LilMeggs
San Jose, CA
This review may contain spoilers
This is a lot better - if you are deciding either to watch this lakorn vs (what I like to call the reunion drama) Praomook, this one is the way to go. I watched Praomook with both Pon and Bua before watching this one, and I feel that, that drama was a step back in many ways. If anything, I felt that their chemistry was a lot better in this one, which makes zero sense to me as this one was their first together. As for the storyline, I felt this one was a little more "justified" (and I use that word loosely) - we have a revenge story about a a boy named Peat who hated life because his father was never there for him and his mother, and around the same time his mother died, his father brings home another wife and adopted her daughter, Kiew, who happened to be the same girl he was starting to fall in love with at university. In a fit of rage, he is determined to get revenge on his father who was convinced was a adulterer, as well as Kiew, who be believed to be a gold-digger.
I feel like this story was broken out into a few different thoughts;
Peat having absolute zero trust in anyone, living off his prejudices and thinking the worst of people. He became almost this boy who called wolf character, where he kept doing bad, until the moment bad actually happened that he was not apart of, but it was too late and everyone associated him with anything bad that happened.
We very toxic friendship - Peat's friend group (him, Kriss, Chaya, and Katha) was this weird toxic energy where these people would do things to hurt one another, but Katha was trying to keep the glue together and justify that it is all love and we all get jealous sometimes. And I tried to accept this fact, but I feel like there is a line that is crossed when someone wants to seek revenge on you, so they kidnap your wife, steal from your company, pin it on you, and holds you at gun point. The way everything was fixed at the end was so casual, that I was anxious because how would you act around people like that after everything that had happened?
We saw a few different evils - Peat would emotionally manipulate people, but would mix his revenge in with his true feelings of love. We see this with his love with Kiew. It was almost like he was killing two birds with one stone - he got to act on his love for her, but also emotionally abuse her as a way to get back at his father. Both he can do while keeping her close. We saw Kriss's act out of jealousy and his love for Chaya. And maybe whoever is reading this will dislike me for saying this, but I enjoyed Kriss's chaos. I hated that he was doing this because of his love for Chaya, because honestly f*** that girl, but I felt that the story needed Kriss's revenge plot as a wake up call for Peat. I truly believe that Kiew's love wasn't enough for Peat to want to stop with his revenge plot. Maybe a 50 / 50. Kiew was his emotional support as she was always there to defend him and take care of him, but he didn't realize how much he needed that, until Kriss stepped up to the plate and all his thought out planning finally hit all at once. Then we have Chaya who I think was the true villain of this drama, right before Peat. Chaya was motivated by her interpterion of love - she acted like an empty vessel who would follow whoever he loved blindly. In this case, she was in love with Peat and everything she did was motivated by, if I follow him blindly, he will love me. If I help him ruin his relationship with everyone, all he will have is me and he will love me. I couldn't even count on my fingers and toes how many times she told Peat to love her, and asked Kiew to break up with him and convince Peat to marry her. But the thing I disliked the most about her was that she was like the devil on Peat shoulder - every time he seemed to come up for air and contemplate if his revenge was worth all the hurt he was causing Kiew, she would bury him back down and remind him that everyone sucks and is out to get him and all he needs is her. Honestly, her fate at the end of the the drama made me give this review and extra half a star.
Kiew, unlike Praomook, was a female lead I could get behind. Throughout her journey and emotional abuse, her morals remained the same, and if anything she became a stronger individual who spoke up and knew her limit. I disliked how long she supported Peat and his abuse, but I could empathize with her believing in her love for him and that he was acting out on revenge and wasn't being himself. She remained that support for him, even after all the bad he was doing, hoping that one day it would be enough and she would comfort him with open arms. But I did appreciate that she did have a line, and when Peat crossed it, she was out. And when she decided she was out, she committed. And it made me so happy that once everything related to revenge was figured out at the end, she was like, awesome, I am happy that you guys figured it out and have no more hate against one another, but you still abused me emotionally, and that changes nothing. Eventually, though, we get our happy ending, and all if forgiven (a bit too easily in my opinion). And I would be more upset, but I did enjoy all the lovey scenes between Peat and Kiew. I felt like there was so much love there between the characters and even maybe the actors.
I would say, if you enjoyed this one, don't bother to watch Praomook. Or you could watch that one first and then this one because this drama definitely saved the day.
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Instead, I fell into a hole of a cute and quirky drama about two motivated career driven people who reunited after a few decades of being separated as children, falling in love with one another, and learning what is more important in their lives - each other, or their careers. (The answer is one another). And that is basically what this series was about. It was a lot of fluff, but for the first time I was okay with it. It was fun watching them fall in love while helping motivate one another pursue their lifelong dreams - Cong Rong wanting to be like her father, a lawyer, and help defend people who couldn't, and Shao Qing a successful surgeon, saving people's lives.
I loved the writing as every character was motivated by their professions, but even more passionate about their friendships (to a point where I was confused about their working hours as they kind of left whenever they wanted) and were all just extremely clever at cracking joke and being sassy. Especially, Shao Qing and his quick tongue and his sexual humor and turnaround time making us feel like we had the dirty mind. Honestly, he was not my type, until half way through when he just started teasing and romancing Cong Rong, he became my type.
It was also interesting how this series went back and forth - it seemed like there was more of a drama story with Cheng Cheng and Wen Rang where I thought they were the mains. And I would watch it.. when they were on good terms, it was swoony... but when they were on bad terms...I would get emotional.
Overall, I wish I could express how much loved this drama and given it an easy 10/10, but as I was thinking about it, this was all really well done fluff. It was extremely good, but there was no reason why this had to be 28 episodes. It got to a point where, I loved watching their journey, but there really wasn't much of a plot to want to binge it. Yes, they pulled on all our heart strings as Shao Qing was SUCH A ROMANTIC, but there really wasn't a solid plot. They attempted to add a second love interest, Lawyer Shangguan Yi, but it got to a point where we fell in LOVE with him, but he had ZERO chance of winning Cong Rong and it made me feel extremely bad for this dude. Plus, I also felt bad for Zhong Zhen who became this unnecessary comedic relief who always showed up at the wrong time, and would get playfully scolded by the two mains. And it got to a point, where I felt a little uneasy... even knowing that it was supposed to be playful and helping him grow into a better person and doctor.
I convinced myself, that this was an example of many smaller plots in a drama as the high up plot, was Cong Rong acing her internship and getting a job (which happened in the early middle) and Cong Rong & Shao Qing reuniting as lovers (which also happened in the early middle when she got her job). Everything after, I believe, is every drama watcher's desire of finding out what happened after they got together and fell in love... like a part two or epilogue. As for me... I like a good epilogue, but not all the time. I fell off a little when Cong Rong got her new job as she was just fantastic and the fluff of their relationship began and then we got to see the ups and downs of Cheng Cheng and Wen Rang's relationship that could have happened in unison with Cong Rong & Shai Qing's as most dramas do, but no. Then it all came together at the end, and I sobbed from happiness as well as from the credit scene at the end. Besides the little things, for a fluff piece, this was very well done and I enjoyed myself for the most part :)
Completely recommend if you want something light and romantic.
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I was surprised and instantly fell in love with the main Shin Hae Yoon, as she had not only lost her other half at a young age (Kang Tae Joo traveling abroad to play baseball in America), but also "developed a disease" that changed her gender. She was sad and angry, but she kept going on like it was normal and carried on with her life not trying to be a stereotypical boy or girl, but just being herself. It wasn't until Tae Joo came back from studying/playing abroad that Hae Yoon started to step outside of her comfortable boundaries and figuring out who she was and what her true feelings were. But what I loved most about her, she that even with her gender change, she still had the same mannerisms and morals that made her the same person. Whenever something happened, she would stand up and fight and when big issues came, especially when it came to telling people about her gender change, she took the time to think about what to do and what to say. Even if her actions weren't "correct" to someone else, she wasn't an impulsive person, and she always thought about is her actions would make her life as well as the other party's life more difficult.
And I wasn't sure about how it was going to go with Hae Yoon telling Tae Joo about the gender change, but to be quite honest.... I thought if would have gone smoother? Tae Joo was desperately trying to to find his old friend (and I am CONVINCED that there was some little boy love and maybe Tae Joo didn't understand his feelings completely either?) and once Hae Yoon's confession was made, Tae Joo did the most bratty / un-empath thing he could have done and understandably, Hae Yoon was hurt. I understand maybe why he might have felt that way, but it was very hurtful and I didn't quite understand the ending as well. It was cute and PG... but it almost seemed that Hae Yoon was at fault and Tae Joo's priorities were not on track.
Plus, if you were hoping to watch a series about baseball.... this is not it. There was literally no baseball played except for at the ending. Also, I was a little disappointed that Hae Yoon seemed to still love baseball and give it up because she was now a she... and at one part of the show, she showed her mad pitching skills where she might have been able to try out (cause let's get real... all of the pitching scenes we saw with Bae were NOT very good), but no. Disappointed.
Other than that, it was worth the watch and I loved Hae Yoon's friendship with Han Se Jun (or Yeo One from Pentagon) to a certain point where I very much shipped them two just because she had him as a confidant and he wanted to hear and help her in any way when she was sad. But he played the roll of a big brother to both mains instead.
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And I had a BLAST watching this! I did honestly expect something worse yet better at the same time though. The instagram review had saved with a clip from the drama (I knew how it ended so I am happy to start this "mob" drama) said so many wonderful things about it and how it was their favorite Thai drama of all time, so of course I wanted to watch it. Plus, the cast all looked GORGOUS!
I loved how it played out like one of my Grandma's "stories" I used to watch with her growing up with the usual Thai drama twist that I have a love/hate relationship with. I loved how the characters were driven by revenge and how they were willing to do insane things, such as in a soap opera, in order to hurt one another. Literally, in any other drama I have watched, the bad guy usually kills about one or two people per series tops. This one...I feel that both mains that are getting revenge killed about an average of about two to three people per episode. It blew my mind. Plus, it seemed that all the main characters were immune to bullet shots vs the henchmen who would die from a single bullet wound or getting kicked to the ground.
This drams also somehow had a large and small budget at the same time - the locations and houses were beautiful, yet the special effects were so painfully bad that it was comical.
The revenge part of the story, I very much enjoyed. I loved how if you wronged Sida (she also looked like Emily Gilmore from Gilmore Girls & Regina from Once Upon a Time so I kept calling her Emily) in anyway, she would hire someone to kidnap you so she could personally kill you...and how her son and sister were so loyal to her that they would have gone to their grave convinced that Sida had never killed anyone. I loved how Ae was easily blinded by pretty women and if you wounded his character, he would gamble anything anyway to prove you wrong...but never winning. It was very obvious and it cracked me up that everyone knew this was his weakness expect for him. I would have to say though that my two favorite characters/please don't die #1 & #2 were Mam & Plug. Mam was literally the tombraider and was immune to bullets, while Plug was just there trying this best. Lastly, loved Sila/Tor and how he was this badass who came back from the dead and just knew how to take everyone down by their weakness individually.
With that, there were somethings as well that I didn't like so much. Beginning with Sila/Tor and his romance with Min. I honestly...felt very conflicted about it. Both characters were on complete ends of the revenge scale - Tor/Sila wanted to get absolute revenge for the death of his mother and the attempted murder of him, while Min "accepted" the abuse of her step mother and half sister in hopes that they would see that she wasn't a "stray dog." They grew up together and fell in love as kids, but were separated by the supposed death of Tor, until ep one when Min recognizes him. Tor does everything in his power to make Min leave him alone (as she kept getting in his business trying to prove that he was Tor, and siding with the people he was trying to get revenge on to prove her point), which include making her try to hate him, by being very aggressive and forcing himself onto her. It made me feel very uncomfortable, as Min kept coming back trying to prove she was right and realizing that her was trying to hurt her family, and trying to protect the people who abused her. It made me feel uncomfortable, and tried to validate that he was doing it to protect her, but it went on for so long that I started to think Tor/Sila as a person was honestly... terrifying. I saw it as him abusing her... even though he was he did it so she wouldn't get hurt in his revenge plot, but instead Min started getting abused by the two sides she was fighting to stop and protect.
Besides Tor/Sila and his aggressive love life...I liked him as a character. He was a perfect example of a tragic hero, who needed to lose everything in order to realize he was wrong. Don't get me wrong, every time he challenged Ae or Sida (like when he went full on Kakeguri on Ae) I rooted for him! He had all the necessary pieces to get his revenge and win, except for the fact that he had people he loved who were easy targets.
Min, on the other hand, was a broken record. From the beginning she needed to prove that Sila was Tor so she but into his business whenever she has the chance. That was her first goal. When she finally got the truth, her second and main main goal was to try and convince Sila that forgiveness is better than revenge. Which is great... but she kept saying it to him and trying to convince him in the same way over and over and over again...where I am like...dude... try to do it in another way. Clearly, the way you are doing it is not getting through to him.
It literally took Sila loosing everything for him to realize what his aunt had been telling him for years and then randomly in the final two or three episodes...he was this 180 reborn guy who needed to spread the new word of forgiveness. Which honestly made me dislike this drama and the way things ended with Sida & Sila. It was necessary and I am happy for everyone at the end, but it just didn't make sense to me and maybe it is just because of the dialogue.
Even though I didn't like Tor/Sila and Min's relationship as well as the ending, I had a great time watching this. At some point, I called in work sick so I could spend a whole day watching this drama.
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This review may contain spoilers
I was excited about this one - I knew what I was getting myself into when I saw clips of this drama on Instagram, knowing the only thing that would get me out of my drama funk was something light that didn't take itself too seriously. And I am not too familiar with Thai dramas, so it is always a safe bet for myself to try something different when I can't figure out what other genre/region I want to watch next. I was pulled in instantly, wanting to know how the whole story was going to process and how Koji was going to go about teasing out main Noom about not calling him back after the night they spent together. And it was cute and quirky, and I remember texting my friends saying that I recommended this drama. Noom was a very independent woman who worked hard for what she got which landed her a role as a translator in a big company. And upon arrival, she continuously proved to everyone that she was great at what she did. And then we had Koji, the CEO of ViperX who was also the best at what he did and would protect his employees and business at any cost - even if it meant dealing with Mr Mark, our first villain.
And as their romance started to blossom, we got to see a quirky side to Koji who just LOVED to tease Noom. And it was cute. Until you get into the middle of the drama, and we see a lot of gender differences. I am not sure if this is a normal thing in Thai dramas as I do not know the gender roles, but I do remember making a comment in the first few Thai dramas I watched - it seems that men can get away with doing a lot more than women can. We see this first when Koji sees Mr Mark flirting with Noom and gets extremely jealous that he gives Noom a hard time, making her uncomfortable in their relationship as well as at work. He never talked with her to find out what was going on and why she was going out and meeting with him On the other hand, whenever Noom would get jealous about Koji & Rena, our big villain, Koji would just tell her not to worry about it and just laugh at her for being cute and jealous, even though homegirl was having this internal crisis. As we get more into their relationship, we see Noom become very dependent and we see her loose her voice. And not because it was taken away, but because she was too in her head. Given, Koji became an extremely sus character and I am not sure if it was because of the writing or because the actor wasn't the best (but I still love you, Luke!) He got away with a lot - the more we got the know him, the more he seemed to act like a "host" where he used his charm and sex appeal to win over clients which obviously did not sit well with Noom.
But what I will say about this drama - they did build up trust within their relationship where they were confident in one another and their feelings for one another, so when the villains tried to ruin their relationship on multiple occasions, they never doubted their feelings for one another, but instead would get angry over hoe the other reacted in the situation. And because of that, when they made up, it was a lot smoother. But don't get me wrong, Koji made some WEIRD choices and put Noom in a lot of uncomfortable positions which was hell to get through in the middle of the drama, but near the end, our girl finds her voice again and I was so proud at her for basically telling Koji that he was being a wack ass and he needed to check himself if he wanted to be with her because she is a queen. She also found her voice and told off all her bullies and the villains.
If you want to watch something light what makes you roll your eyes at all the cliche scenes (ex Noom tripping over everything and falling into KOji's arms 11 out of 10 times) because there is a lot of them, this is a good drama. A lot of the side characters were meh, but luckily we don't see a lot of them.
I feel weird for saying this and with the rating I gave this drama - but for the amount of bad in the drama, I very much enjoyed it. I saw commonalities with this Taiwanese drama (Just You) that is also not the best, but it is one of the few dramas I rewatch time to time. Just You definitely had more of a story and more character growth than this drama, but it did have the classic secret relationship with the boss and his ex girlfriend who is also his boss coming into the picture because they want to see the world burn before their ex can find happiness with someone else. I believe I am very much into this whole troupe, but with that...will always come the hierarchy of their job positions which always seem to reflect in their relationship as well.
A love hate type of thing that I always get pulled into.
I believe I bumped this up from a 7.5 to and 8 because I did watch a lot of Luke's youtube videos in-between episodes and even though I didn't like their characters, I really liked the main actors outside of the drama. And ultimately, it turned a lot of the bad scenes into quirky ones.
ALSO, I was obsessed with Hazobe who should have been given a bigger role. Also shame that he didn't develop a relationship with Noom's best friend from ep 1, but I wasn't a fan of any of Noom's friends who just seemed to play up the bad in situations in different ways. Hazobe deserved better
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This review may contain spoilers
When I found out this drama was actually 15 eps, 10 minutes each, I got scared. Happy that this would be a simple and quick watch, but also scared because short dramas are a hit or miss. I saw the trailers and previews for this all over instagram and youtube and was excited to see this main character Yoon Chi Woo as this suspicious attractive vampire that was good and bad ready to find some romance. Instead, we got this drama about 3 boys who fell for half vampire/half human Son Yeon Seo. There was nothing about her that was spectacular except that she wanted to be a human and not vampire, but had this special ability to smell blood and find attributes about the human it belonged to. As for the boys, I felt that the fortune teller did a great job at explaining their "love square" : Do Hyun Je was connected to animals (hence the werewolf), Yoon Chi Woo related to blood - but also related to bad, and Song Meo Ru who had a great fate, but a tad dumb. I am not sure if it was Viki's subtitles, but I laughed so hard because this was basically everything we needed to know about these guys and all we were going to get. Also, for a drama that "revolved" around "love" and Yeon Seo figuring out which of the boys she wanted to be with, even though there was only really one guy she wanted to be with since the beginning, I didn't believe that she was actually "in love" with Meo Ru. If anything, I feel like she was attracted to his blandness and mundaneness. All she ever wanted was to live a bland and normal life and what better to do that with, with the blandest boy ever who was maybe anemic... or maybe he was just being dramatic but he was super sweet so he got some points. But, I still think that she had better chemistry with the two other boys, especially with Hyun Je, which was super random.
If anything, my favorite character who was the ONLY one who went through any character development which is wild in these short episodes, was Chi Woo. He came in as this bad boy who was hired to track down the blood of "the one" and who was the ex-fiance of Yeon Seo. Along the way, he learned to act sincerely on his feelings and also redeemed himself as everyone thought that he was this terrible vampire causing trouble when he was just chilling at home. I also enjoyed that they hinted that he was bisexual and I LOVED his banter with Hyun Je.
But with everything I did like, there was so much more I didn't like and was disappointed.
I know with such a short drama, we weren't able to get background information, but ANYTHING would have been nice. I feel like whenever there was an intense moment something random and huge was brought up like we were supposed to know their motivations for doing things. It just made emotional scenes empty and it was hard to connect with all the characters. We did get a little but of background with why Yeon Seo wanted a normal life, but it was brought up so casually as everyone talks about their mother being drained of her life force by their vampire husband.
This drama had SO much potential if the episodes were longer and we were given more information. I felt like the watcher was pushed into the middle of a story without context, to witness a single minor plot, and then pulled out of it.
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What more can you ask for? I didn't realize each episode was around 10 - 12 minutes in length, but I loved every minute of it.
A girl who is heartbroken due to her first love cheating on her - losing hope in humanity and love,
A goblin who will do anything to become a human, even if it means kissing 10 strangers and learning a new emotion each time.
Together, he helps her heal and fall in love again, while she gives him the one thing he's always wanted (what it is like to have someone close and not be lonely).
This is a very simple and cute story with a well-written script. I loved both characters from the beginning and as the story progressed, I loved how mature the female was being and realistic - a girl who didn't believe in betting her future on fate but instead believed in herself what opportunities were presented.
I really did like the ending and honestly, it was extremely cute how things played out.
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This is a classic coming to age story about two teenagers who find one another and decide they want to grow and not be label by their past selves - Onise doesn't want to be labeled as this bad guy who feels lonely and gets into meaningless fights, but instead a guy who protects the people he loves and cares for everyone. Kagure wants to be happy and strong and passionate, and not the "scaredy-cat" shy girl who lost her parents when she was young and is now scared of....tunnels (for example).
Together, Onise and Kogure learn what being in love is like and what it is like to support themselves as well as one another.
I really liked his drama as well because the love that Onise and Kogure had for one another was very innocent even though they went through some very adult situations. They enjoyed living and loving in the present, but also learned to understand what loving one another in the future would mean especially with their pasts.
This was exactly what expected this to be, and I am really happy about it. It was very well done and I really did love the depth of Onise's character. Plus, their side friends were also really cute as well.
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Love Hate Relationship
After a few months of off and on watching - I finally finished and I not sure what to think about it.It was a love-hate relationship. I loved how the drama started off with relationship building between Oh Gong and Seon Mi when they teamed up to go on demon hunting missions. I loved the creepiness of all the demons and the bantering between the two mains, but that is where that ends. I honestly disliked the relationship between the mains in the first 18 eps because of all the back and forth. Every time they took a step forward in their relationship, they would immediately take 3 back. But then the drama did a 180, and the last 2 episodes were extremely emotional and I was 100% in it to win it!
I think that is why I had a love-hate relationship with this drama, I loved the drama itself, but I disliked the characters. At first, I liked Seon Mi and admired that after having such a rough childhood and upbringing, she was this boss woman who used her powers to create this real estate business, but once she and Oh Gong were back in one another's lives, it was like she was this lost puppy dog and forgot her self worth and all the strength that she built over the years, just vanished. Then somewhere in the middle, I was just done with her. I also really didn't like how Woo Ma Wang was this comic relief character, but because of his selfishness, a lot of the issues that came to be at the end could have been avoided. It is weird though because I am not a fan of actress Lee El, but her character as Secretary Ma was my favorite in this drama - even though she was loyal to Ma Wang through all of his mischief, she was one of the only characters in this drama that stayed true to herself and never acted on selfishness. I didn't like most of the characters because they kept going back and forth with their actions and had no loyalty or communication with one another. Such as, I loved the relationship General Winter had with each character, but he had no problem throwing those relationships in the trash in order to gain something personally. But I must say, I really respected Sung Hyuk, Yoon Bora, and Lee Se Young for playing multiple characters in this drama. To be honest, I had no idea Sung Hyuk played both General Winter and The Summer Fairy until they literally said it in the drama about sharing bodies.
I am happy I watched this drama at least once. I finally got to watch something with Lee Seung Gi in it and I did love how this drama was, in a way, this ode to the god of mischief and his journey of retribution and I loved that his relationship with Seon Mi didn't change who he was, but it made him into a bigger person. And I understand why some comments say a season 2 is needed, and I would honestly love to watch a season 2 now that a lot of the cringyness of unknown feelings are now not an issue, but, I really liked how this ended. We got to see the god of mischief creating a plan to be mischievous, but we also see that he does have a heart of gold.
Not sure if I will rewatch this - but maybe for the first few episodes with their missions and not their complicated relationship.
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Responsibility & Love
I decided to do a little Mulan watch part this past weekend where I put on all Mulan movies I could find from China. This one, Mulan : Rise of a Warrior was the first one I found and I was not disappointed.If you want to watch a Mulan movie that is exactly what you expect from the title, this is the Mulan for you. Out of all the Mulan's I watched, I think this was my favorite. It was a story about a young woman, only daughter, and family of her father who is ill and decides to take his place as the representative on their military family. Mulan is already this kickass fighter who was trained by her father, as well as a wonderful caretaker and giver to her father and the community. All around, she is a 10 / 10. She is found out right away by a young man who grew up with her in her village, and they become best friends and confidants. One of my favorite things about this movie was how they build the relationships between Mulan and these different men.
But with all the good and cute relationship building, we do see a struggle within Mulan. Mulan is a good soldier and general but at the same time with all the struggle and misfortune and death, she starts to doubt herself and the role she plays in the military. It takes a horrific event for her to finally realize what her role is and this begins the Rise of Mulan becoming a Warrior and a great one at that.
I was also pumped to watch this one because, in one of the tags, it read romance. I wanted some Disney General Shang up in this movie! But if you are looking for a movie that is happy and uplifting, maybe this isn't for you? As I said before, the relationship-building between Mulan and the men in the military was one of my favorite things, including the relationship between her and Wen Tai, but there was also a huge representation of responsibility. Of what it means to be a soldier and citizen, fighting for China. I am not going to lie, I yelled at the tv screen a couple of times, I even signed with relief, but the one thing I did the most, was ugly cry. And that tells me that this movie, even for being made in 2009, was a great film. I highly reccomend it, but for myself, I need a little bit of time before thinking about rewatching it again.
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This review may contain spoilers
ALL THE FEELS
I am not sure what I expected from this drama, but once I got into it, it blew me away.Which is funny because I remember talking to one of my good friends in the beginning, basically agreeing that it would take us a little more time to watch and finish it because it didn't catch our interest. And the things that did catch it, were very heavy topics that we needed to take a day to digest. It was a lot of information and misfortune. Honestly, in the first couple of episodes, I rated the drama...a 6 or 6.5. It was heavy and I didn't like Han Moo Gang nor the Grim Reaper.
But OMG...once you get past episode 7, and the Grim Reaper (444?) finally starts to get a little bit of a clue, the drama kept getting better and better. It was like the first 7 episodes were very blunt and needed to set up and give us all the information we needed for the rest of the drama, but with zero context. It was very, "it is what it is" and zero surprises. It wasn't until my favorite character, Oh Man Soo, got into some trouble, where I was like...if this drama is going to continue to be blunt, then I'm dropping this. But it wasn't. That was when the drama started to throw twists and turns around every corner, that not only were really good but were clean and made total sense. Most dramas I see where they add twists, I am like, "oh ok...sure...not sure how you got from point a to point b...but I'll go with it." But not this one. They give you all the information you need from the beginning, and it is your job to almost be a detective with Ha Ram and the Grim Reaper and piece the information together.
It was a wild ride, and I am mad that I couldn't give this drama over a 9, but I had to because the drama started off very poorly for me. I wish the consistency was there from the beginning. I wish that I liked one character from the beginning, but didn't.
A few things that didn't make sense to me though, were I enjoyed Ha Ram and the Grim Reaper working together, but at some point, Ha Ram just disappeared and became a minor character. It was random and inconsistent. It made sense why she wasn't in those few episodes, but it was odd that one of our main characters, who played a huge roll in this drama, wasn't relevant.
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Also, SPOILER. Don't read ahead if you don't want to be spoiled:
I think the ending is what also saved it for me. It showed major character development for the Grim Reaper, especially when he found out exactly who he was when he was a human (hence, grim reapers were souls of people who died, but their bodies were never found or were laid to rest). I was literally in tears in the final few minutes of the drama. It reminded me of Edward Scissorhands in a way. BUT, I was also up all night thinking about the ending.
In the end, The Grim Reaper basically asked for his punishment to be that he never existed as a human, therefore no one would remember him because he was never...alive...right? Yes. But I wasn't sure how that affected Ha Ram's parents getting into that car crash in the beginning, therefore her farther being a grim reaper, and her being born as a half grim reaper and seeing ghosts. Therefore, she was able to live a healthy and happy normal life, like she always wanted. BUT if that were true, that means that there was still underground minor prostitution, and no one was there to catch it, or to save Kim Sun-Young because she still got raped? Right? Maybe some other police officer figured it out? But this ending doesn't seem very happy for that whole prostitution side. And when his existence never happened, did Moo Gang still exist? Or did he still have that heart issue? Was he saved? It also makes me a little sad that because of his lack of existence, Ha Ram and Man Soo never met. Honestly, they would have been such a cute couple and they should have tied that in somehow. Man Soo can get the girl and so can the Grim Reaper. But imagine...at the end, The Grim Reaper coming to get Ha Ram so they can spend eternity together finally, and her poor husband who was deceased and waiting for her in the afterlife is forgotten.
I have hope that I am just missing a minor detail in the ending because everything else tied in perfectly.
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Spoiler over!
Overall, this took me by surprise, and normally I am not into crime dramas, but the supernatural aspect got me.
This drama hurt my heart because it was super intense and evil, but the ending made me believe in happy endings and that anything is possible. I had almost lost hope, but the whole drama had amazing writing (yes...including the first 7 episodes that I wasn't a fan of) and I knew there was one more trick up the writer's sleeve and I thank them for coming up with a drama, that made me feel all the feels.
ALSO: Can we take a second to appreciate that whole Halloween party ep. Yes, The Grim Reaper was funny and dressed up like Joe Black and made hella Meet Joe Black references throughout the drama....BUT CAN WE TAKE A SECOND TO APPRECIATE that both Ha Ram and Man Soo both dressed up as Shrek and Fiona, unintentionally? It was so funny how this billionaire's son could have dressed up like anything in the whole world for HIS party, but chose to dress up like Shrek...and painted himself with glow in the dark green paint. He would have been a perfect husband for Ha Ram. Just saying. If she doesn't want him, shoot, I'll take him.
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Ji Chang Wook shower fight scene...your welcome
I had mixed feelings about this drama before I even started it - I was excited to watch it because I LOVE Ji Chang Wook and wanted to see him in an "action" role BUT was also not super excited because my roommate had made it to episode 11 or 12 and completely dropped it. But I ultimately decided to watch it, knowing that I really wanted to watch it for Ji Chang and because over the past year my roommate and I's taste in dramas have totally shifted from one another and we look for different things.Did I LOVE this drama...nah, but I really enjoy it. Really enjoyed it. I think my ONLY issue was that the plot seemed to be all over the place. It got super confusing, that I couldn't properly binge this drama, and was only able to digest 2 or 3 episodes a day, needing time to stop and think about what was going on before I moved on. I thought that maybe something was wrong with me and my ability to process this storyline.
The things I did love about this drama? Kim Je Ha's character. Which is where my roommate and I start to disagree. Normally, I am not a HUGE advocate of characters in any kind of story who is motivated by revenge, but wildly, I didn't mind Je Ha's character or his reasons. Normally, in these dramas or any story, we need some kind of major character development, so they make the person who is blinded by revenge extremely sloppy. But that wasn't the case, which I extremely appreciated. Je Ha was always on the top of his game and always put his morals before his revenge.
Yes...we get a little of that with Goh Anna, but it was a single slip up in one episode and you can't really blame someone who has been raised by nuns her whole life to have perfect social skills and know when someone is playing her.
Ultimately, it was that slip up that made my roommate drop this. Anna wasn't a stereotypical obvious "strong female lead" like Strong Woman Bong Son who my roommate and I gravitate more towards because of her "girl power" literally. But I believe Anna was strong emotionally vs physically. I think she knew she wasn't strong like Je Ha, or had power like her stepmother, but that didn't stop her from trying to live a normal life and try to reopen her mother's murder case. I think that is what attracted Je Ha to her - in this craziness of a drama, Anna was a breath of fresh air who has also been dragged through the dirt, but it didn't change who she was which was an emotionally strong and caring woman. I think it is endearing.
But I believe my favorite part was that even though they were motivated by revenge at one point or another, they fully embraced a new motivation when they met one another. There was never an issue about them deciding between love and revenge. They still fought for what they believed in, but they both always took the time to step back and reassess what was important and what was needed to be done in order to get that. They weren't one-sided like a lot of the characters who only knew one way of doing something, so they stuck with it even if it stopped working. But I must say, there was only a single time I teared up from this drama....and it was a moment between Anna's stepmother and her father...even though I hated both of their guts. Ultimately, this drama was about people's motivations and what lengths people are willing to go to get what they want or think they want. It was about the evilness in people and the story of how people either live with that evil or trying to fight it.
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For me personally, this drama came off like a Saturday morning kids drama you would watch with your kids. It was silly and light but had a lot of mature jokes and content (such as one of the first scenes we see when Song Soo Jung goes back to the past and is in line with 3 other men awaiting punishment getting different appendages cut off.) Maybe it is because I recently saw Gong Seung Yeon in My Introverted Boss and disliked her character and transferred those feelings over to this drama OR maybe it was because I looked up Lee Jong Hyun after watching the first episode and knowing what had happened in 2019, that I just didn't vibe with these characters whatsoever. But I did enjoy On Dal's character and his relationship with Soo Jung. It was just a very quirky drama that I feel like you either will love or hate. Out of all the characters though, I feel like the Princess was the one who went through the most, but hey...she wanted that storybook romance.
The first half of the drama was a little painful to get through, but once the mains start to understand their feelings for one another and act on them, the story picks up, especially the last few episodes. I think the last few episodes def made me give this a higher score.
I believe my favorite character would be a tie between Mu Myung and Go Il Yong. Maybe Prince Ko, eldest brother of the Ko family (Go Yong) a little more. What can I say, I love a good villain even though...the king was a bigger villain to the mains. I liked Mu Myung because she was this badass warrior who only had loyalty to the princess, but was annoying because he believed he was worthless. I'm down with that. I loved Prince Ko because while every character jumped around between being silly and serious, not knowing what kind of drama this was, Prince Ko was always flamboyantly self-centered who thought he was the most badass general but was actually all bark and no bite. I loved his wild laugh that fit the mood of the drama perfectly, and strangely, loved his interactions with Soo Jung. Without him, this drama would be trash. Sorry, not sorry. Even when he had the upper hand, no one was really worried.
As for the ending - I got it...but felt like there could have been more explanation. The last few episodes were good, that I felt a little disappointed with how they did the ending. The ending was good and sweet, but I feel like they didn't have to give it to us in the last 2 minutes of the final episode with zero explanation or how. But I guess if it a quirky Saturday morning kids dramas, it isn't neccesary.
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This review may contain spoilers
When I was first getting into dramas back in 2018, I had this one on my list when I first saw a clip of the the 3 mains together, intoxicated in a single bed, one cuddling Ro Won, while the other, I assumed was the main male lead, staring deeply into her eyes, and caressing her face. I was like...I really want to know what is happening in this scene, but never was able to find it, until 2020, when they decided to add it to Netflix. I dropped everything to binge watch it, and it was A LOT different than I thought it was going to be able. It was a good combination, back and forth between a very silly stereotypical drama, but then they would have serious scenes at dealt with suicide, self harm, and fears. It was nice to have that comic relief, but at the same time, it confused me. For example, the plot. About a year ago, my roommate had watched this drama on a sketchy site, and when I started watching this drama last week, she told me that there were so man twists and turns that she never saw coming. And I agree with her, there were a lot of twists, but I felt like the writer/director was VERY obvious about what was going to play out. It took until episode 5 for me to understand what was happening - episode 5 was the "flashback" episode, that told is what had happened to Ro Won's sister before her death. But even in that hour flashback, I was still getting confused based on how Ro Won's sister acted about everyone. It got to a point where I was like...ok...I mean yes, that makes sense...but it doesn't, but for the sake of wanting to understand the story at this moment, yeah sure. Let's go with that. Maybe I am just over analyzing everything. But when it came down to all the twists at the end, I was happy that I wasn't insane and overthought everything.
As for the characters, I loved Eun Hwan Ki, and the actor who played him. It was awesome seeing someone who struggled with social anxiety in a main role. I believe it was a symptom of being an introvert, but magnified because of believing it was his fault for his secretary's suicide. I identified so much whenever he would over think in the simplest of situations, and thinking about the possible outcomes, and once you decide on the lesser of the evils, you think about how everything could go wrong, and then you end up doing something completely different and wrong in that situation. That was one of the things I didn't like about the drama, but also did - Eun built up is relationships with everyone one by one, slowly...so we didn't really see anyone standing up for him or helping him until the second half of the drama. And even then, maybe middle second half of the drama. It hurt my heart seeing how closed minded people were being and assuming the worst, but I guess that is a drama cliche. It just hurt how long it lasted. Like yes, if people thought of me like that, I would hide myself from the world too. But when he finally came out, he was the cutest, dorkiest character ever, and I loved him with all my heart. Well until the ending where he was so used to internalizing everything and blew up. And it sucks, but oh, I can identify with that too. It is hard when you want to be with someone or hangout with someone who is completely different from you in the way you act and speak. But it is interesting with a character like Chae Ro Won, who did an amazing job in her role btw, who I had a love ate relationship with. They definitely played her as a young bubbly extrovert who, when it mattered, was an MVP support system for Eun and his team, but in normal everyday situations, was airheaded and really didn't think about what others thought. I cannot atest to her actions as I am not an extrovert by any means, but I did see a lot of similarities between her and my roommate who oozes extrovertness. Yes...that is a new word now. But maybe that is an introverted person's view of extroverted people. Who knows. I just had a love hate relationship with her because her character went from close minded to caring for him and helping him and taking the time to understand him to then again being closed minded because hey we are in love. Other than that, the actress did an amazing job, and it seemed like she was super natural in her role.
As for the other characters, I liked them, but I was indifferent, except for the characters who played a part in Ro Won's sister's suicide or thought they did. They were "traumatized" that it took them 3 years and a lot of pushing for them to realize, hey...maybe I'm putting the blame on the wrong person and maybe we should talk about it so my relationships with myself and other people can be healthy? It made me want to dislike a lot of characters, but I guess at the end, they redeemed themselves. And with that, I didn't care for a lot of side relationships.
Overall, I think an 8.5 is fair. I enjoyed it, but it also hurt my heart to see Eun misunderstood. But in the end, he did the best he could in order to protect everyone else, even if he had to be the one who went down. I think I couldn't give it anything higher because the time jumps and present time with flashbacks weren't super obvious and I got confused a few times. Also, it was nice to see them have "regular" problems after everything settled, but at the same time, I feel like there was a little bit too much weight that went into these problems vs Eun being apart of the reason her sister killed herself. Like you jumped back super quick and forgave him because you knew he was a great guy, but screw him because he didn't write me a chirstmas card. Like...what? The gravity of these situations are equal and you can talk about this without exploding. It was a turnoff as I thought they would be the most mature couple out of everyone, yet that was not he case.
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This review may contain spoilers
I am not sure how to do this review any justice,I loved how this drama wasn't a typical "coming-to-age" story. I feel that a lot of the cta stories are very cookie cutter and deal with how high schoolers deal with the struggles of making friends, fitting in, getting good grades, maintaining relationships with friends, as well as learning self love (and most likely the love of the popular boy.) It is very cookie-cutter. So I normally don't go for these kinds of dramas, BUT ultimately decided to because I love Janice Wu and her love interest played Ice Hockey for their university. I love hockey and thought that this drama might be different as we usually see these coming to age stories with shy average women. Tang Xue (Janice) was far from that stereotype. She was very strong inside and outside and stands up for the "weak." Even if she doesn't know if she'll be successful in "saving" them, she still tries, as she emphasized the saying, "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take." She was a tad airheaded when it came to her romantic relationships, but she never did anything on purpose to hurt someone.
I also loved how this drama was a love letter to Chinese winter sport athletes (as well as non-winter sport ones), specifically their ice hockey team (both men and women) qualifying for the 2022 Winter Olympics, disguised as a simple coming to age romance drama between a woman speed skater and the university's "Ice God," who happened to be childhood "friends." I like to think of it the same as Janice's last drama, "The Brightest Star in the Sky," as I believed it was a publicity stunt to "show the life and struggles" of Z.Tao trying to make a comeback in China. I loved it nonetheless, and that also goes for this drama as well. It was unique as it was told from the point of view of athletes. I always feel that coming to age stories and dramas are very cookie cutter, as they made the main actress a universal average joe of a woman so the audience can relate to her in some way or another. This drama was not like that, as they decided to choose to be more specific with all their characters, and I honestly loved this moreso because I was able to identify with these characters as I was also an athlete all my life, and played in college. Not to the extent of being a world record breaker like Tang Xu, or an "Ice God" like Li Yu Bing, but in a way, being an athlete comes with its own struggles that we all face.
And going off of struggles, it was nice seeing how everyone kind of represented a different person and their struggles of being an athlete and wanting to follow their passions. Tang Xue was a world record breaking athlete growing up until she injured herself at a competition, that ultimately discouraged her from continuing to speed skate. It wasn't until she got to college that she was reminded of her passion, and she had to make the choice of either forever quitting or train to maybe get back to where she used to be. Li Yu Bing's major physical struggle didn't happen until the later episodes, so I am not going to talk about that because it is a spoiler, BUT he did suffer internally throughout the 40 episodes - even though Li Yu Bing was the school's "Ice God" he still had a voice (an 8 year old self) always in the back of his head filling his mind with doubt that he wasn't good enough. Which made him a little impulsive. We only really see it in the beginning of the drama and at the end, but I think he had it hard because the few struggles he did face, were pretty harsh. Then we have my favorite character, little lamb Yu Yan. Yu Yan had transferred to the university to help bring their ice skating team win. Unfortunately, Yu Yan had become a zombie in his own life, being told what to do, where to go, and what to eat. But even though he struggled to find his own passion in Ice Skating, he was a HUGE motivator to other people including Tang Xue when she decided to train again. It was almost like he gave the perfect advice of what passion was and how to build on it to make you a better person and athlete, but it was hard for him to follow his own advice. His story was one of the more difficult ones to watch, but I was super proud of him at the end of the drama. Of course we have minor characters Wei Wei, who only wanted to be the very best, and Jiang Shi Jia, who just wanted to play hockey after graduation, but at what cost. I also liked how they threw in other non-athletic minor characters such as Tang Xue's best friends who were in the medical and veterinary science field as well as Tang Xue's cousin and Tang Xue's old love interest who are both in the journalism broadcasting field.
We do get a lot of the cliche coming to age conflicts and villains in this drama with love triangles, but I liked how the mains had one thing in common, which was their passion for their sports, that they all understood a common struggle and knew how to comfort one another as well as be there for them. It was very comforting and nostalgic for me to watch as I remember the struggles I faced as a team player and a captain. The struggles of figuring out if that sport was something I wanted to train for and continue after an injury, or after graduation. I enjoyed this drama a lot more than I thought I was going to because even though it was a cheesy webdrama with extreme situations at times, they got the feelings and struggles of what it is to be an athlete right.
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