Reviews

Too complex and confusing for my liking

Whilst the story of Buried Hearts started out reasonably strong, it became too complex and confusing for my liking. There's just so much going on that it felt like us viewers needed a notepad to keep track of all characters, relationships, allies, enemies, weaknesses, strengths etc. Of course I don't mind dramas that have alot going on but here it felt overwhelming at times. However, when it wasn't too complex not confusing, which was sometimes, it was a very enjoyable watch and there were some unpredictable events which were genuinely shocking, and I liked to see.

I wish to always contain a paragraph of what I liked. Honestly this has been a little difficult for this drama. The only things I can think of are the cast members, some acting performances, which outshone the rest, and perhaps the fighting scenes and OST.

Whilst this definitely isn't a bad drama, unfortunately, I do not recommend starting this.

Personal Note: I believe this is only my second ever mobile review! And my second ever time editing a review!

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Beautiful!!!

What a beautiful ending, I'm so very happy they gave it to us after all the waiting! Could the production quality be better? Sure, but with how many problems went on at that time, I'm willing to cut them more slack. What's most important to me is that we saw the boys again, saw that they are still together and happy and that Fan Xiao is as obsessive and possessive as always.

You Shulang was very beautiful in this episode! I couldn't look away from him. I'm glad the stuff with Lu Zhen came to this end because I was dying wanting to see how he reacts to seeing You Shulang is still with Fan Xiao. I think he regrets losing You Shulang now, he was probably his one big love that he lost due to his shallowness.

Beautiful sigths, beautiful people, beautiful relationship (still toxic af tho), just beautiful! I wish I could see more of them.

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Good but not for me.

This was a hard watch for me. It honestly wasn't that bad of a show, but parts of it were a little to close to home. The premise of the story was interesting but honestly got boring really fast and there were many times were I caught myself on my phone and then had to rewatch parts. The part of the show that focused on the beer was very repetitive, something bad would happen and then they would fix it until something else would happen. I did really like the core cast but the side characters in charge of the beer company were annoying and too cartoon. I will say this though, there were parts of this show that were really great and there were many parts where I was crying and also many part that made me laugh. I think that for some people this may be a really enjoyable show, but for people who deal with similar issues as some of the characters here its a hard watch.

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The perfect show!

I was interested to watch this show because I had seen where people were talking about it during some interviews for kpop demon hunter and that a main song from it was in the movie as well. But I did not realize the male lead was a voice actor in the movie, I had basically finished the show when I made the connection. Besides that this is probably the best k-drama I have watched so far. Its a bit similar to "Whats wrong  with Secretary Kim?" and definitely had moments that were a call back to that show but it was so much better. I love all the characters in this show everyone of them was funny and interesting, even the people who were the antagonist were interesting and reallistic in their reasons. I also liked that there was a bit of angst but not where it filled the whole show and there were not a lot of situations where there was a misunderstanding between the leads and then they just were mad at each other for episodes at a time. All in all this was such a great show and will definitely become a part of my comfort show rotation.

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Sweet and beautiful!

This show was great and really made my heart flutter more then some other shows. Both of the leads were well cast and even the side characters were enjoyable. It also was such a great story and kept my attention the whole time. The romance was also very different from other kdramas. It showed a more mature romance and the funny cartoony moments from other kdramas were there but were far more suddle. The lead characters were really well written too. Ji-yun was tought in a way that wasn't annoying, but also suprisingly funny. Eun-ho was such a cute and caring person, but suprisingly tough when standing upfor others. This honestly was a refreshing and short kdrama and I would honestly recommend this to everyone.

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Good premise but disappointing.

I was really excited about this show, the premise sounded so good but it did not live up to the hype. I really loved the lead characters and the vampire family dynamic. The vampire lead was so cute and his personality was so fun. I spent most of the show laughing at how cute the vampires were. But the main crux of the show I didn't really care for. Any time the vampire hunters were involved the show was really boring for me. And this is a small nitpick but the fight sences honestly were not good, I kind of wish they would have just done what Vampire Diaries did and just have them use their vampire speed and kind of cheat the confrontation scenes. Also the ending honestly made no sense to me.

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Pretty good show!

This show was pretty cute in all honesty. I didn't go into it with a lot of hope and was pleasantly surprised. It was pretty drama-heavy, but the relationship was way too slow for me. Also, if the male leads had just talked to each other most of the drama wouldn't have happened, I will just chalk that up to dudes being dudes. I do think that it is important to know that this show is part of a series and that there is a couple that had gotten together in the first part of the series in this series. I did not realize that till a few episodes in, it does not affect the enjoyment of the story whether you watched the other series or not though.

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"The Legends wasn't ruined by its ending—it simply deserved a better one."

I started The Legends because of Bai Lu and Xu Kai. After watching several of their newer dramas, I wanted to see the series that made them one of the most beloved on-screen pairings in C-drama.

The first twenty episodes completely lived up to the hype.

Lu Zhaoyao instantly became one of the most unforgettable female leads I've watched. She wasn't introduced as the typical kind-hearted heroine waiting to be protected. She was bold, arrogant, fearless, ridiculously overpowered, and charismatic enough to make every scene feel alive. Bai Lu absolutely owned the role. From the moment she appeared, she truly felt like the Demon Queen everyone feared.

Then there was Li Chenlan.

At first, he seemed quiet, timid, and almost invisible beside Lu Zhaoyao's overwhelming personality. But somewhere along the way, he quietly became the emotional heart of the entire drama.
Xu Kai deserves tremendous credit for his performance.

Li Chenlan isn't the type of male lead who constantly declares his love through grand speeches. Instead, he expresses it through actions. Every sacrifice, every silent decision, every painful choice he made for Lu Zhaoyao felt sincere. Without trying to dominate the screen, Xu Kai gradually turned Li Chenlan into one of the most memorable male leads I've watched.
The chemistry between Bai Lu and Xu Kai was effortless.

Their relationship wasn't built through endless romantic scenes or physical affection. It grew through trust, misunderstandings, forgiveness, and sacrifice. Their love story felt mature because it wasn't about who loved more—it was about two people continuously choosing each other despite everything standing in their way.

Visually, The Legends has aged remarkably well.
The costumes, soundtrack, cinematography, and action choreography still hold up beautifully despite being released in 2019. The world felt immersive, and the darker atmosphere suited the story perfectly.

Another thing I genuinely appreciated was how the drama blurred the line between good and evil.

Rather than portraying immortals as automatically righteous and demons as naturally evil, it constantly questioned those labels. Some of the cruelest people wore the title of "righteous cultivator," while several demons displayed more humanity than those supposedly protecting the world.

Luo Mingxuan perfectly represented that irony.
He wasn't terrifying because of his strength.
He was terrifying because he genuinely believed every terrible thing he did was justified.
His obsession with righteousness slowly transformed him into the very monster he claimed to fight.

Jiang Wu was another pleasant surprise.
For most of the drama, I saw him as an obsessive antagonist whose unhealthy love for Lu Zhaoyao caused nothing but destruction. Yet by the end, the writers revealed a tragic loneliness beneath all that madness.

His final sacrifice...

"I lived because of you... and died because of you."

...became one of the most heartbreaking moments in the entire series.

It didn't erase his sins.
But it made him unforgettable.

Unfortunately...
This is where my praise begins to fade.

My biggest disappointment wasn't the story itself.
It was the execution of the second half.
After Lu Zhaoyao's resurrection, the drama never fully recaptured the excitement of its opening episodes. One of its greatest strengths was introducing an incredibly powerful female lead, yet a significant portion of the story was spent watching her weakened. While I understood the narrative reason behind it, I constantly found myself missing the unstoppable Demon Queen from the beginning of the series.

Qin Zhiyan's storyline also overstayed its welcome.
I kept hoping her character would grow into someone stronger after everything she experienced, but she remained one of the least engaging parts of the drama. Instead of increasing the emotional weight, her arc often slowed the story's momentum.

The pacing became an even bigger issue during the final arc.
Ironically, it wasn't because nothing happened.

It was because too much time was spent delaying what everyone was already waiting for.
Every episode teased the final battle.
Every episode made it feel like the climax was finally about to begin.
Yet another conversation...
another flashback...
another emotional pause...
another subplot...
would immediately interrupt the momentum.

By Episode 50, I wasn't bored.
I was simply asking the drama...
"Can we finally get to the ending?"
Then the final battle actually arrived...
...and it felt surprisingly short.

After spending more than fifteen episodes preparing for the ultimate confrontation, I expected a large-scale, emotionally devastating climax.

Instead, the battle ended much faster than I anticipated, while the drama continued to devote more time to dialogue and repeated flashbacks than to the actual conflict itself.
The imbalance between build-up and payoff became impossible to ignore.

Another issue that frustrated me was Li Chenlan's inner demon.
For nearly the entire drama, it was treated as the central conflict.
We were repeatedly told there was no cure.
Huang Gu spent his life searching for a solution.
Li Chenlan constantly lived under the shadow of eventually losing himself.
Yet the actual resolution came almost at the very end—with very little explanation.
After investing fifty-five episodes into that storyline, I honestly expected a clearer and more emotionally satisfying resolution.
Instead, it almost felt like...
"It's gone now."
That was it.
Even the five-year time skip left me wanting more.
Rather than allowing viewers to enjoy the happiness the characters had fought so hard to earn, the ending rushed through its emotional payoff.
And then...
the final scene.
Instead of giving us a simple glimpse of Li Chenlan and Lu Zhaoyao happily living together, the drama introduced children portrayed by Bai Lu and Xu Kai themselves.
While I understand the symbolic intention, it honestly left me more confused than emotional.

For a moment, I even questioned whether I was watching reincarnations, siblings, or their children.

After fifty-five episodes, I wished the ending had simply allowed the original characters to enjoy the peace they had sacrificed everything to achieve.
Despite all these frustrations...
I never once thought about dropping the drama.

One thing about me is that I'm still relatively new to C-dramas. Just over three months ago, I spent most of my free time cycling, hiking, and chasing outdoor adventures. C-dramas started as something I casually watched during work breaks until The Untamed completely changed everything. Since then, I've built a watchlist of more than 160 dramas and finished over forty titles.

Among all of them...

The Legends became one of my biggest "what could have been" dramas.
Not because it was bad.
Quite the opposite.

Because it had all the ingredients to become one of my all-time favorites.

It had unforgettable leads.

Outstanding performances.

Beautiful music.

Great cinematography.

Meaningful themes.

A fascinating moral conflict.

And one of Xu Kai's finest performances.
Unfortunately, its uneven pacing and underwhelming finale prevented it from reaching the masterpiece it had every opportunity to become.

I will always remember The Legends for Li Chenlan's quiet devotion, Lu Zhaoyao's unforgettable charisma, and the incredible chemistry between Bai Lu and Xu Kai.

I just wish the ending had rewarded those characters—and the viewers—with the same care that the beginning of the story did.

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A monster called Unit 731

Mans Inhumanity to Man is a 2025 series that portrays the atrocities committed by Unit 731, a division of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. More than just a historical drama, it's a psychological and moral exploration of how violence corrupts everyone it touches.

The show is filmed like the first ten minutes of Resident Evil stretched across an entire season, constantly building the feeling that something inhuman is lurking just around the corner. The tension, fear, and horror never let up, made even more disturbing by how normal the perpetrators act while carrying out unimaginable crimes. You feel this show in your gut from the very first episode.

We follow three main characters, each offering a different perspective as they slowly uncover what's really happening inside the facility.

Arakawa is a Japanese art professor who arrives at the complex without knowing he has been hired to sketch the bodies used in the experiments. The first glimpses of what is actually happening inside are just as shocking to him as they are to the audience.

Kojima is a Japanese documentary filmmaker who gradually discovers the horrors behind Japan's colonization of Manchuria. Through the footage he records, his imperial indoctrination slowly begins to crack, although his survival instinct often wins out.

Then there's Chang Fu, a humble Chinese cart driver who suffers the consequences of the war firsthand and slowly realizes who is truly responsible for the misery surrounding him. Through his daily life, we witness the constant oppression and fear experienced by ordinary Chinese civilians living in Harbin under Japanese occupation during the 1940s.

The story does an incredible job of making it feel impossible to live safely anywhere near Unit 731. The facility is portrayed almost like a living creature, a monster that doesn't confine its evil to the walls of the laboratory but poisons everything around it. Its mere existence destroys lives, families, communities, and consciences.

"They're not human like us. They're maruta, experiment materials."

It's a phrase repeated constantly by the Japanese soldiers to dehumanize the prisoners used as human test subjects. The most disturbing part is that the show didn't invent this. Maruta was the actual term used by Unit 731 personnel to refer to prisoners, reducing people to nothing more than "logs." That single word perfectly captures the level of dehumanization required for these atrocities to happen. Babies, children, pregnant women, and the elderly are treated as experimental material instead of human beings.

One of the production's greatest strengths is how it contrasts different perspectives. Kojima initially falls back on Imperial Japanese ideology to justify everything he witnesses. Arakawa never questions that what's happening is evil, but his tragedy lies in how powerless he is to stop it. Chang Fu simply accepts life as it is at first and tries to survive one day at a time. The narrative is remarkably good at moving between these characters, showing how their lives unexpectedly intersect throughout its 20 episodes.

The tension works so well because the characters are written with so much depth that eventually you begin to feel exactly what they feel, even when you disagree with their decisions. You fear Chang Fu becoming a maruta. You fear Arakawa being exposed. You fear Kojima betraying everyone just to save himself. Sometimes all it takes is a Japanese officer walking into a room for your anxiety to spike, especially when that officer is the man running the whole nightmare, Shiro Ishii. An absolutely despicable villain, made even worse by the fact that he was a real person. Quite simply, the biggest bastard in the entire story.

The show also features a second timeline set during the 1990s and 2000s, following a museum curator gathering evidence of these crimes. He meets other Japanese citizens trying to expose the truth about Unit 731 while facing resistance from parts of Japanese society. One of the people he interviews is Narita, a former member of Unit 731 whose gradual indoctrination we witnessed throughout the 1940s timeline, now an old man whose apparent remorse feels more like an attempt to protect his own legacy than genuine regret. The group fights for recognition and compensation for the victims, something we already know will never truly happen. The story also reminds viewers that before Japan's surrender, those responsible for Unit 731 destroyed much of the facility, murdered the remaining prisoners, and tried to erase as much evidence of their crimes as possible.

The way both timelines connect is technically impressive and emotionally devastating. We watch the legal battles, the attempts to erase history, and Japan's ongoing struggle to fully acknowledge responsibility for these events.

But hey, for everyone who loves dismissing every Chinese production about this subject as propaganda, the story delivers one unavoidable historical irony. The men responsible for Unit 731 didn't escape because of luck or some miracle. They were protected by the United States, our very own White Savior, which granted immunity to people like Shiro Ishii in exchange for access to the data gathered through their human experiments. Most of those involved with Unit 731 were never prosecuted. Many returned to Japan, practiced medicine, and lived out the rest of their lives in freedom, dying peacefully of old age, all courtesy of our beloved, completely propaganda-free Western democracy.

It's a conclusion as infuriating as it is fitting for a work whose central theme is humanity's endless ability to justify any atrocity when it serves a financial, scientific, or ideological purpose.

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