twiz aka unagibento

I LOVED this. It caught me by surprise. The romance pairing starts off a little slow, but once it takes off their chemistry/flirting is on fire. Several real kisses, good ones that gave me butterflies (super rare). Most of the support cast is entertaining and no major plot point gets too painful or ridiculous. I obviously came for the food, and while the food shots aren't as beautiful as Miss Culinary or Let's Eat, the food dialogue is meaningful and I learned a lot about dishes/local ingredients. The pace of the last 3 or 4 episodes is a little slow.

S/K lakorn vet here, and thus far mild by slap/kiss standards, but still an enjoyable amount of spice. Only 7 eps in so far, but I'm appreciating how the story is unfolding and the production value. Definitely a strong comparison to Hua Jai Sila, but more tolerable and the couple are actually fun to watch, instead of Hua Jai Sila where the FL/ML's weak acting was saved by a strong supporting cast. I've been following the ML's dramas and I love the added darkness to his character here. It was not quite there in Game Rak Ao Keun, but here it's just perfect. It's fun to see both him and Luke in scenes, since I'm watching Oh My Boss as well. It's crazy how a different hairstyle and a little goofiness transforms Luke - I almost didn't recognize him. And now, I'm 95% sure that Joss has a minimum number of topless scenes built into his contracts - at some points it feels like the story bends to give him a reason to whip off his shirt.

8 episodes in, and based on the comments I was expecting something way more painful to watch. I've definitely experienced far more frustrating Thai dramas. This is somewhere in the middle, almost neutral. It was engaging enough to watch it in one sitting nearly up to the current airing episode. The couple is cute and I never get tired of looking at the ML. His acting has a few rough points but it surprised me in a lot of places, too. Language nerd note: his English is best (no surprise, raised in the US) and his Japanese sounds the most stilted. When there's other Japanese speakers around you can definitely hear the difference.

I must be the only one hoping it's a false alarm. I would prefer more relationship development for now and this at the end. Anyway, I'm otherwise enjoying this. It's what Coffee & Vanilla could have been if the FL had a real personality. Also, I have a bit of SLS. That young cutie is a dish. Can't wait to see him in more dramas.

What I love best is that they didn't keep us in the dark too long about the ML's feelings. With so many other dramas you're left to conclude from the ML's possessiveness, jealousy etc that he cares, whereas here you have the ML's monologue as well.

This can be watched in a couple hours and I LOVED it. If you've been watching too many cold/emotionally unavailable romances, this will heal you. The story/romance moves fast , the couple is adorable, the ML is a dish, and there's no traumatizing developments. A ton of skinship that's not smut but also not quite family watching. I already liked the FL from her other drama this same year (not everyone's cup of tea but I loved it) and she's good at these inner monologue comedy romances.

Can I just forward through and stop on the tea scenes? I had this on my watchlist for awhile and was really looking forward to a drama about tea (I have so much Chinese tea/hardware). But this sets itself up from the start as a weird melodrama/makjang. The grandma and ML are caricatures of themselves and have some questionable hair choices; the stylist for this drama was feeling bold. The moment the second lead turned around and smiled at a random stranger in the first ep I had SLS, because he was already a better choice. The feuding is strong but not particularly interesting and very predictable. Every now and then the camera angles/production gets weird, like it's screaming, "look at me!" Tea seems to just be a story excuse for a drama marketing itself to the lowest attention span audience.

Should have checked out the comments here before starting... yikes. I was thrown off by the low production quality - was not expecting that and it's painful to watch. It sounds like the story is underwhelming as well. I can deal with one or the other, but not both.

The disturbing scene happens after Kaleb's men first find her again and she battles them in the marketplace at night before running away. If you want to skip it, assume the hostage/stand-off afterwards ends in the worst-case scenario.

This is basically Filipina John Wicke. Be warned that there's a murder of innocents scene before the midpoint that is disturbing (in thread). I watch quite a few films in this genre and it rattled me; I would watch this movie again but skip past it. If you like John Wicke-style movies where most of the thought and money is put into realistic close combat and precise kills, it's worth a watch. I'm impressed with the actress, who definitely did a lot of her own stunt work. I'm glad it wasn't bogged down with exhausting, drawn-out combat struggles (Atomic Blonde comes to mind). And extra satisfying: her weapons were tactically appropriate during large shootouts.

This was enjoyable, even though the beginning felt chaotic. There was too much in the mix. Most of my criticisms for this are of Netflix, honestly: where the multilingualism worked in Animal World, it was too noisy here, especially at the start when learning the characters/premise. Your ears need a little time to adjust to different languages and even your own language in a thick accent, and the dialogue was constantly jumping from English, Korean, Spanish, French, very strongly accented English, etc. The default Netflix subs usually don't subtitle the English, but they should. Netflix's productions of Asian movies are also starting to get weird - it's like the execs are afraid that western audiences won't be "into it" unless there's strong western representation. And here it feels like a Korean film was watered down as a result. So even though the special effects in these big budget productions are very good, I'll be approaching them with more caution going forward.

The 1st ending feels more logical, and the 2nd ending feels more emotionally satisfying, though it introduced more questions for me. I'm glad there were 2 choices, because it felt like the first got stuck in a sacrifice-loop where no one was happy or together, really. I think it could have been fixed if after she regained her memory and found him in a coma, she had somehow accumulated enough power to heal him and have both of them live happily. Also, the abrupt jumps from child to grown Si Teng left me questioning what was actually real - is she really here now, is he actually spending time with a grown woman or will he wake up and find himself looking at a child again? The story was treading a really fine line that pushed comfort and I respect the 2nd ending for splitting off the kid altogether. The second was also better on flow - it covered some gaps missing in the first ending, like the parents, etc. But it raised too many questions for me: if the problem was Si Teng's forced mutation was killing her, how did she survive for Qin Fang to find her and live for years in the mountains? How did the young version become an entirely separate entity; did Si Teng drain her powers to keep living? I wanted to feel better with this alternate ending, but the logic was shaky.

Really liked this one. Definitely a more creative interspecies romance. Also, it's the top of my list now for the most dramatically GORGEOUS natural landscapes. I see a lot of nice scenery in other dramas, but this is the only one that made my jaw hit the floor, from the first episode. I've never enjoyed a drama's landscapes more, and you can also tell they put their budget into making nearly every scene aesthetically beautiful. There's a 31st episode that's an alternate ending. Both are satisfying in different ways so I'd recommend watching both.

1) After the hotel room burns and they stop on the road and talk, Si Teng confesses that she's somehow incomplete and thus cannot heal him fully, so his ability to stay healed is limited to a certain radius.
2) When he was kidnapped, Si Teng got on on the slow train in pursuit with Yan Furui, so we're assuming that technically they were maintaining a close enough proximity since the slow train vs car were moving at relative speeds.

I can't stress how much I loved the effects. It had a Pan's Labyrinth/MiB feel. I really enjoyed the first 3rd of the movie, up until he actually got on the ship. I rewatched a lot of scenes:the bizarre monster fights, the very well executed driving chase, the chemistry of the leads, and then.... eh, I was really expecting the story to go into magical world/powers. But the rest of the movie felt like a genre con. It was well written, but I was thrown off to be suddenly watching the world's most complex game of paper/rock/scissors for over an hour. I'm glad it was THAT game and not blackjack or poker or I would have tuned out. And you have to *really* love the concepts of card counting; I can't even think of a single gambling movie to linger on it that long. But if this was originally an anime, it makes sense. It's just too much for one movie. It ended on the promise of a sequel but I'd be surprised if the reception was good enough to commit to another film.

This had some really cool effects that didn't quite blend with the story. After reading up a little, I see this was based on a Japanese movie and anime/manga, which explains a lot. The way things are expressed in anime/manga are very hard to execute in any other format. Here it just feels like I'm watching 2 parallel movies joined awkwardly. It also sets the audience up for a certain atmosphere that abruptly switches gears. I do applaud the international cast and multilingual dialogue. It was well done, nothing like the usual struggle in dramas.

Awesome from start to finish. The effects were also spectacular.

This was very cute. The plot gives off "The Proposal" vibes (American movie). I was hoping it would lean on that power reversal a bit more, but it's an enjoyable watch that's very feel-good. It's also my first Coco Martin movie. He has a very contagious smile and the ability to smile/look at a woman like they're the only thing in the world. I enjoyed both of the leads' acting.

Finally got around to finishing this. The iQiyi subs aren't as bad as before, I think they were cleaned up. A few dropped/wrong pronouns etc. I originally stalled out in the slow pace of the first couple episodes, but I actually enjoyed this drama more as I watched it. The ensemble cast goes really well together and it never feels crowded, even as they squeeze more characters in. The comedy is lighthanded and isn't goofy or too silly. Basically, this drama achieves what a lot of light, comedy fantasy cdramas try too hard to pull off. It's a bummer that Season 2 is nowhere in sight. But it's not the *worst* cliffhanger, just ominous events approaching - I could live with where it leaves off, if I have to.

I add them when I find them! Always searching