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I was mostly in it for the plot and the vibe of the videos, versus the actual ship. I lowkey felt a little second lead syndrome, but overall I still really enjoyed watching this.
Part of me also wishes there was more to this. For example, A-Teen had a lot of friendship, family, and identity, but this one was very centered on the puppy love.
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This review may contain spoilers
I have very mixed feelings after finishing this. I definitely didn't enjoy this as much as Reply 1997—it wasn't until the cameos did I realize how much I missed Shi-Won and Yoon-Jae. Yet, the series still had the similar Reply vibe, which made me enjoy watching it still.I didn't really have a preference for the love triangle, mainly because the writers seem to very visibly alternate which character (Trash or Chil-Bong) had more screentime. I found myself rooting for whoever was on screen. Except, when they were both on screen and were insulting each other, I found myself not really a fan of either one of them. The way the love triangle went, though, it definitely went on for longer than it had to because it felt like Na-Jung was indifferent to Chil-Bong from the start and never wavered. There were some scenes where I really liked Na-Jung's chemistry with Trash, but other times they acted just like brother and sister and I thought Chil-Bong would've been better as the husband. Trash also really hurt himself when there was this ten-episode build-up around why he wouldn't accept Na-Jung's feelings and all we got was the most cliche "we're like family" explanation. Just a note though that I did get spoiled for the ending and I already knew who was going to be the husband.
Now here is one HUGE thing that bothered me: the fact that they used Yoon-Jin's drunk secret-spilling habit to advance the plot not once, not twice, but THREE times. If it was just once, I would've been okay with it. The second time, it got repetitive. And the third time was really just annoying, especially since nobody bothered to stop her (even knowing her habit) and just let her go on and on.
The series definitely dragged on for longer than it had to by including scenes and dialogue that would be in everyday conversation, and some episodes that were one and a half hours long killed me. But the vibe I still enjoyed because it felt very slice-of-life. At the same time, however, the scenes were longer but I felt like they jumped around so much and there were some scenes I wanted that were never shown. What was Na-Jung's initial reaction to Chil-Bong's first confession?
I'm honestly a little disappointed with how Hai-Tai and Bingguere's stories went. I LOVED Hai-Tai's banter with Yoo-Jin and his friendship with Na-Jung and it lowkey hurt me that he didn't end up with any girls in the main squad. For Binggeure, even though I get that sexual confusion is a thing, after Joon-Hee's intense presence in Reply 1997 and all the similar hinting for Binggeure being gay/bi as well, then suddenly giving him a female love interest in one episode and having them end up married...it just felt a lot like queer-baiting to me.
SCP and Yoon-Jin's relationship also had to take a lot of time to grow on me, because I was shipping her with Hai-Tai, and SCP just looked like an old man. I'm glad that that was a running joke though, which made it better.
I was honestly not a fan of Na-Jung at the beginning, because I was really annoyed by her fangirling. And I don't inherently have something against a main lead in an unrequited love, but the fact that she made it so damn obvious and overreacted with so much angst...that pissed me off.
Also, since the characters in Reply 1997 were friends before the drama started whereas the characters in 1994 had to meet each other, the friendship aspect felt very lacking at the start.
I definitely think this one incorporated more nostalgia and references, and my favorite was that of the Sampoong department store collapse, because it was the first time you really saw the huge impact of an event on the characters.
There are a lot of plotholes in this, it seems. What was the purpose of Na-Jung's younger brother? He was never at the dinner table or in the living room with the others except for when it was beneficial for the plot, and it just makes me wonder if the parents just left him in the room by himself. And where did Na-Jung's basketball fangirling go? It went from being the central point of her personality and the plot to basically being non-existent, except for a little mention here and there.
Note: Although this show was truly laugh-out-loud funny at times, I felt like the goat noise was also overrused.
7/10 is still quite a high rating in my eyes, but the high rating is for the Reply nostalgia and the brilliant metaphors and voiceovers and life lessons. If I used my logic, I'd give this show a much lower rating, but because it managed to tug on my heartstrings, 7/10 it is.
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The chemistry between the main leads was great. I liked that it was more balanced, and they teased each other but were also extremely supportive. Choi Ae Ra was an AMAZING female lead; I'd been craving a strong female lead (who wasn't bratty and selfish) and she was exactly that. It was refreshing, and you could see how much Go Dong Man loved her for it. I also thought that the big issue they had between them after they got together was very understandable and realistic, but it did get a little repetitive.
The pacing of the relationship was great, but the sub-plot could've been faster. Many of the earlier episodes felt like pure slice-of-life, but then the later episodes starting dealing with more dramatic family histories, which threw me for a loop.
I also ended up enjoying Baek Seol Hee and Joo Man's plot, even though I didn't think I would because I lose interest a lot after couples get together. But the issues they faced were surprisingly realistic, and my heart hurt for them. I definitely got annoyed and picked a side (Seol Hee!) but her character development was probably the strongest out of all the characters, and I loved her for it.
There actually weren't as many friendship scenes as I thought there would be, which is why I appreciated the scenes where Ae Ra was standing up for Seol Hee so much.
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Shut Up Flower Boy Band is surprisingly realistic, and one thing i really liked was that there wasn't one evil antagonist they were all going up against—most of the conflicts were internal struggles or tensions with friendship, and the show handled it all really well. Even the characters who didn't really get along with the main characters were very three-dimensional.
Even though there were some noble idiocy plot points, which I usually hate, I liked them in this show and I understood, mainly because even though the characters were fighting, it never felt like they were no longer friends. The bromance was one of the strongest parts of the entire show and I loved the way they handled conflicts with one another.
Su-Ah and Ji-Hyuk were super cute together as well—after I finished watching the drama, I went back and rewatched all their scenes together. I also liked how there weren't a lot of needless misunderstandings between them; even though they found it hard to talk about their feelings sometimes, when it came to it, they really understood each other's choices. Ji-Hyuk was kind of a bad boy but also lowkey always soft for Su-Ah, which was adorable. Su-Ah was a surprisingly strong female character who spoke her mind a lot and stood up to others, even though she is quiet—but I do wish they had given her even more regarding her art. While the guys had their music thing going on, it felt like her artistic talent was hinted at but it never moved forwards. I wish we saw more of Ji Hyuk's family background too, as it was pretty much only hinted at throughout the drama and I think could've played a bigger part.
Hyun-Soo (L from Infinite) was also one of my favorite characters, who was given a deeper personality than the others. I wish we got to see more of his interactions with his sister. His romantic plotline, though, was something I had mixed feelings about—and I'm not sure I'm fully on board with the ship.
Overall, though, I don't think I was ever really annoyed with ANY of the characters, which is a rare occurrence for me.
I did get spoiled for The Catalyst Event at the end of episode 2, so honestly I didn't find that as heart-wrenching as all the struggles that the characters had to go through afterwards.
I love the OST too—especially Jaywalking and Wake Up, of course—but I'm not sure I love the soundtrack as much as I loved Heartstrings'.
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Firstly, I cannot get past the acting of the main female lead. It always felt like she didn't know what to do with her hands, and whether she was pointing, shrugging, or crossing her arms, it always looked SO unnatural. The same could be said for her "shocked" and "sad" facial expressions. Honestly, the personality of the main female lead was really boring as well. This drama did what fanfiction often does, which is make the main lead chosen for all the important roles and win the competitions when realistically that would never happen. The FL had no good comebacks to being teased or insulted, ever—her response is always to huff and pout. After the college years, I hated the main lead even more than I did already because she became the most annoying and moody person ever, for no good reason.
I loved her friend, Zheng Lei's personality ten times better, and I wish she was the main lead instead. Mo Xiao Lin was a pretty good character as well. I couldn't stand Pan Qi either, and I know that in real life I'd also be annoyed to death by someone who was as boy-crazy as her that every other sentence out of her mouth was about dating. Every time she did something wrong, she never apologized either, just threw a tantrum until everyone else came to her instead.
The visual cinematography in this was kind of bad. The gaming graphics were worse than Love O2O, and at the start it just looked like the actors were running around in front of a green screen. During actual scenes, the camera would move around and tremble, making me feel like I was getting motion sickness. During the last few episodes, what we got was basically 80% flashbacks, 15% characters talking to one another about the flashbacks, and 5% actual things happening; I honestly just skimmed through it because I had watched it all before. Speaking of that, there were SO many voiceover narrations, and they happened at the weirdest parts that needed the most detail, basically cutting the most important plot points down to a few minutes of brief explanation.
The plot was okay, but there was never really an overarching plot or direction. The drama felt like sub-plot after sub-plot, and it was painfully obvious when another sub-plot was being introduced because the main character would be like "Oh! I spy an issue! Let me think of a solution!" Having one plot after another meant that characters would come in and out of the story randomly. There finally seemed to be a more comprehensive plot at the end, but it was all stuffed into two episodes and by that point it seemed rushed, messy, and out of the blue.
Overall, I still liked some parts—mainly near the start, during college, and when the game actually played a big role. The last ten-ish episodes were definitely messy and not worth watching.
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This review may contain spoilers
So I love the "fake dating" cliche, and I was really excited for this one. But so many of the characters were annoying and downright toxic. First of all, the female lead starts off as one of the worst leads I've ever seen—unbelievably naive, nosy, and always drunk. Even though it was kind of explained by the backstory, she was still unbearable. It took me a REALLY long time to become okay with her because even when her character grew a little, I hated the way she handled situations—silent during misunderstandings that could have otherwise been avoided with one line, and loud/obnoxious during the worst times. The other characters were not the best either; many of them were manipulative and toxic, but seemed to be intended as a "positive" character, which was just confusing. There wasn't one character I purely liked, and even Jang Mi's mother I couldn't stand.The plot I really liked, though. It was a different take on the "rich evil mother" cliche and Gi Tae's mother actually had dimension to her (though she still irritated me). I felt like some of the plot near the end, especially with that breast cancer plot twist was kind of just out of the blue and random.
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The only thing that truly gets a 10/10 for this is the OST, which was just so calming and emotional for me. It really added to the "fairy tale" feeling of the drama, and with the cinematography, it just made the aesthetic of the drama that much more immersive.I definitely didn't really treat this as a contemporary romance while I was watching it, because of how unrealistic it really is—I thought of it more as a fairy tale retelling, and suspending your disbelief is a skill that will definitely come in useful when watching this. As a retelling, though, I really liked seeing how the historical scenes translated into the modern ones. I was definitely not as interested in the historical plot as I was in the modern one, so it helped that there were less historical scenes as the drama went on.
I was honestly disappointed with the last episode. It felt like it was a little unnecessary to add another bout of amnesia and memory erasure so late in the drama, and I didn't like how it meant that the only person who remembered Sim Cheong was Heo Joon Jae. Once again—that goes along with the unrealistic parts of this story.
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Surprisingly, I found myself more emotionally invested in the murder plot than the ship. I'm not saying the ship wasn't cute, which it was—but it was also some back and forth wishy-washiness that kind of annoying after a while. I didn't really like how they kept keeping secrets from each other—this is always the most frustrating thing in dramas because you just know that realistically being honest would have made everything so much easier.The actor for the murderer is honestly SO GOOD. That courthouse scene is one scene that I will definitely keep rewatching because of the small gestures and facial expressions, and just the raw emotion that comes across in that scene. Amazing. That guy deserves to be a main lead. Though I don't think I could ever see him as anything other than a murderer now because of this drama, haha.
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2. I love the fact that there are no DUMB misunderstandings, and that the leads trust each other in their relationship. There are some moments where I felt like the leads were both a little TOO perfect, but ultimately it was refreshing.
3. I don't believe in love at first sight which this is based on, but everything is so cute that I'll honestly let it slide JUST THIS ONCE.
4. I am not on the ship for that second pairing. ER XI DESERVES BETTER.
5. I've honestly never been any sort of a gamer, and I also am not too interested in any historical aspects, but I surprisingly enjoyed the video game parts.
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Obviously, I ended up enjoying this a lot more than I expected. It was super cute and I loved all the little things that the ML did for the FL without her knowing — but there was still a lot of lack of communication that bothered me. I know the second lead did a lot of stuff too—and that a lot of people had second lead syndrome but I actually did not, whew!
I was also hesitant about this drama because of the time jumps that I knew happened throughout the later episodes. These are so easily ruined, but the drama actually did a good job of dealing with the relationship growths during the time we didn't see. Still though, I'm not a fan of time jumps and I felt like their reasoning was very weak.
Overall, this was a really great story about romance and friendship, and I am so happy both the ships in this sailed :')
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This review may contain spoilers
This was honestly so much more heart-wrenching than I expected, especially since the problems faced by the character were so relatable and harsh, and I felt frustrated seeing the antagonists win again and again—but that just made it more realistic. I honestly really appreciated the way this drama handled mental illness and family issues. Even so, I felt like the antagonist had gone so far it was hard for me to empathize with her, and how the classmates acted at the end (as if they just accepted all of her and never asked her to take responsibility for anything ) was kind of unbelievable.From the very first episode, I knew I'd love it. I loved the FL so much and it was so refreshing to see a female lead that was loud, badass, but vulnerable at the same time. I loved it up until around the 11th episode, when the characters started to do some really stupid things. Going off of that, I don't see the purpose of having Kim Yeol's dad and Yeon Doo's mom dating as a plot point at all. It was just unnecessary drama and wasn't really resolved in the end anyways.
Although I wouldn't go as far to say that I had second lead syndrome because I shipped the FL and ML, my heart still BROKE for the second lead and to be honest if he had ended up with the FL, I wouldn't have complained.
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Almost great
This drama started out SO strong. The fake marriage trope is common but this was such a thrilling twist on it with Hee-joo's voice being a secret and the kidnapper — I was on the edge of my seat for most of episodes.I still enjoyed this overall, but in hindsight it leaves some more things to be desired. A lot of the side characters are underutilized, particularly Heejoo's sister I-na and the second ship, Yu-ri and Sang-woo. Yu-ri being a reporter ends up not really accounting to anything, and I-na's return also doesn't do much. Instead, the main leads are put through the ringer, with the female lead being put in danger over and over again. The tension is there but it does get repetitive.
I also really have to talk the last episode. It was just...bad. (And yes, I know it's in the novel, but I'm reviewing this based on drama only.) The last minute ghosting/separation is a trope that I've long-hated in kdramas, and this drama took it to another level by making this last arc just utterly random, in an active warzone in another country. It not only feels completely out of place, but there's just not enough time for all of this to happen, when I would've preferred that they just leave time for the characters to just talk to each other, and for more character relationships to be wrapped up. Hee-joo's relationship development with her mother is interesting but so rushed. Overall, the ending just doesn't quite hit; I find it hard to believe that the ML and his assistant would be able to get new government jobs after everything they've done and been in the public eye for. It wraps things up nicely but feels lazy.
Ultimately, this was still a pretty good watch, but the last episode hiccup is quite a big one.
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Ultimate yearning
It’s official, the main couple in this drama is going up there as one of my all-time favorites. Wen Yifan is a rare FL that’s quiet and reserved but still straightforward and stands up for herself when the situation calls for it. And Sang Yan is just the most amazing ML I’ve seen — he’s supportive and unwavering and funny, and the way BJT plays him is just so heartfelt.The drama plot hits the sweet spot between angsty and uplifting. The leads give us really adorable moments, but when it comes to Yifan’s backstory and how her family has made her feel unworthy of love, the drama becomes heart-breakingly relatable and both the lead actors play their characters beautifully, and the amazing OST certainly adds a lot to each moment.
I will say that this drama was a little more dramatic than I anticipated — it’s pretty steady most of the time but there are a few fights and backstories that were extremely intense. To add, I’ve always hated the separation trope, and yeah this drama has it. It lasts quite a few episodes and it is frustrating and depressing, but I think this is one of the few cases where I think it really makes sense, and I like how it was resolved not by the ML finding the FL again, but by the FL realizing there were good people around her, being brave, and choosing to call him again. This IS Yifan’s story, and that gave her a lot more agency. It also makes the conversation they had where she finally lays out all her cards on the table feel earned.
The biggest “blah” part of this drama for me is, unfortunately, the side characters. I loved the SFL in WIFTY, and I loved the SML in Your Name Engraved Herein, and they’re both fine when they’re acting either as Sang Yan or Wen Yifan’s friend, but when it comes to their romance, I really could not care less. They have a few arcs — something with a dog, something with a car accident. I’m sorry but I could not tell you a single thing that happened (lol). For this reason I've been bouncing between a 9.5 and a 10, but I think I love the main couple so much I can't bear to give this any less.
Other than that…folks, this is one for the books, and I mean it when I say I think this drama had the best finale I’ve ever seen. It wrapped everything up beautifully, revisiting all the moments between our leads and capturing their growth. I cried my eyes out.
I also just want to take a moment to say that the cinematography in this show is GORGEOUS. You can tell that there is so much thought put into each shot, and it captures the warmth, the angst, whatever the scene calls for — perfectly.
Watch this to understand real yearning.
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