting character, and Lee Min Ho nails the portrayal.
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Heartwarming "slice of life" romance
In my eyes, this is a heartwarming love story, "slice of life" drama with independent, mature characters.It is kind of slow-paced, letting us take part in the characters' backstories and personal developments.
The fact that there are no workplace drama, crazy scheming jealous other parties or over-controlling relatives, makes the story more believable and relatable.
Brief synopsis, as per my memory:
A chance encounter brings former couple Gui Xiao and Lu Yan Chen back in touch with each other. They fell in love in their middle school days, and tried maintaining a long-distance relationship when education and career paths separate them.
Can Gui Xiao, with a successful career within finance, and Lu Yan Chen, a special forces police officer in a different part of the country, overcome the emotional wounds from the breakup and rekindle their feelings, with the obstacle of geography and careers?
Some notes:
The soundtrack was fitting.
Acting was convincing. This really opened my eyes up for Tan Song Yun as an actress. She brings a very good energy and charm to her character. I sometimes found myself suddenly smiling by the sweet interactions between the two main leads.
What bothered me a little bit was that many of the episode endings seemed very abrupt (Viki).
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Easy to watch, light entertainment
So it is quite a while since I watched this, and my previous notes are a bit short.But this is easy to watch, quite sweet with a bit of charm and light humour.
The storytelling is occasionally a bit simplified, and this falls into the genre with "over-acting" - luckily not too much of it. So take this for what it is ;-)
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Overall well made, although a lot of familiar tropes
Overall this is a quite well made drama, and worth watching if you normally enjoy romantic dramas. It does have several familiar tropes though, so don't expect huge surprises or great amount of originality.Personally I liked both of the main leads (Zhang Han and Xu Lu) – especially him grew on me as the series progressed.
I also liked the 2nd ML (Hong Yao) and the supporting role played by Wang Xuan.
From my point of view I believe the story could have benefited if they skipped the subplot schemed up by Bai (Man Man), as that just was a bit too much for my liking.
Sadly, the lightning work and sound was occasionally a bit poor in some of the later episodes.
The soundtrack was a bit different, I would say, but quite pleasant to listen to.
This series fall into the line of C-dramas promoting (high-lighting) a specific topic or field; in this case Chinese fashion and culture. I don't mind it, but it can become a bit too much every now and then (too blatantly "promotional").
I don't regret watching this, but I can't really remember much from this show either now that some time has passed.
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A lighter take on what could’ve been a heavy topic
A synopsis that mentions a diagnosis of incurable illness makes you think it can be an emotional, heavy drama. This is not that. It approaches ALS in a, I would say, more superficial way, by showing light symptoms and addressing what lies ahead, but again in a «scratch the surface» kind of way.I must also say I found it kind of strange to use ALS as the illness in this story. I don’t have deep knowledge about it, but I do know statistically it is most common amongst men, and from adult age (40+?). Therefore, to have a young woman AND a kid with the diagnosis just seems a bit unrealistic for me, although it might not be completely unheard of.
Besides this, the story contains some familiar tropes: Contract relationship, a love triangle kind of situation, a jealous, entitled and scheming ex, supporting characters’ developing love stories, old stories needing unsolving…
The acting was OK; but not much more. I thought the main couple lacked some convincing chemistry, although FL was quite cute. I kind of liked supporting role Zhan Zi Lin (by Huang Qian Shuo) better than ML.
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The story took some unnecessary detours
When I started the first episode on Viki, I was like "Oh, this is familiar - have I already watched this?" But I didn't have it in my "archive list", so I jumped several episodes ahead to see if it was still familiar. It wasn't really, so guess I must have just seen clips online.So anyway; I therefore watched like the last half episodes approximately.
And to be honest, I don't think I missed out on that much.
I could still understand most of what had happened, except maybe one thing that was revealed in last episode.
The story did drag on, and it kind of went a bit to the extremes from episode 14 (?) when twin sister reappeared as she did.
And it was a bit annoying that FL just couldn't tell him. And the fact that he was so slow to take proper measures even if he was really suspicious/uneasy about the situation.
So, what made me actually finish was mainly the cast; I thought they made an interesting couple.
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Different, decent cast and acting
This was a bit different from most other C dramas I have seen (so far).I found the acting of the main cast good.
Brief synopsis:
A vampire that have lived for more than 100 years trying to maintain as much humanity and dignity as possible (Shen Zhi Heng, by Gao Wei Guang).
A young girl, blind from birth, being abused by her mother, living almost in isolation (Mi Lan, by Nana Ouyang).
A brilliant, handsome young doctor with ties to the vampire (Situ Wei Lian, by Winwin).
And a man from a poor background trying to climb his way up in life acting as the lackey of power hungry general (Li Ying Liang, by Ryan Ren).
Mix in some more supernatural beings teaming up with the power hungry humans to get even more powerful and get rid of their family curse.
Parts of the script was a bit weak, whilst other parts worked well.
It annoyed me a bit how SZH seemed rather dumb/ignorant sometimes, but then again I think it was part of his persona as wanting to be good and see the good in people.
I found the backstory with the three different families a bit confusing/hard to grasp at some points - maybe because I easily got confused over some of the similar family names (Mo, Mu, Mi, Li, 🤪).
As for the acting, I really enjoyed watching both Nana and Winwin. She was both pitiful, sweet and innocent, and quite fierce at moments. Winwin was a total charmer - I haven’t seen him in anything else, but this role seemed very suitable for him.
Gao WG was also very suitable as a dignified vampire.
Some sequences/«undertones» of the theme music reminded me of Westworld.
They kind of left us with a possibility for second season;if that happens, I will most probably watch it.
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Premise was there to be really good
Premise was there for this to be a really good and original series...but too bad it felt like a lot was left out, not letting this live up to it's potential.Story: A triad daughter, Angie, who's badass and down to earth is fangirling over a movie star. When her arranged marriage is brought up, she runs away from home, and takes a job as an undercover bodyguard for a female star at same company as her idol. Those two actors are in a fake relationship, so Angie crosses paths with and gets close to her idol, the actress is harbouring a secret, and what will happen when the fiancé for the arranged marriage arrives to fulfill the arrangement?
So...I felt like I didn't really have time to get to know the characters properly. Especially Xu Yihang (ML). Jasper Liu plays his character well, but the character itself seems a bit underdeveloped.
FL's fiancé Kim Eddie ("Fatty") seems like an interesting character, but we don't get much time with him. The actor did well though.
Euginie Liu as the FL portrays her character well.
I felt kind of sorry this wasn't longer, and that it wasn't renewed for season 2.
There was a good mix of romance and action, a bit of suspense, and it was done with a certain charm and elements of amusement/non-seriousness to lighten the mood.
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Short, which is kind of good
A short drama, both episode lengths and number of episodes.The story was so-so, so it's good they didn't drag it out more.
I guess the most original with this was the incense making aspect; even if that was superfluous.
All in all, this feels like a rather forgettable series. I finished it some hours ago and it's already dissipating from my memory.
Still, it was OK to watch in between other things due to the short episodes and rather uncomplicated plots.
ML actor is probably what I will remember the best.
FL actress was also OK.
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Story not really that memorable
So, what makes me remember this drama isn't really the story, but the music/OST and the casts' visuals.I thought I had reviewed this when I watched it earlier this year, but now when I discovered I hadn't, I found I don't actually remember that much from the story, just the main essence.
I do remember the rather extravagant wardrobes, and the "too perfect" visual appearances.
It wasn't a waste of time watching this, but I won't re-watch it unless I am desperate either.
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Well-written and well executed
It is nearly a year since I watched this, but found I hadn't written a review. That means this won't be very detailed, though.This was one of the earlier C-dramas I watched, and I will say this is a quality production through-and-through.
Well-written script, interesting story, good acting; even if I don't remember everything, this is a drama I do remember, and might actually consider re-watching at one point (that is not many!).
What I believe made this memorable to me, are for example:
- Interesting characters and good character-development. How FL changes and matures, and ML's depth and complexity are some factors
- Not too plot-ridden/scheming acts (although there are some)
- The cast (ML and FL), and their chemistry
- A bit of frustration - but in this case it implies a well-written story
- Good mix of slice-of-life/growing up, business and romance
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Feelgood and charmingly funny
A «growing up drama» that makes you smile loads and leaves you with a good feeling.Very brief synopsis:
The female weightlifter Kim Book Joo works towards her goal of joining the national team, living life happily at school with her two close friends on the weightlifting team. She has never been in love, and doesn’t give much thought to boys, until she falls head over heels in love with a handsome guy shielding her from the rain one day. She also gets reacquainted with a former classmate, who is now a handsome swimmer at the same school as her.
We follow her along the journey of how her crush develops, how her friendships tackle it when love comes into the equation, and life itself.
What bugged me:
I was surprised when I found out how old she was supposed to be. I thought she (and her friends) acted extremely childish, so thought they were supposed to be younger.
I wasn’t thrilled with the fake crying, and am no fan of screaming girls.
I didn’t really notice at first, but I guess after halfway or so I started noticing the two main leads had a very big (unrealistically big?) wardrobe. Especially coats and winter jackets - they wore new ones so often!
There was a few times I wondered about shift between day/night time in scene changes.
The positives:
As mentioned first, this is a feelgood drama with funny charm. I found myself smiling and chuckling loads of times.
The cast was good. FL had very rich facial expressions, and ML managed to ooze charm befitting of his character.
The story progresses well, and gives you the necessary breathers. I was very glad they didn’t go overboard with scheming/jealousy/intrigues/sabotaging.
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Trying a bit too hard to be "epic historical drama"?
First of all: This is long. It is dragged out quite a lot – I watched this on Netflix, and ended up watching a lot of the episodes on 1,25 speed. Couldn't do faster because of the subtitles, lol.Second: It is a bit dated, but sometimes that doesn't matter that much with historical-style dramas. I try to overlook the dated factors in my ratings for older shows, but here there were elements that slightly bugged me to the extent that I will mention them:
- (Occasionally) Poorly done makeup, especially the wig-lines
- Overly dramatic music, a bit repetitive
- "Soap-operaish /telenovela" style
When it comes to the casting and acting, I think they did a decent job under the circumstances. It tended to be "overacting" for certain characters (especially the villainous ones), which I am no fan of.
The three main leads all did rather well – I found the performances to be a bit either too flat or too stereotypical at times, but unsure if that has to do with when this was produced or the script.
As for the story, it became extremely plot-heavy and too dragged out, especially the last like 10 episodes or so. I nearly abandoned this after watching somewhat over 30 episodes, but then it really would have felt like a waste of time.
There were some smaller things in the story that either didn't quite add up, or that I missed.
When about half-way in this drama, it reminded me a little bit of "Empress Ki", but that is a much better drama.
As for this drama ("Introduction of the Princess / The Glamorous Imperial Concubine"), I get the impression that they tried a bit too hard to make it into an epic, historical drama.
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