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The Pinnacle of Youth Dramas
Oh my god. I really don't know what I'm going to do with my life now that this show is over.At first glance this might seem like every other Chinese youth drama — sunshine FL/quiet ML, some grade-obsessed parents, sports day, a playful second couple — but so many things actually made this drama shine above all others.
The first thing is just how the plot really feels like a coming-of-age drama, without being overdramatic or sugary. I know it might be fun and inspiring when we watch a youth drama and a friend group is depressed when they find out someone's transferring schools, only to band together to stop it. But in real life, there are a lot of things outside our control and the only thing you can do is let it happen, know you can get through it, remember everyone still cares for each other at the end of the day — no matter the circumstances. That's what this drama did: physical obstacles were rarely overblown into emotional obstacles. It might sound bittersweet, but the fact that the plot flowed this way made it ten times more relatable to real life.
It really also meant that each character was given their time in the spotlight. Every person dealt with something themselves and everyone else was there to support them. Each person in the friend group had a distinct personality and subplot and it never felt choppy or random. It felt simply like learning more about your friends over time. WIFTY struck a perfect balance between giving its characters freedom and still making them feel inseparable that I don't think I've seen done so well in any other show.
I need more drama writers to take notes from Su Zai Zai, who seems like a typical bubbly FL on the surface but was actually really straightforward, stood up for herself, was smart in her own right, and had her own goals and was realistic in chasing them. She's absolute proof that giving an FL a crush doesn't mean it has to become her entire personality.
Zhang Lu Rang was a fantastic ML too. Once again, he might seem like the typical quiet and smart ML, but he was never mean or rude or overly perfect, and he had his flaws too that SZZ perfectly balanced out. This drama perfectly encapsulated why they belonged together. This was one of the rare dramas where the couples didn't get boring for me after they got together.
In fact, the chemistry is absolutely amazing between both couples, who also had their distinct dynamic and plot development.
Between the friendship warming up your heart and the romance giving me butterflies, there are absolutely no moments in this drama that I would skip. The OST fits perfectly and the cinematography is beautiful. The only bad thing I can say about this drama is that it ends.
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Would have been so much better without the guy
This film had such comfortable, mellow vibes and the relationship between the leads was absolutely the star of the show from the very first moment. Some questionable decision-making from the characters but I enjoyed the very human element of this and craved so many more scenes between the two female characters — and so it kind of sucks that there was so much emphasis on the love triangle and how it got in the way through the years. Dragging that out just got frustrating, especially when the guy was just so...mid.Was this review helpful to you?
Story 1 > Story 2
I actually really enjoyed the first story in this movie — it was quirky but endearing and despite some questionable moments, there was a very subtle layer of comedy that actually made the characters seem like very real and relatable people.The second story, however, just didn't click with me very much, whether it was the characters' personalities themselves or the kind of haphazard and illogical direction that the plot went in.
Overall there's still a nice nostalgic feeling to this movie, but I didn't found myself that invested in the plot developments.
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Fun additions
This was pleasantly surprising! It wasn't like the specials of other dramas that end up just being compilation of scenes we've seen before. Instead, this actually added more to the story and filled in a lot of gaps and questions that I had. It was also fun to see that they gave us backstory for both the ships and didn't focus just on one.I also really loved their high school days so it was nice to see them all together again, and to see how their classmates interacted with each other because I don't think we saw much of that during the drama itself.
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The writing is a mess. Taking every single trope in the book and just smushing them all together does not give you a story. It gives you needless drama and nonsense. And dumb miscommunications that could’ve been solved with a conversation.
A lot of rich man/poor woman tropes were used, and even though they tried to go for enemies-to-lovers, I felt like the main leads spent so much time arguing over basically nothing. The FL was especially annoying in this aspect as she was antagonistic for episodes for no good reason.
It also tried to do this makeover scene with the FL where every guy suddenly thinks she’s beautiful afterwards. It’s a cliche we’ve seen everywhere, but it flopped so bad here.
And that’s because it felt like the drama itself never bought into the ridiculousness of it all, whereas dramas like BoF did and you could at least enjoy the craziness and suspend your disbelief. This drama used all the crazy tropes and made them tedious to watch.
The characters are all very stereotypical and one dimensional. There’s practically no natural character development, and it feels like they’re just paper cutouts, going through the motions and the plot points the writer put them through.
It also relied on this lack of character development to reuse the same conflicts and have characters do things over and over again.
The only character I really enjoyed was the second lead (Ye Xing Yu), and the only ship I really enjoyed was the one with Yu Xi (boy-crazy roommate).
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Wholesome and heartwarming
This is the EXACT kind of drama I'd always been looking for — wholesome, friendship, romance, no frustrating evil scheming, and no dumb noble idiocy plot twist.It's true that the girl is the very typical bubbly, bad-at-school type, while the male lead is smart and popular, but the way they did the roles wasn't cliche at all and they were both super likable. Honestly, the ML went soft for the FL very early on, and the FL tried very hard at school, was strong, independent, righteous, and just downright adorable in her optimism.
Second lead was very likable as well and I was pleasantly surprised at how respectful he was of the FL in the love triangle. It's honestly one of the best-executed love triangles I've ever seen and although I wouldn't say I had SLS, my heart hurt for him.
The second ship was honestly amazing and I was LIVING for it. It's the perfect friends-to-lovers kind that's my favorite trope, and they were adorable from start to end, with the way they teased each other and fought, and yet knew each other so well.
The romance was overall pretty subtle, and I was surprised that they pulled off the "childhood connection" trope so well.
The overall drama is so soft, which I loved, and the pacing of the entire show was really good and there was no unnecessarily dramatic drama. The friendships were really great and I liked how they never fought over dumb things. The only part that kind of tripped this part up for me in the middle was when the other girl returned from abroad and the main leads sort of miscommunicated, and it kind of annoyed me that the two main leads never learned how to deal with their feelings and balance friendship — the lack of ability to get the two girls to co-exist was kind of problematic for me.
But ultimately they resolved things naturally and I really liked how they didn't turn any second lead girl into a terrible person in order to push the romance through and make things angsty. The same could go for any character and it was really refreshing how even the guest characters were pretty good people who might've gone astray sometimes — much more realistic and relatable. Even the families weren't overly frustrating, which has happened a lot in school kdramas.
I definitely felt super nostalgic and cried while watching this — I honestly connected to the characters so much and I will forever be sad that I never grew up in such a tight-knit high school class. This is honestly the kind of drama I'd rewatch over and over again in my free time because it just makes me THAT HAPPY.
And the OST is honestly so good. It took me a while to actually start watching each episode because I'd just replay the opening sequence over and over.
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Better than BOF, but crappy ending
I had watched Boys Over Flowers before this—but none of the other versions, and right off the bat I knew I was going to like this better. ALL the characters were more likable, and that even includes FL's parents.Of course, there were some things that were so ridiculous—like the parts where a bridge/poker game determined who got to stay in school—but there were dumb scenes in the original story, so I guess I had to let that go.
Compared to BOF, I felt like everything was more dimmed down, from the scariness of the mother to the social situation in school. I liked this, as it definitely felt more realistic.
Meteor Garden does suffer from something a lot of Chinese dramas seem to suffer from—the inability to focus on multiple plotlines at the same time. For the side characters, it felt like we were learning about one ship, and then moving on to another one after it had been wrapped up. Also, I didn't give a crap about Terence.
Sadly, the last few episodes of this show were just kind of a mess. Random drama was added in at the end, there was a sudden musical number, and I was so confused and disappointed that that was the ending we were going to get. Either way, I still quite enjoyed watching this.
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The antagonist that started to be introduced near the middle of the drama was something that REALLY intrigued me, especially given the parallel storylines — but it felt like the character and tension was never really explored fully. It was solved quickly and seemed to be used more as a plot device for separating the main couple.
Speaking of the main couple — I don't think I was ever fully on board with them. The relationship always felt more familial, and age gap aside, I just didn't feel any chemistry between them. I also didn't like the secondary ship as much because the relationship just seemed to lack any content and connection aside from them being fated. Overall the arcs for both ships felt repetitive.
There are a few things that I appreciate about the ending. but other things that I don't like. I'm also a time-skip-hater, but for some reason, I didn't dislike it as much in Goblin, but I'm not sure if it has to do with me not being emotionally invested at all or if it felt more in line with the way the plot was going.
(Full disclosure: I've got some basic philosophical differences with the themes of this show, so that might have to do with me not clicking with it — more specifically, it's the idea of romantic destiny that I kind of scoff at.)
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Touching
Really enjoyed this one, and I think it's one of the rare cases where the pacing and the short amount of episodes all worked really well. This drama had a purpose and it delivered. The weekly cases are pretty good, but the overarching plot and building tension absolutely shines. The chemistry between the characters is really great, and Jun-ho is a really interesting character to follow. It very much feels like this season was setting up something bigger though, so I can't wait to see what S2 brings.Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Mature in some ways, overdramatic in others
Trigger Warning: Suicide, RapeThis is a drama that simultaneously feels ahead of its time and VERY of its time.
The way it handles sexual assault, PTSD, and grief is overall very mature, and I thought that the more raw and unedited type of directing and the more down-to-earth dialogue and acting really helped. The humor is subtle but there. The good-girl-bad-boy trope is present, but doesn't feel over-the-top, and each of our main characters feel like they've each carved out their little worlds before we get to watch them collide.
The chemistry is quite good as well, and I did find our leads really cute. The banter is fun — even though the female lead is shy and quiet, she and the male lead have a very good back-and-forth when its just the two of them, and we get to see how he gets her to come out of her shell.
The friendships are really great to see too, and that is such a crazy thing for me to say considering the intense way Qing Mei bullied our FL at the start. But once we get past that, I really liked her character and the way she supported the main lead. With that being said, however, this is definitely a drama that focuses only on the two main leads, so her character's personality and storyline isn't developed much beyond that.
Those are all the ways in which the drama felt ahead of its time.
Now, the way it feels exactly of its time (2004) are the subplots and just how dramatic they get. I enjoyed a few of them, like the sociopath/psychopath character who wanted to mold Chen Ling into the same as him, but the drama lost me a little bit when it went into his backstory. There's his twin's suicide, his mother's death, the dangers of motorcycle racing, the estrangement from his father, who is actually a wealthy chairman of a big corporation. That last reveal of him being a secret chaebol was the worst one for me because it's just so 2004 and made the drama seem a lot less grounded than it previously was. Overall, however, having so much backstory for him just made it feel a little unfocused.
The way the female lead's r*pist came back and everything with him blew up into stalking and a fistfight...I know this does happen in real life, unfortunately, but for the purposes of this show I wish it had stayed in the backstory instead of being blown up into something so big, which was then tied into the storyline of the ML returning to his rich family.
I know this is based off a manga and I'll probably read that at some point because I do think it's an interesting story, but I can already tell that I'll enjoy the earlier chapters more than the later ones, which is what I felt about the show.
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Just fine
I felt like this drama had a really strong start — the female lead's spunkiness made her really likeable, the mystery was intriguing, and the time travel also made for really interesting parallels.As the drama went on, I felt like it a lost a lot of its spark, opting for either humor or a modern-only plot, leaving the saeguk mystery and time travel element both really neglected until the last episode and not really tying the two timelines together well enough. It didn't make much sense what Yeon-woo's time travel had to do with the modern storyline, or why those parallels even existed. I think the stakes weren't established well enough for me to feel emotionally invested: I paid painstaking attention to the modern day characters to figure out how they were tied to their past lives, but by the end it felt like the modern day characters were the far more important ones. I really think this drama could've used a full 16 episodes to balance out the modern and historical plotlines and add some explanation for the time travel.
Other than that, I felt like the side characters were fine and occasionally funny but pretty unimportant to the plot, and the main romance was also fun but generally a cookie-cutter ship. It's a fun watch but for me, not very memorable.
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Fun little extra but not a lot of Totono
The first half was a rehash of the first episode so it was nothing new, and the second half was a new case which was a pretty cute watch and a fun addition, especially since I absolutely loved the original drama. But there actually wasn't a lot of Totono in it.The case introduces a new character — Sagara Ren, who was bubbly and fun and had a really adorable relationship with Totono. I loved the two of them together and I hope we get to see Sagara again.
The case itself was fine, but the detective work was actually done mostly by Sagara and the other characters, and it just didn't have the same endearing awkwardness that situations usually have when Totono is front and center.
Overall, this is definitely not a necessary watch, but it's light-hearted and low stakes. I can see why it was split off into a special and if anyone wants to see Totono again it's still worth tuning in for.
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Great chemistry, odd pace
I wish so much that this drama was longer because the pace was way too fast and all I kept thinking was that I loved the chemistry and I loved the main leads together and wanted the development of enemies-to-lovers to be more slow. I probably could've done without the side characters getting so much screentime, and even more without the string of misunderstandings at the end (even though I know the drama is setting up a season 2). The chemistry is great, the OST is catchy, the acting is pretty good, and the dialogue is beautiful — sometimes it's just a little confusing how the characters got to where they were because we didn't have time to show the "in-between" moments.Was this review helpful to you?
Light-hearted and low-stakes
This was a really wholesome and comforting drama — there never really felt like there was a huge conflict or overarching plot, it was just about several people in a little village town dealing with life and its issues. While I enjoy the light-heartedness of it all, I felt like it was hard to understand the point or the general direction of the drama — meaning that character development was a little sparse for most of the characters.Speaking of which, I've never been a huge fan of ensemble dramas for the reason that I never care for everyone equally, and this drama was no different. I loved the badminton teams (both male and the female teams) and how they grew together throughout the episodes, both on and off the court. There was one character who had an arc as they joined the team after not getting along with them and he turned out to be my favorite character because the development was so strong and clear.
On the other hand, the subplots of everyone else who just lived in the village were not really interesting to me, especially because their interactions with the main teams felt peripheral.
Overall, I think this was a pretty fun drama to watch (slowly, a few episodes here and there) but it's not really a binge type of drama or something I felt very invested in.
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Half a movie
I felt like the entire mood and atmosphere of this movie was really great — I loved the quiet darkness of the town, the tension and scariness of the school setting, and this overall anticipation that was building up from beginning to end of the movie.With that being said, I felt like this movie focused on the wrong main character; starting out following the ML and learning about the FL's reputation through his eyes was great (and really different from what I've usually seen) but it started to become clear that the FL's story was more interesting, especially as we saw her character develop.
Furthermore, I feel like this movie ended right when I thought it was hitting the climax, or its most important moments. I understand that since we're following the ML's perspective, an open and unresolved ending just makes sense, but this is when I really wished the story could have switched its point of view and continued forwards.
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