Alquimia das Almas 2: Luz e Sombra (2022)

A worthy sequel!

Wow, how can I express my words in this, I cant fathom how wonderful this show was!

Surprisingly I love the the new actress of the FL. She is a brilliant actor that is for sure. Well, all cast did great too!

The magic is still in there. Nostalgic and memorable. Good denouement of the plot. Impressive storytelling. No questions left unanswered and that ending is a strawberry on the top of the cake! Yes, I like the ending. The girls that get it, get it.

And I for sure can not compare the two seasons because each of them have its owns weaknesses and strength. There are things that I love in season one that don't have in season 2 and things that I like in season two that don't have in season one.

Might rewatch this from the beginning. the 30 episodes is not a hindrance to start this series, yes 100% recommendable.

Oh love the music too but S1 music >>> S2 music. <3

Leia Mais

A must watch kdrama before you ?

the best kdrama!! chief kiss 💋 their acting was on top especially go young jung and lee jae wook. Perfect ending, perfect casting, perfect everything!! Every episode was not boring I got verryyy entertained and I literally force all of my friends to watch this masterpiece and I will not stop recording this to everyone I know. You have to watch this kdrama before you die, so you can peacefully and happily hehe love love. A big thank you to the Hong sisters for giving us the perfect ending I can't believe that its over😭 how can i move on??? from that perfect masterpiece

Leia Mais

"FOR THE BURNING CHEMISTRY!!"

This season again as well was worth my watch and didn't disappointed me soo much.
This season was more of the chemistry and focused more on the growing love between the leads more stronger than before. To be honest season 1 was really good in aspect of story but for chemistry season 2 defeated S1. Lee Jae Wook & Go Yoon Jung poured out their hearts into making such a beautiful and heart wrenching pairing, there chemistry bursts out from episode 1 itself you could feel it. I really loved the way they made them slowly fall for each other without realizing that they are falling twice but this time harder. Every single minute is worth watching.

Apart from the romance, I think this season lacked in the development of the main story that they continued from S1. Story development felt a little slow paced according to the number of episodes it had but still didn't failed to capture our mind and kept us curious till the end. I only have one complaint that is the last two episodes felt rushed that made me feel nothing while watching them and that's sad for me as I was really invested in this drama with my heart so its quite disappointing to feel this way while watching it end. Still I am happy for giving us a perfect and the satisfying ending we were expecting it to have. Thank you soo much!

At last A BIG THANX TO ALL THE CAST for giving us such magnificent performances I am in love with each one of them. Their efforts are amazing. Especially Lee Jae Wook, this man ate his character and left no crumbs, his transformation from S1 to S2 is worth appreciation. This man soo naturally developed his acting through his character or I would say along with his character, he really impressed me. From the light version of Jang Uk to the dark version this journey was soo startling, THANK YOU SOO MUCH AGAIN LEE JAE WOOK for accepting this role and bringing it to life, he is one of the reason why I started this drama.
Go Yoon Jung is no more less, she really did a great job in bringing Cho Yeong/Naksu to life. Thanx to her we got to see a different side of a badass assassin Naksu i.e., this soft bubbly and cheerful Yeong. I fell soo much for her character and enjoyed watching her play this role. I am looking forward to her future projects.

Also thanx to the director for presenting breathtaking cinematography and to the writers for not disappointing us again with a tragic ending(hehe), thanx to everyone for giving this drama soo much of efforts and energy and bringing it to life.
Thank you soo much!!!

Leia Mais

As much as I want to see bad ass Naksu, I’m satisfied with the ending because when I think about it again, Cho Yeong was forced to be assassin by Jin Mu for her revenge. She already got her revenge, so she doesn’t need to be Naksu anymore. JBY’s body wasn’t train for a fight and relatively smaller, so for Yeong to be able to be like Naksu would take her lots of trainings. She didn’t want it because that kind life is not important anymore which is why she said to Uk that she has priestess power, she doesn’t need to get that power to climb the tree when she has Uk by her side.

I know some people find it kinda disappointing that she lives as JBY, but I guess it’s needed to keep peace among everyone and she still has the divine power of seeing energy and Jin’s blood. As long as Uk knows who she is, I think it’s fine that she doesn’t have to claim back her name.

Leia Mais

Overrated for people looking for something else in kdrama nowadays

I cannot say anything about cgi, music or performances. Even tho, no music was good enough for me to remember over the time. And some performances could have been way better but the directing allow them to act « not that well ».

But what I regret is that drama starts off with a very interesting plot and cool special effect we rarely see in dramas. The cinematography is beautiful too.

And then, little by little, we fall in the trap of a standard k-drama plot, which, nowadays especially, is only for fan services for idols and nice looking actors rather than a real plot, complexity, suspense, or without being complexe, something opposed to what we are used to. I mean if you look at it has nothing surprising to offer. Nor great plot or message to tell.

But I guess we call kdramas for a reason and kdrama fans for a reason too as I see the ratings.

I already said something about the acting. If you remove the cool stuffs and beauty… it looks very much like an amateur series in terms of performances.

People are going to say that of course the performances are not perfect since we have rookies. But this is the point… if you can clearly see it, how can you give 10/10 to performances ? Also I am not giving a bad rating because the director knew what he was doing and what kind of public he was aiming at. In that sense, performances are very okay.

Should you give it a go ? In order to support CGI yes but other than that, you can live very well without seeing it.

Leia Mais

Disappointed with everything

I loved the first season and couldn't get myself to like the second. And I will explain the main reason.

In my personal opinion, I think that Jang Uk didn't need to fall in love with someone again, because he already "loved" Mudeok at least until the beginning of the second season. In ep 1 Uk was near the stone tower "pining" for her to come back. And she came back but without memories. One of the big problems is they dragged on amnesia for a long time..
The sisters could have made the connection between soul mates in a completely different and more convincing way for everyone. And than to see Uk simply move on from Mudeok......

Moved on from Mudeok in ep 4 and falling in love with "another woman" (because he didn't know it was her until ep 9), that was the true and great love Jang Uk had for Mudeok???

I read reviews around here and realized why this happened. Anyway....

Leia Mais

Playboy Jang Uk

The sisters turned Jang Uk's character into a Playboy in season 2.

Then Uk kisses her thinking of her with Jin Bu Yeon in ep 4, that is (a new love interest), since he didn't know it was Naksu yet.
It's just that he wasted no time "changing" women this season. Uk goes to the cliff where Naksu had met her death and says goodbye to her, and goes drinking to his room and that same night he already has Jin Bu Yeon lying in his bed!

He walks with her back and forth thinking of her as "Jin Bu Yeon" until ep 8. And they even kiss without the revelation! Worse yet he asks her to marry him and almost makes love to her thinking she is another woman!

In ep 9, he finds out who she is and RAPIDLY agrees to be with her, he didn't even think twice about it!!!

Leia Mais

A letdown

Alchemy of Souls Season 2 suffers massively from bad, contrived writing and a ridiculously pathetic FL that was done dirty. Strangely enough, I don't think the actress switch is the main reason for this. Rather, it's the writing behind her character.

Naksu/Mu-deok/Bu-yeon is the most shamelessly shafted character I've ever seen. We are told—and I forget how many dozens of times we are told this—just how powerful her divine powers are and she does… pretty much nothing of significance! I can understand why Naksu doesn't want to become a warrior again, Jin Mu made her this way, so she rejects that part of herself and it's understandable. But the problem here is that it's actually Naksu's fierce nature that has been lost. Plus, all her powers, her agency, AND her personality have been taken away from her, leaving only a weak, empty shell behind. You don't need to fight with a sword to be a badass, but you certainly need to do… something! This new Naksu character is expressionless and featureless and is the complete opposite of the original Naksu, which makes zero sense as they're supposed to be the same person, amnesia or not. Mu-deok's playful and contentious character is also nowhere to be seen for some reason. In short, Naksu goes from hero… to zero.

The Queen was just baffling too: you can't make me believe that after 10 years of torture and torment she conveniently 'forgot' who was behind her misery, I just can't. Horrible writing. In fact, all the female characters in this show, and especially so this season, are horrendously written and exist only to either be subservient to the male characters, look pretty and be rescued, or just mope around and wait to be impregnated because… they're women I guess? Only men can accomplish anything in this fictional world it would seem, and women cower behind them at every opportunity, which is doubly ironic considering Alchemy of Souls was written by women. I know kdramas aren't exactly a bastion of gender equality, and I can generally tolerate it, but in 2023 this is just frankly embarrassing. Not even a single moment of any single one of those women standing up for themselves. Pathetic. Feels like this was written decades ago.

The male lead was quite nice though, I liked him. It's not his fault that this show is misogynistic crap, he really tried his hardest. He even attempted to propel his co-star to the forefront whenever the opportunity presented itself, to no avail due to the subpar writing. I liked how powerful he was and yet he remained relatable and fun to watch at all times, because he had depth to him. Definitely one redeeming quality of this show was the male lead, and he shines again here in the second season.

Also, the action was, again, well filmed and interesting. I liked the OST too.

There is an incredibly compelling and moving story about power, greed, all-conquering love, and taking control of your life beneath all this bloated nonsense, which is what is so frustrating to me. I wanted this to be good so much.

I'm actually hoping for a remake one day. It certainly would deserve one. This time around… let's not do Naksu dirty, shall we?

Leia Mais

Truly disappointing

I gave a 7 to another drama which was also very hyped (you are my glory), but not even that one disappointed me as much. I expected so much and all I got was:
---- A shallow, silly plot. Plus plot holes galore.
---- Cartoonish villain, and other stupid characters (even leaders like the king, crown prince, queen).
---- No characters' development.
My rating is for the acting of ML and both FLs, the Art Direction, and OST. At least the silver lining with overhyped dramas when my rating differs from the majority, is that it’s easier for me to spot users whose rating also disagree with the majority, so I can add them to my list of members with similar tastes to mine.

Leia Mais

Not so entertaining to watch, except the last two episodes

Go Youn-jung's "replacement" as the main female lead was actually done very well. Initially, I was ready to be disappointed with this shift, but her mannerisms and innocent-looking amnesiac aura made me realize that she was fit for the role. Even I was able to recognize her as Naksu immediately. She was able to retain the charm of Jung So-min while portraying the character of Mu-deok/Naksu (of course, as the role of Naksu was written for Youn-jung). But then again, I was frustrated that she was again relegated to be fragile and more of an eye-candy when in fact, Naksu was a vicious, merciless, yet skillful person in the first place. The amnesia shouldn't have been an excuse. Besides that, She (the actress) definitely was the surprise for this season.

Other than that, I was generally disappointed with how this season turned out. Yes, it was able to answer the fundamental questions from the first season which is the reason why my score for the story is not that low. But, it was full of plot conveniences that initially confused me (Seo Yul's blood parasite problem being solved right away), followed by prolonged dragging of cliches (amnesia, passive aggresive romance, and noble sacrifice being the top culprits) that could've been compressed by at least 2 episodes, and ended with noticeable plot holes that buffered my brain (Park Jin being able to close the door of Jinyowon despite him not being part of the Jin family, among others). The story shifted for the majority of this season, and it only decided to return to the main story during the last 2 episodes.

I was also upset for that it only had few, but still memorable action scenes in this season, partly because of the prolonged building up of tension rather than the action itself. Although, it was vindicated by the last 2 episodes, as the action scenes were breath taking, still I wanted more. The CGI were also top-notch, but it felt that it was only reserved for said last 2 episodes, and budget was only an afterthought for the rest of the season. The wardrobe here were not as sophisticated as the 1st season, but the accessories and the props (relics) were definitely an upgrade.

Speaking of the prolonged tension build up, it was baffling in that everything could've been solved right away, and even the "ultimate" battle was just finished easily. Jang Uk (Lee Jae-wook) was not even sweating during that "battle". Again, deux ex machina overload all over, which definitely killed the ending's potential to be a future classic. It was as if there was more talk than action. Personally, it might be due to the overexposure of the romance plot and its cliches which felt like filler rather than building blocks of the main story. Still, the last 2 episodes are the saving grace for this series all things considered.

Another gripe is Jin Mu (Jo Jae-yoon). How is he still not captured or even dead already? I wasn't really convinced with the reason behind that, and he just was a plot armor. Not a memorable villain as a character, but great delivery of lines and emotions as an actor.

There were still positive comments here, most notably the improved acting of the Hwang Min-hyeok as Seo Yul. He was now able to expand his acting range here compared to the one-dimensional emotionless acting on the first season. Still, there is room for improvement. Also, it was hilarious to think that the Crown Prince Go Won (Shin Seung-ho) had an unexpected character development. Not only that it was lowkey funny, but it was refreshing for me thinking about it due to its being unforeseen.

All in all, still a disappoinment with how this season turned out. Despite my lackluster reception for the first season, I was still optimistic here because of that cliffhanger. However after watching this, I was able to conclude that this season felt that it had a separate story from its predecessor, and as a series, it looked like it has two stories in one.

My review title for the first season was that it was entertaining to watch...at 2x speed. Here, it would be: not so entertaining to watch, except the last two episodes.

Leia Mais

Amazing fantasy drama after a while

I find the whole series fascinating. But i was still hoping that few more episodes should be added to season 2. Because of less episodes is S2 there are lots of fillers remain. But i Still can't complain, it is a satisfying show.
The lead chemistry is amazing, at first i think jung so min is irreplaceable as FL but Go yoon jung did a nice work in S2 as FL. Definitely give a new arc to naksu character in the limited number of episodes.
Rest of the characters also performed well . Especially the antagonist jin mu really made us hate him to the end.
Totally recommended from me just go for it.

Leia Mais