This review may contain spoilers
Since I started to watch dramas, In Time With You has been one of my favourites dramas. I remember the first time I watched the T-drama version and how I felt about this story. It's not a perfect story, there is some flaws, but at the same time it's so poetry and has so deep meaning that I still think this story is very underrated by people who watch dramas. I think this story is the best when we talk about this kind of this situation "friends to love". The fact is, some people misunderstand the meaning of what this story want to tell us. It's not about love or dating, but it's about friendship and how firendship is more important than love. We see that in our main characters. It's not about a guy who wants to be more than a friend. It's about a guy who likes a girl, but loves her friendship. I think the drama gives us a messange that may be hard, but we need to accept. I think others dramas that talks about this kind situation failed in develop this messange and that's why I like so much this drama.
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But talking about this version. I think is more developed than the others one, but unfortunatelly the end was not so good as the T-drama. I also think there is more good songs in the first one than in this one. And I also think Bo-lin did a better job in some scenes. But besides that, I don´t have anything more to complain. They clearly transmited what the story mean and I also think they showed us more interactions between our main leads. In this version we have a Yo less selfish and more independent. I really liked the fact that they didn´t change her work. I also like the fact that in this version they showed us more her love for Ren.
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Overall, this drama is also more mature than the others one and its also more closer than the korean one. It was my first time seeing the actor who plays Ren, but he is really good and now I'm hoping I can see more dramas with him.
I think we guys need to watch this drama, but thinking about the meaning of the title. There is a reason why the T-drama is named In time With You. And there is a reason why the japaneses prefer to translate as I don´t love you yet. Try to understand the name, before talk bad about the plot.
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Story- I absolutely loved it! It was so romantic and angsty. It has everything I look for in a good romance drama. I liked that you don’t have to wait for the main couple to start a relationship cause they start from like episode 3. There is a lot of conflict having to do with life choices though that separates them for a couple of episodes. Each episode gives a little cliff hanger which makes you want to see the next episode. The ending was awesome for the main couple but I like that all the supporting characters find their happy ending as well.
Acting/Cast- The 4 leads did a great job. They made their characters very believable. I loved Fujiki Naohito in this because it’s so different from his Hotaru no Hikari character. The main female actress that played his partner didn’t leave a lasting impression on me. I did appreciate that she had really good chemistry with Fujiki.
Music- There is a lot of music played but I didn’t care for it.
Rewatch- I would definitely watch this again in the future when I'm in the mood for a J romance.
Overall Love Revolution is a romance drama for a more mature audience that I definitely would recommend.
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Really cute, original story in the fairy tale genre. The initial idea is good.
A charming and fresh take on the fairy tale genre, this story is truly delightful and has an intriguing premise that instantly captures your attention.Stellar Performances Shine Bright
Chae Jong Hyeop deserves endless praise for his portrayal. His ability to convey profound emotions for the female lead (FL) makes the romance feel incredibly real and intense. His natural warmth, bright smile, and expressive acting breathe life into the character, making it impossible not to root for him. Not to mention, his cooking skills on-screen, especially with traditional Korean dishes, add an endearing layer to his character.
Having followed his work, I’ve also enjoyed his role in The Castaway Diva, a stunning musical drama, and his memorable appearance as Na-bi's chef friend in Nevertheless. His versatility continues to impress with every project.
A Unique Blend of Cultures
The fusion of Korean and Japanese cultures in this series adds a special charm. Hearing the mix of both languages was refreshing, giving the story a unique identity that sets it apart. This cross-cultural collaboration enriched the overall viewing experience.
A Mixed Approach to the Female Lead
While Mizuki Yamashita performed her role with sincerity, her character’s excessive shyness often felt at odds with her age and professional responsibilities. At times, her reserved demeanor was frustrating and made it harder to connect with her.
It’s evident that the actress herself has a vibrant and outgoing personality, as reflected in her polished appearance, stylish outfits, and well-maintained nails. A more confident, modern portrayal would have elevated her character and complemented the storyline better.
This portrayal of overly timid women seems to be a recurring trope in Japanese dramas, which may resonate culturally but feels outdated and less appealing to broader audiences. Hopefully, future seasons can address this by giving female characters stronger, more assertive roles.
Supporting Cast and Future Prospects
Taishi Nakagawa also stood out with his solid performance, and the cast as a whole brought depth to the story. While the series is enjoyable as is, there’s definite room for improvement. A second season with more dynamic character arcs and a well-thought-out progression would elevate it to even greater heights.
Overall, this drama offers a unique mix of romance, cultural flavors, and heartfelt performances, with Chae Jong Hyeop as the undeniable highlight. It’s worth watching for the warmth and chemistry between the leads, even if the storyline could benefit from a more modern perspective.
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What is great about this drama is how even though it has a lot of cliches in it, it still somehow manages to stand out in the melodrama genre. Surprisingly- this drama has a real plot and as I started watching it, it sucked me in completely. This is one of those dramas that is better enjoyed if marathoned through. Week after week, the curiosity about how things would unfold kind of waned. I am really not good with patience and this drama required too much of it.
Although the plot is slow and not overly dramatic as some other dramas, it has an addictive vibe to it. I think this drama was perfectly paced upto episode 8-9. The middle was kind of boring and dragging for me but the last two episodes were solid. They totally redeemed the drama in my eyes because I had been worried about how things would turn out.
The main characters in this drama seem interesting at first, but ironically the lead pair fades in comparison to the second leads. My favourite character in this drama was Kang Jae. He was a bad guy with a conscience, an anti-hero, a guy in need of love and a great hyung. I loved the complexity of his character and Jo Jin Woong did an excellent job of playing him. As for Yoon Kye Sang even though I liked his acting, it went over the top at times. Han Ji Hye was pretty but had no variation in her expressions- she always had the same, sad, "damsel in distress" face. Her character was written well but too bad she could hardly do justice to her role.
There are a lot of touching moments in this drama. It teaches you a lot about life, love and family. It raises a lot of questions about morals and shows how greed can destroy people's lives. I think that was a pretty interesting take on the whole story. It also makes you think of loyalty and human psychology which was rather cool!
There is murder, romance, deceit, revenge, lies, betrayal and friendship- all in this drama. It has enough of everything to keep one entertained. If you like romance, there is enough of that too. Maybe not as overwhelming as in some other dramas but I was quite satisfied with it. :)
I have to give props to the OST of this drama. It's brilliant and I've been listening to some songs every day now and still don't get bored. Every single song is memorable. I think this drama has one of the best OSTs ever.
I think it's a good drama to watch if you're looking for something different. :)
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The story is so simple that it looks so cliche but the writing is so direct,straight forward and just sticking to the plot which is just a simple lovestory of two opposite individuals! No angst of third party / mother in law /noble idiocy / misunderstanding. The tone and mode of being light, funny, sweet and romantic is consistent through and through! There are no dull episodes, everything just fall in complete heart rendering moments, true to its premise and promise of a pure rom-com!
The character development of two leads is way perfect! You dont feel any rush or force scene in the loveline, the progression just happen so naturally! The leads are explosive, their chemistry is off chart that you cannot really distinguish if they are just acting or the feelings are real! The actors just played their characters excellently and brilliantly! They are so believable and relatable! Bravo for the 2 actors!
The music is perfect I love it! It makes me fall in love more with the characters and the story! It gives a loving vibes to a lovely and endearing drama already! Feel good music perfect for a feel good drama!
I will surely love rewatching this again and again! This will probably my most rewatched drama after Healer!
I have never crossed a very fun, amazing, light hearted drama recently! IF you are a romcom hooker, you should not miss this once in a blue-moon kind of experience in drama watching -- it will simply delight you!
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I rarely shed tears when watching dramas, but I already sink on the 1st ep. ;(
The story itself is quite tragic, yet the drama leads us to something more touching rather than sad.. The characters are very strong, including the supporting roles.
This is more of a slice of life drama, following the story of the murderer, the victim, and how the incident affects the people around them..
Romance between the victim's brother and the murderer's sister makes the story beautiful. Eita is a very great actor, portrayed an introvert guy drench in guilt, and how he changed from a useless guy with non-attractive appearance to a clean-cut man, haha.. This is the first time I watch the female lead's acting, and I'm quite impressed with how she can easily shed tears in every moment :)
Overall this is a must-watched drama for them who likes drama about life and about moving on from a tragic past.. Excellent story!
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Very disappointing build up
When i started this drama, i had high expectations and somehow in the middle the plot line became boring, draggy and completely flat. And then towards the end the suspense suddenly picked up from nowhere and once again had me at the edge of my seat. It could have well ended with 16 episodes to be very honest but somehow the draggy scenes just kept coming. The story line was good and what kept me going was to figure out who actually pushed the FL's dad to suicide and what was the backstory behind ML's amputated leg.The romance for me felt flat. The kissing scenes between the ML and FL was terrible in the begin and somehow it got a bit better at the end. Their chemistry was off too. By the end i just wanted to fast forward and wrap it up, and that is exactly what i did.
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A Beautiful Story About Healing and Finding One's Happiness
This is a lovely small-town drama. The relationships between all the characters are so interesting and you can't help but cheer for them. The romance is actually quite subtle compared to other dramas, but it felt very fitting. The development of the main characters' relationship is slow but realistic. With an interesting story, complex characters, and beautiful scenery, it was hard for me to wait for the next episode. This show left me with a sense of warmth and content. I would highly recommend it!Was this review helpful to you?
Total waste of time
As we all know C-dramas are notorious for nonsensical or rushed endings. This one takes it one step further, by not having an ending at all.It just simply stops, in the middle of the story without solving any of the questions, redeeming the ML or dealing with any of the antagonists. The writers seem to have confused the notion of ‘open ending’ with half-finished and just dropped the ball after 20 episodes to go on holiday.
I usually don’t expect much from these short-length series, but this one feels like a total waste of time.
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Say what? Ji Soo has a beautiful girlfriend in a show? HUZZAH!
Okay, all jokes aside, Ji Soo seems to be in a couple of kinds of boxes-tragic figure boxes and "the one who doesn't get the girl" boxes. This one is indeed a tragic figure, so whew, at least he has a drop dead gorgeous girlfriend truly deeply in love with him.If you want something that is deeply heartwarming, this show is very much it, BUT only if you can spare some tears and snot for the box of tissues you'll want near you. This is a really unusual series in a lot of ways, the most obvious being that we enter the lead's dreams, dreams impacted by his brain being altered by both disease and painkillers mind you, through beautiful animations-they are straight out of someone's half-asleep stream of consciousness in design/flow, only the person having them is terminally ill, so the fluffy and swooping and cuddly characters and rock robots etc we see and go on an adventure with are spiked with some fear, bitterness, despair, and anxiety.
When not in the lead character's dreams, we see his real world suffering along with the pain his friends and family go through. A new character in the lead's life also comes to us in the form of a convenience store clerk who is transported into the same dreamscape as the lead-it is certainly unusual, but by the end, the least seen character (physically-we see his cartoon form, of course) ends up having one of the most poignant, important roles in the whole story.
Watching this when apart from family during a pandemic is certainly an unexpected situation (the pandemic in particular). With everyone (well, who is conscientious) living a bit more constantly aware of how easily illness and indeed death are taking hold of so many around us, with our lives a bit uprooted in most of the world and our day to day lives quite different from a year ago, the time of release of this could, if it were not so thoughtfully crafted, get a bitter reaction. Instead, though, the creators seemed very aware of how delicately they needed to handle it-the balance of the moments of adventure, the smiling moments, and the tears was important to get right, and by my estimation, they could not have gotten that much better. While not a perfect production (the camera/lighting work made me wish at times it had been a Whynot TV or even Playlist Global production-still, that is a minor detail-especially for a webseries), I was immersed in the story and acting so it only briefly made it a little less perfect than the slicker productions that don't have nearly as intriguing a set up to begin with.
I'd LOVE more animation to be integrated into dramas. I really enjoyed (crime thriller-ish drama) Sketch largely because of the namesake, the sketches, and the animations really made this special; if it had JUST been the humans, it probably would have felt like a Lifetime daytime tear jerker TV movie; instead, it has its own memorable place and the tears I did shed don't feel like someone manipulated me emotionally to make me shed them.
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This review may contain spoilers
After many years of misunderstandings and betrayals, Hwi and Sun finally get a chance to repair all of the hurt between them, giving each other the strength to do what must be done. When I started watching My Country I wasn't sure what type of journey the writer would take us on, I just knew I wanted to watch it since Jang Hyuk was one of the main lead and, of course, Woo Do Hwan. By episode three I knew there was no way this drama would end with both Hwi and Sun alive and understood it would be a very hard drama to watch not because it was poorly made but because it was that good, it evoked serious emotions - everything from joy, pain, deep sorrow, laughter to heartache, I was right but it was worth the ride. Throughout the journey, it becomes clear that the true love story in My Country: The New Age was always the one between Hwi and Sun, they were always each other’s Number One, no matter what happened between them, be it hurting each other physically and emotionally, but whenever a choice had to be made, they choose each other every time. Even though Sun betrayed Hwi over and over again, Hwi never hesitated to go to his rescue if he needed it. As sad as it was, it was just right that in the end, they chose each other to protect and love until the very end.Hwi, Sun, and Bang-won, every actor brought their best performance and I won’t be surprised if several acting awards are handed out for My Country, particularly in the cases of Jang Hyuk (Bong-won) and Woo Do-hwan (Sun). They both portrayed characters that could easily have become intensely unlikeable, but were able to show moments of vulnerability, sorrow, love, and regret even when committing the most heinous acts. Yang Se-jong was fantastic as well, embodying Hwi with a soft vulnerability that he never lost, despite everything he goes through. What I took from My Country is that we all have a country we are willing to risk everything for and that that “country” is the people we love. A story beautifully told, produced, directed and acted!
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This review may contain spoilers
The bad reviews are from people who just can't handle dark dramas
It's actually quite funny how many dark shows/shorts receive poor ratings just because they contain unsettling themes, and when the synopsis is as blunt as this one, the blame falls wholly on the viewer. If you are uncomfortable with themes such as kidnapping and rape then don't watch it, simple as that. This isn't for you.I liked this short kbl because of the acting from the main lead. His portrayal of the trauma bleeding into numbness and eventually breaking down to tears really manages to evoke emotion from us as the audience, and it's exceptionally well done. The twist of the second lead being in on the kidnapping wasn't really a shock as it was easy to guess, but I enjoyed the psychological aspect and the unsettling environment over the 3 episodes.
I really wish people who can't handle dark shit to just stay away and let those of us who understand what these shows are trying to portray to enjoy it without criticism.
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Good premise marred by cliche storytelling
Firstly, this show blows the bechdel test out of the waters. There really is nothing more attractive than powerful women, ambitious women, women being straight out "badasses". This was something Samuel L Jackson said often about The Long Kiss Goodnight, that the industry needed to produce more of these "women being badasses" shows because they just rock. Despite this, I could not give this series a high rating.To begin with, I found Do Hee's redemption arc implausible, to say the least. The plot pivots around her "awakening" from having seen an employee "commit suicide" after Do Hee had been hard with her. Really? She's never caused someone's death before in all the years she's worked under psychopathic chaebol matriarch Young Shim? Really?!? Mine eyebrow is duly raised. Secondly, how did Kyung Sook manage to camp herself on conglomerate property for her protest for so many days? That's clearly trespassing. How did she manage to evade security?
Also, the whole series relies on Do Hee's capability in the performance of her duties however, when the employee says that those messages were not txted by her, that should've alerted Do Hee to the need to verify. Something as simple as ringing the phone number on the txt msg, which she does later on, should've been the first point of order, but no. She just brushes the employee's comments aside. She believes the guy's word for it completely without doing any investigation into the veracity of his claims which doesn't come across as competence but extremely incompetent. One doesn't investigate because one distrusts a party's claim but to know the full scope of what to expect, what needs to be protected, and what reprisals would be forthcoming from the victimised party. Queenmaker? Hmmm...
The rest of it are stereotypical "gotcha" games where a male powerbroker's weakness is always connected to his groin (mistress, indiscretion etc) and so he is easily blackmailed that way. As someone who's familiar with legal procedures the rest of the series really devolves into WTFs. While finding out the truth of corruption on the enemy side, it's all easily subverted by them with tearful pretentious displays and mercurial social media moods. However, when the enemy side makes up a "truth" about Kyung Sook and her campaign, we are led to believe that her past allies will just forget about their past friendships and loyalty and public won't ask for an investigation into whether the evidence stacks up or not. For the enemy, there needs to be solid evidence which is easily subverted; for Kyung Sook's team, the enemy side just needs to fart a BS and the whole house of cards crumble to the ground. It is just too implausible. Are the Korean public idiots? The part where her son was charged with a criminal offense was just... what am I seeing here...?!?! I don't know how the Sth Korean justice system works but it's not a given that the minor will go to jail just because the antagonists say so. There are systems in place to ensure a fair trial. I'd like to believe that the prosecution isn't so incompetent as just to be easily bought out. Plus, there are evidentiary requirements too. And I'm making this conclusion from legal kdramas I've seen which shows that Sth Korea's criminal justice system doesn't deviate so much from where I'm at.
Plus the male counterpart strategist was just another WTF buildup to a nothing. Dragging an old senile man and leaving him in an unfamiliar place where he eventually got run over was not strategy. It was criminal. For all the talk about Carl being THE kingmaker, the character was nothing but an amateur and a thug who brought a chainsaw to a surgery that required a delicate scalpel.
There were several, several, nails on the coffin—when Do Hee doesn't even clean up her loose ends well enough to ensure that her father is out of danger, when she doesn't even ensure her own safety, but the crowning one: when there were moles in Kyung Sook's team. It's always the same sh#t—they need money so they're willing to betray their principles. Seriously? Why even bother doing anything if money is the common denominator. It's too cheap and too easy of a plot device to use and, as a psychological motivational tool, too illogical. Kyung Sook has spent time with the protestors. She's put in effort and heart into their fight. She represents their suffering and the overcoming of it. To have us believe that a single parent would go against her own survival, and that of her children's, by doing something so short-term as getting monetary gratification now... these people were screwed over by the very conglomerates offering them bribes now, are we to honestly believe they'd side with them again to stab Kyung Sook in the back? The writers need to research into the various electoral results in the democratic countries that Sth Korea shares governmental constitution with, as well as union members' community spirits. Corruption has not been met well regardless of how much a politician has tried to show a "caring parent" side to them nor do union members forget whom their allies were in their times of fight.
Despite all this, I do look forward to season 2 as it looks like they're pushing for one. It would be interesting to see if the writing would get less cliche and much more in line with the premise of this project.
Would I recommend this? Honestly... I would. If only because I know series like this are rare as a hen's tooth so the first few attempts would be shite to begin with but, as per economies of scale principles, it should improve as more of these types of shows are made. Plus... there is one memorable part in the series where I ended up applauding at the screen. There was a scene where young Dong Joo slams himself against a moving vehicle to stop them. I had never seen such a ridiculous move before—using a flesh and blood body against a hard, metal and iron object. It was memorable for the extremely creative application of physics.
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Takeaway - You will be left with your heart warmed. If you want to see some cute boys, your desire will also be fulfilled. But nothing deep.
Story - It involves multiple issues. Having no money, prostitution, love vs sex, and even a little bit of family problems towards the end. However none of these issues are truly addressed. The movie is somewhat of a comedy and should be watched with a light-heart. The ending is also sort of ambiguious.
Actors/ Cast - Both do their part (there are 2 main characters). There are a couple side characters that serve as cute jokes. The story focuses on Khao the most and his experience with prostitution. Pete is his next door neighbor and in my eyes super cute. You can feel the love between them towards the end of the movie.
Music - Basic music but enjoyable nonetheless.
Rewatch Value: Some day in the future, yes, I would watch it again.
Overall: I RECOMMEND! It was truly an enjoyable movie, and unless you just don't want to see guys having sex, I don't understand why you wouldn't like it?
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