Reviews

1000 Stars: A shinning star and crown jewel all time masterpiece in BL World

1000 stars is a truly the most beautiful BL ever made. It is an old fashioned love story. A lot of stars in the series:
Soundtrack: the opening song is truly the most BL beautiful song I have heard out of others. The second one would be from Until We Meet Again
Director: the best one I have ever known. I am glad that he would direct “Bad Buddies” He knows how to make the storyline reaches audience emotion and brings the best
Storyline: so beautifully crafted and old fashion. So lovely and full of positive messages
Actors: the best of the best choice I have ever seen. All fit with the characters they played
Chemistry: shooting out through the roof seen through all actors actions and taking out audience emotion
Production: outstanding hard works, worldwide work qualities
Cinematography: well done
International viewer service: shining worldwide super star, extremely helpful by having an official channel in YouTube, timely English subs(tardiness is resolved within a few hours in 24 hours) and no geo blocking/restriction.
Overall: The best of the best BL stories ever made.

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Starts off great but turns into a trashy soap opera

The drama pretends to be funny and light-hearted but inadvertently hides very dark themes that the writers fail to address. Kim Da Li and Jin Moo Hak have an incredible first encounter and form an instant connection. The show starts off as funny, cute, sexy, refreshing, and full of explosive chemistry. Da Li is a well-educated daughter of a wealthy family. Moo Hak comes from "new money" with no education or class. Her book smarts compliment his streets smarts creating a unique match. Unfortunately, after Da Li's father dies and she returns to Korea, everything falls apart.

Moo Hak is boorish and materialistic, but he is kind and sweet in the first two episodes. However, as soon as he finds out that Da Li owes him money, he becomes cruel and shortsighted just so he does not look weak. He insults, berates, and threatens Da Li while being fully aware of her bankruptcy, obnoxious family members, and creditors, then proceeds to relentlessly harass her despite witnessing her struggling to survive. Instead of bringing the two together to save the museum and build a great relationship, the writers turn him into an overbearing jerk and her into a perpetual victim.

What's worse, Da Li's intelligence and spunk completely disappear making her unable to stand up for herself. She takes abuse from everyone who berates, insults, and physically hurts her without any push-back. She allows Tae Jin to talk over her about his delusions of their non-existent relationship without getting a word in. She quietly sits still as Moo Hak's stepmother proceeds to assault and pull her hair without fighting back. And, this continues for the entirety of the show. Her character completely devolves into a doll with no agency or a personality allowing everybody to walk all over her. Moreover, she never demands that Moo Hak gives her an apology for his crappy treatment, and, neither do the writers make him apologize without being asked. The show makes no effort to correct past wrongdoings of any of the characters and force feeds us a happy ending.

Overall, the drama is somewhat entertaining, but Da Li's lack of a backbone and the characters' atrocious behavior make it very tedious to watch. For a brief moment, they address each other's shortcomings when Moo Hak demands why his mother hit Da Li, but it leads nowhere. This was a one time watch for me.

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Before I even get into my pros and cons, I just want to say I am in love with the concept of this drama and it's story. I am extremely glad I came across this and decided to watch it before others on my list!

Story | Sexism in life is the main theme. Several women who are in the work force deal with sexism constantly and due to certain circumstances end up working together at a restaurant started up by the main heroine. Just like the title, it is a restaurant with many problems. Exactly like women in the work force. But the restaurant becomes a safe place and a place for them to work without the prejudice and discriminations that are usually used against working women. These are real life issues that real life women (and even men) deal with daily.

Cast | At first I was kind of "meh" about the cast but as the episodes went on and the characters started to develop, I had zero issues with the actors or their acting. Everyone had great chemistry together and it worked out perfectly. Though there is quite a number of serious moments, the actors were able to also give off comedic vibes to keep the drama going and I loved those moments. Maki Yoko was a strong in this drama. She gave her character the perfect amount of courage, sympathy, anger etc. Can I just add how much I loved Yasuda Ken's character. Best. Character. Ever. Anyways, I believe every character had their own unique color and the actors were able to portray that extremely well.

Music | Instrumentals during scenes and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's OST Mondai Girl was the ending theme. I scored low only because I'm not much into that type of music. The song is ok but just not my style.

Rewatch | Not too sure. I think I'll more recommend this people than actually rewatch it myself.

Overall | It's not a bad drama. I actually think it's quite an important drama because these types of issues aren't usually the main theme of a drama. These are real life issues that happen everywhere in the work place and it's disgusting. So many double standards and the following of Confucianism in the Asian culture is a big issue that I wish was talked about more. Unfortunately, I am only disappointed with this drama because 1. it was only 10 episodes long (which is normal for Japanese dramas) and 2. because it was so short, a lot of situations that should (or I thought should have) have been focused on more were only glimpsed at and a lot of big situations in this drama were opened and instead of being closed completely, they were slightly left open leaving me not feeling content.

I can't lie though, the issues and how things were dealt with and positive things that were said, made me happy. I can genuinely say I liked this drama. It's a nice short drama that you can get through in a couple of days or a weekend. Please give it a chance!

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Story good. Characters to be desired

I watched the entire drama because it was funny, the story itself i thought was interesting and i liked that they added modern references to what is supposedly a historical fantasy drama. But throughout the entire thing, i just found the characters to be lacking and infuriating. There was no development of the villan’s character or the king’s brother’s character. Even by episode 23 you still dont know what is motivating the hate and/or desire. You can assume that its power, but nothing in the show indicates that or why they want that.

The one thing that is the cause for this low rating is the character of the princess. The actress did a wonderful job in portraying the character, I believe, but the character was just a contradiction. She’s supposed to be lovable, charming, and a free thinker, but all I got was narcissistic, selfish, and superficial. She never even tried to give the king a chance and was always just chasing after her own agenda. This character may not affect everyone, but for me, it was just infuriating to watch. I did not like her at all.

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Since I have finished it, I figure I may as well write a review.

As you can see from the synopsis, the basis of this story revolves around a forbidden love aspect, in this case, a woman falling in love with her husband's son. Don't worry, there's no pedophilia here, all are adults. Interspersed throughout the drama is a secondary storyline about politics that I didn't really pay attention to, and I doubt anyone else watching this will, as it had no real bearing on the story in general. In fact, with the inclusion of the political story line I felt that the focus of the drama was a bit confused. Was I watching a political drama or a romance dram?

That serves to be one of the drama's biggest flaws; the lack of focus and the lack of raw emotion on the character's part. Rei and Hitoshi are supposed to be involved in a passionate, torrid love affair. I saw nothing of that. In fact, it seems that Hitoshi's main attraction to Rei is mere a physical one; the earlier in the drama we are treated to stereotypical scenes of him oggling her while doing household chores, and the obligatory scene of Rei getting a food item stuck on her lips and Hitoshi staring lustfully at the article of food. There are scenes in which an emotional connection is sparked between the two, but those are sparse. I think the political themed side story lined could have been done away with and we could have seen more of the relationship developed between to two characters.

I can describe this drama in one word: lukewarm. Given the heavy subject matter, I expected much more from the characters. Rei's husband and Hitoshi's father does very little to make Rei remain with him and to keep the couple apart Given his controlling nature at the beginning, it is all too plausible that he would go to great lengths to keep his wife; he did not. The character who we get the most out of is Hitoshi's former girlfriend Nanami. She is the character who gives the most emotion. Otherwise, for the supposedly controversial subject matter the drama doesn't really give much to keep you hanging on to your seat.

It isn't necessarily a bad drama, though it may be dull and slow moving for some. At the beginning you will be intrigued, but by the end you may just lose interest. The end was standard drama fare, so don't expect any surprises. Ultimately this drama can be use as a time passer and an opportunity to indulge in Saito Takumi eye candy.

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After trailer - WOW! After actual series - WTF?!

There are many independent production teams that don't have many sponsors or rely on YouTube subscribers donations. There are also many BL movies/series/mini-series worth watching despite apparent small budgets or newbies actors. Unfortunately, The Star is not one of them, and here's why.

Good cinematography is largely about money. Production team, actors, equipment, etc. all require some resources - without that, not a move. You just need money to make a series. But if you think the main problem here is a small budget - better think twice.

For me, the failure of this series is the wrong business decisions. When the trailer consisting of super hot 18+ scenes was released, I thought The Star could aspire to be the hottest series of the year (!). But then I noticed that it's not a series just a movie, which means that international viewers will have to wait several months from the day of release. Tough luck, I'll wait. Then it was change - from a movie it became a mini-series: 2x25 min, and I was like: WTF? How can a movie be edited into two short episodes?

The story itself had potential, but the creativity here was lacking. The lousy first 25 minutes do not encourage you to watch the second part, which (note!) is only 17 minutes long. Why? The remaining promised 8 minutes are "exclusive content" available only to subscribers of the company's YouTube channel at certain levels. You need to pay at least 7(?) dollars to see what they have prepared for us. And guess what? I'm all for supporting young creators and actors as much as possible. Their work is sometimes worth more than the "works" released by well-known studios. But this 8 minutes content - it's just not worth it. This is not an uncut episode as one might expect. It's 8 minutes of cut NC scenes that couldn't appear on YouTube. Yes, the notable sexy scene from the trailer is also there.

If you've already seen The Star - I'm sorry you had to watch it. If you haven't yet - let it go. The low budget stings all the way through, But even money won't help if you don't know how to make the narrative interesting. The actors give it their all, but the dull script, weird editing and general lack of sense don't help the reception of this series. There's nothing interesting here, and it's not a matter of difficult subject matter as some claim, it's more of a really bad execution.

Perhaps I had too high expectations, but this is completely not what I expected. The Star turned out to be one of those productions you look forward to, only to rub your eyes in amazement later, wondering: what am I even watching? It seems that all the potential of the series was stolen by the one-and-a-half-minute trailer, the rest is better left out of silence.

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PLOT: A spectacular movie worthy of appraisals. Well done! I shamelessly admit that i watch this movie due to Cha Seung Won knowing his excellent acting ability. Now my praise goes to all the actor in this movie. A heart wrenching of 71 students whose inevitably dragged into war. From the very beginning of the movie till the end, the director really did an excellent job. The war scene was adrenaline and the sad part was so convincing.

ACTING/CAST:

Kim Seung Woo was no doubt can carry his part well and charismatic. This is the first time i get to see TOP acting so i dont really know his acting range, but what i can say was, his acting in this movie was tip top!

Kwon Sang Woo was really doing good job as well.

And as per usual, not being biased, but Cha Seung won really can act. From Villain to Comedian... his acting range is really wide. He oozes overflowing charisma.

Strongly recommended movie.

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Not Everyone's Favorite Star (but I loved it, so~)

Story: 8.5/10
This is another "I liked him first, but he fell harder and just happens to be dumber" situation, which can make it seem a bit predictable, but I think it's still cute~ The first few episodes start out SO STRONG. I loved the way Daonuea and his friends interacted, and the way his sibling relationship was shown; it was so heartwarming and wholesome and just overall accurate. The way they support Dao while also knowing he was full of shit when he said he was over his crush was best-friend-level-tier, you know? The conflict was a bit... much. This story, like many of BLs, suffers from a lack of communication. Well, I should say PROPER communication, as Kluen is more of a doer than a sayer, which pretty much sums up all of their problems. His actions speak louder and way better than his words, but that's not always enough, especially when the other party was explicit and you kinda-not-really-but-technically-did turn them down. If that sounded confusing to you, then that's because it really is a bit confusing. One of the side characters says that Kluen is "book smart but a dumbass," and she's right. These characters are a bit too complex to try to fit into 8 episodes, but I think Dunk (Daonuea) and Joong (Kluen) did great with what they had, which is why I, despite hating the miscommunication, still enjoyed the show~

Acting/Casting: 10/10
We got all of my new favorite actors, even the side characters are some of my favs, so I'm a bit biased here, but I think they did great with what they had. Everyone felt so necessary, even Noel, whom I thought was just an extra to show that Kluen had a friend aside from Gia, ended up being an important player in an interesting way~

Music: 9/10
The OST is good, and there's nothing wrong with the background music or anything; I generally just tend to rate music based on how many songs I absolutely NEED to get on my playlist, and, with all of these great shows coming out with their soundtracks being ON-POINT, I'm spoiled. I felt generous since everyone keeps talking shit on this show, though, so I gave it a higher rating than I probably would have.

Rewatch Value: 10/10
Despite it's flaws and the annoying miscommunication, I still really enjoyed this show. Like I said, the first few episodes were so good and sweet that I had to go to the dentist and get some teeth pulled from the cavities lmao KluenNuea's moments were fluffy and hit just the right spot that I just.. Ugh. So good. I'm actually writing this review after watching 5 times to help boost the rating since DramaList tends to be super harsh on shows for some reason~ (Everyone wishes they were a Critic Writer, I suppose 🤷‍♀️)

Overall: 9.5/10
People on DramaList really do think they're connoisseurs with shows sometimes, especially when others really like specific actors. I'm not entirely sure why, but if the rating of the show is the only thing making you hesitate to watch this, then I recommend going for it anyway. It's not everyone's cup of tea, of course, but it's also only 8 episodes, so it's a short, cute watch when you need some BL or JoongDunk in your life -- it doesn't have to be serious or something you binge, though I absolutely did binge it several times with no shame~ The production was great, the OST was good, the acting was on-point, and I just love how everyone interacts with each other in this drama, from the romance to the friendships; it's all so fluffy and sweet~

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A show that quietly sneaks up on you then catches you in its grasp

Hot Spot has a charm all of its own. This is a show that quietly sneaks up on you and then catches you in its grasp. From the opening moments of working in the hotel, the rescue of the Ki by the resident alien, through to saving the hotel, this story explores the true meaning of friendship.

There is a lot of talking in this show. Some would say it’s nonsensical chat. However, it has a charm all of its own and is the glue that holds Hot Spot together. This includes amongst the hotel staff at the Lake Hotel, the group of growing friends as they eat out on a regular basis to enjoying drinks at a friends bar.

Takahashi as the half alien is the show’s focus and the FL is the narrator and number one friend. The running gag is him bending a ten yen coin and everyone finding out he is an alien along the way. There is a cost to him using his powers that always results in him recuperating in the hot springs at the hotel. Each time the friends need his help, he starts out unwilling to help but in the end he always does.

A key production feature of this show is that there is no glitz or glamour. It’s like being in a town as you would expect to find that is almost like a sleepy hollow. Underlying it all are themes regarding friendship, acceptance, the challenges of tourism, environmentalism with a tiny touch of corruption thrown in.

I enjoyed the window into this part of Japan with a slice of pared back goofiness along with some very good acting with perfect timing.

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Short show with mind-reading twist that will make you laugh

This is not the usual low-budget short show. The storyline about a writer who gets sucked into her own novel/book is not exactly new but the twist of her husband in the book - whom she is supposed to act against in all her missions - is able to hear her thoughts, is quite unique - and very funny and interesting to watch. I think it’s probably one of the 3 best shows (of this kind) I’ve seen so far. 10 minutes is actually perfect. Not too fast and not too slow.
Character wise: FLs father (in the book) is so cute and sweet. Her parents were a pleasant surprise. Other than that we have this clever and cunning FL who is matched perfectly with a ML that’s equally clever. However he would have been in so much trouble if he didn’t get the ability to hear FLs thoughts - how lucky, LOL.
Acting wise this is top notch. I saw ML in “The Killer is also Romantic” and he is brilliant in this kind of role. He gives me a Cheng Yi vibe, in a funny version that is (lets face it, Cheng Yi’s roles are often very serious).
Since it ends on a cliffhanger I’m definitely going to keep my eye out for season 2.
If you love a funny and interesting short show - with lots of twists and turns - this is a “Must Watch”

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First of all, why did they choose to call the drama "Apple in Your Eye"? I find that ridiculous because the Chinese title translated to English is "Little Sister". I don't understand why they made the change, since the themes of the drama would still work well with "Little Sister".

I actually liked the plot. I haven't watch too much Taiwanese dramas because most of the plots have become too similar. They seem to enjoy the corny plots the most, as I keep seeing them. The main girl was kinda whiny throughout the whole drama, but I did enjoy it, despite its many corny moments.

I disliked the ending due to some spoilery plot reasons I cannot mention in this review. It affected my feelings toward the drama as a whole, but overall, this drama was one of the better Taiwanese ones.

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