Reviews

highrecommendation

Jujur ya, ini tuh series pertama yang bikin gua kejebak sama drama China 😭

Awalnya kepicut gara-gara iklan WeTV di TikTok, yang scene Weiwei tiduran di kaki cowoknya Yang Yang sebagai Xiao Nai. Dari situ langsung mikir, “lah kok manis amat?” 😭

Terus sejak itu… boom 💥
Yang Yang jadi first idol gua sampe SEKARANG.
No debat.

Ceritanya tuh simpel tapi nagih: romance kampus + dunia game online, tanpa drama lebay, tanpa action ribet, tapi chemistry-nya GILA. Natural, tenang, tapi bikin senyum sendiri.

Ini tipe romance yang adem, bukan yang bikin capek hati. Gua bahkan rewatch setahun sekali karena emang sebagus itu, woy.
Kalau disuruh ranking, ini TOP 1 romance C-drama buat gua. Pure romance, clean, manis, dan bikin nyaman.

Gua lupa tepatnya nonton kapan, tapi kayaknya pas pandemi Covid. Yang jelas, sampe sekarang rasanya masih sama:
Love O2O tuh nggak pernah gagal bikin jatuh cinta lagi dan lagi.

Highly recommended.
Kalau belum nonton… fix, rugi sih

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Lost the magic in the middle

From ep 1-6 this is really good, after that the writers lost it.
In ep 6 itself it gets confusing cause both of them confess that they like each other but for some reason they decide to split up. After that we give the fl a split personality disorder to show the fl opening up to the male lead ( instead of her just facing her trauma and trying to heal) and then the disorder suddenly goes away one day?? even the 'reveal' at the end didn't do much. It does not even feel like she truly got over her trauma.
When our leads got together it didn't connect with me emotionally cause so much of the story was taken up by the alter ego- do rami.
The locations and the 'translating' concept were nice

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Probably,there will be a second season

The plot revolves around a typical "came back after plastic surgery and now you're going to suffer"-trope as described. Filled with sound effects and a lot of constantly horny, handsome guys.
What seems to be very clichee is actually very well acted out,although one should be prepared for a lot of sex,childhood mobbing and plastic bags.
It helps if you understand at least a bit of thai, since the timed english comments are very delayed and sometimes may not be completely right.

What confused me in the beginning (and judging by lots of comments on iqiyi,others are confused as well) is the age of the characters: They are supposed to be around 18, but the actors look much more mature than that.
Another one is the relationship between Bin and Fuchi: They were introduced as "cousins", but given the fact that they've only seen each other once in their childhood, I suspect a translation error since thai people tend to use family-related forms of adress also for not blood-related people.

The ending felt a bit rushed to me, since it came from "absolutely no decision,complete confusion and heartbreak" in ep.58 to "decided,happy and fine with the decision" in under 5minutes. If it weren't for the last 30seconds that gave the impression of a possible second season (or at least another solution), I wouldn't be okay with that.

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The first half of drama was quite okay but downhill until the end

I watched this for Wen Moyan and it was rare case for Shen Haonan to get good chemistry with his female leads. There is original voice so i enjoy Wen Moyan husky voice .

There are tons of kissing scenes throughout the series, almost every episode in the beginning. They're real kisses, no camera tricks, and they're quite beautiful. But i feel slightly irks when ML calls FL "sister" all the time, he is not giving younger brother vibe even in real life Wen Moyan was older than Shen Haonan.

The divorce announcement was late, and the villain's presence was a bit too strong and boring, with too much screen time preventing the main couple's story from fully developing. ML was only focused on romance and didn't seek revenge, only mentioning the scumbag's bankruptcy at the end.

Still decent watch.

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The chemistry between Meng Lu and Charon are mystery for me.

I watched this drama after watching Zhai Xinran-Wang Chanpeng and Zao Zao Er-Li Sheng Jie and it was better assignment so can compare them more fairly.

Plot is about FL and ML are bickering buddies since high school. ML has always secretly loved the FL and tutored her. The FL successfully entered the university he attended, and the two supported each other throughout. After graduation, FL's family pressured them to get married, so they had a whirlwind wedding.

Charon's stubbornness was just too captivating and i quite like Meng Lu even some of people think she was too mature for him. The chemistry is burning the kitchen. The kissing scenes are incredibly sensual and sweet. The scene where the ML proposes to the FL moves me.

There are no melodramatic or illegal plots. FL only shows her girlish whims and capriciousness in front of the ML, who truly takes good care of her. ML is incredibly doting and charming, exuding a strong sense of husbandly love. His little expressions, gestures, and flirtatious remarks are all charming. He knows boundaries and is even good at judging tea

My cons is they should make the place is flat not villa since it was slightly unlogic since SML comes to the villa without the security. What is the point?

Despite all the flaws, it was decent to watch.

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Moonlight Finds What Daylight Misses

'Forbidden Love' (2004) remains, years later, an anomalous but surprisingly coherent work: a drama that uses melodrama as its backbone to graft on horror folklore, urban action and a far from trivial reflection on power and visibility. A work that does not seek balance, but builds its identity precisely on the friction between registers.

One of the most interesting aspects of the series is the choice not to “hide” the supernatural, but rather to have it coexist openly with the urban landscape. The gumiho clan does not live on the margins: they are fully embedded in contemporary society, often occupying positions of authority. If during the day these creatures appear perfectly integrated into civil life, at night they sink into the underground, where an archaic realm of braziers, altars and ancestral symbols (and an abundance of leather outfits!) opens up, fuelling a world of rituals, feuds and millennial secrets. An imagery that, in terms of artificiality and evocativeness, is more reminiscent of Italian peplum movies and certain deliberately fictitious sets by Mario Bava than television realism.

In this dual space — bourgeois surface above, primordial rituality below — suspended between melodrama and gothic horror, paganism and the occult, the series finds its most authentic identity. 'Forbidden Love' is not a “spectacular” fantasy in the classical sense, but a lateral fantasy that infiltrates the interstices of the modern city: the fantastic does not destroy reality or replace it, but slowly infects it, almost vampirically, creeping into the creases of everyday life.

The melodramatic storyline is based on predestined yet impossible loves, in which every feeling is doomed from the outset. The gumiho Shi Yeon (Kim Tae Hee, beautiful and committed to a well-developed role, albeit still too expressive in her facial gestures) is at the centre of an emotional four-way relationship with no way out: She rejects the human and predestined love of policeman Kang Min Woo (Jo Hyun Jae, convincing), because she belongs to the lineage that he, initially unaware, fights against; but she also rejects that of her fellow Mu Young (Jun Jin, overly restrained), unable to arouse true involvement in her.

Shi Yeon is inextricably linked to the fate of the thousand-year-old fox; a natural and spiritual law that governs the existence of gumiho, laden with symbolic and metaphorical references: the impossibility of emotional bonds, not having to give in to human love, not mixing desire with the primordial instinct of the fox. The ‘curse’ represents the price to be paid for becoming fully human. Hence the divided identity, the repression of feelings, the eternal conflict between imposed destiny and individual choice, the personal sacrifice that precludes both paths, because every emotional bond strengthens one part of her at the expense of the other...

The gumiho warrior is an almost ascetic figure, forced into solitude not by moral choice, but by ontological necessity, which is immutable. The drama still holds up today precisely because of this mature and painful conflict: love truly becomes “forbidden love”.

Around them moves Chae Yi (Han Ye Seul, super sexy and perfectly suited to the role), a tragic character crushed by a double inferiority — hierarchical and sentimental — that transforms jealousy into betrayal. In this context, the melodrama offers no promise of redemption: love, though predestined, cannot be fulfilled without destroying those who feel it. No one, human or gumiho, is destined for a happy ending, because the predestination of love is not a promise, but a condemnation.

It is within this relentless logic that a “sideways” loss occurs, seemingly unrelated to the love four-way, but destined to contaminate it from within: a human bereavement, innocent and unaware of the deep axis of the story, which, touching on one of the symbolic cores of the gumiho’s existence, transforms love itself into guilt.

The introduction of the special police division marks a decisive change of scale. The military, not surprisingly, ‘don't mince words’: they embody a cold and repressive rationality that conflicts with both the gumiho and Kang Min Woo. The policeman thus becomes a tragic figure in his own right: torn between love and duty, empathy and repression, caught in the middle of two worlds that demand absolute loyalty. His conflict is insoluble, because every choice involves a loss. It is here that the melodrama acquires an unexpected depth: love is not salvation, but yet another battlefield.

The action scenes do not seek realism or pure spectacle, but instead function as geometric rituals inscribed in urban space. Squares, rooftops, stadiums, gyms, shopping centers, and even churches become chessboards where Korean folklore, television melodrama, and post- ‘Matrix’ and ‘Underworld’ action imagery coexist in a kitschy balance that is as delirious as it is coherent.

The characters seem to move according to invisible rules: the conflict is less psychological and more topological. The gumiho factions occupy areas, the police establish a counter-map, and the clashes take the form of choreographed rituals rather than traditional narrative events. Many sequences seem to openly declare: “Let's take a hyper-kinetic Western grammar and perform it with absolute seriousness, even when it's excessive.” Accelerated editing without realistic justification, iconic poses, sudden slow motion. This is where kitsch becomes conscious language: not irony, not parody, but total adherence to the subject's delirium.

In this radicalism, Korean drama touches upon — perhaps unintentionally — an unexpected arthouse cinema: a Jacques Rivette catapulted into contemporary Seoul, between ‘Duelle’, ‘Noroît’ and ‘Out 1’, but filmed as if Spike Jonze and the Beastie Boys had stumbled upon the set by chance. “Comment vous dire... c'est du sabotage!”. A happy and vital sabotage that cracks the surface romanticism and lets it breathe in the unexpected, in physical gestures, in the pure energy of movement.

Despite its obvious flaws in terms of pacing and writing, ‘Forbidden Love’ remains an ambitious drama with a strong sense of identity. Re-evaluating it means accepting its irregularities without mistaking them for superficiality. It does not excel in every single aspect, but it builds a coherent universe, a layered urban mythology and a surprising dialogue between folklore, action and melodrama. Its value lies in the sum of its parts, not in the perfection of each one: an uneven but coherent story, which finds its strength in its eclecticism. Not a perfect series, but an object with an off-kilter charm that, years later, deserves a closer look and a more generous judgement — and, above all, recognition of its courage in remaining true to itself, right up to the very last frame.

7 ½

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The local lawyers at your service

I finally got around to watching this little gem.

When I initially began watching, I didn't really feel like I'd like Haneo's character, but they really helped clean up his image by the end of the show. He was still the same annoying little brat, but his motivations were pure. So he gets a pass from me. There were many times were I was laughing at silly antics. I'm glad they quickly dropped the post it note gags. I liked that they included anxiety into his character to give it more depth. I think they could of gone more into his relationship with his sister and father but I know that would of probably hurt the feel of the show. It just felt like how the father's storyline was introduced as a big deal, then every consecutive scene where he was shown he diminished in importance.

Speaking of tone. I think Ishiko was the perfect embodiment of what the tone of this show was. Heartfelt when it counted, silly when they are discussing matters and introspective about people's plights. One thing that strongly spoke to me was her willingness to support Oba even when he admitted to the arson. Kasumi's banter is always S tier in all her shows and this was no exception. There were general moments were her performance was leagues above anyone else in the show. The linking of her deep judgement of her father coming out over several cases building up was subtle but well timed.

For the supporting characters, I liked that they didn't forget Ishiko's father existed lol. He put in some good scenes here and there. Oba grew on me and I wish their dynamic at the ending episode would of been how it was like the whole way through. But it felt good seeing them working so well together by the end. Oba and Ishiko's relationship was completely shoehorned in and only existed to setup the beautiful final scene. Completely added nothing to the story. The only thing I can think of was it was used to show Ishiko's growth to let people in.

That final scene was a chef's kiss. What a hell of a callback to the umbrella scenes. I guess the message of the show is: We will shelter you from the rain." It's a really beautiful message for a show about helping people. I think my favorite thing about the show were how the cases were handled.

The Yamayoko kids in episode 7 was definately the stand out episode. I felt it had the strongest set of supporting actors. The restaurant review episode was also actually very intriguing from a legal standpoint. It's something I've never thought of as a reviewer. The series asks a lot of good questions and if the info is correct, the legal information was actually really interesting.

Alongside the interesting storylines, I was enjoying the clean cinematography. There's some nice scenic shots sometimes and some scenes involving Ishiko have some fantastic lighting.

One thing I will mention is the theme song is good but personally I didn't think it fit the show. Something about the beat and tempo. It has a good life message but I don't think I'm a fan despite it being Radwimps. I also did not appreciate the dumb gavel drop sounds. It was used very awkwardly and added nothing to the scenes. At first I was like oh it's used as a setback sound. But then later they just seemingly put them in randomly.

Overall great show. I enjoyed my time with the show and wouldn't mind a second season.

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Don't watch this with your brain on.

I remember when this drama was come out on the first time everyone was hyping it but i didn't feel the same since the plot was quite generic and Yu Jialin acting was not my cup of tea.

It's a revenge drama riddled with plot holes and lacking in logic; you can't watch it with your brain. The makeup and styling are okay, the costumes and props are average. Wang Haozhen only has two outfits throughout the entire series, but he still looks quite handsome. FL is also quite pretty. It's not a romance drama, so there's not much interaction, and there's no sense of chemistry between the leads even the hot kisses was not helping it.

This creates an interesting cliché: how the ML manages to distinguish between the two women (actually the same person) and the fake one, constantly reflecting on his own actions and wondering why the people around him seem different.

Maybe you need to empty your brain to enjoy this drama. I cannot enjoy this drama due my brain is overload with work related.

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Post-Apocalyptic Scam while this is cheesy drama plot.

I was quite interested on Wang Haozhen being in zombie drama and it turns out it was scam.

I'm quite interested in post-apocalyptic superpowers, but unfortunately, the drama didn't showcase them as a highlight. They only showed a few characters awakening their powers, introduced their names, and then that was it. I feel like being scammed.

Why tell a generic CEO romance novel disguised as a post-apocalyptic story? It's the apocalypse, can't we stop with all the romance? There's even this male-female rivalry, and I have to endure the constant banter in this post-apocalyptic setting—it's really ridiculous.

I want to watch post-apocalyptic stories to see humanity's will to live in the face of zombies, and to explore the depths of human nature in the face of life and death? Who wants to see the protagonists just being love-struck idiot? And the post-apocalyptic living conditions are just too good! Electricity is one thing, but there's also a bathtub, steak, cake, wine, cigarettes, and a helicopter—it's really impressive.

The only redeeming qualities are the good makeup and styling of the ML and FL.

If you want to see generic romance go for it but if you like Zombie Apocalyptic, don't watch it, this is scam

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More Like Eternal Suffering!

Ninety-nine percent of the suffering could have been avoided by the tiniest bit of communication, but that's drama life for you. Forget about love triangles—Eternal Love featured love dodecahedrons!

Yet, for all the angst, the story was compelling, and the cast was captivating. The costumes and sets were beautiful. The CGI lacked only in the water scenes, where it was apparently fake (I can handle most fake mountain and orchard scenes, but fake moving water is so apparent). The OST enhanced the experience with poignant lyrics.

Kudos to Maggie Huang who played Su Jin, a character I loathed deeply. It was incredibly satisfying to get to the eye scene (you'll know what I mean when you watch). I had envisioned that scene and anticipated it for far too long! How gratifying when it actually happened.

Mark Chao was a new-to-me actor. He lacked the pretty boy image of many K- and C-drama leads; a masculine man was a nice change of pace. He was able to convey emotions well, even within his stoic character. As for pretty boys, they were in abundance: Gao Wei Guang with long white hair, Vin Zhang all dark and dangerous, and Yu Meng Long, Leon Lai, and Zhang He.

The series was long at 58 episodes, but it held my attention and soaked my hanky. "Tearjerker" should be added to the tags. It ended well, and I was left with a happy afterglow. Upon reflection, it's odd I felt pleased, as only about 2% of the characters had a happy ending! But they were the 2% I most cared about, so I'm good with that.

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a good revenge story.

This is one of those revenge story where you actually see the revenge plot unfolding. I didn't have high expectations from this show, but to my surprise the plot was executed very well.. you will like this series if :
1. you don't like stupid misunderstandings that goes through the whole series ( there was no misunderstanding between the fl and ml.
2. healthy relation between the fl and ml.
3. strong and independent fl who can hold her own in the battle.
4. understanding ml.

The only place where I thought the story was lacking was the villein's motivation.

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