Jacqueline
United States
Alright, Jacquie...calm yo’self and chill. *Pauses to wrangle in my copious fangirling.* I gotta pull this spazzing down a level, and keep my raving to a minimum. Let me calmly explain to you why this drama is so flim-flammingly made of tasty awesome-sauce!
Firstly, it has all the right tropes to hook you: poor misfit unattractive heroine/rich Mr. Perfect hero. But, let me lay it all on the line because guys, these are just the building block tropes that NEVER turn into cliches! Rather than just being a dumpy, badly attired heroine in oversized glasses or whatever other weak-ass magic trick the wardrobe department typically pulls to make our lead "frumpy," this drama goes the extra mile without going the extra mile. Our heroine, Sam Soon, instead is legitimately overweight, without the "Let's Just Throw Her In A Fat Suit And Bad Clothes" trend. Nope, instead, we get a tall, Rubenesque female lead with frizzy-but-realistic hair and clothing that doesn't look like Barney's diarrhea.
Why am I going on and on about the wardrobe and physicality of Sam Soon? Because guys...do you REALIZE how nice it is to have a misfit heroine that isn't a walking joke?! Oh, and did I mention she totally has a spine? As in, this girl will ALWAYS stand up for herself, but simultaneously knows when to be reasonable at the appropriate moments and how to compromise AND negotiate. Basically she isn't a shrieking Too Stupid To Live female lead, and THANK YOU DRAMA GODS FOR THAT!
And as AWESOME as Sam Soon is, that's how equally kick-ass the rest of the entire cast of characters are! Yep, you read that right folks; literally every single character in this drama has individual personality with believable motivations, and there's not one evil antagonist rubbing their sinister hands together in the shadows. Every time this drama could have pulled a cliche, it didn't. Disapproving male lead's mother? Guess what, turns out she's multifaceted and nuanced! Contract dating? Guess what, turns out this acts as only the set-up rather than some angsty BS! Heroine falls in love with the hero first? Guess what, she doesn't morph into a doormat or mop bucket full of embarrassing bullshit! Hero is a cold fish who doesn't believe in love? Guess what, his evolution is well paced AND layered in backstory and frontstory!
Do you KNOW how amazing it was to be sucked so hard into a story that doesn't give-up out midway through like a deflated whoopie cushion?! Do you appreciate how spectacular it is for a drama to shrug its shoulders and go, "Hey, guess what! We're gonna put these two leads together through some bumpy trials that won't turn into melodramatic screaming-at-the-sky tribulations?" Thank you, My Lovely Sam Soon, THANK YOU! Thank you for showing that a couple can have disagreements and turbulence in their relationship without feeling the need to utilize diabolical parents, laughably stupid misunderstandings, random cancer, or amnesia!
You gave me a fun ride of a hero unwillingly falling in love with a heroine not his type, but kept it grounded and believable. You gave me comic relief that didn’t come at the expense of the heroine. You gave me some hella hot chemistry that was subtle but ever present. And, most importantly, you sucked me in with quality storytelling and amazing characters that had me finishing this 16 hour drama in two days. I honestly don't know if any other drama can compete with you, and I just wanna snuggle with you and your awesome characters, plot, pacing, comedy, drama, and cuteness!
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There are a LOT of gender-bender/girls in pants titles in Dramaland, and I love just about all of them, but if I had to pick my favorite it is definitely Coffee Prince. Aside from the obvious awesome set up and favorite tropes this drama plays to, what cemented my love for this thing is the fact that the series wasn’t afraid to actively utilize the subject of homosexuality for the plot. Most of the time this trend makes me feel a bit uncomfortable because it’s often handled in a very badly done way, or for the purposes of comedy that falls flat. Not the case for Coffee Prince. Why? Well, the answer might be considered a spoiler, but the fact is the script writers don’t just toy with making the hero briefly question his sexuality, but that this is a huge point of conflict for the plot that resolves itself in one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever frackin’ witnessed. I also adore the fact that heroine opens the drama as a tomboy AND closes the drama as a tomboy, that she doesn’t magically get femininized just because she’s got a guy. The script handles the issue of homosexuality and gender roles in a very respectful manner. Add in the glorious sexual tension between the two characters (notice that’s becoming a recurring theme in my recommendations) and this ranks really high in my favorite dramas, no question! Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
If this series had done a bit more to show instances of these two learning how to work out their differences, I'd be a little more pleased. That said, I so enjoyed how the lead actor was able to walk that line of being an asshole but so redeemable, and how the lead actress managed to show forgiveness without coming off like a doormat.
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This series was all of the amazing. I don't know what magic the director, script writer, actors...hell, even the set dressers and mic operators did an astounding job at making you feel like, "Yep. This is legit happening and these are legit humans with beautiful feels."
Chen Bo Lin and Lin Ariel had beautiful chemistry together, and they are layered in likability and uniqueness in how they bring their respective characters to life.
Oh, and yeah...the nuanced use of special effects (you'll get what I mean when you see the series) had a beautiful way of bringing everyday, otherwise visually boring activities (text messages, phone conversations) to life.
I literally can't quit fangirling over this series, and I just finished it not 10 minutes ago. HELP! I'm stuck in Fangirl Mode and I can't get out!
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There is nothing I love more than when an older woman/younger man trope is paired with older sister/younger brother childhood bond dynamic because THAT IS TOO DAMN ADORABLE! This drama had just about everything you could ask for; a beautiful script, chemistry between the leads, interesting secondary characters, excellent pacing, and a good lack of overdone angst or weak cliches. Honestly the only reason this puppy isn't getting a 10 star ranking is because it didn't really resolve its secondary love plot it taunted, which is kind of frustrating. Still, I won't complain too much because it gave me an unexpected non-time-fast-forwarded ending that made me smile so hard.
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Okay, so, um...without spoiling it, THIS DRAMA IS GOING TO MAKE YOU DRY-HEAVE-VOMIT CRY!Or rather, it did me because I'm the most feeling-feel person that ever felt and I have too many damn feels I don't know what to do with! Personally I love the way it ended, which considering my stance on non-HEA says something without actually saying something. (See? I can do the no-spoiler thing! LOL).
As is, this film is beautiful. There is so much damn emotion and acting quality packed into 2 hours of movie that I don't even know how to do words right to explain it's level of awesome.
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Can You Hear My Heart basically just stole my life for three days, seeing as how I sat and glommed the 30 hour spectacularium and ignored personal responsibilities and my social life. The two interconnected families of this drama and their relationship was the entire basis of the story, and the bromance between our two main leads stole my heart almost more than the leading love story between our hero and heroine. Summarizing this thing is impossible, because the plot is so entrenched in character and their relationships! If anything, though, the drama is a beautiful commentary on how one wrong decision can ripple out and effect so many lives. How a quest for revenge can be your own downfall, and how what you often curse as being abhorrent can actually be the one thing you want more than anything else.
Yes this review is spasmodic and yes I'm doing a terrible job at explaining how beautiful the characters and story are, how amazingly the cinematography and directing decisions were, and just how hardcore emotionally invested you WILL be if you decide to watch!
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The premise of our heroine being a tomboyish bodyguard to a pompous rich athlete had all the makings for romantic comedy gold...and it delivered. Eun Jae was a tough amusing bad-ass and her contentious bickering relationship dynamic with Park Moo Yul was fun and perfect. The antagonist subplot was interesting but well balanced within the overall story, the secondary characters were phenomenally unique and the drama was perfect..until the whole thing derailed somewhere around episode 9? 12? I don't know which, and frankly I'm not sure exactly what happened. I DO know that the minute our heroine realizes she's fallen for the lead, she turns into this sappy, overly emotional dork that feels so out of left field that it gave me whiplash. When heroines abandon their personalities upon realized love, my patience with a drama starts dropping fast.
The acting in this series was absolutely amazing, so I'm pretty sure the fault lies almost entirely with the script writers. When Wild Romance went from a fun romantic comedy to a downright Makjang-meets-irritating-heroine I was out. I only had two episodes left but I couldn't stomach any more, especially when considering how random Park Moo Yul's confession to Eun Jae felt, her subsequently turning into even MORE of a weirdo, all the while the secondary cast are running amok like an out-of-character flock of whackadoodles. After all that, I just had to bail.
IF this drama had toned down the angst they'd ramped up midway through the drama, and IF they had kept Eun Jae's character dynamic to a believable confident women who can kick ass and not be bothered with names, as opposed to the vomit-inducing punchline she so frequently later felt like, then I'd be singing this drama's praises. It didn't rely on cliches, all of its characters, including bit characters and its antagonists, were amazingly interesting, the premise was fabulous, and the acting rocked everything but the rafters. Too bad the peak and execution of the second half of the drama crash landed into a Volcano.
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That said, as far as the romantic element of the drama was concerned, while I did enjoy the ship of the two leads and I believed their emotional development, at the end of the day their relationship kind of felt a bit spasmodic. This is especially true when considering the drama in its entirety. It also didn't help matters that this series takes several episodes to finally get under way, but this adds realism to the nature of the plot.
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