1
Sinasina
Mr. Queen: The Bamboo Forest
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Nonetheless the best part of the original is the comedy and it's in a complete focus here, so there is no point bashing it too much. It's somewhere in between fan service and fan fiction. It worth watching just for the little extra romance, despite it not really fitting the main story.
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I watched the Reply series in the recommended order (97>94>88), I was still very surprised, this was not at all what I was expecting. Looking at 97 & 94, while they are very special kdramas with lots of nostalgia, especially 97, they are nonetheless quite typical in many ways, they have many of the usual kdrama tropes & have typical love lines with very strong triangles with heavy emphasis on them, and all the flashforward scenes teasing the husbands make them that much worse. I accepted in advance that 88 will be the same & also checked who the husband will be in advance, having read that ppl were upset about the final outcome. I couldn't have been more wrong, I didn't feel sorry for Junghwan at all. I did not feel for a second that he was the main character, also there was no conflict between the male leads at all. I think this is the first time that the "love triangle" trope did not annoy me at all. Doksun is supposed to be the main character, but everyone had a lot of screen time & Bora kind of stole the show. This drama is mainly not about romance, but rather family, friendship and nostalgia. There were many touching sub-stories, there were so many heartwarming scenes. They just don't make shows like this anymore in the west, I don't think. The cast is outstanding, everyone was amazing. I usually don't like the Ajumma characters in most dramas, but here even they were awesome. I think over the course of the 20 episodes (about 25-30 hours) nothing overly melodramatic happened & yet I still felt quite emotional when it ended. (one of the best 4 hour long endings I've seen) In conclusion this show is extremely special. Goblin is still my favorite kdrama, but this one is on the same level, 88 is nearly perfect, this apples oranges comparison is pointless anyway. Even the OST is outstanding, it wasn't jaw dropping, but at the important moments the songs had strong emotional impact. The cinematography & the sets were also perfection, no surprise there though. ~~One flaw I found is that Tek remained Tek 6dan for many years, despite beating 9dan players left & right, I don't think that's how ELO works.
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Grinch has arrived with a less than positive review..
Where do I even start, alright so about the writing. I think the writer had enough well thought out material up to about maybe 8-10 episodes. Come filming they bloated that up to 18-19 episodes & oh boy there is an incredible amount of super boring filler in this one. Of course this drama is getting an incredible amount of praise & all that is not -completely- unfounded, some of the scenes in the aforementioned first half or rather 60% are borderline brilliant, it's just that as a viewer I expect my attention held to some degree throughout the show or at least most of the show & to me 1 minute of brilliance per episode is not enough to forgive how boring the rest of it was. Moving on, come episode 20 the writer has ran out of the good stuff & then decided to just very abruptly transform the drama into a basic romcom with some tragedy baked in, I would have been okay with this had it been a good basic romcom, but it's very light on the com & the rom does not work all that well for me in this one & the filler plots, secondary semi-couples were really not great still. The dialog here and there had some shining moments even in the later episodes, but overall BORING is what I kept feeling most of the time.Basically I said everything important already, just to add a few more things, I think this show had a great cast, it's a bit of a waste really. I like both Shen Yue and Lin Yi, but together I think they were not the best, though admittedly their chemistry was not terrible or anything. Mei Xia is a great character, her final ehm appearance was certainly very surprising and impactful, though I still cannot tell how I feel about it, on one hand I could call it almost trashy storytelling, on another it certainly carried a surprising amount of punch, I don't know, I have never seen anything like this before.
ML's illness is not very well explained & his behavior is not really consistent with what explanations we do get about his mental condition. I think if I try to look at this drama as a show largely about portraying mental illness as its main conflict there are several problems with the concept, though admittedly in the earliest episodes (1-5), the directly related scenes were quite interesting. Anyway coincidentally this drama is almost exactly the same genre as `It's Okay, That's Love`, which would be romance+mental illness+ comedy, but to me that drama is a real 10 out of 10 & this is so much worse in almost every aspect that I feel bad about even mentioning them in the same paragraph.
The standup comedy in the show is awful & most people probably agree with me just on that one point, I want to add that it's not just awful because the humor is lost in translation, it's just awful period. I speak a wee bit of Chinese & oh my god It's so bad. Throughout the entire time I felt that Shen Yue agrees with me on this one, she was so awkward in some of those super cringy standup? scenes, that must have been a torture for her too. Sure censorship is a difficulty, but decently funny stuff still passes it sometimes, there are countless safe topics to ridicule etc..
TLDR: Of 25? hours maybe 14 is extremely boring & the rest is barely 7 out of 10 on average. (yes there is 10 minutes that's 15 out of 10 brilliant, but that's hardly enough in a 25 hour show)
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Earthquake Relief, the Motherland stands with us!
I had nothing else to watch & needed something for my workout sessions. That's the reason why I picked this up against my better judgement. As an experienced cdrama watcher I expected very little from a drama about firefighters & firefighter plus a journalist's romance. Unfortunately `A Date with the Future` is worse than I thought. Saying that everything's wrong with it is a bit hyperbolic, but there is so much wrong I won't be able to get to everything with my rather dispirited review writing here...The comment section talked a lot about FL being a stalker, I think my fellow MDLers do have a point, though I thought this was not too bad compared to Go Go Squid, or what's worse the second ML(the firefighter, not gege) in this very drama! Since he is the real stalker here & he has done so many absolutely horrible things to chase the clearly uninterested girl that he would have deserved a restraining order or more. However this is a Chinese drama and so the stalkerish behavior plus the insane amount of forcefulness won him the girl..
The workspace related things were pretty bad for both leads, the firefighter department had an incredible amount of posturing & various direct propaganda related speeches in every single episode. The TV station did not have too much screen time, but of course they went completely off the rails there too.
Then there is the usual surgeon is good at every medical disciple, the firefighter is good at fighting not only fires, but criminals with knifes as well & the reporter is also extraordinarily multitalented being a better dog trainer then the professionals at the rescue team and she gets promoted to team leader at the TV station just by doing nothing but reporting on her boyfriends firefighting activities etc etc..
There are several really boring, silly and to me uninteresting action scenes of course, home made bombs, getting locked into the cold room, earthquakes plural.. (plentiful time spent in the hospital of course)
There was this scene when the ML & FL were hugging each other to sleep while having a burning candle in a glass jar close to them on the floor. I found it ironic how bad of a messaging that is in a show about firefighting.
Let's talk a bit about the dogs too. I generally don't like dogs as a cat person, but I have some doubts about animal handling & safety in this show.
Also at one point the team was called to "quickly" help with earthquake relief, but before going they held an effin parade in front of their buses. Like what the heck, people are dying, but you all are just parading there spinning left and right saluting to this or that, reciting speeches about unity..
Admittedly the main couple had some good moments, but I don't think the actors had particularly good chemistry & overall I wouldn't call this very good. There is an absolutely super annoying teary eyed `ge` second love interest for the FL & he only gives up in ep30. At least all his scenes are very fastforward buttonable, since he is not at all integral to the story. There is also a noble idiocy breakup, at least it happens early enough on & it's not very long, but jeez it was so awful.
Frankly I'm a bit surprised this passed censorship. Firefighting -and to a lesser extent even the military- is portrayed as an absolutely shit job that nobody should sign up for. Then again what do I know, perhaps in China they have the problem that there are too many people aspiring to become firefighters or even soldiers.
It goes without saying that I feel I have wasted my time, should have rewatched something instead for the nth time.
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Zui Shi Ren Jian Yan Huo Se
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I cannot recommend this drama!
What a weird drama, oh my god I don't even know where to start..Alright about the premise, the whole way the relationship/marriage started is completely insane. I kept watching, because Perfect and Casual had a similarly insane first 2-3 episodes & after that it turned out to be one of the better cdramas I've seen.
In all honesty around e7-8 I started thinking this show will be like that too, before the secondary love interest shows up most of the episodes were a work of art. There were several episodes in a row where there was no plot, but only very chill, cozy and a bit moody romance & I felt I could keep watching content like this for a hundred more episodes.
I think our leads look great together, in an attractively misfitting way. They had slowly developing, but good chemistry & if I focused exclusively on their romance, then that was quite good up until the finale. They had their ups and downs, but there were no serious problems or misunderstandings that took too long to resolve.
This is a visually stunning show, it's really high up there in terms photography & the sets, sceneries are just amazingly beautiful..
To me this drama feels a bit like they hired the best possible actors, the best possible cinematographer, procured some great background music inserts and gotten an amazing director too. Unfortunately as it often happens the writer did not work out. I already talked about the premise, but I'm almost at a loss of words about the things that go down in the second half of the drama. There is big twist too & that is indescribably absurd & once that is resolved ridiculous business problems crop up & suddenly the money required to solve problems shoots to the stratosphere, they start throwing around numbers that make no sense..
There is some propaganda related messaging as well in the final episodes, though I'm not sure how much of it is intentional.
Unlikely coincidences sure happen a lot in dramas, but good gawd in this one the unlikely chance meeting trope sure is overused & that's an understatement.
One thing that is not writer's fault is the puppies on the show. What the characters describe as "stray dogs and cats from a nearby village" are specimen of incredible pedigree. To me that was extremely immersion breaking, similarly to when in other dramas they adopt and raise randomly found imported hedgehogs that look like $2000. Though in this show it's worse, because the meaning & messaging associated with strays is very significant & then showing dogs that are worth more money than my car is just absurd.
Just to reiterate, the plot twist shocked me more than anything else I can remember in cdramaland, the egregiousness of it, not because it was so impactful.. I'm even suspecting that a large chunk of the drama failed censorship, so they quickly filmed that birthday scene & moved on from all family conflicts with a single stroke.. (the 23 episode length does support this theory) I'd be happy to read your opinions about that under this review :P
5.5 may seem like an unnecessarily low rating, but I don't have it in me to go any higher!
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It's a bit disappointing from kdrama writer giant Park Hye Ryun, still this is no Start-Up.
Screenwriter Park Hye Ryun is responsible for 3 dramas on my all time top 10 list. Because of that even though Start-Up was a huge disappointment I've let the comment section's hype get to me.What's good news I suppose that this is far far better than Start-Up. (Which I may have dropped half way or so in, I'm not even sure anymore)
Anyhow the plots and themes in Castaway Diva are very much Park Hye Ryun-like, despite the fact that she is not the only writer, probably the other writer Eun Yeol contributed more to dialog, I don't know. Anyway anyone who has watched the big three dramas I mentioned before (While You Were Sleeping, Pinocchio, I Hear Your Voice) will find many subplots & the general direction of the story in this drama oddly familiar. Near the finale there is a pretty iconic scene that is 1:1 While You Were Sleeping as well. Not that I mind this too much, Park Hye Ryun always heavily built and iterated from her previous works in all her dramas and I absolutely adored them..
So you might ask, why did I rate the writing at 5.5? Well, out of all the preproduced (non live filmed) dramas this was perhaps the most inconsistent (that I can recall anyway). To me it seems like the writers shaped the plot assuming that the general audience won't remember the minutiae of what they've seen 2-4-6 weeks ago. Unluckily for me I binge watched this over the course of 4 days during long daily workout sessions, as such in almost every episode I had several moments where I was rolling my eyes at all the gaslighting that has been presented to me. Also even if I ignore the plot itself and look at the various world building elements, the drama is -even by kdrama romcom standards- just incredibly poorly researched. Pretty much every little detail about the Island was wrong. I understand this is fiction, but it would not have been very hard to ask someone well versed in wilderness survival to give the writers some tips & to use common sense. (I could list countless things here, but just to say a few: potatoes, FL's well groomed-ness, swimming in baggy sweatpants/shirts, the shoes)
The biggest writing related pain point though is that this is like a romcom with most of the romance ripped out of it, but the rest of the things are left as they would be in a really silly drama about a cat shapeshifter or something else like that.
Anyway I did not really feel the leads bonding at any point in time, as opposed to the second lead doing some of that. Basically the love triangle here is very similar to what we've seen in While You Were Sleeping, but with the amazing main romance missing, if that even makes sense xD (meaning the second ML is not a nuisance, it's just this is so weird overall)
If you are curious what a good romance-less romance drama is like, take a look at the cdrama Reset.
Onto the second big problem I had with the drama, which is Park Eun Bin, or more specifically her portrayal of castaway Seo Mok Ha. I have seen this actress before shine in Age of Youth. (I don't think she is lacking in skill, in fact she is probably awesome.) Also while in Attorney Woo I very strongly disliked how she acted as an autistic lawyer. There she did the usual Hallyu version of "person struggling with disability" act and probably did it as well as it is possible, but I always found that incredibly offensive in any drama, but I digress. The point I'm trying to make is that someone had the genius idea to not only cast her for this role, but also make this castaway character's portrayal essentially the same, or maybe because this was her next drama after Woo she did not completely recover from that role which she has taken way more seriously as an actor. I suppose instead of all this ranting I could have just said that she is overacting in this one, but it just feels wrong & weird.
The casting in general is not all that great. I love watching good sismances in dramas, but I did not feel that sister chemistry all that much, though all the back and forth in the plot did not help. Nor did FL have good chemistry with ML, but there was barely any time to build on that, so I could be wrong. Though I must admit the evil dads were quite fit for their roles, despite not having seen these supporting actors in evil roles thus far.
Remember how the final 3-4 episodes of Pinocchio were after due to it being a huge success they extended the run from 16 to 20 episodes? Walkaway Diva has ~8 episodes like that, out of 12 which is obviously not great. Earlier I ranted about the writers expecting the audience to forget stuff, now that I think about it, perhaps that could have totally worked on me too, because I don't think I'll remember much of anything of what happened between ep2 and 10 in a couple of weeks.
I apologize for all the rantish walls of text so far, I too am getting tired of writing this review, so I'll quickly list -in no particular order- what I actually liked about the drama:
⌲ Episode 1 is a great short film, with very talented child actors [10/10]
⌲ Everyone is really attractive, with very pleasant, almost hypnotic voices.
⌲ The entertainment industry related procedural parts are usually far far worse. (they avoided many common themes that tend to ruin things in other dramas about idols)
⌲ The parents -adoptive dad+mom- were adorable.
⌲ The OST and all the singing is really really and I mean REALLY good. (though it's annoying that everything is basically lip syncing, because all songs are perfect studio recordings, where there was no effort made to make them live-ish during editing)
⌲ There are no significant misunderstandings.
⌲ It's a high quality production with great photography & across the board great audiovisuals.
⌲ Evil Dad #2 was a relatively high class kdrama villain & did not overstay his welcome. (similar to other Park Hye Ryun villains)
⌲ There were some very satisfying -power-fantasy like- scenes.
⌲ The dialog has some rather great moments, here and there.
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This is mostly a very satisfying watch.
Generally I don't like revenge-makjang dramas, but I like Park Min Young. I thought, let's just give this a go, worst case scenario I'll just drop it after a while. Overall this is a very pleasant surprise. The whole plot works a lot better than anything else I've seen in this genre before, mostly because villainous transgressions get quick -and smart- paybacks almost every single time and these are very satisfying & overall well written. Outside of Boa's questionable acting the cast did a phenomenal job as well and the whole thing is just very decently done, the production values are really up there with the best. So why is it not a 10 you might ask? In the second half there were 2-3 weak, messy episodes where the plot fell apart a little bit, though the drama managed to recover from these & wrapped up nicely too.Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
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This show is of course quite good, there are literally no love triangles, misunderstandings or angst, but there is still fun content that's enough to fill up about 25 episodes, unfortunately we had 33. Still the filler is not so bad either, overall it's full of chill swoony stuff. The couples were all great pairings with excellent chemistry. I just feel a bit annoyed how little -meaningful- screentime the side couples had. (especially considering how much filler their scenes could've replaced) One thing this drama did exceptionally well is portraying new couple awkwardness & progress into becoming comfortable with each other. (but then they just had to make several "sleep together in our day clothes prim and proper" scenes to annoy us with) I've said this before in other cdrama reviews, but saying it again, it felt like I watched an amazing show twice in a row, that's why the rewatch value is low, because I feel I already did it..
Also there were quite a few epic moment opportunities that were intentionally missed. I was really looking forward to some of them too, so that stings a bit. (for example ML meeting FL's cousins, I mean could they have made that any tamer?) Censorship makes dramas like this possible so here it could be considered a net positive, but the blunting effect on the excitement is a bit too much for my taste.
(Also we could talk about how incredibly offensive to women some of these acts of "classic" chivalry are, but hey what else is new? This is still a Chinese drama)
I really liked the proposal scene in this one. I usually cringe whenever I have to suffer through proposal scenes, not here...
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Overall this is one of the better Asian dramas I've seen this year, but it's very far off from the best ones in the chill-conflictless genre. (in fact 'Meet Yourself' is a 2023 cdrama as well that I think is much better)
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I decided to give this 8/10 only, because there were very few good romcoms over the past year & at least I enjoyed this one a lot, though I'm quite certain a rewatch is not in my future.
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It's somewhat flawed, but at the same time incredibly dreamy, magical & thrilling.
Let me start with what's bad. Starting around episode 20 the plot & the pseudo science become rather silly. The science thing is maybe 20 times worse than in the Stargate SG1, if that helps and it takes the main stage in the later episodes. I often say that it's nigh impossible to reasonably explain time travel in a drama, so it's better to leave things to the imagination, unfortunately they tried to explain a lot & not only used terms like quantum cracks, Klein bottles, but walked into these things on their two legs. That's not all, many times in the dialog instead of timelines they use the term alternate realities, which does not fit logically & would lead to rather grizzly conclusions. (I don't think the thought process of "It's okay if people died left & right, there is nothing to feel sad about since we are not in their reality anymore" makes much sense) Though I'm increasingly confident time travel cdramas have an absolute limit on how many times the term "time travel" can be used before a show wouldn't pass censorship, so if the narrative demands more they just go with alternate realities or dimensions, even if that makes no logical sense.The dubbed voices sound too much like studio recordings, there is no believable ambiance.
Finally the main villain's motivations are somewhat ridiculous, but censorship might have something to do with this as well, more reasonable serial killers probably cannot be shown on Chinese television. I've seen far worse than this, it's bad, but at least the writer truly tried to make his character work and it almost does.
That was the all the bad I can think of right now, moving on..
Everything is else is from good to incredible. End of review.. just kidding of course.
The romance is fantastic. Both the main couple & second couple's romances are incredibly magical, I certainly got the feels & the chills many times during the romantic & sentimental scenes that this drama had. In fact I don't think I have ever seen a cdrama with a side couple this memorable, a secondary romantic plot this touching.
The genre of this is Romance + Thriller & surprisingly enough this is probably the best Chinese Thrilling experience that I've had so far, there was even a touch of horror here and there & even a little Squid game influence in the final episodes perhaps. I tend to rant on and on how Asian drams Chinese & Korean alike almost always suck at this, not here. I saw a book on Amazon described as "utterly gripping crime thriller with edge-of-your-seat suspense " and I think that's an apt description of many of this drama's scenes. Impressive!
The plot up to episode 20 is very nice, even though I had a strong suspicion of the villain's identity from the very beginning, which is not that surprising considering that I recently watched "Meet Me @ 1006", but the plot flows very nicely & it was interesting even in the later sillier episodes. If I make an effort to ignore the horrible fake science, then the ending feels rather nice too, it's far more hopeful then what we've gotten in"Your Name", it's not nearly as open ended, you don't need to use your imagination to know what's going to happen in the future. (though checking the ending in advance without context will lead to a lack of understanding..)
The OST is absolutely incredible, right now of the top of my head I cannot think of a single cdrama where the tracks & mixing are both so great. It's not as good as Goblin's, but it's not too far off, if anything the mixing is better here.
The visuals are in my opinion very nice. I have seen a lot of people bashing the bad CG, this is hugely unfair, making a believable cruise ship in CG would have needed the budget of Avatar & even then it would have been obvious it's CG. I think this is the best CG i've seen in a -relatively speaking- low budget cdrama. The environment on the ship is extremely unrealistic, but that's hardly on the CG, but rather the production team went for a really dreamy, otherworldly vibe. I understand why this is a hit and miss for the audience, but for me it's mostly a hit. In fact I had very distinct Final Fantasy 8 vibes while watching some of the scenes on the ship.
I talked about the great visuals & OST, but the amalgamation of these things truly leads to an incredible audiovisual experience. I think the drama would be worth watching just for that, even if the rest was completely trash, which it is not, not even close.
TLDR: Go watch the drama, it's totally worth it! The 7.8 rating on MDL seems unbelievable to me.
edit: There might be an epilogue with the usual "it was just a book" shebang, fortunately I have not had the chance to watch this. The final episode of the drama I watched did not have this.
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The best SubwayTM advert in the universe!
And I'm only half kidding about the headline, Subway is an integral part of the plot.I had dropped countless T dramas over the years, before this one I had only finished maybe 3 of them. The fact that 1006 has become the 4th is a pretty big deal for me, since the average Taiwanese dramas tend to be unwatchable for me, but at the very least it's almost always fascinating to see how different they are from mainland Chinese dramas & seeing a decent one like this one has been a great experience. So yes, it's absolutely worth watching, but it's very far from flawless.
The romantic plot is rather nice, I would rate that separately at 9/10, the only criticism I can make about that is that it was a bit draggy at times. The leads had great chemistry with each other, the fantasy added a nice flair to their relationship and I even liked their conclusion. People that think this is not a true happy ending because of what happened in e22 are a bit silly.
Even as a mystery thriller drama 1006 intrigued me from early on, I was genuinely interested about the investigations & where the story would take me. However in this drama the journey as far better than the destination, the villains have baffling motivations behind their actions & it was not fun to see them revealed and especially to see their "end".
Let's talk about plotholes! In time travel related dramas it's extraordinarily difficult to avoid plotholes and I feel like the writer here did not even really make an attempt. The story is not bad overall, but it's not very polished, for starters there are a lot of minor retcons and the writer seems to not know that two phones having identical IMEI numbers won't work on the same network. The one thing that bothered me the most is that Jia La not believing Zhen Yu about certain events from the future happens A LOT and it's been established that verification would've been child's play. She could've just joined on Man Man's wifi (or ask a SubwayTM worker's phone to check the internet) and do a Google search. Also I was totally convinced that she knew about ZY representing Ji Rou, when it was revealed that she did not know I was just rolling my eyes..
Ji Rou is a horrible character. Her lack of correct decision making ability is extraordinary, even by Makjang-kdrama standards. Why is this a problem? Because most of the investigations & timeline adjustment attempts revolve around saving her & her husband, but the truth behind the events related to her is not that easy to accept.
The production values are on the low side, the visuals (lighting, makeup, cinematography) are reminiscent of a 2005 era kdrama. Though I must mention that the sets were rather nice.
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Overrated.
I kept dodging this show, despite it being recommended to me all the time. My concerns were about the toxic things that happen in this drama & that it's the usual break + 3 year timeskip formula that I've never liked made me extremely weary. Now here we are, in a sort of drama drought I steeled myself & got through this over the course of 3 days.First and foremost this is an extremely unique cdrama, the likes of which I have not really seen before. Disability romance made for Chinese audiences & it's -at least for a while- good too. I can totally see why it has gotten so much praise. Based on just the first 12 episodes I would have rated this at a 9. Sure there are some toxic things, but those did not really faze me in the first half. The acting is really strong too, Wan Peng especially blew my mind, having seen her only in stereotypical comedienne roles before It's incredible how much more authentic she is here. Of course the first part already has some problems. The second couple is quite flavorless & they lacked chemistry, plus their plot was uninteresting during the entire drama. What is bigger for me though is that the production team just couldn't commit to Su Nian Qin's blindness. To me it seems like the script had been revised multiple times in strange ways & the end result, specifically ML's eye condition makes no sense what so ever. He can see shapes & movement, but need to use a stick and needs explained why opening the blinds is a good thing, the sun etc.. Let's just say that his condition & the dialog related to it is extremely inconsistent and this is blatantly obvious while binge watching.
Unfortunately after the first half there are a few absolutely horrible episodes involving rather bad writing, momsters and some crazy makjang-ish stuff leading to a breakup & a 3 year timeskip. This is business as usual in cdramaland, at least compared to kdramas usually they don't do this before a 5 minute long rushed happy ending.
Even more unfortunately what follows after the timeskip is just mediocrity. In fact the last 5-6 episodes can only be described as boring. In Chinese society people with inborn disabilities are barely considered human, so of course Su Nian Qin HAD TO BE cured. So basically the last third of the drama is the most generic cdrama happy ending you will ever see, but worse, because there is a lot of weird toxicity that is difficult to digest for western audiences and there is nothing much happening in general. I like slow burn cdrama romances, but this is really far more boring than usual, there is barely any comedy to be found and the way they go through the motions(pursue>get approval>ring>wedding>kid) is really super bland, especially considering that they already lived together before the timeskip.
The drama has one "big" twist. I did not see this coming in advance, but in retrospect I should've, I may have underestimated the writer a little, so I did not even consider something like this happening. Still the reveal was underwhelming & made no impact to the plot, which is a shame because I really liked the character involved..
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Triangle haters can safely watch this. The secondary love interests are fleeting..
The OST is out of this world good, but after the timeskip the best parts are not used anymore, instead they keep repeating the same track that is kind of like elevator music, but more mysterious.
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As I said this is an extremely unique drama, but the closest one I can think of, especially in terms of vibe is Forever and Ever. That drama however is consistently good, it has some makjang-ish craziness as well -perhaps even more overall than here-, but things are dealt with more sensibly & it managed to keep me interested up to the closing credits. The dialog is just very good, nose to nose interactions are not the driving force of every second scene.
People that liked this drama should check Forever and Ever out, it does not have too many viewers on MDL..
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It's hidden enough & it's almost a gem..
In regular kdrama terms this is about 4 episodes long and that is just the right amount for this kind of story. Had this been extended to 16, I'm sure it would have been an unwatchable makjang show for me.The acting is good (Hani is excellent), the chemistry between the leads is also fine. There is not much fluff, but the romance is really realistic . The plot itself is quite juvenile & silly, but due to the short length it's quite bearable, though I think the show would've been better if the ex stayed away in the current timeline. The whole bartender thing is quite unique as far as kdramas go and even the toxic sismance is interesting.
XX is totally worth watching!
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Fun, but stupid
The Good:⌲ The excellent chemistry between the leads (far better than in Love Equations)
⌲ The acting is relatively good across the board.
⌲ The fluff is great & there is A LOT of it.
⌲ The whole pursuing the man thing was a lot of fun most of the time.
⌲ The top tier comedy before the timeskip (It's been consistently funny)
⌲ The love triangle is very tame & fizzles out in time.
⌲ Fun cohabitation
⌲ The contract marriage trope works great in this one.
The Neutral:
⌲ The half brother's ambitions (Seems like due to censorship all that buildup has been for nought, his story has gotten axed & he had only appeared for like a minute after the timeskip)
⌲ The childhood connection (I've seen far worse)
⌲ As cute as their kid was, I've seen better Chinese child actors.
⌲ The side couples
The Bad:
⌲ Episodes 22,23 and 24 are utter garbage.
⌲ The separation due to noble reasons
⌲ The redemption arks are the worst. (father, stepmom, GaoE - neither of these make sense)
⌲ I'm sick and tired of practicing doctor leads needing to go aboard just when they are about to start enjoying life.
⌲ There is not a whole lot of plot, but it's incredibly dumb at times.
⌲ Simon (bad acting, super weird stuff before the timeskip)
⌲ Lu Fang Ning chickening out felt horrible to me. (At one point ML gave up resisting in anger, but..)
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The biggest problem with the drama is that it's simply quite boring.
I guess I can be considered a fan of the leads, but this pairing is just not very good. It was always obvious to me that neither of these two are great actors, but they choose roles very well to cater to their strengths. In this drama though the characters they are supposed to play should have had more depth than what we've gotten on screen & their chemistry is just too weak. No matter how many fluffy moments we've had in 40 episodes, I just had a hard time immersing myself in their romance.On the positive side there are no love triangles and the leads don't break up. Even the mandatory quarrel/conflict thing that lasted like 2 episodes was quite bearable. I also really liked the second couple.
As juvenile & silly as the portrayal of mental illnesses was in this drama, it's always nice to see this topic talked about wholesomely in an Asian drama.
The OST is very good, it's way better than anything else in this drama.
Most reviewers talk about how draggy it was, 40 episodes yada yada, I think the length was sort of okay, had the drama been just a little bit better written & less hastily filmed, then I think I would have been perfectly fine with the length. Though I must mention air pistol shooting is sure as hell boring to watch. It's like watching pre-fight stares in Dragon Ball Z.
I could talk about how this drama had countless minor annoyances, or that how stupid the villain characters were, but ultimately the biggest problem with the drama is that it's simply quite boring. It's not boring, because the plot drags, but rather it's just not very exciting. Seems like I'm being contradictory here, It's quite difficult to explain what I mean here. For example I really really like the forced cohabitation trope, the way how people adjust to that situation pleases me almost every time. Not in this drama though, the lack of chemistry & the lack of comedy too I guess makes it kind of lifeless.
TLDR: If you are REALLY REALLY bored you can watch this, but make sure you have watched GGS2 & Put Your Head on My Shoulder first.
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