Reviews

Overall meh

Not terribly well acted or cast. Some of the choices made for the way emotions were portrayed were at best interesting and making be laugh out loud (the Crown Prince's ''and who do you suspect?'') or just badly acted (Mei Lin trying to cry when one of the other women was killed). ML is OK when he doesn't try too hard to be intimidating or playing up the crazy. FL is very good at angry frowning, but other emotions are not quite there. The only good standout is Princess Zi Gu, casting was solid.

The plot is interesting enough, though nothing ground breaking. Camera work is OK but either editing lacked or there were too many plotholes no one othered to fill. Post production sound design were not good, you could hear that someone was standing in a booth and voice overs don't match the acting, especially with FL. Costumes are OK, nothing special. Fight sequences at least are decent.

Overall, though this is definitely not the best drama I've seen, I still watched it for some reason. Maybe because the last drama I watched was Lost You Forever and I was just happy to see something that didn't make me want to gauge my eyes out for the majority of the drama. I actually had to go and find who the ML for this drama was just to make sure it wasn't Jing from LYF, because they look eerily similar in certain moments.

There was zero chemistry between any characters, and I mean any. Not talking only about romantic pairings, even siblings and subjects. Everything feels like a performance, but flat and uninspiring. Closest to affection was the Emperor and Concubine Yin, but the age difference was too off-putting.

One plot point I did enjoy, and will give props to the writers for coming up with it, was about the husband marrying into the family, sitting in the bridal sedan and all. Haven't seen that before, at least when it wasn't for some disguise purposes or other shenanigans.

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Is chemistry really too much to ask for?

I've really tried to enjoy this drama as it seemed to have all the components I look for in a romcom:
-Enemies (not actual enemies but they started off with the fl disliking him, rightfully so, because she had no memories and he was a complete stranger in her eyes) to lovers
-Silly and loveable supporting cast
-GORGEOUS rural setting
-A backstory that was quite intense

But in the end, I liked all of it EXCEPT the main couple.

I really enjoyed the pacing of the fl trying to get her memory back and her backstory, I loved getting to know more about the ml and his family/neighbours, I even liked to watch how the villain came to realise who he was in regards to the ml and instead of burdening him with it, he chose to end it all.

The S.E.S ladies were lovely, I loved how Hui Ja came to terms with and in the end supported her son wanting to be a boxer, I loved how fearless they were in protecting their own and their endless support to their loved ones.

Do Yeop as Tae Ha's boxing coach and father figure was a great addition to the plot as well, I would of liked to see more of them.

I would of really enjoyed to know more about Song Wol and her backstory (since they mentioned briefly she used to be a north-korean soldier and has good fighting skills).

Instead, I got 12 episodes of a romance story that, at least for me, wasn't even romantic. I wanted to laugh, cry and blush with the characters as they deepened their bond but all I got was second hand embarrassment. Every romantic scene felt like 2 coworkes turned up to film their scenes at the allotted time. It didn't make me feel like I was living those moments with them, it didn't make me root for them, it didn't spark a sort of curiosity in me to find out how their future looks like, I was just...watching it on my screen.

I've noticed this with a lot of recent romantic dramas, the chemistry that keeps you on your toes just isn't there, it just feels like the casting directors are throwing 2 conventionally attractive people in the mix and expect the public to just feel a chemistry that wasn't there in the first place.

It just feels like they're not making romcoms like they used to, expecting the beautiful male leads to make up for it.

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This is truly a piece of art, performed and executed perfectly.

This is a phenomenal drama with superb writing and directing, as well as acting and editing. It was beautifully written, with subtle but deep meaning about feelings, acknowledgement, understanding and compromise among family members, beyond blood relation.

I am happy and sad for the ending. The final episode was written in a way that made the viewers miss them already... like 'Farewell is sad, but you're happy because all is well, yet you missed them dearly.'

And not to mention what a beautiful OST. Each song takes your emotions and feelings to the right place where they want you.

Last but not least, I love Liu Xueyi, always has been and always will be. I think he is the first ML I fell in love with since Murong Jinghe. He has a beautiful smile and eyes. and that sweet dimple is to die for!

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The zombies were not the reason I stayed

Honestly, I didn’t watch Happiness for the zombies , I watched it for Sae-bom and Yi-hyun, and their chemistry was easily the best part of the drama. Their relationship felt natural and refreshing, especially because there was no unnecessary love triangle or dragged-out romance.

The zombie/infection plot was decent and had some interesting moments, but I feel like the story could’ve been better if it explored the outbreak and some of the characters more. The other residents were also pretty interesting, even if some of them were definitely testing my patience.

The OSTs were really good too and fit the atmosphere of the drama nicely.

Overall, the main leads carried this one for me. The chemistry, loyalty, and the way they always had each other’s backs made it worth watching.

8/10

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Faltered here and there but stayed true to its core message throughout! This is the drama for me!

I love this drama so much and I have been keeping track with it from the beginning which is extremely rare for me. Normally, I binge watch the dramas. I love the themes of this dram which was very women focused as well as about being able to "live well". Even if the storyline falters one or twice it was nothing too egregious for me to harp on. I know a lot of people are talking about the ML and the romance but to me this romance was simple and realistic and sweet. Lanxiang did love him he just wasn't her entire would which I think is fair and true to her character. This girl's entire family was executed this is not trauma that you will ever get over it's something you can only live with and hope the pain lessens over time. The character development was beautiful and I loved each female character even the villains. People think the Du Cuique second half storyline may be overdone but I thought it was nice because it wraps up her exile and the fact that delusional women like her have always existed.

All in all this my perfect drama. Even its flaws felt so realistic and human to me. The ending scene with all the women then them disappearing one by one as time passed had my heart wrenching and I was in tears. Lanxiang being the last one and being a great-grandma... my heart can only take so much!The passage of time really got to me.

Against the Current you are the one for me and I love this drama so much that it might make me a bit sick.

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Entertaining, but there is very little depth & the plot is super juvenile.

This is one of those dramas that are occasionally really funny, but there is no plot or character depth whatsoever. I have seen other thai GLs actually and even compared to the GL competition this is super shallow. Anyway the comedy is good & the lack of acting professionalism seems kind of a net positive at times. Like Rose keeps smiling all the time & oftentimes it feels so real, that I speculate the actress actually felt super amused at how silly some of the scenes she had to act in. It feels like Rose's smiling ability carries the entire show at times. Girl's Generation's Yoona should take notice, this is how it's done..

Anyway this drama is kind of like a super basic Hallmark production, but with pretty good comedy added in, naturally nothing too annoying happens throughout, so overall I'd say it's very much worth watching, given the right mood..

Actually just occurred to me that there is one annoyance, the childhood flashback scenes were of a very low quality & were somewhat jarring, but luckily easily fast forward button-able without missing much of anything.

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"To live" is such a powerful message ?

Here comes the end of a tearful drama that I hadn't skipped a single episode! Always patiently watching haha.

By the way, they skipped one emperor reign, no? The emperor who annihilated the Shen family was Yongle, and then the infamous fat emperor... I think they skipped Xuande, straight into the kidnapped's emperor era.

If you've ever watched The Ming Dynasty (2020) or Xu Kai's Palace Feast, you'd have the idea.

It's breath of fresh air to see another POV about Yongle (since most stories brought him out as a nice emperor. But he led a treason so that's the truth).

Anyway, this drama stated clearly that it's not based on any empire/dynasty, but still, as a history enthusiast I couldn't help it 😆

10/10

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i want them to be just happy

The show's brilliant secret weapon is treating the piano bench as a battleground and a bed. When the two main leads sit down together to play "four hands", it isn’t just music. it’s full raw emotion. Every crescendo feels like a shouting match, every synchronized rhythm feels like intense emotional intimacy, and the lingering eye contact after a heavy chord has more charge than standard romance scenes. It’s electric, suffocating, and impossible to look away from.

Honestly, the show could have easily been a 12-hour livestream of Kang Pi-O and Choi Jeong-Yo just sharing a piano bench without a single line of dialogue, and I would still eat it up🫠.

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Honest review (as a GL fan)

First of all If you are here only because you want a GL basic plot like other gls out there you are not in the right place. The series contains a GL couple but its not the main focus in the series and they dont get a lot of scenes.
I enjoyed the show much more than I thought I would. It is a thriller and a mystery that keeps you on your feet all the time trying to understand what is happening and find the murderer.
Warning, it does has a lot of disturbing scenes including blood, animal abuse and dead bodies but If you are used to watching Netflix shows and thrillers its nothing too much.
Even tho I started bcs of the GL plot I wasnt disappointed with the series. Overall, I 100% recommend starting it if you like that kind of series ( I binged it in 2 days)

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A bit of a sleeper.

I almost passed this up, but I wanted to watch enough to verify cast/character info. And then I couldn't stop watching.

Others might not share my enthusiasm, but I loved this one. For me, it's a best possible comedic parody on the real versus fake daughter, swapped babies, rich family, hidden identity themes without the incessant yapping, bias blindness, cruelty, etcetera. I think they had to have managed to hit most every trope? Perfect "cartoon" graphics. Great casting & performances! Happy ending: Wishes fulfilled, lost loves reunited, a family finds its hearts. Even a bonus reveal: Argentina (think Africa), BECAUSE it's the place that's "the farthest away".

Made me smile, grin, giggle, chuckle, laugh, face palm...
(Spoiler: Be ready. The Butler did it. 😂)
💖🎉💫💙💚💛💜💫🎉💖
🎶 Expanded drama info in "Comments"

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Xu Lanxiang against the current

Overall, this is one of the best recent Cdramas for me! It lost a bit of its shine after ep39 when they started introducing a lot of information through repeated time skips until the end.
This approach didn't allow us to savor this part of the characters' lives as much as we did during the early episodes. However, considering the constraints of time, budget and episode count that's understandable to a level.

This Cdrama really centers on the female lead and her life journey as she navigates life's challenges. I really came to love her character, watching her maneuver through everything life throws at her and grow from it. This is a slice of life story, foremost a type of story with romance as a subplot.

As for the male lead he was a capable master and commander for the men of his time but he struggled as a husband at first. However, I enjoyed witnessing his growth over the years and he eventually became a great father. What I appreciated about the male lead is that even though he had his flaws and made mistakes along the way, he was willing to learn from them and take accountability something many men would have struggled with during that time!

And I absolutely love how we got to witness many women's lives of different age groups and statuses! It really showed the cruelty of the time and its many layers!

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A Slow Beginning With an Exceptionally Satisfying Payoff

One of the things I enjoyed most about Abyss is the way its mystery develops without feeling forced. The story gives you just enough pieces to form your own theories, question the characters, and slowly understand what is really going on. Some details are easy to overlook, while others have been right in front of you all along. This makes the investigation feel thoughtfully planned without turning it into something unnecessarily complicated.

What also makes the drama effective is that it doesn't rely entirely on conversations to deliver information. Sometimes, a facial expression, a character's reaction, a small change in behavior, or an ordinary-looking object can reveal more than words could. The performances themselves become an important part of the storytelling, allowing certain moments to speak for themselves.

I will say that the pacing wasn't perfect for me, especially during the first eight episodes. I found the beginning quite slow and, at times, honestly a little boring. While I can appreciate in hindsight that those episodes were carefully laying the groundwork for the mystery, they didn't always keep me fully engaged while I was watching them. However, once the story started gaining momentum, I found the pacing much more effective. Even with the amount of information and different details being introduced, the plot remained relatively easy to follow while still giving the mystery enough room to develop. From that point onward, there was almost always something that kept me interested—a strange detail, a new theory, an unexpected possibility, or a question that remained unanswered.

What makes the overall experience even more rewarding is the way the separate pieces eventually come together. Details that seemed unimportant earlier can suddenly take on a completely different meaning, while previous scenes become clearer once you know the full picture. By the end, you realize how carefully the story has been setting things up from the beginning. It creates the kind of conclusion that makes you want to look back at earlier episodes and notice all the details you may have overlooked. The slow beginning is probably my biggest criticism of the drama, but the eventual payoff made me appreciate why so much of that groundwork was necessary.

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everything was going so well...

Okay, enough with the teary eyes. Let’s get going on the real review for this drama.

To start off, this drama has been my only obsession this year, and I waited desperately for the next episode. No other drama has made me feel the way this drama has, and it’s not an exaggeration. For a drama that was historical, with no (typical) romance, this drama was amazing.

But the thing with dramas this long is that they end up catching some flak no matter what, and I’m one to add fuel to the fire.
Not the fire the story had (countless times), but the fire that I got when I saw a woman-led show.
And what better way to start a review by a woman on a woman-led show?

If there’s any way you start a drama, it’s this: give the protagonist a heavy downfall. Destroy everything she holds dear. And then, just when she has lost everything, give her a sweet little candy to appease her so she’s still interesting.
Here, the sweet candy was her adopted parents.
I mean, technically, you can call them parents.
I’m not saying they did a better job than most parents do or anything. Absolutely not.
That would be a RIDICULOUS thing to imply...

And if you really wanna gratify the audience, do what they can’t.
Grow.
No offense.
But our protagonist grows.
Isn’t that satisfying to watch?
To watch a maid who lost everything she had reach the top of the pyramid by just her wits?
So satisfying.
But thankfully, our writer also has pen game besides just having an appealing strategy.

Anyway, then to bring the story to life, have actors who do the characters justice. Make them act like they are living the scenes. Make them feel like they are also the main character besides the (real) main characters. But that’s what makes this show so damn good. Our side characters hold just as much importance in the depth of the story.

But wait, don’t stop there, because now you also gotta make them likable.
Tough, right?
Not for our writer. Making them likable is what this drama does best.
Like, why am I rooting for NPC No. 999 to divorce her husband?
But you go, girl. Woo\~

Don’t smile just yet. We have the beginning cleared, acting cleared, character depth cleared…
Umm, what’s left?
Right!
Cinematography.
We will fill the entire drama with spectacular cinematography so these 2x speeders and th-those sk-kimmers, those damn skimmers can actually watch something for once.

Make NPC no. 1999, selling vegetables on the street, look like she has a family to feed.

“Umm… we are done, right? It’s enough now, I think. We will make the best drama from this!”
…
Erm… you know what?
No.
We have to fuck up SOMEWHERE.

Hmm. Where, where… where...

Yeah, right!
Let’s fuck up the ending.

What I mean is, let’s make everything stale and have no real character growth. Let’s let our protagonist sit in a seat and move in slow steps with no real action for the rest of the 30 episodes.

And let’s also fuck up the dynamic between the main leads. Because we are, haha… against romance.
but I am not finished. Let’s also use a truckload of time skips so people have no idea what actually happened.
Show, don’t tell? What’s that. Only tell, don’t show.

“Umm… don’t you think the viewers will get mad then?”
Shut up.
You don’t know anything.
heh. We are still about women’s empowerment, and we have good cinematography.
The viewers will be fine.

“Umm… it’s still not enough, I think.”
Urgh.
Okay, fine.
Let’s make the last few episodes better with more still scenes, and if that’s not enough either, let’s just kill half the people the protagonist cares about.

“K-kill them? Don’t you think that’s too much? Are we killing them because they died in a battle or—”
Just kill them off.
Without any reason.

“…but they aren’t even that old.”
Urgh… use whatever reason that comes to mind.
Just kill them off to create drama and impact.
…

“You asked for the latex. It’s ready.”
Oh, good.
Use it on the protagonist.
"..."
We’re doing another time skip at the end, so age her up.
“…”
...

Guys, I’m the people.
I still like it… with reservations.


P.S. Shoutout to the music producer and all the OSTs used in this. absolutely breathtaking along with the cinematography.

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A true masterpiec !

10/10 ⭐

I honestly don’t know how to explain what Move to Heaven made me feel. I started watching it because of its concept, but somewhere along the way, it became much more than just a drama for me. It is one of those stories that doesn’t just make you emotional—it makes you look at life, death, relationships, and the people we leave behind in a completely different way.

The concept of Move to Heaven is genuinely beautiful. A trauma-cleaning company helps clean the belongings of people who have passed away, and while doing that, they discover the stories those people left behind. Every episode feels like opening a small window into someone’s life—their regrets, their love, their loneliness, their unfinished words, and the people they left behind. Some of these stories genuinely broke my heart because they showed how much a person can mean to someone, even after they are gone.

What I loved the most was how the drama shows that sometimes people who have passed away still have something they want to say. Their belongings become their final messages. And watching the characters discover those messages and deliver them to the people who needed to hear them was incredibly emotional.

The relationships in this drama were also one of its strongest points. The father-son relationship between Geu-ru and his father was so beautifully written. His father was such a kind and understanding person, and the way he cared for Geu-ru made their relationship feel incredibly genuine. Even after his death, his presence continues to guide Geu-ru. That relationship honestly stayed with me.

Geu-ru's character was another thing I really loved. The acting was amazing, especially the way his autism was portrayed. His expressions, his way of communicating, his routines, and the way he understood the world made him feel like a real person rather than just a character written for a story. I really connected with his character.

And then there is Sang-gu, the uncle. His relationship with Geu-ru starts in such a complicated way, but watching him slowly change and become someone who genuinely cares for Geu-ru was one of my favourite parts of the drama. Their relationship develops so naturally, and it becomes something really beautiful.

I also really liked Na-mu. She is talkative, energetic, sometimes a little possessive of Geu-ru, but she genuinely cares about him. She brings a different kind of energy to the story, and her presence makes Geu-ru's world feel a little warmer.

What makes Move to Heaven special for me is that it doesn't just tell stories about death. It tells stories about life. About the people we love. About things we never said. About regrets. About loneliness. About how easily we can take someone for granted while they are still here.

And somehow, while watching all of this, I felt like the drama was healing something inside me too. There were moments where I wasn't even crying because of the story itself—I was thinking about my own life, my own relationships, and the people who mean something to me. That's what makes this drama so powerful for me.

The writing is beautiful, the stories are meaningful, the acting is amazing, and the emotional moments never feel forced. Every episode leaves you with something to think about.

Move to Heaven is not just a drama I watched and enjoyed. It's one of those dramas that stays with you even after you finish it.

10/10. A masterpiece. ❤️

I genuinely loved it, and I think everyone should experience this drama at least once.

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