Reviews

A pair of husband-and-wife performers committed double suicide one day, leaving the man dead and the wife almost brain-dead. A month later, during one of his blind dates suggested by a colleague... Li Hongqi accidentally encountered a suspicious case after witnessing a woman he was on a blind date with being mistreated in public. And in doing so, he ended up meeting someone who may have a connection to the double suicide a month earlier, as well as an illegal business involving drugs and pornography. As usual, Officer Li Hongqi was hot on the case!

Although this movie was the second in the series, it actually served as a prequel to the previous one. So technically, this was the story of Li Hongqi before he met his girlfriend, Taozi. The movie starts with a scene from one of the blind dates Hongqi was set up with, which ended in an incident where he was almost cheated by his date and the shop owner. Since he was fresh from undercover work, he didn't have his badge on him, and he ended up in a brawl with the shop owner and some thugs. After such an experience, anyone would have wanted to swear off going on blind dates, but when you had colleagues who wouldn't stop pestering you to find a girlfriend... how can you refuse? But because of that Hongqi ended up meeting Ma Qiang, a very wealthy man, even though the man was not involved in any legal business.

This movie was a great addition to the series, as we got to find out more about who Li Hongqi was. And it did explain the reason why in the first movie, Hongqi was a bit sensitive about being filmed in plain clothes, since he often works undercover. We also got to see a glimpse of his 'family' from his orphanage and find out why, despite calling them his family, Hongqi seek to find a deeper connection through Taozi's family. But back to this movie, Li Hongqi once again gets involved in a case while he is still on leave from work. And to make it worse, the case also involved one of his brothers from his orphanage! So just like in the first movie, Hongqi had to yet bust another criminal activity while also having someone he knew be part of it.

There were quite a lot of action scenes in this movie, which was expected in this kind of genre, and viewers won't be disappointed in seeing how Xie Miao brings the role of Li Hongqi to life. If you're looking for a good police action movie with a lot of action and drama, check out this movie as well as the previous one.

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very strong start but disappointing ending

Honestly, this series began so good and i enjoyed most of the initial episodes immensely, especially their bickering scenes and then their practically honeymoon stage.

BUT i feel like this series should have been longer, especially when the ending was just not satisfying enough for me. i think we definitely needed more of wine chasing lal after how many times wine rejected lal or drew a harsh boundary (nothing wrong with a boundaries but each time, she would hurt lal because she was actively pushing her away using them no matter how much space lal gave)

overall it was solid but if i rewatched it, i think i'd stick to the first half of the show and skip the ending altogether

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Where is the pulse?

There is nothing here that is a must see.
Same formula. Turning the best friend into an enemy to make the new guy favorable.
Normal acting bordering on lackluster. ML actor lifeless even when he is happy.
Serene plot. Predictable. Best friend who knew him for years doesn't reach / know / help him as the one who the ml has always loved.
I won’t hold the budget against it but it showed and the acting didn't make it any better.

The best part is that it was only 8 ep at 20 min. It is not horrible it was just boring. There was no dimension to the XXY and it made the story suffer. He didn't have romantic feelings for his best friend, which is fine, but was content to live off of him for years due to his trauma. Meets Jing An again and decides to finally do what his best friend has been trying to get him to do for years. Throw in the bullies and that's the script.

Recently China has shown what it can accomplish, this should not be held against them. It just needed a pulse.

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This is the best portrayal of enemies-to-lovers I have ever seen. In the beginning, they seriously hated each other, and not just a mild dislike. The ML was honestly a jerk, and I admit to hating him, just a little. But seeing the way their relationship morphed and shifted into love and admiration made me love them all the more, because it was so realistic. And don't even get me started on how hilarious they were. They bickered like an old married couple, and I sat for every second of it.
On to the side characters.
OMG, I loved the generals so much, they're freinship so much, and watching them healed me. Every character was done and developed so well, from the Wie household to the FL's own family, I was impressed. Even the villains had so many layers to their characters, which a lot of dramas cannot seem to do.
Now for the stuff I didn't like (SPOILERS):
I feel like anyone who has watched the show is going to have the same complaint: the deaths.
I mean, I think it's just cruel to make the audience care so much about Wei Liang and then just kill him off. The same goes for the FL's cousin. All she wanted was to live a peaceful life with her husband, and she ended up giving it all up.
This was entirely unnecessary and felt like their deaths were only done to cater to the genre itself, rather than to serve any real purpose to the story, because I would have been perfectly fine if they were alive and well, which they were in the original novel.

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I wanted to like this...

The awkwardness is the charm of this show. (though it gets too much at times)

there are 2 types of awkwardness in this show!
1. genuine 2.manufactured/scripted
the scripted awkwardness was painful to watch.

I really enjoy watching the chef cook, the food shots are looking great.
some of the guests really liked the food and some were faking their reactions.. not that they hated the food but the compliments/reactions felt off to me. (such as ep2, ep3 ,ep11)
+the episodes with Sana and Jisoo were so fun to watch!
the joy and satisfaction on chef's face when guests actually enjoy the food is cute.
It's nice that guest are not necessarily singers/actors and it in includes other professions.

I don't like about this show is that the sound of eating is too much! I'll be deducting 2 points just for that. (I feel like they reduced it at some point in the show)
**If you don't like eating asmr, do not watch this show with headphone/earbuds.**
I deduct another point because they talk way too much when the guest is eating! let them savor the food!
And there goes another 2points for changing assistant!
the change itself didn't bother me, but the girl couldn't keep the show together! she was too boring and idk how to describe the discomfort I feel by just watching her segments.

If they ended the show instead of changing the assistant I would've given this an 8! it's a shame.

It's not the kind of show you would binge watch, it'll get repetitive if you do that.
If you're going to watch it, better watch one episode per day! or even better if there is more gap between episodes.

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A shooting star, Burning brightly and blinking out in the middle ("plot holes") till it faded away.

I only write reviews when i have high hopes for a drama, only for them to get destroyed.

So, in a nutshell, this drama can be broken down as follows...

I rate this drama as 2 parts.
1st Half - 9/10
2nd Half - 3/10
Overall - 6/10.

Excellent casting , excellent acting, perfect OST only to be broken down by inconsistent writing and glaring plot holes.
The 1st half went great but for the 2nd half , you literally have to watch it with the mind of a toddler. Felt like some one completely stupid took over the writing.

The best part of this drama and what drew me to it in the first place was the leads chemistry. Sadly they completely ignored this towards the end. The last episode did have a twist and kind of justified some choices made but honestly it felt like taking such a roundabout way to get there that it completely felt unnecessary.

Only watch this for the couple chemistry or if you are a fan of the leads, and even then just fast forward after ep16 or so, last few minutes of the final ep was decent and gave some closure (not for the logic, but for the romance fans) so i can move on without raging....

ART out :)

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The choices we make along the way

Yang Yang is an actor, who's work I'll always check out. While I hope, that he stops being typecasted and will get a chance to diversify his acting abilities in the future, I still love him in these hero roles, he masters so well.
This drama is no exception.
First of all:
The sword fights, the BGM and the cinematography were amazing. Big big compliments to the team, which choreographed these parts. By the sheer amount of fighting in this show that must have been a ginormous chunk of work, and it was excellently done. 👏👏👏👏
It was a pleasure to watch.

The same goes for the actors.
All 3 main leads plus the supporting cast did a great job and had a good chemistry with eo. A special appreciation for our female lead, because she held her own in these martial arts scenes. I was impressed by her. And I loved the casting choice regarding her. Her role is seemingly fragile and timid, but under the surface no wilting flower. The character stood its ground and spoke up, when needed.

Thankfully they didn't push a romantic angle into the storyline. It would have watered down the story and distracted from the main point/question:
How to uphold justice, when the corruption and crime seemed to be overwhelming and the regular system not functioning properly.
Does one start being a vigilante (represented through the Yaksha) and exercise self justice (the comment section was definitely leaning towards that solution with all these kinda bloodthirsty comments to "just kill the guy, he deserves it") or does one take the much more difficult route and uphold the law in form of a legal process with trial and verdict.
The show challenges our protagonists constantly with this conflict and we are witness, how they are struggling to make the right decisions and trying to find the right solution again and again.
And fail sometimes, when pushed to the brink.

As a viewer it is easy to say do this or that. We have no real stakes in the game and see more of the whole picture.
But everyone, who stood in front of a similar situation in real life, knows, how difficult it can be to do the right thing, if the vigilante solution seems so much easier and much more rewarded by society.
So it is no wonder, that our protagonists learned some lessons the hard and bloody way. Lifelong regrets included.

And how they recover, after they took the wrong action. In these moments the dynamic between our 3 leads shone the brightest.

There is a lot of complaining by viewers, that the drama got boring.
I guess, it depends on your expectations and what you see under the surface, when you watch the show.
I loved it from start to finish. Tbh, this drama made me think so much about, how we struggle with the same questions in our daily life.
Do we uphold our moral values under duress? Or are we starting to take shortcuts, even if these erode our values one little sediment after sediment, until the foundation is gone.

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35歳なるまで見ては行けないドラマ1選 The 1 drama you should NOT watch before 35 !

... I wasn't expecting this. But Japan have sometimes this ability of producing good sensitive drama. There is still a bit of over the top sometime but really this drama pretty much hit on the spot.
It's not happy go fluffy, and despite the heart warming general feeling you get to see the struggle someone can go through, reaching a certain age, about the fear of missing out, the insecurities, the worry to go out of your confort zone once you're not young anymore, the feeling of responsability toward the others ...
I like the pace because the problems are true questions one can go through and the character are well built that their behaviour is relevant.

But it might not be understandable if you haven't experienced it, though I think it can give a good insight and hopefully get teach us all what it takes to grow older.

smart scenario, great accuracy, first time for me getting to think the age gap didn't feel unhealthy.

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The Rom-Com That Made Me Believe Clichés Can Be Perfect!!!

I don't even know how to write this review without sounding completely biased... because I AM. 😭
I've watched Business Proposal more times than I can count, and somehow it still gives me the same butterflies it did the very first time. Every rewatch starts with, "I'll just watch one episode," and before I know it, it's 2 a.m., I'm giggling, kicking my feet, and questioning why every rom-com isn't written like this.
On paper, this drama sounds like every cliché you've ever heard.
A rich CEO.
A fake dating contract.
A middle-class girl pretending to be someone else.
A stubborn grandfather.
You've seen all of this before...
SO WHY IS IT THIS GOOD?!
Because Business Proposal doesn't just use clichés—it perfects them.
Shin Ha-ri is genuinely one of my favorite female leads in K-drama history. She's chaotic, hardworking, awkward, hilarious, and never stops being herself. Even when she's surrounded by wealth and power, she never changes who she is just to fit into Tae-moo's world.
And THAT is one of my favorite things about this drama.
It never sends the message that a middle-class girl has to become "good enough" for a rich man.
Instead, it quietly tells us that kindness, honesty, hard work, and love are worth more than money ever will be.
I absolutely loved Ha-ri's family. They weren't just background characters waiting for their five minutes of screen time—they felt REAL. They laughed together, argued together, worried about Ha-ri, supported her, and somehow reminded me that home isn't about being perfect. It's about always having people who stand beside you.
Now let's talk about Kang Tae-moo.
Yes, he's ridiculously handsome.
Yes, he's ridiculously rich.
But underneath all of that confidence is someone who has spent his entire life trying to meet expectations. His relationship with his grandfather adds so much depth to his character because it explains why responsibility always comes before his own happiness.
Speaking of the grandfather...
I honestly loved his character development.
At first, he believes family background and social status matter more than anything. He can't imagine his grandson with someone like Ha-ri because she comes from a completely different world.
And honestly?
That mindset still exists today.
Which is exactly why watching his relationship with Ha-ri slowly change was so satisfying.
She didn't win him over with money.
She didn't pretend to be someone she wasn't.
She won him over simply by being kind, genuine, respectful, and unapologetically herself.
To me, that's one of the most beautiful messages in the entire drama.
Love doesn't erase social differences overnight.
But genuine people have the power to change hearts.
I also want to talk about Min-woo because I feel like people either ignore him or hate him too much. To me, he represents something so real—how timing can completely change a relationship. Sometimes people don't realize what someone means to them until life has already moved on. That doesn't make him a villain. It makes him human.
AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE SECOND COUPLE.
They had absolutely NO RIGHT to steal my heart the way they did.
Every scene between them was entertaining, funny, emotional, and somehow made me root for them just as much as the main couple.
This drama made me laugh.
It made me smile.
It gave me butterflies.
It became my comfort drama.
Years from now, I'm sure I'll watch dramas with bigger budgets, deeper plots, and more complicated stories.
But I honestly don't know if any of them will ever replace the feeling Business Proposal gives me.
Some dramas entertain you.
Some dramas impress you.
But once in a while...
A drama quietly becomes your home.
For me, Business Proposal will always be that home.
⭐ 10/10. No notes. Just endless love.

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Gender bender romance worthy of a Disney fairytale

First off, I want to admit that the sole reason I decided to watch this 10-year-old drama (after failing to bring myself to watch the first episode once and then trying again a couple of months later) was Park Bo Gum. I simply wanted to enjoy his acting skills and charisma. And the reason I managed to finish it without dropping it midway was exactly the same. There, I said it.

My first gripe with this drama is the casting, namely their choice of the female lead actress. Other than the fact that she was too young both for the character and for a romantic role in general, my biggest problem with her is that, simply put, physically speaking she could never in a million years pass off as a male. Only if every single person who came across her suffered from a brain concussion or sudden blindness could it be considered convincing that they would buy her as a man. The only believable reaction to meeting our cross-dressing FL was the SML's, whose sole reason for falling in love with her was that he was apparently something of an expert in female anatomy and was able to tell right away that she was a woman in disguise.

Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that a gender-bender drama has to cast a particularly masculine-looking FL. I am simply saying that, at the very least, do not cast an extremely cute-faced sixteen-year-old with obvious feminine features and a high-pitched voice and expect us to accept that people genuinely believe she is a man.

When it comes to the story, as a gender-bender set during the Joseon era, the plot certainly had its fair share of clichés, but somehow its predictability was sweet and funny at first. You found yourself watching in anticipation of certain events, waiting to see how the characters would react. A lot may have been predictable in both the romantic and political storylines, but predictability itself was never my issue. Rather, my issue lay in the specific details of the plot, the character development, and the overall pacing of the show.

For example, we knew the ML would start developing feelings for the cross-dressing FL while still believing her to be a man (I guess he was blind, deaf, and dumb, but anyhow). We knew he would struggle with his feelings, only to eventually come to terms with them before learning her true identity, although I have to say that moment felt incredibly anticlimactic. We knew she would constantly be in danger of being exposed and that people who knew her secret would repeatedly come to her rescue, though the number of times this scenario occurred may have exceeded expectations, but more on that later.

As for the political plotline, let's be honest: political intrigue and court struggles in Joseon-era sageuk dramas almost always follow the same formula and rely on the same unmistakable tropes — a puppet or weak king, corrupt officials, an evil Queen Dowager, powerful ministers plotting poisonings, assassinations, and political marriages to secure power for their families, and so on. There is nothing inherently wrong with clichés, but if you choose to use them, then the details need to be believable and engaging. Smart characters should make smart moves, and the story should not constantly create problems only to solve them through luck, chance encounters, or the miraculous skills of an unbelievably talented portrait artist.

As for the romance between the main leads, while it is easy to understand how she fell for the handsome, kind, and fun prince, his attraction to her, especially early on and up until the point where he began accepting his "faux BL" feelings, never felt convincing enough in my opinion. For a Crown Prince and heir to the throne to come to terms with the possibility that he might be attracted to a eunuch of all people, we needed more than casual banter and sudden, unexplained bouts of jealousy.

Other dramas such as Coffee Prince or the Japanese Hana Kimi, while far from perfect, at least worked hard to provide enough buildup to sell viewers on the emotional attraction and inner conflict experienced by the male lead while struggling with feelings for someone he believed to be male. In this drama, however, it mostly happened because she was cute and pretty, with a bubbly personality and a tendency to talk back to him before learning of his identity as Crown Prince.

The progression of their romance during the first quarter of the drama was not necessarily too fast in terms of the overall timeline, but it lacked the emotional groundwork needed to make it convincing. And when it came to the long-awaited reveal of her true gender, I felt it happened rather quickly and somewhat anticlimactically.

I know I am not alone in thinking that one of the most frustrating aspects of the romance in this drama was how ridiculously implausible their rendezvous and romantic moments felt. And I am not just saying this as a longtime viewer of sageuk dramas, but as a viewer of this very drama. In a world where all it takes is shouting "여봐라!" for servants waiting outside the chambers to immediately come running in, and where characters constantly bump into one another by chance within palace walls, are we really expected to believe that the palace suddenly becomes a haven of privacy whenever the romance requires it?

Apparently, the Joseon palace — a place full of paper walls and servants wandering every corner — somehow had countless secret spots where the Crown Prince could whisper words of love to his eunuch, hold hands, give piggyback rides, and exchange back hugs in complete privacy.

There was one scene in particular that had me screaming at the screen: the Crown Prince was literally sitting on the grass next to her, having a romantic conversation while she leaned on his shoulder, with only a parasol hiding them from servants standing mere feet away. Are we supposed to believe the other side of the parasol was magically devoid of onlookers, and that everyone nearby had suddenly developed hearing problems?

Scenes like this repeated so often that they genuinely started to get on my nerves. I kept expecting rumors about the Crown Prince's sexuality to spiral out of control and become a major scandal, but somehow they mostly never did.

Ironically, whenever the writers needed to solve a problem they themselves had created, they always relied on either our hopelessly smitten SML or the Crown Prince's friend and bodyguard to save the day. And it almost always happened in exactly the same way: they would conveniently happen to overhear a conversation through closed doors or stumble across someone just moments before disaster struck.

The sheer number of convenient coincidences in this drama could fill entire volumes. The writers seemed to decide, depending on the needs of the plot, that walls either didn't exist at all or that wide open spaces provided perfect privacy.

And don't even get me started on the political intrigue, which became the main focus during the final third of the drama, because that provided some truly eye-rolling moments.

For starters, almost all of the criminal masterminds and palace officials were anything but smart or conniving. They openly discussed conspiracies, met their spies in public, and generally behaved like complete idiots incapable of successfully carrying out any scheme.

Even the evil Queen's backup baby plan made little sense. If she needed an alternative prince in case she gave birth to a princess, why keep the pregnant court lady inside her own chambers rather than hiding her somewhere discreet until the child was born?

And once again, the same issue resurfaced: the absurd number of conveniently placed witnesses to vital moments stretched even my willingly suspended disbelief beyond its limits.

The pursuit of both the rebels and our FL was equally laughable. The drama wanted us to believe she was constantly in danger of being recognized and captured outside the palace, only for her to successfully re-enter the palace once disguised as a magistrate and once as a medical assistant.

The second time, during the final episode, she was literally wandering around the palace without a care in the world while wearing nothing more than a simple face mask. The fact that her enemies somehow knew she was inside the palace and still failed to catch her was honestly hilarious.

Another issue was the pacing. The way major conflicts were developed and then resolved during the final stretch of the finale highlighted the drama's weaknesses in this regard. The biggest obstacles facing the prince — the Premier, the Queen, the mystery surrounding the late Queen Mother's death, and the rebel faction — were all wrapped up within minutes, mostly through the same repetitive tactics of characters catching others in the act or conveniently recovering forgotten memories.

It felt rushed, as though the writers suddenly remembered all the loose ends they had left hanging and scrambled to tie them up before the credits rolled.

The characters themselves were, for the most part, well written on paper, especially in the beginning. We were introduced to both leads along with their tragic backstories and childhood traumas.

The prince remained true to his character throughout and underwent decent character development, maturing into a worthy man, loyal friend, and just ruler, despite occasional moments of childishness brought on by lovesickness.

The FL, on the other hand, started out as a somewhat vague but independent character and ended up as a helpless damsel in distress. Initially, she is portrayed as a relationship advisor and matchmaker who understands human emotions well. Like the ML, she carries emotional scars, having been separated from her mother and forced to disguise herself as a boy for reasons she never understood.

This upbringing shaped her into a feisty and independent person who was not afraid of the world around her.

However, the more the story progressed and the more romantic the relationship became, the more her personality seemed to disappear. Very little remained of the strong and self-reliant character we initially met, and she gradually transformed into a weak, emotional, and often helpless damsel in distress.

The side characters fared somewhat better. The prince's best friend and bodyguard, torn between loyalty to his friend and loyalty to his cause, gave me the only scene in the entire drama that genuinely moved me to tears, which says quite a lot. Of course, Park Bo Gum's marvelous acting skills certainly helped.

As I mentioned earlier, the SML fell in love with the FL even faster than the ML did, and eventually his character became little more than a convenient tool to rescue the leads whenever necessary.

The drama dragged quite a bit at times. I found the prince's sister's storyline completely unnecessary, and honestly, if the endless slow-motion shots of characters staring into the distance or gazing at one another had been reduced — many of which I shamelessly fast-forwarded through — this drama could easily have fit into sixteen episodes, perhaps even twelve, and likely would have benefited greatly from the tighter pacing.

Would I watch it again? Probably not.

Do I regret watching it? Also no, because I got to enjoy Park Bo Gum's acting and bask in his charisma.

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