Reviews

Entertaining :)

This series is messy, but fun. It shifts through different plots and tones in the story, making for a rollercoaster ride of a series. However, the unpredictable parts mixed with cliches kept me entertained.
I was surprised to find myself really into the love triangle storyline (though I do wish it had been handled with more consistency).

What I liked:
- Fun and likeable characters (more specifically Bowgie <3)
- Love triangle
- Funny situations with attention to detail

What I liked less:
- Plot holes and nonsense situations
- A few weak episodes
- Weak love triangle :(

[Just an FYI: This is more of a lighthearted/comical enemies to lovers theme.]

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Not Afraid to Deliver the Needed Ending

In this brief six episode story a young woman, extroverted, outgoing, and with an impish love of pranks develops an odd relationship with the new nerdish guy in her homeroom by cajoling him into exchanging names with her as part of a school April Fool’s Day prank. This name change becomes a running connection in their ever closer friendship. They have feelings for each other but for fear of rejection can’t get the couple connection going.

He dies and she is devastated realizing that he was the love of her life. She loses the will to live. Then one day four years later her dead love-of-her life appears in front of her. He’s now a grim reaper and he tells her she dies in one week and he plans to spend that week with her.

The six episodes focus on that week with frequent flashbacks filling in their lives’ details. As far as the why and how of grim reapers there’s not much in the way of exposition. The little we do see is an obvious foreshadowing of a key plot twist like a pilot warning passengers to buckle up because of looming turbulence.

Beautiful stories that grab you emotionally don’t always have happy endings. He’s dead and a grim reaper and she’s alive so the prospects for a happy ending aren’t all that rosy.

Despite the grim reaper supernatural element the story doesn’t try to scare nor does it have a focus on the supernatural, but instead plays it straight setting up situations and letting characters and viewers deal with emotional impact.

Can a grim reaper somehow prevent a scheduled death from occurring? What are the repercussions? Grim reaper stories are often about life and not death, about the living struggling with regrets and loss. And sometimes they’re about the dead being given a voice in the story to confront losses they regret from when alive. If you could come back from death to help someone you deeply love, how much would you be willing to sacrifice?

A more timid screenwriter would feel compelled to deliver a pat happy ending. They might warn of horrible outcomes but then by some unlikely twist deliver what most people want and not what the story demands. WBL doesn’t shy away from the needed ending.

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Way Back Love’s emotional touchstones reminded me of another story also centered around using grim reapers to talk about life, a dark comedy called Dead Like Me (2003-2004) 29 episodes over two seasons. The main character is a 18 year old college dropout, Georgia aka George, who dies and is drafted into a local team of grim reapers. George has a hard time adjusting to the daily bloody violent deaths and she rebels. Complicating her transition to an afterlife career as a reaper is that she reaps within walking distance from her still living and grieving family. Her death hits her family hard causing the parents to divorce and her younger 11 year old sister, Reggie, to act out. George rebels against the reaper system dictating non interference with the living by surreptitiously helping Reggie who realizes that as impossible as it might seem her dead older sister is still around.

On the surface DLM is a comedy but there are some deeper emotions and issues running throughout. But the same question so important in WBL confronts the undead DLM reapers (not only George but her boss, Rube, too) as to how far can a reaper push against the rules and their unseen power, Death, that dictates their reaps.

In early episodes Rube is loudly and aggressively demanding that George follow the rules and stay away from her family. But George hides her meddling with the living. And sometimes she openly rebels. There’s a touching early few scenes in which George in defiance against the big boss, Death, and her reaper boss Rube goes to her family’s front door (not on Halloween) and is confronted by her mother who of course can’t recognize her. To prove her identity George attempts to convey a cherished memory that only the two of them share, but her words come out garbled and her mother chases her away. Later sitting with Rube in a diner she sheepishly confesses her breaking the rules and he uncharacteristically tenderly asks if she can remember that cherished memory. She can’t. And Rube explains that whenever a reaper attempts to use a shared memory to talk to someone they knew when alive, that memory is lost forever. The more the undead try to connect with the living from their former life, the more of that life they lose. Rube says to her that all reapers get to keep from their lives is their memories.

In WBL limited by six episodes the story focuses tightly on the relationship between the two main characters in a romantic dynamic. In DLM with 29 episodes there’s more branching out and while the focus is on George and her family, there a parallel story line that follows Rube and what happened to him and his family some eighty years prior.

Rube died during the Great Depression when to help his wife and daughter (about five years old at the time) he robs a bank and ends up dead, and then is drafted to become a grim reaper. He, like George, breaks the rules and tries to help his family sending an anonymous letter with cash to them. Eighty years later in present day he gets a notice from the US Post Office there’s a letter for him, it’s the letter he had sent and forgotten so long ago. Death that operates on a time scale and with goals beyond human comprehension sidelined that letter and delivered it back to him in the present (to a different return address no less). That his attempt to help his family failed triggers something in good soldier Rube and he rebels himself and covertly finds his now aged daughter. When he arrives at his daughter’s nursing home just before she dies we learn she’s been waiting for and recognizes him (which means she interacted with him after he died and before he sent the letter).

DLM has 29 episodes to work with. There’s an interesting character that we know about only by its manipulations, Death. Rube some eighty years prior was placed near his family and something happened back then that made him into an obedient reaper staying away from his family. Normally reapers are only placed far away from where they lived. One woman on the team died in the state of Georgia, another man in the UK. Then out of blue young George is placed with Rube’s team near her living family. Death returning the letter to Rube triggers a radical change that leads him to a final reconciliation with his now elderly daughter at her death. Why might have been explained in a third season.

By the end of the second season George has become a good soldier, a capable reaper who no longer feels compelled to contact her family and Rube has finally found some peace of mind after having carried personal regrets and perhaps a bitter grudge against God those eighty years. We aren’t allowed to listen in as to what he said to his daughter before she died and after when she passed into the hereafter, but it had a profound impact on Rube.

In DLM reapers look as they did when alive to each other and to ghosts, but to the living they look totally different except on one day and night of each year, Halloween. At that time only people who knew them when alive can see them again in their living appearance. George often visits her own grave and in a key final scene of the second season Reggie on Halloween night sleeps on George’s grave and in the morning dawn light wakes to see her older dead sister standing near her confirming the impossible that her sister is around in a very physical way. When George and Reggie see each other, George turns and walks away*.

Both DLM and WBL are stories in which the dead and the living can interact and deal with those regrets left unspoken. If you liked WBL you’ll probably appreciate DLM.

* PS I liked the two seasons of DLM so much I wrote two novels - season 3 and season 4. If you watch the TV show you might find the novels worth checking out. These are posted at a website called archiveofourown dot org. The first is titled Dead Like Me 2013 and the sequel Dead Like Me 2014.

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Vigilante Serial Killer

I have not seen the original French version, nor the American spin off so I started this with only the description to go on - an imprisoned serial killer mom who forces her detective son to work with her to solve a series of copycat murders.

Go Hyun Jung as The Mantis dominates every scene she’s in owning this serial killer mom role. Early on there’s a Dexter like assertion that her murders were only of really bad men who had escaped the failed justice system. She forms an interesting relationship with the detective who captured her and through whom she negotiated an unusual arrangement for her imprisonment which included provisions to give her son a new identity and to raise him to be like the detective. While The Mantis is cynical about the justice system (hence her vigilante justice) she admires the sincerity and naiveté of the detective. She would prefer her son to grow up molded after the detective than herself.

This show directly brings up the nature/nurture issue. The son fears that his bloodline connection to his serial killer mom will determine his behavior and future. It’s this fear which leads him to often react seemingly irrationally in his interactions with her, and with his wife, and his fears should they have children.

At times the killer mom projects an insane enjoyment of the torture she inflicted on her victims said torture inspired by the form of the torture they themselves inflicted on their own victims.

The plot twists and reveals near the very end cascade rapidly one after another and lead us to an understanding of why she became that way. And I promise that these final reveals will inspire sympathy for her if not acceptance of her actions. Think of Hannibal from the books and movies series and his origins in WWII as a small child struggling to survive the horrors of the German/Soviet front.

The show is a mere eight episodes so pacing is a problem only for the impatient.

The reason I rate it a 9.5 is connected to a few flaws in plotting and certain scenes. There are some clumsy lurches in moving from certain plot points to the next. Second time through these became even more glaring. The story, like a magician’s sleight of hand, glosses over them to move things along. And then in a very few scenes the absurdity just jumps out and no sleight of hand can hide it-e.g. washing machines with windows scene.

Within the larger context of a great story and Go Hyun Jung’s performance these flaws are forgivable.

There’s a final scene which promises a sequel. Such a sequel would have to shift from the backward looking to the present and future, and consequently will be very different, but I welcome the attempt just to see this fascinating character in action again.

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Watch cleanly and w/o reservations and THEN comment~

Leads killed it in the 1st half but it was a bit slow in the middle and dragged at the end. Still funny!! Suzy's persona was Wednesday Addams plus SYJ's Ko MunYeong in It's Ok To Not Be Ok and I loved it and it's pathetic that this drama is going to remembered for one thing that wasn't there at all.

IDK why Muslims are turning this into a religious thing but so be it. 90% of the world has a problem w/ the child raping incestual pedophiling women beating death to all infidels marry 6 yr olds jihad inbred screaming join us or face genocide views that Islam teaches. Netflix, SK, and Suzy will all take massive hits to reputation for no reason but it wasn't smart to do anything with any ties to Arabs in general with the atrocities currently being committed. We watch dramas to escape the real world, not be reminded of it and some scenes hit HARD.
But this is a FICTIONAL piece for entertainment purposes ONLY. FICTIONAL ppl. Muslims are turning this into a religious thing for no reason. The Islamists crying and review bombing a FICTIONAL drama is HIGHLY ironic considering what they're doing IRL. Parodies of ALL religions have been used in FICTIONAL dramas and movies for ages and they wouldn't have said anything if it was something other than theirs. But that's Islam. Hypocrisy and intolerance at its finest.
I was highly entertained and had no thoughts over religion until I saw the reviews destroying this over it. I also know not all are as bad as the criminal ones engaging in the acts of violence I listed that the media talks about daily as they're caught engaging in their 'religious' practice. So watch the drama for the drama, not the religious slander many are making this out to be. Slander is what I said up top. But is it slander if it's all true?

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Disappointing and disrepsectful

Although I like the main cast, when the trailer first came out and saw many in the Muslim community found the use of Iblis as one of the main characters as disrespectful, I started to lose interest. But when it dropped today and I had time I decided to try. Never mind the storyline being very cliche and uninteresting, the writing lacking, the timeline confusing, unfortunately the acting of the ML and FL is truly terrible. They are unable to inhabit the characters nor make them believable, and lack chemistry. Huge disappointment not worth the watch. Although if you give it a try you will notice all I've mentioned in the first episode.

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The Queen of Serial Killer Dramas

Go Hyun Jung is without a doubt, the stand out performance not only in Queen Mantis but for the year. She delivered her role perfectly. As much as it was chilling, the depth she brought to a mother who used brutal methods to despatch terrible men in their own right, who also longed for her son, was unforgettable.

Although a remake of the French show, Mantis, I have found QM the best serial killer kdrama to date. The reason: superb acting, very good writing and the reigning in of the classic tropes. The subject matter re QM’s origins is not pleasant but it is handled in a steady manner ie not over the top.

This show looks into the cause of human behaviour both nature and nurture. Its premise is ultimately that nuture is the cause and not someone’s bloodline. The exploration on how people react when a key employer (in this case, the mine) shuts down is a reminder of the tragedy that follows.

Trust is pivotal to each character and storyline. How this I stretched, lost and then regained comes down to the inner strength of each character.

Jang Dong Yoon is very good as the son of Queen Mantis. I liked how this show explored the relationship between Su Yeol and his wife and how, in hand with this, Kim Bo Ra played a very understated performance.

Cho Seong Ha delivers as he always does but I felt that his character was a little bit too wimpy. Also, they should have used a different (younger) actor in the flashbacks.

As for Lee El, a strong performance that was like a second fiddle at times. This role contrasts to her performance at the same time in My Awesome Star where she portrayed the jealous and delusional starlet so well.

When it came down to the big reveal, I wasn’t surprised. The red herrings were top notch. The layers, challenging.

Queen Mantis is eight episodes, the right amount for such a genre. Anything more would have detracted from the quality of the show but it’s clear a sequel is in the works.

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A MASTERPIECE WITH TWISTS AND TURNS THAT KEEPS YOU ON YOUR TOES

This had been on my watchlist for long time and I finally had the time to sit and start watching this.

As I started watching it, it had me hooked from the get go. With each episode you experience new twists and turns. The actors did an outstanding job that it almost felt real. Each character has their own story. I can't even find words to explain how good it is. This is a masterpiece that cannot be missed. It is so underrated. We need to promote this. A story this good deserves to be watched and apreciated.

Overall, for me this was a 09/10.

To be honest, the ending felt very abrupt. Like I wanted the bad guys to suffer more. Plus the ending scene where Xia finds the poppy flowers, like Siyuan said that she found something far from here. I didn't quite understand that. I would love if someone explained that to me as to what it meant.

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Chaotic yet brings a feeling of steadiness

In this era of skimming through series at 2x speed, this drama demanded to be watched at its own rhythm.

The narrative is beautifully crafted offering nothing gut-wrenching but plenty OH.. moments without forcing shock and dragging out reveals. When it feels like the world is burning and everything is falling apart, it pulls the viewer back to a proper, grounded story. I doubted it at one point thinking they added a piece just for the sake of it, but each piece was strung together with clarity. Before long I was already caught up in the chain of "who did what" and where do I stand on this.

It’s one of the best-cast dramas regardless of how I feel about the characters or actors; everyone makes sense. The intelligence and vision of everyone involved in this production are highlighted in the way Judge Son Hyun Joo delivers his lines and chairman Kim Myung Min shapes the direction of the story.

The show engages with questions of moral complexity. - why you root for some sides, it's not just two sides, why you hesitate to root for others, why you can’t root for anyone at all, or why you change your mind about it - but it doesn't flex that theme to preach and pose itself as a profound drama.

What's profound is Son Hyun Joo's delivery. I’ve mentioned it before and it deserves to be mentioned again.

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A Missed Opportunity

To be fair, there will likely never be another “Train to Busan,” which is still the best “zombie” movie ever made. Survival movies are always fascinating, as long as they’re done right. “All Of Us Are Dead” provides an interesting premise: what if a high school were the “ground zero” for a zombie outbreak? Koreans seem almost obsessed with zombie stories. God knows, there have been more than enough of them.

Nothing new in the origin is different than any other zombie project I’ve seen. Some idiot scientist messes around and somehow creates a zombie virus. Just how many times can a writer come up with the exact, same plot device? You have to wonder. It’s like Hallmark constantly coming up with the exact same love stories over and over again.

A high school science professor tries to come with an idea to help his son, who is a victim of bullying. Of course, teachers and even police officers look the other way when it comes to bullying. Even one teacher asks what the boy did to cause it. In this day and age, it’s almost unbelievable that such people exist, but then again, bullying has only gotten worse, so it’s more than feasible. The son, of course, has the zombie virus, which another fellow student contracts, and before you know it, students all over the school are in a bitter battle to survive.

Like so many disaster movies, we struggle to figure out who is going to live and who is going to die. At the focal point, we have Nam Oh Jo, who only has eyes for Lee Su Hyeok, who only has eyes for quiet class president, Choi Nam Ra. We also have Lee Cheong San, who is Nam Oh Jo’s childhood friend. She doesn’t realize that he likes her. Well, as with any teenage-centered characters, you’re going to get the whole “Dawson’s Creek” experience. You just have to go with it, no matter how cringeworthy the writers tend to make it. It tends to be worse with Asian shows because the 16-17-year-old kids act like 13-year-olds. The show almost would have been better without it, but then again, that’s life in high school.

The “survival” component is the driving force of the story, as the writers fall short in the relationship dynamics. There were plenty of opportunities for the writers to make this series even more provocative than even “Train to Busan,” but alas, the writers lacked the courage to go there. Where there were scenes and opportunities for touching moments, we end up with pretty much nothing.

For example, I understand that these kids are literally rushing and facing a battle at nearly every turn, but you can’t just “turn off” the human component. Even the best disaster films, such as “The Poseidon Adventure” and “The Towering Inferno” as well as “Titanic” gave us moments; human moments where characters would be overwhelmed with grief and emotion after the loss of a loved one. After all, most people aren’t robots.

The most disappointing is Nam Oh Jo’s last interaction with Cheong San, as he’s been bitten, and decides to save the group in a daring and brave act of love and sacrifice. He professes his feelings to her, and she scarcely has anything to say or do back. She doesn’t even really grieve for him either. Part of this is the writer’s fault, but part of it also has to do with Park Ji Hu’s lackluster and almost robotic performance. She’s easily the weakest of all of the female actresses. I would have switched her out with someone else who could have handled the emotional depth and complexity, which this actress clearly lacks. She also had no chemistry at all with Yoon Chan Young (Cheong San). The more interesting relationship dynamic was between Lee Su Hyeok and Choi Nam Ra, which I was the most interested in, especially given that she was bitten but not turned into a full zombie. She struggles and fights against the desire to bite the others while doing all she can to help save them. I had truly wished that Choi Nam Ra had been the focal point of the story rather than Nam Oh Jo.

Another component that quickly grew tiresome was bully Yun Gwi Nam’s obsession with getting revenge on Cheong San. Never mind that this guy, even before he’s finally bitten, seems to constantly evade waves of zombies, but his pursuit just became silly. It was easily the most uninteresting part of the story, and Yoon In Soo’s performance is relegated to playing a thug, which is rarely ever compelling.

Of course, as with any disaster film, we get the morons in the upper echelons of the government and the military as they try to figure out how to resolve the situation. For a reason that’s never fully explained, the high school is left relatively ignored, and when they finally decide to go after a laptop computer in the science teacher’s classroom that might have clues to a cure, they abandon the kids on the rooftop because they no longer can be sure that they aren’t infected. So, there’s not even an attempt? They couldn’t have covered their mouths and bound them for safety reasons? They couldn’t have made supply drops to ensure that they had food and water? Instead, we get the idiot general who makes decisions on his own to bomb the city without any contact from the Blue House? How is this even possible? I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a single scene involving the Blue House regarding the situation. Instead, we get a gutless coward for a general who kills himself out of guilt, proving just how much of a coward he truly was! This was another component of the story that just didn’t quite work.

The series should have been extended to the usual 16 episodes to allow for more political aspects to take place, as well as for the opportunity to explore more of the human elements that were ignored.

Of course, we get some incredible scenes of students sacrificing themselves for others, and again, it’s the survival aspect of the story that keeps it going as well as keeps the viewer invested in finding out how they’re going to escape.

I’ve heard that they’re doing a second season, but with Park Ji Hu spearheading it, I’ll definitely pass. This isn’t a bad series at all, but by the time it’s ended, you feel like it was another missed opportunity.

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Review

From the moment Fated Hearts: When Fate Is the Storm unfolds, it seizes your attention with a rare intensity, weaving a historical romance that feels both timeless and urgent.
The story centers on Fu Yixiao, portrayed with captivating depth by Li Qin, a general whose archery prowess is matched only by her unyielding spirit. Opposite her is Chen Zheyuan’s Feng Suige, a prince whose guarded demeanor conceals a storm of ambition and vulnerability. Their paths collide in Yujing City when a single, tide-turning arrow sparks an alliance forged in necessity and fraught with mistrust. What sets this drama apart from other memory-loss romances is its refusal to let tension overshadow the fragile, human connection at its core. The narrative thrums with themes of loyalty, sacrifice, and the fragile hope of love amidst chaos, evoking shades of The Princess’s Gambit but with a fiercer edge, honed by its focus on survival and
hard-won trust.
The performances are nothing short of electric. Li Qin imbues Fu Yixiao with a quiet strength that radiates in battle scenes and softens in moments of doubt, making her both a warrior and a woman grappling with destiny. Chen Zheyuan, as Feng Suige, is a revelation - his stoic exterior cracks just enough to reveal a man torn between duty and desire, his every glance weighted with unspoken conflict. The supporting cast adds texture to the sprawling world of Yujing, though some secondary arcs unfold too swiftly, leaving me yearning for deeper exploration. Still, the ensemble’s chemistry keeps the story grounded, even when the pacing falters slightly in the middle episodes.
Visually, the drama is a triumph. The cinematography sweeps across battlefields and shadowed city streets, establishing a grand yet intimate stage before a single word is spoken. The director’s choices are meticulous: wide shots isolate the leads against the vastness of their world, while close-ups and over-the-shoulder frames pull you into their raw, unguarded moments. The color palette : deep crimsons, cool silvers, and weathered grays - mirrors the story’s tempestuous heart, creating a moody, immersive atmosphere.

What elevates Fated Hearts is its ability to make every reveal feel earned, every glance between Yixiao and Suige a spark that could ignite or destroy. The romance is intense yet tender, built on stolen moments and hard-fought trust. While some subplots race too quickly and the pacing dips midstream, these are minor ripples in an otherwise captivating tide.

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