Reviews

Cringe, cute, and somehow still watchable

As an adaptation, and as someone who has watched the original Thai version, you can’t help but to compare the two. Just like the Thai version, this remake has Hinata, a university student who loves to baby-talk. Let’s focus on him first because I actually adore this character. However, after a few more EPs, that charm started to fade away.

Anyway, this version has a packed cast full of great visuals and actors who delivered decent performances, although I think they could have done even better. It was honestly the best decision to have Isshin play the role of Thomas because the two of them are equally HOT!

One of the things I liked most about this remake was its almost fast-paced approach to the story. With nine episodes running at around 24 minutes each, it was easy to get through the entire series without feeling exhausted. The catchy OST also worked really well and added to the overall experience.

The ending did pretty well too. Seeing Ishin with his exposed, half-naked body and those intimate yet soft kisses he shared with Ayuta was definitely one of the best scenes to close the series. The story was a meh, but once again, the actors somehow managed to save the show from being dropped. I liked it but it is obviously a below average series for me.

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A MASTERPIECE!

My rating for this drama 100/100. A MASTERPIECE! I was actually hesitating to watch this at first because of the body swap between the twins but when I watched the first episode, I was amazed. From the opening up to the final minutes of the drama, it was a masterpiece. The actors/actresses acting are so amazing. Also the opening and closing songs are so niceeeee to hear, it's giving angelic melody vibes. And the closing song being a Japanese song is so niceee too, it gives heavenly vibes to the drama. Lastly, the main leads CHEMISTRY is OVERFLOWING from the start! Definitely worth to watch!!! <3

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If you don't mind being confused...

I liked this show for the 1st four episodes. After that, I kept asking for consistency, clarity, and comprehension. And I got none of it.
This might not bother you, the reader, but this show forgot the most important rule in Sci-fi. If you make your own world, and then bend it, you have to set and abide by the rules related to the bending. A writer has to be consistent with their make-believe logic.
And our show’s writer did not abide by this. She fell into the same trap of the character she was trying to critique. I believe she didn’t know the full story of “W: Two Worlds Apart”. Maybe she knew 2 episodes worth? She set rules and laid logic, guided the audience to understand the story’s premise, then threw out those rules selectively whenever it benefitted her.
~So, I just looked up the writer to make sure I got her gender correct only to discover she won a writing award for this show. (rubs temple) So this is gonna be fun.~
After a while, nothing made sense.
Who can travel in and out of the comic book world? After episode 5… everybody.
Who has the power to publish the comic book in the real world affecting the plot in the fictional? The dangerous but true answer… the comic book is self-publishing.
Who is the enemy? Beats me.
How many times can a timeline be restarted or rejuvenated? Nobody’s keeping count so… restart the timeline and, while we’re at it, bring a character back to life.
Is there a balance between what a character magically knows and what they have to discover? Characters don’t have to discover anything after ep 6.
And what might happen if our protagonist confronts new obstacles? Give him a new talent and skill out of thin air.
The show is a slight criticism of an author who sells a marketable premise but doesn’t know how to tie up loose ends. Ironic… I think the show’s author is guilty of the same crime. The fictional author in the show loses his inspiration for his comic book and is stuck writing a story with no conclusion. After ep 4, you can say the same thing for the show.
Rules were broken all the time. Logic was manipulated to benefit its current episode. I know its Sci-Fi, and there’s creative liberties, but state those liberties early on and hold to them throughout the show. Don’t forget or evolve halfway through. I’m aware it might be a language barrier thing, maybe I missed something in the plot development, but this isn’t my first meta-world rodeo, and I’m confident that my expectations for story clarity and logic are not outrageous.
There’s a podcast that I listened to related to this show and I was gob smacked at how similar one of the hosts was to me. He said out loud everything I was thinking to myself. I included the link below.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w-two-worlds-apart-full-k-drama-review-ep-4/id1576157542?i=1000529696787

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Nah, not for me

I watch BL for the love, so there is no reason for me to stick around when a story completely lacks it. I can't root for a relationship built on abuse, no matter what the backstory or justifications might be. Toxicity just isn't something I can overlook.
The first 30 seconds of episode 1 already left a bad taste in my mouth, and I barely knew how to push through from there. I ended up dropping it just 8 minutes in.
If you enjoy this kind of drama, by all means, go ahead and enjoy it. But I'm off to find shows I’ll actually like, rather than something that frustrates me and gives me another reason to give up on BL altogether. Chinese BL used to be a reliable go-to for relatively healthy stories, but I guess not anymore, it feels like they're in a competition to create the most toxic tops possible.

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bite the bullet and don’t watch, unless you LOVE a hot mess!

this drama, as stated prior, is a complete hot mess. (please excuse any typos seeing as this was written on my phone). as of this week or so, the last episode came out and my lovely spouse and i caught every single terrible episode of this tragedy. it was a walking garbage can of a show, but it definitely had its moments. we watched the show initially as a fan of the male lead, and wanted to finally see him not play a side character. unfortunately, ml turned out to be like every single one of his side characters i’ve seen him in: a piece of TRASH with the emotional range of a crumbled piece of paper. i have a lot of beef with ji wonho, and personally feel like too little people hate him as opposed to his wife. not to credit miyoung, seeing as she’s legitimately no better herself. besides the abusive back and forth between these toxic leads, i genuinely couldn’t stand the justification of a literal gangster ceo who was constantly painted as a good guy, but was also a borderline stalker, JUST LIKE the ACTUALLLL freaking stalker that was the second wl. like, c’mon.. heeju was such a creepy, toxic, and amazing shit ball. her trying to kill herself just because wonho refused to keep entertaining her any longer (after entertaining her when he shouldn’t have in the first place..?!), idk. such. a. mess.

the constant miscommunication, the bringing up of trauma and downplaying it to use as fuel for their marriage falling apart, and the stalking ex-lovers were insane. and if that wasn’t enough, THERE WAS A VILLANOUS MAN WHO KILLED FL’S BABY JUST BECAUSE HE WAS IN LOVE WITH WONHOOO… this story i feel like wanted pure shock value and to be interpreted as the most hated drama this year. i’m convinced of it.

if you’d love messy relationship trash with lowkey intolerable, but genuinely funny leads / characters, please go watch jealousy incarnate. the drama sucks, but casting is a 10/10 and you’ll love that you hate every minute of it.

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House MD Reimagined

Someone in Japan got the bright idea to bring an improved version of the House MD character to Japan.

An obnoxious surgeon breaks all the rules and is too truthful and a bit socially inept. But the thinking went why not improve the character? So the Japanese version is a female top tier model level of beauty with long legs and a propensity for dressing to show things off. And to accentuate her height she wears 3 inch high heels.

And the Japanese version dials the obnoxious behaviors up deliberately disrespectful, leaving early, refusing shite jobs, interrupting elders, refusing to play along with corruption, incredibly immodest, all of which is offset by near supernatural ability in surgery. She hates groups, authority and being controlled. So very unJapanese.

The big flaw, after watching a few seasons, is that she is a bit scatterbrained outside the operating room. Her behavior often swings into childish and she lacks common sense about money. The House MD was extremely smart and one endearing trait was that he was almost always two steps ahead of his colleagues as the plot twisted and turned. Not so for the Japanese version outside the operating room.

The screenwriter who originated Pride of the Temp seasons 1 (2007) and 2 (2020) wrote this one too. In many ways it's the same character.

The show is addictive though and it works through several seasons and at least one movie. Japanese medical culture has many flaws and I see this show as a protest / assault on that stultifying and dangerous culture that too often would rather see a patient suffer than admit mistakes. This character stands up to the worst of the bad doctors and beats them badly saving the patient and entertaining an audience all at the same time.

It's worth a try.

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Interesting premise but story doesn't grow

I had a hard time finishing this show. I'd watch a few episodes, get distracted by other shows, sports etc so took longer than usual to finish this. It felt like it peaked and then didn't know how to wrap things up.

The FL (Wife) was an Orphan at a not so great Orphanage. I woman came and rescued the kids and FL and one of the side actors now work for her organization and conduct 'meetings with clients'. The overall planning & execution of the group was interesting with each team member having a special skill set to contribute to the overall 'assignment'.

In the middle of this the FL touches the lives of people that are collateral damage from her missions, being an orphan she feels responsible for kids impacted even though they are all in bad situations and likely would have a hard (or short) life.

So you have some flashbacks to establish various people that are on the show, a teammate, children 'saved' but still dealing with their new life.

ML (Husband) is a reporter who focuses on the persona created for the missions the wife finishes. The public & police are not sure if she is good or bad as she is still cleaning up bad clients. The husband's life is thrown off as he struggles with his wife (FL), may be the persona he has followed for years. There are so many clues I don't know why people did not connect the clear dots. Even with the FL team cleaning up after a 'meeting' there is still time frames, locations that if they checked would solve.

I thought they would expand on the 'team' she works with as clearly they are well funded & connected, it cannot just be a single woman (now based in Russia) and they did run into another team that had a meeting overlap so clearly a larger organization. It seemed various people touched by bad events are part, or help the organization to get the closure they need.

There is brief romance, more friendship with FL sister and a co-worker & fellow cop friend, not a lot romance wise beyond cute scenes. Outside wife & husband not many relationship have an ending, it's somewhat left open and healthy.

Overall its an interesting show, if they did some editing and kept it 10 episodes it would likely not feel as long as it did. Acting was good from everyone, though the husband mother is a little hard on her Daughter-in-Law. But she comes around at the end.

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I love Taek Hyeon

I lowkey loved this drama. I'm currently a sucker for these harams or reverse harams, whatever they're called. I loved Taek Hyeon SO FUCKING MUCH. I literally wrote down, "I'm team Taek Hyeon" on the FIRST FUCKING EPISODE. I just knew. I love him so much. He's sexy as hell. Yeon Sang was okay. He seems like a pretty good guy; he was looking out for Do Ha a lot, like recommending him for another job. Ha Ram was lowkey just… there. He didn't really have an impact other than the beach "event" thing. Before and after that, he was kinda just there. At the end, he was kinda giving Jae Min from Secret Relationship vibes, if you know what I'm talking about (Not like when Jae Min went psycho and tried to kill Da On, but the whole photos thing and stealing Do Ha's phone)
I loved the plot, loved the actors (mainly my KING TAEK HYEON), though I didn't really care for the actor that played Da On… No shade… and I loved the pacing of it. The show didn't feel rushed or drag on; it was just perfect. I will 1000% be rewatching this show at some point. I need more of these dramas right now.

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I never expected to like this drama

I thought I was going to hate this drama because I could tell there would be fatphobia; no matter how much the writer tries to get around it by saying it's not about being skinny, it totally is - fatphobic people always say it's about being healthy when we all know it isn't, because what they fail to realise is that being slim doesn't mean being healthy, but then again, they don't care about health. Also, the main female lead is supposed to be overweight, which is insane because she's thin.
Having said that, if you can get around it and stay for the incredibly funny scenes, you won't regret it, especially because along the way the story gets very serious and it's extremely moving - shout-out to Haein because Sol was hands down my favourite character, followed by Alex and then Bongwon! But it's impossible not to love almost all the characters, and the actors were all perfect.
I love the character development, but the fact that the fatphobia isn't 100% gone at the end of the drama was what stopped it from being perfect.
Side note: it's unbelievable how Seungryeong sounds just like Jinki (from SHINee)!
The soundtrack is amazing, btw - I don't get why it's so underrated.
Also, props for including BTS photos at the end of the drama because nowadays it's rare for a drama to include them, so thank you so much for doing so!
I'd watch this drama any day, over and over again because the comedy is just that good, and so are the serious parts.
I will say, though, that 'Pump Up the Healthy Love' makes no sense as a title, because the title written in Korean is '24-hour Health / Hell's Club'- this is because they pronounce 'health' as 'hellss', so it makes it a great pun, and I really think they should've gone with '24-hour Hell's Club'.
Thank you to everyone involved in this project!

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