catherine
The Speed Going to You 493km
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Amazing Chemistry
The best part of this drama is, without question, the chemistry between the two leads. From the very start they had the best kind of relationship — playful bickering, but with the added fact that they were two people who each had their own trauma, who had somehow found each other and the emotional support they hadn't been able to get anywhere else. There was something so beautiful and heart-breaking about every scene with the two of them just being together, something so intimate about the conversations they had whether or not there was any skinship (which we did get, satisfyingly).Other than that, the second and side ships were also fun to watch and had their unique dynamics that added to the story. Even as independent characters, I really liked all the side characters.
The main plot of this drama surrounds Taeyang's past catching up with her, and this really takes center stage in the second half of the show. It was a decent plotline, but I definitely wish that it was resolved sooner because as much as I loved the angst we got between the leads because of it (those super emotionally packed scenes were where I cried BUCKETS), but I felt like the badminton part of the drama started to taper off — there was less about the risks that athletes take and their motivations and goals, but it was more about forgiveness and guilt. I have nothing against this drama veering into melodrama territory but I definitely think it lasted a little too long and we barely got to see any badminton matches, whereas the first half was a lot about the characters training and trying to improve.
With that being said, the ending did feel a little rushed too. I disagree with some of the main themes that the plot ended up seeming to say and wish our two leads had been given more agency; it felt like some plot development either happened out of convenience or they were waiting for other characters to change so that they could make decisions. While I understand that our main leads are simply two very selfless and patient (perhaps to a fault) characters and that Asian culture is very family-centered, if you're more confrontational and about self-interest/self-love (as I am) you might find it frustrating and plot-convenient.
Overall, still a really fun watch for me. Taejun is hands down the best male lead I've watched this year and will go down as one of my permanent favorites. This entire drama is just full of green flag male leads.
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Story 1 > Story 2
I actually really enjoyed the first story in this movie — it was quirky but endearing and despite some questionable moments, there was a very subtle layer of comedy that actually made the characters seem like very real and relatable people.The second story, however, just didn't click with me very much, whether it was the characters' personalities themselves or the kind of haphazard and illogical direction that the plot went in.
Overall there's still a nice nostalgic feeling to this movie, but I didn't found myself that invested in the plot developments.
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Nice aesthetics, lacking story
I really liked how this movie vibed in general, from the cinematography to the overall quiet of certain scenes. For what it's worth, the actresses filled their roles well and had some nice scenes together.With that being said, however, I just didn't like the characters themselves — this movie was by no means character driven; there's little to no character development and I felt like the toxicity in the relationship wasn't explored much either.
Ultimately, however, I also just felt like the story in this was lacking; it didn't feel like a story about running or dying — I didn't feel any sense of urgency or even any sort of direction. The time jumps back to the past felt like they didn't have much of a purpose either.
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Large Cast of Characters
There are so many characters in this show and that could either be positive or negative. The Reply series did it well but here, for me, there were so many characters that I didn't care about, like the side characters of the Senior Writer or even the two main leads. With that being said, this isn't that much of a character-driven drama, but those characters who did have personal growth turned out to be my favorites (Eunjung, Somin).There's sort of a drop-off with the plot as well and some lost opportunities for exploring but this show packs its punches in many of the right places, especially in the beginning where everyone is being introduced.
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It's not that I hated this but
I just really didn't feel ANY emotions — and for a movie with such a heavy topic I probably should have.I think part of it has to do with the ensemble cast as well; I've never been a huge fan of ensemble movies except for Train to Busan (ensemble dramas are fine, because you have more time to learn to love all the characters) and this one was no different. I cared about a few of the characters but had trouble differentiating between everyone else, and so the entire movie just felt so much like action with no substance.
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The Romance of Tiger and Rose
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Super fun
I haven't laughed this hard at a drama in a long time — and it came at such the right time because I was getting so sick of slapstick humor. All the characters (the main leaders, and especially Zi Rui) had the most amazing comedic timing.This has my favorite type of female lead — you don't have to be the best at everything and physical fighting to be smart and make good decisions, and of course, it has my favorite type of male lead that's lowkey a badass but goes soft for her.
The chemistry between the main leads was so good and I just love the relationship that the two of them had together. The sidekicks were hilarious as well and worked so well with our main characters and with each other. And it really felt like all the characters had their own personalities no matter how small their roles were.
I do think I enjoyed the first half a little better when it was our main character trying to navigate the new world and all the subplots that were going awry. I felt like some of the magic was lost a little near the end (especially after the goddamn noble idiocy!) because it was reduced to the main plot around government control. It also seemed to reduce a lot of characters to their cliches, and I had loved that they subverted the tropes in the beginning.
Nevertheless, I really like how this show's plot turned to a darker tone without ever really losing its style of humor. Sadly I can't really say if it surprised me — I'm still mad at myself for obsessively watching clips on YouTube before I decided to binge it in a day — because I knew the scenes already. But overall the plot is still really clever.
Overall, I still had a really fun time watching this — I cannot wait for season 2 even though I have to wait an entire year!
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Loved the second ship, hated the mains
The second ship really saved this for me. From the start I knew I would love them so much better — the playful, teasing relationship that they had is my favorite type of ship. And I really watched the drama for them, even though the plot went OFF THE RAILS for them. The second female lead had the personality that I loved — outgoing, bubbly, straightforward with her feelings.I also had really terrible SLS for this drama honestly, I felt like second lead had so much more character and backstory to him, whereas you barely knew anything about the main lead and the development with the FL was absent as well. My stars are also for second lead, who I feel like got the short end of the stick, as second leads in cdramas often do.
With that being said, I basically could not stand either main lead.
The guy was unlikable. I'm just not a fan of cheaters and he did it multiple times, and always seemed to blame it on the other person.
The female lead was the worst part. The acting for the female lead was not only bad, I think it was simply a terrible character who couldn't hold a conversation for more than two minutes, NEVER learned to stand up for herself or be herself for that matter, and also maintained the same facial expression throughout all 16 episodes. I couldn't, for the life of me, see what was so interesting about her, and as the drama went on it felt like she only got worse — more dependent on her partner, more selfish in what she asked of him, and more delusional in the idea that nobody should change and that she was for some reason owed a relationship.
In fact, the entire drama seemed to put such an emphasis on "how dare you change?" for each character. They fought over promises they made years ago that don't make sense to keep considering the obstacles that life threw in their way, and it was like only the second ship managed to learn how to navigate new situations.
Ultimately though, the pacing was done pretty well with their coming of age being evenly spread out; I'm obviously a larger fan of the high school days, before things haywire, but I'm super glad the second lead got their ending.
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Messy ending, but characters are intriguing
So yep, I really don't think this drama should be thought of a romance. But if we do see it that way, then yep — SECOND LEAD SYNDROME IS REAL. I've always been a bigger fan of the playful, comfortable, easy-to-talk relationship and how comfortable Baek Inho and Seol were with each other and how she made her laugh and how he actually had such good advice about how to live life...I LOVE him to death.Everyone who says that the ending of this drama is a mess...they're pretty much right, but if we DON'T think of the drama as a romance, I actually loved all the characters on their own:
Yoo Jung: I've always wanted to see a main lead like Yoo Jung — cunning, resourceful, with a thirst for justice and yet he goes about it in the coldest, cruelest way. Slytherin to the core. Loved it, and honestly the end of the drama felt more about his way of thinking than anything else.
Seol: So relatable in how endlessly hardworking she was and I loved how chill she could be with her friends. It was frustrating to see who she had to deal with, but I felt like the ending scene with her in the office and seeing colleagues who mirrored her college classmates...it tied everything up nicely.
Baek Inho: I've already said I loved him and he's one of my fave character archetypes — the estranged bad boy with a temper who goes WAY soft for the girl. His character was way complex and the backstory was heartbreaking, and there was so much tension between all his emotional turmoil vs. the emotions he wore on his sleeve.
Baek Inha: If I knew someone like this in real life, I'd be endlessly frustrated with them and hate them, but in this drama she was both annoying and hilarious. I can't help but feel like her character development was way out-of-the-blue and she got the short end of the stick with how crazy the drama's plot went, but ultimately she was still interesting.
Bora + Euntaek: Loved them. I wish they got a little more screentime but they gave me the friends-to-lovers that I always crave.
With that being said, the plot definitely went crazy, but since I watched this years after it aired, I was mentally prepared for it and it turned out to not be as bad as I expected. As a romance, it was problematic because I don't think the leads were good for one another, even from the very start, but if we're looking at the characters individually, I felt like this drama had a lot there.
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I couldn't help but compare it to Shut Up Flower Boy Band in my head, and one thing I noticed was that bromance in that drama was so much stronger, and I wish Yellow had more of it.
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To be honest, though, I might have enjoyed the first half better than the second, mainly because of one huge plot twist that broke my heart and never really got resolved the way I wanted it to. Still, it was hard to stop watching.
Soo Bong was probably my favorite character. Though he was so minor, the character development was there, and he was ALWAYS relatable.
Last thing: I swear this drama has like the longest and slowest car rides ever?? ESPECIALLY when the characters are in a rush...
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Strong Woman Do Bong Soon
2 mensen vonden deze beoordeling nuttig
The kidnapping sub-plot was also super intriguing, and I was really invested in how the characters would deal with it. It scared me but also ended up creating a really good balance between light, fluffy scenes and darker moments.
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Convenience Store Saet Byul
4 mensen vonden deze beoordeling nuttig
Fun but unsubstantive
There was something quite charming and enjoyable about this drama, crazy visual effects and all — it's the kind of show you can watch without using any part of your brain. Once you did, however, you find that there's a lot lacking especially when it comes to plot and substance.As much as it pains me to say this, the humor is almost on par with that of Melting Me Softly — it's loud, obnoxious, and zany, and most of the time it misses the spot. A few characters seemed to exist just for the laughs, but they really just ended up annoying and one-dimensional and seemed to serve no purpose. The worst culprit was DH's sister.
There are a lot of things that definitely made me uncomfortable, especially how race was handled. I understand that the people behind the drama said the webtoon artist was supposed to represent how people can come together around love for a culture, but his personality had not much to it other than being dirty and liking to draw x-rated cartoons. It also just felt incoherent at times, especially if it was used for humor which, as I previously mentioned, often fell flat.
I'm a fan of any romance that shows people slowly falling in love with one another in everyday situations, but I really just didn't FEEL it in Backstreet Rookie — honestly, I much preferred the dongsaeng-style relationship that SB and DH had, for multiple reasons. They dragged on the ex-girlfriend plot for far too long, and they also added in a "childhood" connection that made any sort of romantic plot seem even weirder with the age gap.
I also didn't like SB's sister, Eun-byul, who I felt like made so many bad decisions and never owned up to them, instead having SB run after her apologizing. I felt like I just really wanted more substantive conversation between the characters.
With all that being said, one thing that I did love about this drama was the theme of family (which may be why I preferred DH and SB being that). SB and DH's mother had the most heart-warming scenes together and the most touching conversations, and it was definitely something I wanted to see more of.
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Just the romance could have, and would have been enough
This was the drama I've been looking forward to all year, and I was so so disappointed. This drama is what you get when a writer wants to write a rom-com but can't develop it well, so they start inserting random plot points and cute, trope-y moments and just cross their fingers.I'll be honest. The drama lost me the moment the stomach cancer plot was introduced, for multiple reasons.
From a writing perspective, it just doesn't work. It's a lazy way to evoke empathy and it gave me tonal whiplash — the scenes specifically about Seok-ryu's cancer are well-done and heavy, but the show itches to revert to its light-hearted rom-com moments. It feels like the cancer plot is big for a few episodes and then completely forgotten, save for a few random mentions. The show falls into the unfortunate trap — instead of adding depth, it ends up feeling too light-hearted for such a heavy topic.
On a more serious note, I also just feel like the cancer plot point undermines the commentary on mental health, which I was really enjoying at the start. We have the main character undergoing familial pressure, burnout, and depression — things that are SO relatable to just about every single person — and suddenly the cancer reveal happens, and it's like oh, all those things that Seok-ryu was going through was because of the cancer. Her mother, who just thinks Seok-ryu is going through a phase, suddenly cares because the illness is physical. But the entire time I couldn't help but think it would've been such better writing and so much more touching if there had been no cancer plot and Seok-ryu's mother had grown to understand the importance of mental health instead.
After the cancer reveal, the plot pretty much winds down and starts going through subplots (like the parents' almost-divorce caused by a misunderstanding, and a few fights) that make it feel a little aimless. It's like the drama doesn't really know where to go from there and the writing just takes a steep dive because it never took the time to fully develop either Seok-ryu's cooking journey, or Seung-hyo's architecture company. We only seem to see glimpses of each.
I think the best scenes in the show are actually the flashbacks, where we got to see the chaotic depths of the leads' relationship from each of their perspectives and how it was paralleling present day. The banter that they have is actually pretty fun, but they definitely lose that spark once they get together and just become a very common couple with the common kdrama scenes. The chemistry that had potential at the start isn't there anymore.
As for the second ship...they're fine. They start out cute, but despite the potential of the backstory, I just don't feel like they ever touched my emotions.
Ultimately, I really wish this had either (1) gone full melodrama and given the cancer plot the weight it needed (even the second ship's backstory has a lot of potential for angst), or (2) trusted in the rom-com genre, and that the development between the leads as they followed their dreams together would've been enough to give us an amazing story — without all the extra stuff.
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I Feel You Linger in the Air
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Vibes but no plot
This review is coming at you from a non-novel reader, just FYI. But it's another one of these beloved dramas that I ended up just not quite clicking with.The concept is fantastic. I love a good time travel / isekai type story à la Scarlet Heart Ryeo or Romance of Tiger and Rose. The acting is sometimes good and sometimes a little awkward.
I feel like my main issue with this drama is that so much of it feels unearned and aimless.
There's a sort of "mystery" subplot surrounding a conspiracy reveal that appears for maybe three episodes, and it's all played out so fast from the moment it's first mentioned to the final reveal. We never really follow the story; we just know it's happening in the background, and then the big reveal happens and the story just ends.
The romance, which is the biggest part of the story, gives me much of the same feeling. I am absolutely a hater of insta-love and "destined love," and here it really does show my biggest problem with it. I'm just not understanding why or when they fell in love with each other, and we're given these romantic moments when I feel like they should still be getting to know each other better. It's weird because the potential is definitely there — the massage scene, for example, is A+ — but it would've been even better if it felt earned.
It also feels aimless in the sense of Jom's time travelling not being explained. It's explored at the start when he's so frazzled and trying to figure out what's happening, but he gradually just starts living a normal life. His situation is only addressed when he's forcibly confronted with it, and it leaves a lot of questions by the end. I constantly wished the drama went deeper into this aspect and upped the stakes. I think this is where the conspiracy subplot could've been used, because it could've given Jom a goal, and a "oh, THIS is why I came back" moment.
Ultimately, the ending also feels quite rushed. I know there's a sequel though, so maybe it'll help. Nevertheless, I think the vibes are still there, and I know the novel probably explains more, but from a drama-only perspective, that's what I felt.
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An underdog story
I had heard a lot of good things about this one. It's true — you don't have to know anything about baseball to enjoy it. In fact, there's probably about ten minutes of baseball actually being played.It's more about the relationships between coworkers and family, about the tension of corporate politics, about your balancing your dreams and being realistic, and about the characters who have to work together to actually put the teams together despite lack of support, funding, and everything else. In that sense, Hot Stove League really is an underdog story. This is one of those dramas where it's a string of mini arcs, one after the other, but it always feels very cohesive. The core group really grows on you, too.
I think the male lead is also one of the most interesting personalities I've seen in a kdrama. He's a little awkward and aloof but it makes for really interesting ways to resolve situations and really unusual character dynamics. Min Namkoong plays the character really well, from the subtle micro-expressions to the really heavy emotional scenes.
There are some plots that are a little jumpy here and there, and I also wish we had more closure for different characters in the last episode. There are so many arcs that I just wish got a little "epilogue" moment, even if we just montaged through it. Overall, though, this show was really worth the watch.
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