I Am What I Want To Be

It is a sign on the wall of the tea shop owned by Peung. It is a story of getting a second chance in life and how to use it to realise one's dreams.

I wanted to see this actually because of Mew: I wondered if he could make me forget TharnType! Well, he did here and with brio! But more about that later!

Peung is 50 years old. One night after drinking too much she sleeps with a much younger music industry manager Pop who disappears in the morning. Pop has a lot of problems at work and when he finally goes back to see Peung, she'd gone away. Pop goes back to work putting together another girl idol group and one of the candidates who show up at the audition is Bee. Pop falls under her charm unaware that Bee is Peung but only 20 years old!

This is a short comedy series, quite silly with the usual comedy silly sound effects, silly story touching onto a serious issue (ageism!) and a group of colorful sweet and charming characters. They actually made the drama worth the watch. The plot is boring, the writing rather lazy and the issues they wanted to discuss are treated in a totally wrong way!

Love Me Again is actually a noona romance and I would have preferred the solution to this problem (older woman's insecurities and doubts) were dealt using fantasy more than the totally unrealistic plastic surgery answer to ageing. No matter how good the doctor is, you cannot look 20 after medical procedures: one can tell that the scalpel/botox were used! And that is what this comedy drama desperately needed for it to be perfect: a little bit of magic (talismans, wished, time lapse whatever!) but not surgery! I was enjoying this drama immensely until the explication came and then I was: "What a shame!".... My rating went down because of it but also because it reminded me of Birth of a Beauty a terrible and awful drama with a similar solution to age and obesity! We are made to believe that the only way to be loved is to be thin and young! I thought we had gone beyond these notions!

The characters were those I liked the most. Mew as Pop was charming and cute and just perfect as a kind idol group manager. He would be serious trying to sort a problem out and then he would smile and he'd be so cute and sweet and just scrumptious! I liked Mild as Peung/Bee as well: when she played a 20 yr old she looked like a 50 yr old in 20 yr old's clothes. I did not like her character very much until I read what I just wrote and realized she was an extraordinary actress: that it WAS her role to play and she played it to a perfection. The chemistry with Mew was rather low key unfortunately!
Then there was a ragtag group of girls as Bee's team members: all different and funny and kind. And of course, the obligatory screaming trans character, as a rivel manager.

But the one who completely stole the show was Jimmy (Played by Max...), daddy's son and a famous rock star with a crush on Bee. He was the funniest of the lot: talking about himself in third person (Johnny wants this, Johnny wants that!), using basic english phrases to be cool and listening to his daddy. He was sweet, kind, naive and so lovable and Max played him so well!

I have a very sophisticated cringe detection radar in my head so at the slightest notion of a second hand embarrassing moment, the alarm goes of and it is Bye, bye, drama! I was so pleasantly surprised as they managed to strike the right tone in comedy: making it silly but never crossing the line into the cringe territory!

Fluffy and funny though a bit problematic drama but with an amazing cast of characters so if you have little time try this, you may like it!

Leia Mais

First love, regrets and flowers

Beautiful. Poetic. Sweet. Magical.

There exist a flower shop which you can enter only if invited. Mizushima Toru gets one invitation and curious, goes there. The owner, Mochizuki Hayato asks him to choose one flower out of three and then gives him one petal. Toru suddenly finds himself 10 years earlier on his high school graduation day when he spoke for the last time to his first love Shindo Kasumi. Can the past be changed or will only regrets remain? Using remaining petals, Toru goes back again and again trying to gather courage and confess his love. Will he be successful?

This amazing web drama needs sequel. Like yesterday!

It is beautifully filmed, the actors are perfect: the cool florist, the flustered Toru and the kind Kasumi. Music is rather generic

The main theme is the first love and how it is never realized and how it remains in memory shrouded in regrets and how we can never go back and fix it, and how we need to have more courage and be brave and take risks. The story is perfect from the first to the last minute (35min in all) and the final surprise.

Cinematography is excellent: the 4:3 screen ratio is surprising since nobody uses it anymore. Unless it is destined to be shown on IG or similarly square formated site , it is wrong format for a vertical tiktok drama. Nevertheless, it harks back to the old 20th century television! The colours are bold, joyful in the present and dull yellowish brown for the memories.

They managed to say so much in this short series. Go watch it!

Leia Mais

"I am the chosen one!"

I have to admit to having surrendered to chinese dramas! I never wanted to but these short dramas managed to put their claws into me and now I cannot break free. Especially when I just watched this cute gem of a mini drama!

I Want To Resign Every Day is a perfect blend of two K dramas: What's Wrong With Secretary Kim and A Good Day To Die. The first one for the relationship between the self centered high maintenance boss and his long suffering and highly competent secretary while the second one offers the original take on groundhog day time loop and the comedy stemming from it.

This one is a high production value drama, well filmed and written. The plot moved on swiftly without any wrong points or plotholes. The solution was perfectly executed. The actors were amazing: they looked like the carbon copies of WWWSK cast though the ML was so much better: and that single dimple is to die for. (I am shallow, sue me!)

The writers managed to create a smooth flowing story where the two main characters grow and change faced with the challenges of the time loop. It was so nice to see the ML going from a jerk(hence the title!) to a human being and the FL admitting that he had a nice side as well beside being a jerk! Everything was nicely wrapped into a layer of not too cringy comedy.

If somebody recommended this to me as a movie, I probably would not have accepted to watch as I'd be scared of limited time and the lack of character and story develpment. But this is actually a movie. The producers did a great job editing all the episodes together so much so that the transitions from one episode to the next are invisible!

This is a great watch if you have a little time and need a palate cleansing after a heavy or a boring drama. (I had just finished Sherlock: The Untold Stories which was boring unfortunately and this is the right cure!)

Leia Mais

Open your eyes and see what's right in front of you

A classic friends to lovers story. It reminded me of When Harry Met Sally and Harry's final confession that went something like "When I realized I wanted to spend forever with you, I wanted that forever to start right away!" That scene popped into my head as I was watching this cute short movie!

Stand-in Love is a part of an omnibus series (short movies based on true stories) and this one is about Cess and Zia who are the best of friends, confiding in each other, supporting each other, being there for each other. Until one day, Zia asks Cess to pretend to be her girlfriend in order to practice pick up lines. Cess is happy to go along with the pretense until an off the cuff remark by her friends makes her realize she has developed feelings beyond simple friendship for Zia. That scares her and she bolts away. But one day she hears Cess is dating a girl and that gets her in the panic mode and she accepts that she really loves and cherishes Zia.

I loved the story. It was nothing very original but the actresses managed to bring forth the feelings of love, doubt, hesitation, rejection very convincingly. They had great chemistry and were obviously very much at ease with each other. The development of their relationship was not rushed and the stages were clearly shown. A quick and a nice watch....

Leia Mais

The comfort food

The concept remains the same: a mysterious late night restaurant owner everyone calls Masters, behind his counter, either cooks or listens to his customers while smoking. Each episode is a complete story about a customer and those stories are all about daily life struggles: family, friends, relationships, work. There are some recurring characters who just sit there and give their opinions about the story being told.

I love this type of series which manages through a simple short story to teach us universal lessons about love, friendship, honesty and sincerity. All through food, the feeling those dishes provoke, the memories they evoke, and the solutions they bring. The food is comfort, the dishes are home where the characters feel at ease and happy. When they have problems, that dish helps them focus and find a solution to move forward.

I love the unusual (for me!) music. Nice touch were those alley musicians telling the episode's story through song.

Leia Mais

Their timing sucks!

Timing is a short web drama stressing the importance of good timing, of seizing the opportunity when it shows, of not waiting for a better moment and the consequences of not acting when one should have!

The main characters have been friends since high school but every time they tried to become more, destiny stopped them be it in shape of Korean army and eventually, the white truck of doom! You see where this is going, right?

It begins as a story of an amnesiac girl whose best friend and the only person she remembers, tells her how they met. That relationship is great, the banter is funny and their chemistry is hot. But halfway through, I started getting a weird feeling, like there was something sinister behind all this charming and quirky relationship. Unfortunately I was not wrong!

This gave me vibes of Our Beloved Summer: similar story, same chemistry, same charm, different outcome. I would have marked it as cute and funny (which it is!) if it were not for that tragic ending. Couldn't they have learned their lesson otherwise? They did waste so much time dancing around each other instead of together but did they really need to be punished forever for that? Anyhow, how stupid can you be to stand in the middle of the road? And how incompetent that driver is who does not how to turn on an empty road? Why do those trucks always, but ALWAYS go straight ahead without EVER trying to avoid the stupid frozen people?

I would have given this drama 10/10 if it were not for that stupid ending!

Leia Mais

Pretty & hot

Better than the series just because shorter and with less time wasted on PPLs and time fillers and incomprehensible plotlines. This was very cute.

The six boys go to countryside to finish filming Wat's short movie for the competition. The two couples are sort of on honeymoon. But Akk is unhappy since Aye seems to have forgotten his birthday. Yeah right! A surprise is planned and it is obvious to everyone except to the person concerned who thinks Aye does not love him anymore. So they argue and they bicker and they make up only to bicker some more and so on .
The running theme here is the cinema, starting with Brokeback Mountain reference and then reenacting scenes from famous Thai movies and probably others I missed. I love it when they do that in dramas (that id THE only thing I liked about Theory Of Love!).


First as Akk is amazing: his smile can light a thousands christmas trees. He is a talented actor and I hope he stops playing high schoolers because he was just amazing as adult in Midnight Chicken. But I am sorry to say, I still think Khaotung cannot act: he smirks, pouts, sneers and I find him rather creepy. He can sing. That's about it!

The whole plotline about the birthday surprise was to say the least cruel and thoughtless. Not cute. They are teens, just starting to date, not certain of each other feelings and wanting to be reassured and Akk has none of it coming from his boyfriend. Aye does speak nicely to him on occasion only to go back to being insensitive jerk. Akk is unhappy and has trouble hiding his disappointment. Eventually, Aye sort of apologizes saying that pranks is what he loves doing! I think there is time and place for that, not at the start of a relationship. Which in any case seems doomed since Aye is going to study abroad and Akk does not want to go with him.

The second couple Khan & Thua are also plagued by problems because Khan is too attentive so much so that Thua finds it suffocating. So we have two extreme examples of couples: Khan is paying too much attention while Aye not enough. These problems, make Wat the director realize, were two sides of the same coin and uses it to finish his movie which allows boys to finally talk to each other.
Wat's love life is left in the limbo since he is seriously crushing on his teacher. It would be interesting to see them together a few years down the line (like after he graduates from university?).

The cinematography is stunning: it looks a lot like a number of WayuFilm short movies (Country Boy). The colours are warm and everything has such a calming effect: the water, the mist, the forest, the hills.....Sometimes it looks like it was made by two different directors: when some actors are in frame, the mood shifts from dreamy to whatever, somehow their timing seems off and it is not complementary to the scenery or the whole mood.

In spite of all the flaws I found, this was way better than the series: it was fluffy, steamy and pretty. Almost perfect.

Leia Mais

What goes around, comes around!

This movie was made in 2013 and it shows: the Thai BL industry was only starting to explore the market and the budgets were limited but creativity was there.

There are three seemingly independent stories: the first one about a high school couple exploring their burgeoning feelings for each other, the second is a story of a gay influencer couple who are being stalked and the third one is about a small hotel owner falling for one of his guests. The ending surprisingly connects all three stories together. And therefore explains the title because I must admit I could not figure out why the movie had this title while I was watching it! All comes to those who wait!

They were directed by three different directors and you can tell. The first story looks like a high school project, badly filmed and acted, all over the place. The story about discovering one's own sexuality and acting upon it, is told well and though it looks messy, there are no red flags!
The second story is somewhere between a comedy and a horror, not really knowing what it wants to be. It also briefly touches upon the ugly side of intensive social media presence. What goes around....The filming is ugly though smoother than the first film.
The third story was the best in terms of storytelling as well as filming. It was polished, flowed naturally and there were more feeling involved. It is a story of a hotel owner looking after his bedridden boyfriend who suffers from an unknown sickness and is feeling miserable. One day a guest comes to stay in his hotel bringing back the laughter, joy and happiness in his life. He is so sorely tempted.

The quality of the movie grows as it progresses: if you manage to watch the first story without dropping it, you will end up loving this movie in spite of all its flaws. Keep in mind it is a low budget movie made 10 years ago and you should forgive them for some amateurish looking scenes!

I wanted to add cast and crew but they are not known to MDL so you can find them here:
https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/362535-timeline?language=en-US

Leia Mais

Doe eyed love

Well, I needed a title for my Alphabet watch challenge and titles starting with an X a few and far between. So the MDL search engine found this one for me and it is a short movie. And I just found out, by perusing the beginning of the other review that this is produced by a dating app so it is basically a glorified ad. And a good one to boot! With a twist so if you do not ant to know it, stop now!


Keeping all that in mind, I gave it a chance and it was an interesting watch. GL stories are not as popular as BL ones and that is a shame.

Cooka who works for a modeling agency, falls for Tina at first sight. While helping her get a makeover and therefore a career, they become fast friends with Cooka. Finally she breaks down far from everyone at Tina's wedding but is comforted by one of Tina's bridesmaids who finds her through the aforementioned app!

This short movie tells a love story taking place within a certain period of time so we do not know absolutely nothing about the characters before or after the events. Cooka is a girl who looks like a boy and who, for a reason I cannot fathom, slouches when she walks.Tina is a bubbly girly girl. And though she likes Cooka for helping her and always being there, she is completely unaware of Cooka's feelings considering her only a friend and barely that (a manager more likely?)

I liked the music, pulling on heartstrings with all its might. The editing was so well done that we are unaware of the big twist coming near the end. The actresses have good chemistry. Nice and sweet!

Leia Mais

SMS parents

Well I liked this: it was depressing, melancholy, slow, long but ultimately uplifting!

This drama has 4ep. on viki: awful subs when there are some, watch it elsewhere since there is a 2 ep SBS edit floating around with excellent subs!

The story follows two 17 yr old high school students trying to figure out life and understand their own parents and adults in general, and their attitudes. This lack of understanding and communication brings them to the brink of self destruction!

The pace of this mini drama is extremely slow and even I who relish in slow burn dramas, had an impression every episode vas double the duration! That's how slow it is! The mood is general depression: neither is saying much and hiding behind silences. The most poignant moment was when his mother talked about a condom she found in his jacket pocket through SMS. This speaks volumes about the loneliness kids feel even when surrounded by friends in school or by family. The boy never actually talks directly to his mother (absent father as well) but they communicate through phone messages even when they are in the same house! Sad, right? While the boy is struggling behind his taciturn expressions, the girl takes a radical way of reballing in order to feel something and make her own mother notice how unhappy she is.

Unfortunately, nothing makes an impact on adults who are too wrapped up in their own lives to notice the unhappiness of their own children. Luckily, even though they were in same school and class, the boy and the girl never really knew each other. A fortuitous string of accidental encounters, pushes them towards each other and eventually, they talk and help each heal.

The actors are subtly portraying the solitude and unhappiness of these kids.

This is a very good drama, again depicting the hell korean kids go through because of their parents. It is a worthy watch but you need to be in a good place for it since it is rather bleak and depressing. The ending saves the day!

Leia Mais

Bromance not romance

Having read this short webcomic twice, I was looking forward to the live action adaptation.

An unfortunate accident brings Tae Hyun and Da Yeol closer together. The first one is bullying the other one who tries to get the upper hand until he realizes there is a lot of darkness and sadness behind the cocky smile and harsh words of the first one. This is a classical enemies to lovers(?) story.

Tae Hyun suffers from survivor's guilt which he hides from others. Da Yeol is being forced by his father to train archery intensively, something he eventually realizes he hates. Their meeting is going to bring out in the open the frustrations and unhappiness they're feeling and therefore they are finally be able to move on.

What did not convince me is the love story both in manhua and here. They went the same way: Da Yeol falls for Tea Hyun and confesses but TH is not really sure of his feelings. Whatever he is feeling is more akin to gratitude and friendship than love. He had a change of heart when DY become the first person to tell him that the accident was just that, an accident and that it was not his fault. I am not convinced he fell in love but actually developed another form of dependancy in which he mistok gratitude for something more he was not really feeling!
There are a couple of time skips that only confirms even more the strong friendship between them. TH seems to be trying to convince himself that he is in love with DY when he is obviously just missing his best friend who once crossed the friendship line making TH uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable but not enough to convince himself he was in love.

That's where the real problem of this BL lies: the guys are cute together but there is a strong invisible though obvious barrier between them. It that was never more certain than in the fluffy last episode. This is more of a bromance than a romance!

The acting is pretty good for idols but did they really need to put so much lipstick on actor playing Tae Hyun: seeing those scarlet lips was really disconcerting.. Plotwise, they left us with some questions: TH's friend group, in particular Ye Beom, have not been used or even fleshed out properly. Why is Ye Beom so possessive of Tae Hyun? The girl was supposed to have a crush on Da Yeon: when? why? how come? What was the point of those time skips? Their relationship does not seem to have changed an iota during those years....

I was not bothered by the lack of skinship: it is not alway necessary! Sometimes the deepest feelings are expressed through glaces, attitudes etc. nothing such here. It turns out this is a bit of a wasted opportunity!

All in all this was a cute short watch. You'd be better off just reading the webcomic!

Leia Mais

Cherry on top...

I am one of those rare people who actually liked the series a lot: it was consensual and sweet with minimal angst and no toxicity. Well, I call it "MAME antidote".

The producers offered us this additional episode, taking place one year after the last episode of the series.

Nhai is still being his childlike self but Ai has become distant which scares Nhai. So with the help of Ton, he follows Nhai to his father's resort to sort things out.

This is just a piece of fluff but what a very pretty fluff it is! The scenery is pretty, Ai is pretty & serious, Nhai is pretty & cute as a button,

Anything negative to say about this? Well let me think....it is extremely sweet and the music is bad, generic and unremarkable!

For die hard fans only!

Leia Mais

You can count only on yourself!

I must confess, I played games through most of this drama. Don't get me wrong it was well written, well acted and directed! And predictable!
It is a story of David against the Goliath, of little people trying their hardest to get free from the rich and powerful stepping on them like they were worthless. They rebel and use their street smarts to bring the rich down! See, nothing new or unpredictable! The poor people think and make twisty plans, the bad guys betray others, the rich manipulate and kill and then buy their way out! Eventually they get their comeuppance. And the poor get to leave and drive into the sunset.

How does one break free from the initial position into one is born? You try to survive honestly but the corruption is all pervasive within the society so you scheme, cheat, gamble or sell your body! Unfortunately once you go down that road it turns out to be a slippery slope and to get off of it, you have to use your brain and be smarter than those owning this slope.
There is, of course a hooker with a heart of gold forced into selling herself by her irresponsible mother who falls for a smart but poor good talker motel receptionist!This is the plot of hundreds of movies and series. A classic!
Is there anything different here? No! Still, it is enjoyable enough if you are not expecting too much of it!
Of course, there are a few things that make you wonder. Like, for example, why is this motel so empty! And I do not mean only guests but staff, furniture: it looks like a ghost house! Where is the police or do they just come when they need to pick up their monthly bribe? Why does the bad boss come all alone without the backup close by?

The acting was excellent! I usually do not like Off and I do not like him in BLs. Here he was surprisingly good. He played Mote, down to earth guy, just trying to survive by using his brain . He was actually perfect for this role: he looks like a brainless idiot when actually he is very smart and manages to get the upper hand with all of the bad guys in this series. Mond playing Sun, a tragic, tortured soul who has completely lost his way, was excellent. He managed to show the vulnerability and cruelty of the character with the same intensity. The other evil characters are the usual clichés: a tattooed street thug, a rotten policeman and their cleancut rich boss/owner!
There were a few side characters bringing warmth into this cold environment: Motes Aunt and Uncle who, though perfectly aware of Mote's flaws, still support and love him unconditionally.

The story was well written and the pacing was good, never a dull moment(only six episodes and they used the time given without wasting it!). I liked how they staged phone conversation as a face to face over a poker table or an imaginary talk with a dead person? Quite original! The music was appropriate for a crime drama.
Midnight Motel is a short crime drama. Not too exciting because predictable but still a solid watch.

Leia Mais

Practically Perfect In Every Way

I am not a watcher of Korean historical dramas. I have tried watching a few of the very famous ones, dropping them during the first episode. The notable exception, that I actually finished, is Moon Lovers and that was only because I was going through the Lee Joon Ki superfan phase.

I am taking part in a Drama Discovery Challenge and the next item on my discovery list was to watch a historical drama. So I decided to watch this. I got hooked after 20 minutes and watched it all over the weekend. And loved every second of it.

So Rang is an illegal matchmaker and is put in prison for fraud. In order to get out , she pretends to channel ghosts which attracts attention of the King who is inconsolable since the death of his wife seven years earlier and therefore installing interdiction of marriage, hence the title. So Rang accepts to "channel" the dead princess and in doing so helps the king deal with his loss and fall in love again. This also brings to surface conspiracies and murders within the palace by individuals hungry for power.

This drama is a joyful ride. It is set in Joseon, sometimes in the past but that is all: not a definite year just sometimes in the past. The past, the history is just used as a setting to tell the love story of two deeply scarred people.
The king, surrounded with rigid servants is shaken to his bones by So Rang's insolence, courage, good sense and optimism. They are both traumatised by past events and together they help each other to heal. And while doing so, they are hilariously funny. I have never laughed so much while watching an asian drama. Actually, the last time I laughed so was when I watched BBC's "The Goes Wrong Show" a few years ago.

Everything is so perfectly done here: comic timing is spot on, the story is tightly woven and there are no plotholes, it is serious enough not to be boring, cinematography is beautiful and music is nicely done blend of old and new. All in all, the story is a modern one (with all the PC bits grouped together in the last episode) set in the past. If we are to search around, we'd probably find a story of a traumatized cold CEO shaken by a quirky but poor girl into becoming a nicer human being. How about Lost Romance from Taiwan? So nothing original but extremely well produced.

Kim Young Dae is handsome, talented and his slight lisp is making him irresistible (though those abs are not to be scorned at!). Park Ju Hyun was a revelation: I really did not like her in Mouse but here she is awesome. They both have perfect comic timing. The actors are all great, they have amazing chemistry. All of them! And since this is a fairy tale, they are all paired up by the end with a few BL couples as well! Nice touch!

There is one thing that bothered me, nevertheless! The tone and the rhythm of the drama was for the first few episodes very light and funny. And even though it was very predictable, the palace conspiracies introduced a darker plot which did not balance the original comedy well so I was a bit disconcerted halfway through and I did not like it! 0.5 points off for that!
This drama reminded me of Moon Lovers, as it could have been as a happy drama. The chemistry is the same, the cold prince and the quirky funny girl who fall in love. The Forbidden Marriage has that contemporary, modern feel in the way they act and speak just like IU's character in MLSHR. Even the music: often it sounded really similar!

Cinematography is excellent, there are beautiful shots in the night as well as of shirtless Kim Young Dae. The production is of the highest quality, everything flows so smoothly and that is why I noticed one thing which was jarring: the closeups of them horseback riding looked faked and as if filmed in front of the green screen. Minor I know but noticeable! Like when they fake ride cars, motorcycles etc. in other dramas: it is so obvious and does not need to be!

This drama is a fairy tale, a very funny fairy tale, where everyone gets their happy ending and where the bad guys get punished. Watch it if you need cheering up, watch it if you are bored, watch it even if you're not into seoguks. Just watch it, you won't regret it! It is light and fluffy and perfect!

Leia Mais

Because this is my first life....

Why did they choose to adapt this webtoon is beyond my comprehension!
The story of the webtoon is average, the art is average and in my humble opinion, adapting it into a live webdrama is a waste of time and money!
That said, I did binge it, it was short and there is nothing unwatchable here.

But as I watched it, I kept thinking of Because This Is My First Life: a stiff male lead, a quirky virgin female lead, an adult relationship, minor crises, happy ending! Nothing particularly original in this office romance with the usual coworkers teaming up to trip up the leads and of course getting their comeuppance eventually while the leads come on top!
The main actors are average: I am still trying to figure out if the boss was supposed to be a monotone single expression robot or if the actor is just bad! The new employee is just a happy go lucky guy with an eternal idiotic happy smile slapped over his face. Everything felt somehow off about this pair: the chemistry was average. Luckily they did not drag the misunderstandings for too long.
The side characters were more interesting: the ex boyfriend (pretty & ruthless), a fellow intern (sweet &optimistic) and the best friend (who wanted to punch the bad guys, if only she could find them!).
The music and cinematography were....guess what? Average and unremarkable !

What was this about? An office romance, pretty straightforward: I like you let's sleep together. Our coworkers hate us? Let's have our own ad agency and all problems are solved!

In conclusion, this is a drama to watch when you have little time and no wish to get into a regular length fare! Nothing to write home about!

Leia Mais