Reviews

Unexpected

I really love this Kdrama. There was not even a single episode that I don't laugh and smile. The comedy is really good with a tons of romance thingy. The backstory of the main character is not being focused on that much, which I really like because it does make this Kdrama not cliche and same as other Kdrama as they always focus on the trauma thingy on that main character.

The main couple and side couple is really outstanding! They carry their role perfectly and I can see the strong chemistry between them tho.

In conclusion, this is a really good Kdrama. It is light and fun to watch. The romance and comedy is sooo balanced that you will love it.

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Beautiful drama! Amazing cinematography and acting

This was beautiful, I could watch it just for the cinematography, it blow me away.
The actors are great, every feeling and emotions greatly represented. It was a joy to watch.
The story is pretty interesting and consistent. I know it can be repetitive (his search and constantly being healed by her), but it was enough for me, much better than those confusing dramas with messy plots. The beginning of the story is more active, but the rest of it have such interesting pace, is lovely to what their feelings deepen, their live obsessions change, the importance of very little moment together. If you appreciate a poetic life of honor and commitment, this drama is for you.

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Overrated and overhyped

This has been on my watchlist, then i saw 8.8/10 and I was like oh wow, I’m in for a good time but alas it wasn’t so.
Ep1 was ok enough even though I wasn’t exactly seating at the edge of my seat in anticipation of the next episode but I’m like maybe it gets better since it has such high rating, half way through ep2 and I’m asking myself why I’m I here? 55mins into ep2 and the bank scene I was like yeah I’m out, I’m like is this for real, is this supposed to be a real bank?
I’m sorry to anyone who likes this but this is definitely not a quality series and it’s honestly bad, the background characters are just lifeless and screaming I am just an extra so loud, my eardrums hurt so much.
This very below average drama being rated so high is mind boggling, as someone who reads a fair amount of reviews here, I’m used to a lot of reviewers here enjoying mediocrity and some would rate highly anything their faves are in whether good or bad, I have long giving up hope of having the majority of the reviews and ratings here from people with working brain cells, most people who write reviews here have below average level intelligence, so when I continue seeing ratings like this, the hope that is dead gets even buried deeper.
This is going in the dropped bin
I obviously do not recommend

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Adorable

The leads in this show were so adorable and I love them SO much. Yukiko is strong and independent, bright and insightful, and just such an interesting character to follow. And Kurokawa is such a golden retriever character — the "looks like they can kill you but is actually a cinnamon roll" is probably my favorite archetype and he absolutely embodies this. I love how earnestly he approaches things he doesn't understand, and the dynamic between him and Yukiko is so heart-warming because of it. Most of the side characters also lovable and I love that we get to see each of their family/friend groups.

Overall, I think the drama portrays visual impairment really well. I definitely learned a lot about amblyopia, which I had no idea about before. The show goes into different accessibility tools and their importance, and I really enjoyed the explainer cameos by comedian Hamada Yutaro. There are a few hiccups here are there; there's a frustrating second female lead type of character who treats the FL really horribly and while the FL is shown as someone who is kind-hearted and patient enough to sit down and explain...it's kind of frustrating that she had to and I wish we'd gone more into the ableism here. The other part that was kind of iffy to me was her work at the restaurant. Once again, it seems like the drama goes for the route that hypes up the female lead and shows her resilience, but I think there could've been more discussion about making workplaces accessible. Showing scenes of Yukiko burning herself and carrying on didn't really make me think "Wow, she is so strong" as much as "Damn, they really did not make this workplace safe for her."

I think the most frustrating thing about this drama was the very typical "break up for their own good" trope in the penultimate episode. I'd been so impressed with how well they communicated prior to this and I really think it would've been much more in line with their personalities to talk it out rather than going the noble idiocy route. I very rarely like time jumps and this was no different.

Ultimately, I still found this drama really light-hearted and fun. It's a really comforting watch and Kurokawa is probably one of my favorite male leads.

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Cute comedy

I binge-watched all three seasons consecutively, which allowed me to sidestep the bittersweet conclusions that marked both Season 1 and Season 2. While the drama may not stand out as particularly memorable, I wouldn’t label it as terrible either. The acting struck me as commendable; it maintained a balance that avoided the pitfalls of excessive childishness and slapstick humor—two traits I often find off-putting in comedies. As for the plot, it was engaging enough and held my interest, akin to many other light-hearted comedies I enjoy. In summary, I believe this show merits a higher rating than it currently receives, as it offers more value than the numbers suggest.

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amazing acting, wasn't the biggest fan of the story

I was hoping that I would like this more. The premise is interesting enough: two people with trauma from their ex relationships forced together by an obsessed woman who gets off on controlling her ex-husband. As the headline says, the acting was absolutely remarkable, but with a cast like this, that's to be expected. So I will talk about the story, because while I see everyone here praising it, I didn't enjoy it so much.

There is a dead body, and it's connected to everybody. Honestly, I didn't really enjoy that part. It was a weird decision to add murder mystery to an already complex plot with a messy, broken marriage that has left a man reliant on drugs to sleep to a runaway groom who left without another word after being exposed as bisexual. The murder mystery didn't even feel like mystery because I literally could not give a damn about it lol. A 30-second clip of an interview isn't going to make me engrossed in a death story that has nothing to do with the main plot of the show...

Since I've mentioned the runaway groom, lets talk about that. What the hell was that? Guys like fr how is this good story telling? He appeared for a grand total of ONE episode after being made into such a big deal for the FL and then he just poof! Disappeared! Gone into thin air! An afterthought! He stabbed a man! Stabbed a man! ON THE TOPIC OF THAT MAN. He is an obsessed stalker. We don't know why he's obsessed; there is never a reason given. We don't know what's wrong with him. He literally makes NOOOO sense as a character I'm so sorry like literally none of his actions made any sense??? OPEN THE TRUNK. OPEN THE TRUNK. ONLY I CAN HAVE HER. WHAT DOES HER MISERY HAVE TO DO WITH MEEEE?? dog water writing sorry that upset me

The ex-wife. I understand she is obsessed. I don't understand why they justified her trying to kill herself while pregnant because her husband was soooo happy to have a baby. The real reason she tried to kill herself is because she couldn't bear the thought of his attention being taken away and given to their child. She's selfish. Simple as that. Not an ounce of pity for her in my mind.

I also found the music really weird sometimes. I think it was the MLs music? But they'd play it during like a serious aerial shot, and good god I could not take it seriously lol. This is ultimately a bland story, which saddens me because it had lots of potential. The trunk was irrelevant, which is funny because this drama is named The Trunk. Could have done just fine without half of the extraness they did, could have been developed better without it. I rest my case.

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Wish I'd liked it more

Oh I really wish I liked this more, but it does exactly what I don't like about the soulmate trope.

I like the idea of two people who get dreams about their past lives and feel like they've always been missing their other half, but it's much more interesting when two people fall in love with each other when they are reincarnated, rather than because of it. Dean and Pharm see each other from across the room and just know each other; from there, the romance seems to happen pretty quickly. I don't know, it all just felt...too easy? Dean/Pharm scenes overall got very repetitive to me. There are a lot of scenes where Pharm just ends up crying and I don't think any of it hit me emotionally, whether it was because of the acting or lack of development for the character himself.

Some other things about the drama also just feel like they jumped the gun, like all the students hyping up the Dean/Pharm ship when they haven't even met. The pacing of the second couple was also weird to me, and overall I think none of the acting was that immersive for me.

On the other hand, I think the past lives scenes with Intouch and Korn were the strongest scenes. I still wish there was a little more meat to how they fell in love (and not just how their story ended) but ultimately I still enjoyed their scenes the most.

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“Its’s all your fault”

This is a running theme throughout this drama - people are either blaming misfortunes on others or assuming responsibility for things they had no control over.

I have to say that excluding the ML, FL, 2nd FL and Old Gao, most of the other characters were not a major contribution to the story. instead they were all pretty annoying characters. The overly exaggerated and dragged out scenes with many of the characters were almost a turn off.

I love Zhang Han’s acting, and the chemistry between him and Janine Chang was palpable. There story could have been all that was needed to give this drama a better rating without any of the side stories which took up more screen time than the leads. And I noticed the repeat jewelry placement of the same pieces to multiple characters.

I watched this previously about 5 years ago, and had the same impression then. Even though I skipped a lot of the side stories this time, and was annoyed with the attempted nobility to take responsibility of every wrong in everyone else’s life and hide to avoid difficult situations, I still enjoyed the story between the ML and FL

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Style, emotion and amazing stunt choreography

An amazing binge for martial arts lovers. Always in my top ten or twenty best ever thriller/action dramas and good for a rewatch any time. Ji Chang Wook's excellent interpretation of a damaged ex-mercenary with PTSD and a murdered lover in his past, who falls for an emotionally disturbed woman imprisoned by her abusive political family, is classic international noir stuff. It is Korea, so this ML instinctively protects the elderly and seeks emotional refuge with them when wounded. He can break tempered glass with just a chisel and his work boots.

The K2 has the intense emotions and atmospherics and great editing of most k-drama thrillers. The usual brilliant kdrama humanization of villains is complete genius in this show.As always, great supporting characters with enough comic strengths to divert the intensity momentarily. It is a romance, too, but given the genre one expects some twisted perspective and it arrives with a vengeance.

On my third watch I realized how much I utterly love the villains of the piece, almost more than the sweet leads. Their ever-evolving plots involve the explosion and recreation of changing alliances like the huge schools of fish who revolve, collide and coalesce endlessly in the sea.

One of the all time worst (or do I mean best) product placement involves the lovers eating at Subways in a dream sequence within the ML's coma. There is also a marginally more tasteful and very funny naked male group battle scene in the corporate showers.

Mainly the K2 is a piece of masterful stunt artwork played out to 'Dies Irae' while black-suited corporate 'security guards' ballet about with 'body guards' from the opposing faction of an extremely corrupt Presidential election campaign. Ex army members are in cahoots with corrupt ex administration officials.

Watching JCW attack from an aerial 45 degree angle is priceless fun and for me, it doesnt ever get stale. So I call this a show perfect in itself. 2018, 16 eps of std. length. A sophisticated and classy production from Studio Dragon with the composer Kim Se Jin. Writer -- Jang Hyuk Rin.

On my top ten best ever kdramas list as of 12/24: Goblin, Hwayugi, Because This Is My First Life, Just between Lovers; the K2, Run On, Doom at Your Service; Tomorrow, Alchemy of Souls (earliest to latest) and Mr. Plankton .

ps. I salute the heroic efforts of women in kdrama and film industry to obtain more varied roles in order to develop themselves as artists, to seek better funding for those roles and more directorial support -- all in an atmosphere where part of the audience seems to need to see a lot of damaged or infantile FLs, and where creators therefore indulge them with female characters who are more symbolic than real, embodying the 'soul' psychic energy of the plot.

simultaneously posted on viki

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Must watch!

Set in the unsual setting of a Thai prison, this story tells of the love blooming between two young inmates from different worlds. Its title reminds us that darkness holds the seed of light or, like the emblematic lotus, that beauty can grow from the mud. It is told, filmed and played with talent and a deep sensitivity which almost doesn't need words. At this stage (12 episodes shown so far out of 21), there is no saying where the story is actually going and how it will end. But one thing is for certain: this series is addictive, and the airing of 4 episodes at a time avoids the frustration short formats often bring to the viewers. I strongly recommend to watch it as well as one of these new opuses which lift the so-called "BL" genre out of cliches, and make it more mature.

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Something happened, but idk what

I really wanted to love this show down bad. I just came from watching the first three episodes of The Heart Killers, and this would be my first JoongDunk BL ever after intensely watching their latest performance on said show. I'm absolutely in love with their chemistry, and it's no doubt it's there. But what in the duck was the plan? The agenda wasn't hidden, it was sitting on the coffee table with some donuts and booboo roses, there was no secret?Everything was highly predictable, and honestly so much could've happened instead nothing did. I wish the thing with Nita would've hit a little differently. Maybe Nita is still in love with Joke and kinda competes with Zo, maybe she does like Zo back but Zo realizes he doesn't actually like her and messes with Joke. Idk it could've gone so many ways but it barely stepped out the house. I definitely hope for some more JoongDunk series' because this just ain't the one that's doing it for me, y'all.

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I want back the three months of my life that I wasted on watching this series!

I don't even know where to begin with this series. I decided to give this show a watch because of two reasons. One—the synopsis sounded interesting, and I wanted to see how this story would be translated. Two—one of the main characters, Kad Ploysupa, I knew from watching him in supporting roles from shows that were produced from Star Hunter Entertainment. I liked him in those supporting roles, so I decided to support him in his first main role here. I have now come and regretted it.

I have gotten some form of emotions from other series that I have rated low (even the 1's), be it anger, disappointment, confusion, or disgust—some kind of emotion. That was not the case for this series. I felt that the first two to three episodes were okayish, with me having this series between a 6 to 6.5. I believe that was due to the fact that Kad's character was really, really carrying the show then. And then afterwards...I just felt that watching this series became a chore for me, as I just felt nothing for any of the characters, be they main or supporting. Oh, I'm supposed to feel sorry for Elyes as the reason he has become a man wh@#e is because he was cheated on by his ex-boyfriend. I'm supposed to feel sorry for Elyes' ex-boyfriend, Run, because he went with Fei Long, who is Elyes' business enemy, because he gave him an ultimatum to be with him so that Run's brother will be safe in prison?! (Why the frick on the frack didn't you ask Elyes for help with that? Is it because Fei Long has a connection to the mafia, so that made him the better choice? Oh, no, it's because you guys were sweethearts, and you still love him even though you left him due to whatever circumstances and started dating Elyes. I call bulls@#t.

And, please, from what I interpreted, Run and Fei Long's relationship to how it was presented to me—that's not love. That's Stockholm Syndrome. Hey, I'm not saying that they weren't in love before—just what I saw with my own eyes watching this series. What was presented to me was Stockholm Syndrome. Also, why in this day and age are we trying to make one person jealous of another one due to some past girlfriend coming back in the person's life? We don't need that—we are past that, and I felt that part was pointless (and yes, I know she was there to tell Pat about the other bad guy whose name is eluding me right now for him to know that that person is not a nice guy and the person who's working with them—another name that is eluding me—is having relations with said bad person). And not only this, but the evil people kind of suck and just made me not care and be invested in this series. Everyone and everything sucked. This series gave me the feelings of nothingness due to the blandness that was seen in their acting skills, as well as how the storyline was portrayed. And no amount of 'eye candy' or smexy scenes in the last episode is going to save this show for me or make me give it a higher score than one.

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I thought this would be one of those decent Noona romances the Japanese are usually adept at producing, but this isn’t the case with this drama. I would say that it was lackluster at best and uninspired at its worst.

First, there was the unconvincing romance between two leads who were more awkward with each other than being comfortable. One has that stiff upper bang, and the other with round fish-eyes who seem to be surprised that some people could be nice because she’s been dealing with lechers at her work place all day, when there’s really only one in particular. Tomoko goes along with the flow, and somehow accepts that this guy Ryohei, who did not seem so interested in getting into her pants, but actually is, but was just not so obvious about it. She could not have fathomed that this guy, who seems to be a “dumb delinquent,” could actually be harmless.

Then suddenly, Ryohei appears everywhere she is, from meeting her friends to meeting her parents. And even claiming to be so-called “friends” with the guy who had been trying to date Tomoko? That was really a stretch for me, especially when he did not even have the decency to leave when Koki was trying to have a personal conversation with his grandmother. Isn’t he just being nosy or oblivious? Then the revelation that came out of the left field, as if the writers could not come up with a convincing excuse to write him out of the love equation.  

Anyway, I thought the drama could have been better with more developed characters and conflicts, but I understand it may have been limited by time and length. They could have just focused on one or two issues instead of trying to tackle so many things in one already-short show. It’s like trying to make a salad with 10 different things but not mixing it well. I’m pretty sure 3 or 4 ingredients would have been enough, and the same applies here.

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