Reviews

A very different take on the genre

This is the first time I’ve ever written a review for a drama (more of a characters analysis and acting appreciation). I don’t even do this for dramas I love, however this is an exception I had to make because certain things had to be said.

I’m going to be honest, I have a hard time being engaged in the fantasy world Cang Yue has created. I was bored out of my mind watching Mirror Twin Cities but kept on because of Zheng Yecheng. Although admittedly, her concepts are definitely refreshing and different from the usual Xianxia/Xuanhuan genre. And watching MTC turned out to be a good idea because it paved the way for me to better understand the world of Yunhuang in TLP.
The Longest Promise is adapted from the novel Zhu Yan by Cang Yue. It is the prequel to MTC and spans a 70 years difference, however some pivotal characters from MTC makes an appearance in TLP (i.e. Su Mo). I have not read the novel but skimmed about the details and understood that the drama stayed pretty faithful to its original source with a few exceptions that I’ll get to later. As everyone is mostly familiar the story I’ll just get right on to the good part:

Xiao Zhan + Ren Min — this is my 3rd XZ drama, first being The Untamed then Oath of Love. I won’t say I was impressed by him in these two dramas, especially The Untamed which funny enough was what brought him international stardom. I felt that his performance was great, but nowhere near excellent, of course this is just my humble opinion. He was also great in Oath of Love, but did not leave much of an impression. Speaking of impression, I actually first noticed him years back (before The Untamed ever came around) from the trailer of the drama The Wolf. I was quite smitten with him just from the snippets in the clip even though I knew he wasn’t the Male Lead. Nevertheless, he definitely caught my eye and I always thought he’ll probably caught someone’s eyes in the future too, and he did because The Untamed happened. Obviously when the filming happened, a lot of people were unimpressed with the introduction of Ren Min as the Female Lead due to the Xiao Zhan’s rising popularity at the time. And indeed, after a 2-years long wait, TLP finally aired. I, like a lot of folks, were skeptical about Ren Min and not only because of her aesthetics but also her acting ability. Master-disciple relationships is a trope that has been done to the death dating back from Jin Yong’s Return of the Condor Heroes. And not just Ren Min, I had worried how Xiao Zhan was going to carry out his role (given that there were some similarities to Gu Wei from OOL) and how they’re going to pull off that tension and chemistry due to the characters’ nature of relationship. But turned out I had worried for not because both leads were amazing. Their loveline is completely different from the usual tropes in these kind of relationships; XZ’s Shi Ying does embody the usual traits with this type of character: handsome, cold and aloof. However this only scratches the surface. Shi Ying is a complex character; he is handsome but humble and unassuming, he is aloof but not cruel, cold but not unkind, and he is this way because of his past tragedies. He is singleminded and devoted to his craft and whatever (or whoever) it is that he chose, and he can be hard and ruthless when he has to be. And just like XZ, RM’s Zhu Yan also embody the usual traits of a spunky heroine, cute and bubbly but thankfully not nauseatingly so, heroic but with a touch a willfulness and stubbornness. She can sometimes grate on one’s nerves with her righteousness but she is not unreasonable and is very understanding. Zhu Yan’s fiery nature and Shi Ying’s cold disposition do make them clash at times, however, underneath it all is always a need to protect one another. Zhu Yan is completely oblivious to her master’s feelings and thus this makes for some humorous moments when they try to get together in the future. As for Shi Ying, due to his decisive nature and devotion to his priesthood, he initially drove her away. However, because of an event later on, he realizes he wants to be with her, but because of many things that happened concurrently, he was never able to fully confess his feelings before tragedy strike.
I can still remember the look of disappointment and hate in Zhu Yan’s face when Shi Ying killed A’Yuan, and the pain in Shi Ying’s eyes when Zhu Yan screamed her hate for him. It broke my heart to see him so hurt, and when she told him that she never wanted to see him again, I think it was the straw that made him choose to end his life. Shi Ying is a type of person that understands responsibilities very well; he does what needs to be done even if it’s the hardest or at times impossible task. He will feel guilt but above all he’s practical. And so I know that even had he killed A’Yuan, he would not choose to end himself because he feels guilt towards Zhu Yan. He did it because he would rather die than live with her hatred. That’s how much he loves her. And this where XZ’s characterization of Shi Ying shines; even teetering on the brink of death, he still has his own selfishness. He stabs himself to allay Zhu Yan’s rage yet he still harbors hope that she’ll miss him and mourn him when he’s gone, thus his “Will you be sad if I died? More sad than when that person died?”. What an acting master.
The chemistry between XZ and RM is very subtle and nuanced at the beginning. Both characters are crushing and unable to express themselves about it. Later, as each comes to terms with their feelings, that subtlety amps up to real romantic tension. It is funny yet also sweet and almost swoon-worthy at how Shi Ying goes about chasing after Zhu Yan, and later as they’re beset by tragedies and misunderstandings, this tension becomes more palpable with pain and longing mixed in and it’s almost beautiful to watch if it’s not so painful. It’s interesting to note TLP shares quite a bit similarities with MTC and not just because they’re in the same universe but also the way the relationship between the leads are handled. Both are plot-heavy dramas with romance indisputably taking a back seat. But that’s where the similarities ended. I could care less about Bai Ying and Su Mo, in fact I shipped her with the Crown Prince Zhen Lan. There were no chemistry whatsoever and I was wholly glad that they barely had any romantic scenes together. Whereas with TLP, I lament that Shi Ying and Zhu Yan did not get to spend much time together especially once everything started happening.
So besides the main leads, most notable mention goes to Alen Feng’s Zhi Yuan. His story arc is just as tragic if no less than the leads. He was such a sweet and gentle soul who fell for a woman that died 200 years ago. He stayed on to fulfill her wish despite his identity as a merfolk. He cared for her descendant Zhu Yan and yet somewhere along the way for him, the lines became blurred. He did his duty to his people and died as a result. In hindsight, I realized Zhu Yan tragically loses both of her beloved one right after the other, twice. The ending was an explosive feast to the eyes in terms of special effects, music, action and most of all the top-notch acting from the 3 leads. I can’t help but go back to XZ at this point, as he unarguably pulled out all the acting chops he’s accumulated in his entire career and spilled it all into this one moment; teetering between demonic possession and love for Zhu Yan, begging her to kill him and ending in a climactic, beautiful and bittersweet farewell for them both. XZ and RM have outdone themselves in this drama. I am completely and emotionally drained from the last episode and though I’m heart-sore, this is a drama that I will come back to because it’s just so beautifully made, from the acting, music, characters, cinematography, and lastly the expensive looking CGI. TLP has definitely set the bar high for CGI in future dramas. And TLP has irrevocably turned me into a XZ fan.

*** Now this where I have to decry the finale a bit. According to the novel, Shi Yu dies, Xue Ying is widowed and pregnant. Shi Ying is heir to the throne however he chooses to pass it on to his future nephew and in turns spend the rest of the remaining years with Zhu Yan elsewhere. As Zhu Yan had sacrificed half her life to resurrect Shi Ying this means their fates are tied, should one die so will the other. I was extremely gutted at the way the drama ended but I will choose to believe Shi Ying truly came back to her. The writers can’t choose to have Zhu Yan sacrificed half her life for Shi Ying just to have him die again for nothing, and as their fates are tied, this is one detail viewers will not overlook. So for me, this is a wide OE even if it’s not outright HE.

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A love story that makes sense.

There were a few epic love stories I watched where the leads are willing to sacrifice themselves for the person they love but I sometimes wonder why and how did they even fall in love in the first place.

This is not the case in The Legend of Shen Li. This forbidden love story is beautiful, compelling, sexy and we as viewers saw how it unfolded every step of the way. The progress of their love takes center stage and it just made sense why they fell for each other even when the whole world was against it.

The story is simple with a sprinkle of plotting and scheming and the leads are so adorable together. Loving it.

UPDATE SPOILER: Just completed this amazing drama. They gave us AN EPISODE of their happily ever after and it is what I NEEDED.

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gorgeous vistas, underwhelming script (watch suggestions)

Overall: I enjoyed the countryside setting/cinematography and it was okay as a coming of age series but failed with the romance aspect. See my spoiler comment for how it ends which might help you decide if you want to start it. The series was based on a book which I haven't read and I reviewed the series on its own merits. 7 episodes about 40 minutes each. Aired on GagaOOLala https://www.gagaoolala.com/en/videos/5169/lost-in-the-woods-2025-e01 and Viu.

Content Warnings: past slap, alcoholism?, animal death, blood, non con kiss

Watch Suggestions (to focus on the romance aspect)
- watch episode 1
- skip episode 2
- episode 3 watch 3-5:30, 22-32:30, 39-47
- episode 4 watch 11:45-12:30, 19-24:30 and 26:30-40
- episode 5 watch 4:30-9:30 and 17:30-end
- episode 6 start at 16 minutes or if not interested in the het side couple skip to 28 minutes and watch until 30:30, 34:25-end
- episode 7 watch 9:30-16, 29:20-41:45, stop there and pretend they had a totally consensual kiss

What I Liked
- setting/vistas
- black nail polish
- Fifa is shown to be musically talented and academically intelligent
- clear premise
- two supportive female friends
- that Fifa stayed true to himself/his life goals
- production value (cinematography*)

Room for Improvement
- starting with a flash forward/voice over though at least it was just 2 days in advance and not months or years
- a parent acted comical in a scene where it seemed they were going for serious/angsty in episode 1
- episode 2 a character had so much flack for total nonsense stuff
- the grandma's plan didn't make sense, she should have eased him into things, I'm sure she was not staying in that type of accommodation and she chose the most prickly person to be his guide?!!!
- the scholarship application timeline seems a bit late compared to what it would be in the real world but I didn't deduct points for it
- not much chemistry, just started in episode 4 but they didn't even have a scene together until 16 minutes into episode 6
- *some night scenes were too dark
- what happened at the end of episode 4
- the ex plot took up way too much screentime, in episode 5 it was 10 out of 43 minutes or about 25% of the screentime!
- in episode 6 how Hem apologized for doing his job and Fifa was immature
- the non con kiss and how they never properly communicated

Note: in the series the younger guy Fifa graduated high school so the character should be 18 (played by Ton who is 25); they said that Hem is 30 (played by Arm who is 30). I did not have any issue with the age gap between the characters in the series.

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Simple 'Friends with benefits' but deep

Plus for little bit of LGBT, acting and realism. There was a tense atmosphere all the time so you could get into the action. The drama is really very good and even the fact that it is a mini drama is a plus. In my opinion, if it was a full drama, it would not give such an effect, because they would probably add other storylines. Sometimes I didn't understand the characters' behavior in certain situations, but I do realize that everyone is different than they react differently. As well as the action finally seemed shortened to me (although I suspect that there will be a second season). Nevertheless, I recommend it (as one of the few, I read reviews now ...)

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Are you looking for a drama what will completely blow your mind with its epic plot, amazing cast and awesome music? The this is the drama for you.

I must say that since 2013 seems to be a melodrama year, I felt like this drama would just be one of those "melodramas" of the year. But boy was I wrong. From the very first episode you get pulled in and the drama becomes a straight 10/10 ride all the way to the end. There were times when you thought like "omg will he really succeed in doing this?" or "omg will they find out his real identity?" etc. It was like watching a suspense movie that constantly held you sitting on the edge of your seat, and at the same time it had those cute and romantic moments where you feel as if the time had stopped for our main characters and you get drowned in all the emotions. But the plot is not the only amazing thing about this story, what both amazed me and surprised me where the characters, or to be more precise, the actors and actresses. Jo In Sung was simply pure epicness in this drama. He did an amazing job portraying Oh Soo, a man with many sides, a man who both hated and loved life. Song Hye Kyo was just....wow O_O. No comments, seriously. She shun in this drama so much that it made me speechless. She played the role of a blind girl so well, that I had to check as I watched the drama if she wasn't actually blind in real life O_O. How did she manage to play it so well? It looked so real....just wow. She seriously deserves an award for her acting. Last but not least, how can we talk about TWTWB without mentioning the other two "main characters" played by Jung Eun Ji and Kim Bum. If Jo In Sung's and Song Hye Kyo's acting and chemistry didn't blow my mind completely, then this couple certainly did! I shipped this couple like crazy! I'm not even joking. I loved their craziness, their jokes, their chemistry, the way they looked at each other....gah just everything about them made me fangirl. Not to mention that Kim Bum rocked the red hair and looked super-sexy as a rebellious guy in his late teens/early 20's.

ENDING: Some people were a bit disappointed with the ending since it felt a bit rushed and unexpected, but I personally loved it. I think the ending was perfect and if you look into more detail around it, it didn't just come out out of the blue. Withing spoiling anything for the viewers who haven't seen this drama, all I can say is that I felt that the ending fit this kind of genre of drama. Oh Soo played a dangerous game, which could mean death to both him and the people close to him and in that kind of gambling-gangster-business having to deal with decisions such as "is it worth risking the lives of the people I love just to gain this?" is a everyday life-style. So, to be completely honest the decision Kim Bum's character decided to take didn't surprise me to 100% but at the same time it was "expected either" it was somewhere in between, like you could see it happening but at the same time you wished that it wouldn't. I know that some people had hoped for a happy lovey-dovey ending, but this was a sad story about the value of life, guilt and promises and I think the ending was the perfect cherry to top the cake known as That Winter, the Wind Blows.

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Time Loop: Curse or Blessing?

A time loop drama with lots of suspense and interesting turns of events.

As the synopsis already states, the drama is about FL whose life was about to end when the bus she was on had an accident. But instead she woke up again on this very bus, a few minutes prior to the accident. Soon she realizes she is caught in a time loop, doomed to relive this horrible experience over and over again. In her attempt to change her fate, she accidentally pulls ML into the loop with her. Together they need to find out how to stop the loop.

Since the Main Leads were caught in a time loop, the same event was repeated over and over again, through the entire drama. And yet they managed to never let the story become boring or repetitive. Every loop was different in a way. Be it the plan of the Main Leads to avoid the accident, or the outcome of it. There was always something new in each loop, making the drama interesting, exciting and less predictable. It was quite thrilling to sit and watch whether their next plan is gonna succeed or not. Some scenes really had me at the edge of my seat.

I was pleasantly surprised with the characters and acting. I loved both main leads a lot, and I also really loved their chemistry! It was interesting to see their differences and how they complemented each other. While our game creator MLs first thought was to save himself, our student FL wanted to also save all other people on the bus. It was very interesting how the incident slowly made them become closer to each other. Great performance by both of them!

I also enjoyed the stories of all the other characters on the bus. They provided lots of beautiful and emotional scenes. The acting of the whole cast was top-notch.

So? How to get out of the time loop? Is there a way to even stop the accident, and hope for everyone to survive? What's the reason behind the accident? How many loops are there gonna be until their destiny is final? Lots of questions to ask, and answers to discover. ;)

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Story:
Childhood neighbors who become a couple after knowing each other for several years. Very basic story line with no surprises. Although I like that the OTPs friends were important and had all their own story lines, this dragged out the drama.

The male lead was really static and seemed to have no emotions at all. The female lead on the other hand was often annoying (some might call it bubbly) and all over the place.

Again, the basic idea of showing their love from the beginning to end is great. However, the beginning took about 16 episodes (their high school years), while their collage and after-collage life was wrapped up in 7...this also means 16 episodes of no real deep or romantic encounters, and 7 episodes where they are adults, but again we don't see many lovely scenes. Actually, the last episode was the best, as there was a lot of love included!

Acting/Cast:
As this was my first cdrama I don't know any of the cast. They made an okay job, though. The characters were quite annoying...

Music:
Nothing to to remember.

Rewatch:
0/0 I seriously don't know, if I will even watch a cdrama again....

Overall:
I get how their deep bond from the beginning is meant to be shown, however it's more suited for a younger audience (about 13+ years) as the focus is on the high school years. I would have loved to watch their adult life more.

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How to ruin a 10/10 show with one episode.

I must congratulate the writers for accomplishing something I considered nearly impossible. Well, I know better now. One can completely ruin a show in just one episode. Here is how I imagine it was done.

Step 1: Destroy the characters. The characters that the audience have known and loved for the past 15 episodes need to be ruined first. Take all their character-traits away from them, including their understanding, their love, their spirit of never giving up - everything that made them… them. Everything that made the audience fall in love with them. Ready? Great. Now apply this to their carefully constructed and super strong relationship and make it seem like it was nothing. Easy peasy.

Step 2: Try to trick the audience. Everything that has been shown important in the past 15 episodes needs to amount to nothing. All the little things, hints dropped, heartwarming things shown, need to be shown moot and useless. Now, switch their focus to completely different and dumb things which had no relevance before that wretched episode.

Step 3: Leave tons of things unexplained. Build up entire mysteries for 15 episodes and then simply refuse to solve them.

Step 4: Completely give up on all sense. Nothing needs to make any sense whatsoever. The strongest forged bonds are weak AF. People clearly madly in love with one another can be forced to break up with no regrets and can move on from each other just as quickly. Like I said, give up on all sense.

There you have it folks. A 4-step guide to ruin a 10/10 show. It was clearly easier than I had initially thought.

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They picked the perfect girl to play Rio!.. Her character has so many different personalities and she did an awsome job!.. Professor Ozawa is just an amazing actor and also hot!.. they had a gr8 chemistry and the story itself was great, it shows what is happening in society these days!.. Because I am a single-mom with a daughter, some issues in the movie got me thinking about my own daughter's safety! I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THE AGE-GAP BUT OTHER ISSUES!(u will know if you watch it lol)... A MUST-WATCH MOVIE AND I LOVEEEEE IT....The age-gap actually was the best part of it hehehehehe!! they sooo cute!..

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Oh boy, here we go...well clearly an unpopular opinion, but I don't love this drama. :/

It was so thrilling and suspenseful at first and then all of a sudden it just felt like a romantic melodrama. It was honestly so thrilling to watch till episode 5 and even after that till episode 9 it was mostly good but then it started going downhill from that point onwards.

So yeah the reason why I don't love this drama is cause of the story. It started out well and then was getting progressively ridiculous and cheesy...and gosh there was just way too much going on. Too many coincidences and overly dramatic. And lol don't get me started on the last episode...gosh why did they have to add in that overly used trope?! It was too cliched and frankly painful to watch.

Buuuut I must say I really liked the cast in this drama. Every single actor was pretty good, especially Lee Joon Gi.❤
In fact, the best thing about this drama was LJG. Like holy cow can we talk about how brilliant his acting was?...honestly, despite all the problems I had with the story, the reason why I was able to watch it till the very end and actually even enjoy it somewhat overall was cause of his outstanding performance.❤❤ Moon Chae Won too was pretty good though at times her acting wasn't very convincing. However, the chemistry between her character and LJG's character was so good!♡
And I love love love the ending theme!!♡♡

I don't regret watching this cause I got to see an awesome performance by LJG but this drama is certainly overrated imo..

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Story
Very relatable because you would definitely have been a student before! Plus you would know how some students score well all the time while others are just not cut out for studying. This movie portrayed the difficulties faced by both group of students well.

The most interesting part was the different ways these students cheated. Very novel yet nothing too outrageous. I would say that this is the main selling point of this movie.

I love how there's minimal romance in this! Sometimes you just got to get away from all the cheesy love stories.

Acting & Cast
All the main actors played their roles well. You could sense their desperation as students. If I wanted to be picky, I would say that Non who played Bank was a teeny bit awkward at certain angry scenes but other than that, everyone acted well. The casting was also good. The smarter students looked nerdy enough, the playful and rich kids certainly fit their roles.

Overall, I would recommend this movie to others. While it is a youthful movie, I believe it will appeal to adults as well!

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I have a love/hate relationship with this drama. The story is all over the place. I can't even begin to tell you how messed up it is. The GREAT scenes are with Hyun Tae and Mong Hyun's story line. I enjoyed it the most. Mong Hee's story line turns into a nightmare. ALL of the moms except Hyun Soo's mom are CRAZY and EVIL. How they ended it with them ticked me off. Hyun Joon's story line is just sad. I ended feeling like he struggled the most because some of his earlier actions were against his true character and because of his mom and wife. OOOOHHHH...Sung Eun gives me the creeps. Hyun Soo's story line is also strange. I won't go into how much I disliked how they handled some of it. I guess they thought a time jump was enough. I liked Yoona's character the most and she isn't even in it much. The grandmothers are boring as all get out and to tell the truth I ended up skipping most of their story line. I didn't miss anything by doing so. Mong Kui's story line is barely there, but it doesn't suck. I really like Yoona and Hyun Soo's mom interaction toward the end of the drama. I can't post spoilers or I could write all day about this drama. I can't say it was horrible, because there are some great and precious moments. I ended up with mixed emotions.

This cast is great. It is really too bad they ended up in this drama. I wasn't disappointed in the acting. Han Ji Hye is the main reason I watched this, because I loved her in May Queen. I think she did well playing two different characters as Mong Hee and Yoona. Then of course there is Yeon Jung Hoon as Hyun Soo, Lee Tae Sung (I loved him in Rooftop Prince) as Hyun Joon and Park Seo Joon and Hyun Tae. All very good looking men and excellent actors. Very yummy!!! Baek Jin Hee as Mong Hyun is too cute. All the veteran women actress also did well playing the crazy moms. I really disliked them and I think that is a huge credit to their acting abilities.

There is some good music in this.

I don't know if you could pay me to rewatch this.

I would not recommend this. It is only my second 50 episode family drama. It isn't so bad that I wish I had my time back, because I'm glad I got to see some of the actors and some of the cute story line. If I were you, I would read the recaps that people have written to find where the cute parts are and just watch those. :-)

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This show is like an abusive partner - gaslighting you into thinking the trauma was not that bad.

What an emotional journey it was. This is how you write a complex female lead and realistic portrayal of how hard it is to deal with your past traumas and fears. Sometimes after moving forward one step, you go back two.

This is a one woman story. Kang Hui is the main character and everyone around her is just an accompaniment to her solo performance, and it’s great. She was a deeply hurt, scared, insecure, but also strong-willed and brave person. Yes, you can present the opposite characteristics depending on the circumstances you are currently in. That duality was what made her unique compared to many other kdrama characters.

She was so beautifully flawed and frustrating to watch. Constantly making mistakes, not knowing how to stand up for herself, lying, running away, pushing forward. I wanted to slap her back to reality, and hug her to console her. But when you frame her behavior in the context of her life, it all makes sense.

She faced abuse and neglect since childhood. She had the whole town against her. Adults telling her she is the reason her mother died. She felt unwelcomed whenever she went. She was blamed for her mother's actions. She was blamed for others’ mistakes. The town treated her as a plague that brought misfortune, even when she was just a small child.

The way they presented her get back on her feet and then crumble over and over again was painful to watch, but also so refreshing. She felt like a real person.

However, as good as the journey was, the conclusion could not have been more trash. Since when do we show victims of years of abuse apologize to their abusers on their knees? The whole last two episodes were kind of insulting. The way one beautifully shot scene of Kang Hui apologizing to her younger self was a conclusion to years of abuse, bullying and built up trauma she faced in that town just made me angry.

Why try resolving and fixing the extremely unhealthy relationship between father and daughter and make the father take accountability of the neglect, when you can just give him cancer and make the daughter feel guilty about it?

I honestly feel gaslit. With the last two episodes and how casual everyone was about Kang Hui’s past and how everyone treated her, I started questioning if I imagined parts of the plot. The same people who screamed at her and told her she is the reason her mother died are now saying her father raised her well? Am I losing my mind, or is the drama truly showing this? WHY WERE THE BULLIES INVITED FOR THE DINNER AT THE END?

Every time they showed one of the town people acting nice I kept asking - Why? What happened? What changed? Did you all have group therapy behind the scenes and reflected on your actions? Why now? Ladies and gentleman, the credits are about to roll - smile and act nice, we need a happy ending. It does not matter if it makes sense or not.

You CANNOT make a whole drama focused on how hard it is to heal from your traumas, with the female lead who keeps going back to her bad habits, running away, pushing people away. Showing how poorly she was treated not only as a child, but also as an adult. How none of the people in her life truly understood how abusive they were. To then magically heal everyone and make it the peaceful happy town where everyone is friendly and they all support each other.

The whole show was filled with hypocrisy that was never addressed. Love cures it all was the ridiculous approach to this story. Probably one of the worst conclusions I have seen in the past few years.

Back to the good - the performances. To be honest, I picked this drama to get over my unreasonable dislike towards Lee Se Young, and the magic happened. Her portrayal of Kang Hui was truly stunning. Perfect in every area. There was nothing I would change nor improve. On the other hand, Na In Woo was kind of there, filling the space. Maybe because they never truly developed his character to the same extent they did with Kang Hui, his take on Yeon Su felt a bit flat. While I disliked Chun Pil as a person, I adored Choi Min Soo’s portrayal of him. What a vibrant performance it was. The role was painfully hard to present. He had to show both the nonchalance, but also the seriousness of his personality.

For the visuals - it is a show that you will want to take screenshots of every few seconds. Beautiful.

Overall, I might have been traumatized by the laughable Disney ending. Magically everyone was cured, everyone was nice, pretending like the past never existed. I loved Kang Hui, I loved her journey, but the express trip to Happy Ever After by the end, kind of made me angry.

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I had really high expectations due to the hype and the cast. I actually quite liked the first two episodes and the romance between Sae Ro Yi and Soo-ah as students and also really liked the MC's father. The series had a really promising start and did live up to my expectations for a while.

Really like Kwon Na-ra (I find her super beautiful as opposed to the other girl) and I rooted for Soo-ah although her joining Jangga and helping the old man was a huge turn off and frustrating to watch even after her intentions were revealed (to betray them and help Ro Yi).

The other girl was refreshing at first. She had very serious flaws yet likable in her own ways such as being "badass", smart and capable. She soon turned into an obsessive girl who clinged to the MC too much. I liked the crew as well.

The acting, especially the villains' in the first half of the series (old man and f***boy son) really made me hate them and I was curious to see the old man's past and thoughts. The cast's acting was good all the way through but was eventually ruined by the forced romance and shitty overall plot. The life lessons the series tried to convey at first didn't really work out due to the messy plot and ruined characters. "Stay true to yourself", "live with your head high", "power", "logic and schemes vs people and feelings". All empty words in the end.

The series was bearable until maybe episode 10 and had somewhat of a plot going. With lots of typical "drama" and twists, cliches, etc.. However, the old man was not that great of a villain anymore and eventually got cancer (lolz?) The nice, innocent but spineless younger brother got negative "development" and lost himself. He became the same as the father he hated. Older son went to jail and got out...

By episode 14, after the 4 year time skip the Ro Yi suddenly falls in love with the manager girl and changed ( staying true to his way of living and not changing no matter what was his whole character and motive). Soo-ah, despite her flaws and stupidity, was still a better pick IMO as from the start they both liked each other and she was always there for him (even working for Jangga was to help him - stupid writing, i know). She was always the second lead female but was winning for 13-14 episodes until the other girl just won (horrible writing).

Crazy older brother got out of jail and kidnapped Yi-seo and the younger brother. At the end of episode 14 or 15 MC kneeled before the old man just to save his "romance" that came out of nowhere. His character was far gone. All that vengeance, hatred and negativity was useless and meaningless in the end as he kneeled before the character that ruined his life and caused him pain for 15 years, to save his new found "love".

I haven't seen the last episode yet, but I have no expectations left. All the characters are ruined, everything is shitty at this point and the forced couple will form in a cliche way somehow. In the end, among the many horrible things, the plot, the characters' backwards development and the disastrous romance stood out as the worst things about this drama.

UPDATE: finished the last episode and everything wrapped up the way I expected it to after seeing the first 15 eps.
Things settled down and it was a "happy" ending but the previous issues were obviously still there. Soo-ah and Geun-soo didn't get the development and closure they needed.

The scene with the old man at the end was not satisfying at all and just really sickening. The old man was a wicked devil, sure. However, the MC just pulled a "I'm a business man" move and acts tough and cool after the old guy kneels and cries. From the start, this series was always full of toxicity: violence, power abuse, early death of the father, etc...
However, there was no real positive message in the story in the end. They won the war and MC got his revenge and became rich, but that's all. It's just like nothing happened at all and all the drama was just there for the sake of it. A very, very shallow approach to appeal to the bitterness and hatred in audiences.

I usually don't write drama reviews but hopefully this will be helpful to some people. In the end, if you want a drama that makes you feel good watching, AVOID this so that you don't end up wasting a weekend and also feel miserable because of how unhealthy the story and the characters became. This is a very naively idealistic story that tried very hard to be inspiring but failed miserably.

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Plot who? We don't know her!

I waited impatiently for months for the series only for my excitement to be replaced with disappointment as each episode aired...

The Good:

Acting.
For a majority of these actors, this was their first ever series. Despite this, I felt that overall, the acting was extremely solid and great! Biggest props and kudos to Bible, who in my opinion was definitely the scene stealer of the show. Also BibleBuild as a pair, despite the plot line that their characters had, blew me away with the amazing chemistry and tension that they have every time they are onscreen throughout the series.

Cinematography.
This is no Korean Drama, but for a Thai BL, the cinematography is pretty great. Though towards the end of the series the quality of this did start to drop... BUT then again, the cinematography of Thai BL's in general this year have improved significantly... so having good cinematography is honestly nothing special anymore...

The Bad:

Poor Writing. Plot who? We don't know her!
I didn't know that you could take garbage (the novel) and make it even worse (the series)... but they managed to do it! LOL
I can't even begin to count the number of plot holes and "oh how convenient" moments there are throughout this series... The pacing of each episode and of the series in general is extremely off. If you really think about it (which I unfortunately did...), the story makes NO sense. ZERO. NONE. There were a lot of unnecessary scenes and things that did not need to happen and that they could have cut out of the show, but if they did that the episodes would end up being 10 minutes long LMAO

I don't understand the point of having an ensemble of 16 when you can take more than half of the characters away and there would be absolutely zero difference or change to the story/plot. Most of the characters ended up being extremely flat, 2 dimensional and have no real substance or development to them. Macau for example, who could've been used to show more of Vegas's soft/human side in the beginning, was completely disregarded. Half of Ta's screen time was him literally sleeping...

I refuse to go into an in-depth review of the couples because i'm way too sober for that right now but just know that I bought none of the relationships. And not just the romantic ones... even the sibling relationships were barely touched on or utilised to their fullest potential. It honestly upset me that the one and only scene we got of Kinn, Khun and Kim in the same frame together was in the LAST episode... and that was it... just one scene...

What is this? A comedy? A dark and toxic mafia story? Because it missed the mark on BOTH of those. Most of the jokes were super cringy, childish and did not land well at all... If you want to be dark and toxic, then BE DARK AND TOXIC. Them refusing to commit to the dark and toxic theme just made these characters feel super OOC at times.

If anything, this series just proved to me that all you need for a successful BL series is hot men who can act, good cinematography and a whole lot of unnecessary sex scenes. A good script and plot that makes sense is not needed.

In conclusion, I think that KinnPorsche is still watchable as long as you don't expect anything from the storyline/plot.

Also (very) unpopular opinion but I hope that they will just let the KinnPorsche franchise die after this because I really truly want to see these amazing actors acting in stories that are actually worthy of their talent.

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