novalinnhe
UK
For a start, the entire drama is something quite unique. It's a mystery series, yes. But instead of the chilling tension of a gruesome murder, each episode fills you with warmth and endearment as you slowly uncover a beautiful, heartbreaking secret through the soft worn pages of that person's favourite book.
Some of the episodes do include a crime, but emphasis doesn't usually fall on it. Instead, the reasons they committed those crimes are the true mystery Shinokawa (the beautiful bookshop detective) seeks to solve. She is one of the most interesting characters I feel I've watched in a drama to date, and although I started off a little unsure of her (seemingly) emotionless character, you learn the reason she is like this as the series moves along.
Biblia Koshodou isn't a perfect drama, but one thing I love is that its "faults" seem to make it even more charming. For example, some of the plots are way, way over the top - you wouldn't try to injure others or end your marriage for a book. However, to me it feels as though this "overexaggeration" is the writers' way of trying to illustrate just *how much* they love books. You can see this in the incredible detail and research they put into each episode, each one being based off a real book and its history.
Also, the music sometimes seems very out of place; autotune and synthesisers in a drama about a quiet, beautiful girl who owns a bookshop? However, I feel this "mismatch" stops the drama becoming over-sentimental and cliched, which I eventually realised and respected the writers for.
Overall, a beautiful, heartwarming drama that I can guarantee you'll want to watch over again and again. Grab a hot chocolate, turn down the lights, and enjoy. :)
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Now before I begin, I need to stop here and say that crime and detective mysteries are kind of my thing. I'm still new to Asian drama, but I've most likely read and watched every Poirot, Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes story out there, along with a whole list of other British detectives from back in the heyday of vintage crime. Yet I don't remember any other detective, story or series that has repeatedly left me in hysterical tears - and what shocks me even more is that this didn't happen just once or twice. Almost every single episode left me shell-shocked, crying, and questioning what I knew of my own humanity. That is the power of Missing Noir M.
I'm sure you already know that this isn't a happy, fluffy series, and you're absolutely right. But they don't go out of their way to make things tragic or melodramatic, either. The only phrase I can think of is "brutal honesty", with no bias or cues to tell you how you should feel - and as the key theme to the series is morality and what we define as "right and wrong", the fact that the viewer is always given a totally impartial view makes complete sense. If there is a corpse you will see an ugly corpse, not a stylised or easy-to-see version. Characters are represented as raw and honestly as possible, with no stereotypes or cues to tell us how we are supposed to feel about them. Nothing is hidden from you; nothing is painted as good or bad. You are left to make your own decisions, and treated as an intelligent viewer.
Speaking of characters, credit needs to be given as much to the actors as to the script-writers. A high level of craftsmanship has obviously gone into creating the people behind each episode, especially considering how detailed some plots can get. Whether you're watching a protagonist, antagonist or supporting role, every single character in every single case is a fleshed-out, complicated, irrational and mistake-prone human being - which has been both written well, and acted beautifully. There are also no character tropes for you to latch onto, so it is impossible to guess the way a person will react, what their intention is, or who is truly "innocent" or "guilty". Because in real life, how often does a 100% evil person commit a crime against a 100% sinless person, then have their case solved by somebody 100% impartial?
Exactly.
Story is the only category that gets a 9, and that's because some moments can feel very out of the blue. Once or twice there is a sudden onslaught of information you just don't have time to process before the next scene, and occasionally some interactions between characters take a hugely unexpected turn with no explanation. The "blink and you'll miss it" moment in the final episode (you'll know what it is when you see it) is my best example of this - no lead-up as to why it might have happened, and never referenced again. However these are pretty much the only negatives I can find. Some people disliked how it ends, but to me it really drove home the show's theme of morality being subjective and ambiguous. It wasn't sad, nor happy; just brutally, soul-destroyingly honest. So for me the ending was perfection.
Anyway, that's it! This is such an essay haha, but I hope this review helps you with what you want to know. And as I said in my TL:DR... if you're still wondering whether to watch it, just watch it! You won't be disappointed. I promise.
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This fact wouldn't be so terrible if there was any progress with these "bad" characters. The problem is that there isn't. In every episode, again and again and again, the same people cause the same problems with the same victims. It's like watching a car drive into a wall, reverse, drive into the same wall, reverse, drive into the same wall... until the drama ends.
Another thing I feel I should mention very quickly is that it is not a typical romance drama. The story eventually shifts towards another character, and their storyline is absolutely heartbreaking - genuinely painful to watch, at times. But sadly, the emotional "punch" of these parts are diluted by the boring, monotonous, and unchanging characters and plotlines we are given, which totally drown and drag out everything else.
Anyway - in conclusion. :) For story I have given 5, as despite the drama being boring overall, there are some really cute scenes and some incredible, heartbreaking moments - it's just a shame you have to search through a load of filler to find them. If the drama had been shortened to 25 episodes, this score would be much higher.
The actors I have given an 8. They aren't the ones who write the drama, and so for the scripts they were given each person acted out their part incredibly well. The music was well-written and really cute, but for something 50 episodes long you do need a little more variation, hence the 7. Finally, the re-watch value is a resounding 2. I would have dropped it to a 1, but as A Thousand Kisses was the very first drama I ever watched, I might dip in and out of it again for nostalgia's sake. However, that is very unlikely...
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In fact, so many cliches are gone over in this drama that in the second half of the series, one of the main characters crosses a road and I still think it's a genuine miracle they didn't get hit by a car. Or truck. Or bus. (You know the cliche I'm talking about, right?) Like so many other romance k-dramas, the initial premise is always interesting and the first few episodes are laugh-out-loud. Yet by the time you reach the middle of the series you're left with a soup of the same old misunderstandings, plot twists and never-ending flashbacks that you have to sit through until the final few episodes, where everything is miraculously resolved and the designated bad guys get their just deserts.
It's really a shame, as I've only ever seen one other "flower boy" drama and so I was genuinely excited by the idea of this, and loved the parallels to Cinderella in the beginning. However those parallels are quickly lost, and instead of having anything to do with Cinderella it just feels like any other middle-of-the-road K-romance. It's also a shame on the actors too, who all play their parts incredibly well despite the boring storyline (with some standout performances from some of the supporting cast). The only actor I can fault in any way would be the second-lead female, who I don't feel added anything to the story and seemed very uncomfortable on screen. Her parts of the story dragged dreadfully. Everything else negative about this drama I would say comes from the scriptwriters, and not the actors themselves.
So in conclusion? If this will be the first "flower boy" style drama you'll ever watch, maybe give it a go as I think it's something every k-drama fan needs to see once. I'd also definitely recommend the first five or six episodes, as they're great fun and had me laughing out loud. That being said, this isn't a drama I'd recommend overall as I've personally seen much better, and I was very glad for it to be over once the final episode rolled around.
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... uh, okay. I haven't quite helped myself here - all of these things DO actually happen - but it's the WAY the writers play with these tropes which left me incredibly impressed. We are given stereotypes, sure, but we are also given fleshed out and realistic reasons for these stereotypes. For example, we aren't just given a rich girl who looks down on poorer students because "rich"; we learn the complex and dark reasons behind her behaviour, we see the effects of her behaviour from multiple perspectives, and parallels are drawn between what you are seeing in the drama and very real problems which teenagers in the real world are facing and struggle with. (One issue which really stood out to me is the very real and serious problem of high suicide rates amongst students who are pushed academically in the same way that a number of characters in this series are pushed - and they don't shy away from pointing this out to the viewer.)
It's a little difficult to try and get at the point I'm trying to make, but the best way I can put it is this. What the writers of Sassy Go Go have done is take the general "get up" of a school drama, analysed the stereotypes, tropes and over-used plot devices so many of them contain, and asked WHY. Why would this stereotype act this way? What could be happening to them to cause that sort of behaviour? Could a school-age teen really perform that kind of role, and if they could, how would it affect them mentally? Would the teacher of a school really react like that within this scenario, and if they actually did what would be the real-life consequences?
What we end up with is something which resembles a school drama on the surface, but actually becomes a very passionate and moving story about teenagers - and the people who look after teenagers - dealing with realistic, human problems that can be fully related to by the audience. Not only that, but instead of being given a clichéd "underdog hero defeating the popular villain" solution to everything, we get far more interesting storylines. Things which happen that are so unfair it makes your skin crawl, but with no hero to swoop to the rescue; teenagers with real flaws and serious problems making really serious mistakes; adults tiptoeing between doing what is right and what puts bread on the table; and all manner of plot points which I never expected to find in something as fluffy as a school drama.
The 9 is because although I do absolutely love what they've done with this, the fact that the drama needs to be based of stereotypes in order to "make its point" means that despite everything that goes on, if you've watched enough of these dramas it's therefore possible to sometimes predict the outline of entire episodes within a few minutes. However, it is the journey you take to get there which contains the real meat of the show, so it was barely an issue and I'd still recommend Sassy Go Go to anybody. :)
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There's just so much going on in every aspect of this series. Each character is entirely believable, and you can tell that time has been taken to ensure that characters have their own depth without needing to be supported by the others. And don't even get me started on the actual storyline - it's original, almost entirely unclichéd (that's right - no mid-season camping trips where the main character eventually comes to terms with their feelings, lol!) and totally believable as a genuine narrative which could happen between two people in real life.
It's this which I personally feel makes the drama's title so clever. Instead of following its namesake and being a predictable, cookie-cutter love story, what the writers have actually done is create an original piece whilst remaining totally self-aware of the sort of tropes and clichés that occur within its genre. In short: the drama's title and overall plot idea is INTENTIONALLY clichéd. By taking the bare skeleton of a stereotypical romantic comedy then creating something new, original and interesting, the writers have shaken up and brought new life to the very genre it has stolen its skeleton from. It's probably done tongue in cheek... but I also think it's very, very clever.
One other thing I particularly loved about this drama is that the lead characters genuinely irritated me sometimes. In most dramas or fictional stories of any kind, the general idea of a main character is that they are somebody we can relate to and root for - but instead, the writers of this drama have opted to give us interesting and complex characters instead of just slotting in the same tired stereotypes. Every personality in Rich Man Poor Woman is fully-fleshed out with positives, negatives, memorie and faults, and you'll see clash after clash of personality and personal intentions throughout the series - just like in real life. It's extremely human and realistic, and I absolutely love that there are producers out there brave enough to try something new with its castings and characters.
So honestly? If you've currently got a spare hour or two, then just stop what you're doing and watch the first episode. You will NOT be disappointed. Trust me. ;)
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A fun, Holmes-esque detective drama - just don't expect too much.
I really did enjoy this drama overall. I had a real fondness for the back-and-forth, bickering relationship between the two main characters, and think each of the recurring side characters had great characterisation in their own way, particularly the lodging owner (Wang Su Su) who I wish would've had more screen time!However, as a real lover of detective fiction I personally found some of the cases a little hard to follow, before eventually realising that Detective L should be treated a little like Murder She Wrote. By this I mean the charm of the series isn't necessarily in the mysteries themselves, but in the characters we're watching solve them.
You see, one of my favourite things to do with a detective story is to try and solve the mystery alongside the detective. The problem is, in Detective L you are often given clues at the same time as, or even after the detective has already solved whatever mystery it would have helped you piece together. For example: in one case there's a clue in a ventilation pipe which helps explains something that's happened. However, we only find this clue after the detective asks his assistant to fetch it, and explains why he knows it's there (essentially "solving" the clue before we've even seen it).
Murder She Wrote suffers from the same issue, where the crucial clue is often explained to the audience at the end when Jessica Fletcher has already solved the case. You don't get the opportunity to figure the mystery out for yourself, but that's okay - because the warmth of that show comes from its lovable cast of characters, not the gritty realism of the case. And that's the same with Detective L.
TL;DR - If you're starting this show looking for interesting cases you can solve alongside the detective, you might be a little disappointed. However if you approach this more as a typical drama with the setting of a crime or detective show, you'll get a lot more enjoyment out of the series overall. I definitely did in the end. :)
(P.S. Be prepared for some blood/gore - particularly during the autopsy scenes.)
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This review may contain spoilers
What can I say, I absolutely loved this! I personally have never seen a gay/queer main storyline done before in Asian drama, only seen side characters that are hugely flamboyant or act as comic relief. Having lots of same-sex interactions in a way that felt less jokey and more "cheeky" or charming was really fun and sweet to see, and I loved the incredibly rich backstories to each of the four main characters, as well as some of the other supporting cast. There is a dark underbelly that the main character of the film deals with, but it's kept really entertaining by sharing screen time with the day-to-day goings on of the cute little bakery the story is based around. So although this film does have some pretty dark themes I honestly can't get across how fun and feel-good this movie ends up being.The only negative I can think of mentioning is that a couple of the characters pull quite heavily from drama tropes/stereotypes - but these tropes are then given fleshed out, natural-feeling backstories which illustrate why they act the way they do. So although their surface behaviour appears "typical", it never comes off too cheesy. For this I decided the acting deserved a resolute 10/10, as I can't imagine how difficult it must be to pull something like that off - playing a stereotypical personality whilst getting across the humanity of that character.
It's slightly difficult to talk about the story itself without revealing potential spoilers, as even the opening scene is linked quite heavily to the story's ending. But what I will say is that I went into this completely blind (as I didn't even realise it was a manga until coming here to write a review), and the emotional punches that this movie comes with are definitely best experienced with no prior knowledge of what you're getting into. So: if you like cakes, pretty gentlemen and a fantastic plotline, give Antique Bakery a go - I can't recommend it enough. :)
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A masterpiece.
That's it. That's the review. Signal is a masterpiece. Anything which follows is flavour text.If I were asked to recommend a show to someone who had never seen an Asian drama before, Signal would be the recommendation. I'm at a loss for how best to even describe it, as I don't feel like any of the words I could give would do the series justice. In my opinion, Signal has one of the most unique stories I believe I have ever come across on television - definitely within the crime/detective genre, anyway - and it paces itself so well and so confidently that I'm worried it's set the bar too high for me to appreciate any dramas I watch after this.
Every single actor - lead, side or extra - gives every scene their all. You feel your gut wrench or your heart pound as characters are thrown again and again into these intense, impossible situations that sometimes do not have a fairytale ending. You may have seen other reviewers talk about how much they cried watching this, and I am no exception. Some of the cases the detectives are tasked to solve are harrowing, particularly when they are of personal importance to a main character. But the acting is so stunningly good that you cannot help but empathise completely with what each character is going through, regardless of the morality or soundness of their decisions.
For me, this series is a perfect illustration of why it's so important to give more older actors lead roles. The level of acting you are treated to is just unparalleled, and I firmly believe that this series would not have been the same without the seasoned, top-level performances that these veteran actors brought. The lead actress in particular won several national awards for her incredible performance in this series.
Although I wouldn't listen to the OST outside of this drama, I've given music a 10 as each song fit its selected scene like a glove. You can tell a lot of care went into the placement of the music throughout this series. Rewatch value is the only non-perfect score at 9.0, as to me the final episode started to outstay its welcome towards the end. However, this alone was not enough for me to drop any of the other scores from perfect.
TL;DR Signal is, to me, the true definition of a masterpiece. I enjoyed every second of it, and hope you do too.
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A definite recommendation from me, although it does trail off towards the end.
I'd recommend Hotel King to anyone looking for an interesting hotel drama to sink their teeth into, and enjoyed its unique, fairly dark story line as well as the "whodunit" mystery we get to uncover as the episodes progress.I will stress that the story really does get quite dark at times, including murder, medical distress and violence towards children, so if you are affected by any of these things I would advise caution when watching. Most of these scenes are quite short so you should be able to skip them without missing much, but I wouldn't recommend skipping any of the opening sequence as it establishes the main character's back story.
Where this series really shone for me was in the relationships between the hotel employees as a whole, which felt completely authentic. I particularly loved all the stories that came from the cleaning and reception staff, as they were hilarious and kept me moving through the drama even when the main couple's story seemed to stall. It truly felt as though I was privy to the inner workings and gossip of a real hotel and its staff, which is where I tend to get my enjoyment from dramas like these.
I also think the two older actors in this drama, Lee Deok Hwa and Kim Hae Sook, did a phenomenal job with their roles and stole every scene they were in. It's impossible for me to elaborate on this without spoiling anything, but just know that you will come to love them both - however begrudgingly - and their stunning performances are worth the price of admission alone.
Like many of the reviewers before me, I agree that the series starts strong but trails off towards the end. I imagine shortening the series to 24 episodes would have nicely contained all the main plot points without the unnecessary fluff and same-episode flashbacks, which start to happen with a vengeance towards the end. However, please don't let that put you off; if you enjoy hotel/work-based dramas and are intrigued by the idea of a dark story line, you will definitely get a lot of enjoyment from this series regardless.
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Refreshingly mature take on the romance K-drama.
I absolutely loved this drama, and thought the way the story progressed and eventually resolved was such a mature, refreshing change from what I have traditionally seen in the romance genre. Even the side/second-lead stories wrap up beautifully, and I love it when side characters and secondary love interests are given agency independent of the main characters and story arcs. You will come to love each of the characters in this drama for who they are as individuals, and I was honestly sad to say goodbye once I reached the end of the series.Conflict is handled very maturely, and it feels like the writers favoured personal growth - however painful - over stereotypical, unearned resolutions. After following the characters' journeys it felt like everybody got the ending that was best for them, NOT the ending that made them happiest, and I will always treasure this series for that. I also really like that the main couple were given the opportunity to grow and learn about each other, as despite the extraordinary circumstances it felt like we were watching a far more realistic love story unfold.
My only real negative with Another Miss Oh is a particular side-couple we meet early on, who are a strange juxtaposition to the rest of the highly mature cast. They have a significant age gap, with the girl being a young teenager and the "boy" being close to thirty, and although I understand they were comic relief I just found the majority of their scenes both uncomfortable and pretty unnecessary.
Other then that, Another Miss Oh is a wonderful drama I'd be very happy to sit through again, due to its fantastic emotional maturity.
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Repetitive and poorly researched.
I know I only have two more episodes to go (each 'episode' is split into two smaller minisodes), but I just can't take watching this any more. Unfortunately, this means Dinner Mate takes the title of being the first drama I have ever reviewed where I have outright dropped the series.The premise of Dinner Mate is wonderful - a rom com based around two strangers slowly bonding and falling in love over a series of lunch/dinner dates. Sadly, that isn't what you get. The drama is instead somehow focused around two side characters - the ex-partners of both the male and female leads - and although I can't go into much detail due to spoilers, their inclusion in the series is completely unnecessary at best. I found myself getting frustrated almost every time they came on screen, and it was exhausting watching them repeat the same lines, intrusions and mistakes over and over and over again. Towards the end of the series, these scenes become so frequent that the relationship between the main couple ends up taking a back seat entirely.
The drama also swings wildly between surface-level comedy and serious - REALLY serious - topics such as eating disorders and obsession. It handles the comedy well, but (excluding the incredible performance from the male ex-partner Jung Hae Hyuk) does really poorly handling the serious stuff. Another reviewer said it felt like whoever wrote the show did no research into the topics they were covering, and I completely agree - the portrayals of therapy, abuse, anorexia and other mental health conditions were egregiously wrong at some points, and outright harmful at others. For example: eating a really good meal in a therapy session cannot "cure" a disordered relationship with food, but the show proposes this several times.
Finally, I think when a relationship between a side-couple becomes more interesting than the relationship between the main pairing, there is a problem lol! We get to watch a romance between two unlikely side characters which I won't spoil but absolutely adored, and is what helped pull the score I gave acting up to 3 stars. It's such a joy watching seasoned/older actors get to show off their skills on screen when a script allows them to, and this was no exception. Since we are talking about positive things, I also LOVED the soundtrack to this drama; I actually have some of the songs saved permanently to my Spotify (Dinner Mate, More Than Words and several of the instrumental tracks). They play them to death during the show, but because the songs were so good I didn't mind at all.
TL;DR Dinner Mate is an unfortunate case of a great idea carried out by a team who were unable to bring it to life. With the drama's story veering so far away from the main couple, we don't get much time to see their relationship build and so you're left with something that feels rushed and a little lost. Had the series focused less on how much "drama" they could squeeze from the constant issues the two ex-partners cause, and instead focused on the 'two strangers bonding over food' premise that they built over the first two or three episodes, I think this would have been a much more enjoyable watch.
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