If I could, I would rate this 11 stars

Jinny's Kitchen has become almost a near to perfect comfort watch for me for the entirety of its run time. It has allowed me not only to have a laugh at the funny situations that the staffs, circumstances and also the atmosphere brings but also allowed to face a new kind of variety program one might not often attach it with. A cooking show that allowed food to become much more than just a medium of nutrition and that allowed it to elevate it to become a sense of soothing comfort, almost like good music is incredible.

It is also incredible that we are looking at Korea's biggest stars ( Wooshik has acted in an Oscar winning film as a protagonist, Seojun is soon to be in a Marvel movie and Taehyung part of the legendary BTS, Yumi and Seojin both superstars of Korean drama, film and television ) and yet they all show a real slice of life. Not to say it hits reality or that it even needs to, but the sense of comfort and connection you sense while watching this show is an applause to everyone involved in it.

The cast is perfect. Their chemistry hits right off, the healthy companionship and team spirit they all showed throughout helped make it a wonderful watch for anyone who wants to have a fun time feeling all fuzzy.

This might be the most low stakes Korean reality show I have watched and yet it kept me on my toes. Whenever there was a rush of customers or the goals of money to be fulfilled, those were moments where I felt my adrenaline rush thanks to the tension, happiness, joy and much more that just leep off the screen.

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Leaves you wanting a bit more

One thing I love about Korean BLs is that they break out of the norm of how queer love stories should look like and make it much more than just acceptance or coming out or anything stereotypical attached to queer cinema.

"The Director Who Buys Me Dinner" also does something similar. It takes a storyline filled with fantasy and angst and adds queer characters into the mix. Imagine "The Tale of Nine Tailed" with MLM leads in it.

But despite this you are left with wanting much more. Knowing the fact that the production value of BL dramas in Korea is much lesser compared to mainstream ones, this is kind of expected. But with a short span of episodes and with a taut storyline it is possible to be done. Something like Semantic Error also came out of a very long Webtoon adaptation so why not expect the same from this too?

Nonetheless, this is fun to watch. The adorable factor of the series sticks around and the acting also does justice to it ( maybe next time kiss a little bit more erm passionately, the love didn't feel emanating from those kisses ). Watch it for a fun ride and for a relaxing watch.

Leia Mais

A punch to the gut

When you are bullied, people expect you to feel a lot of emotions, forgiveness, empathy, forgetfulness, kindness, care, sympathy. Anger might not be one of them. But what about that raging fire that still burns in your heart eating you away each day?

The Glory answers to that raging fire. Much like it, it burns away all that is expected and gives you a picture of all that is real, raw and haunting. If you watched "The King Of Pigs" and felt anger surging inside of you, this series makes you feel exactly the same. The horror of the show will remain in your heart often reflecting into your own actions of questioning human nature.

Song Hye Kyo's newest drama is intense most of it thanks to her strong acting and the absolute chills it gives you. Her intense states, deep rage filled heart and her countenance feel like a punch straight to the gut. Her supporting actors from Lee Do Hyun to Shin Ye Run give a striking performance that adds to the treatment that the drama gives.

The Glory has its stronghold in every field, from the cinematography to the storyline, it holds you by your throat and leaves you burdened much like anything expected from this genre.

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Boring, forgettable

Some fantasy series hold you by your neck and throw you off the realism we survive in, something that "The Tale of Nine Tailed" did successfully.

Island however fails miserable at this job. The only character story worth looking forward to is Cha Eun Woo's character Johan rest all feel like forceful characters in a storyline that doesn't do justice to its gigantic world building, it's sheer potential acting and production wise.

The only time I felt a tad bit interested in the series is when Van transforms other than the "twists" in this story feel so badly done. The scenes that should make you feel a certain way, horror or love or funny or otherwise make you feel nothing, absolutely no emotion at all. You can see them coming from a mile away and it feels almost disappointing when the scene actually occurs infront of you on the screen.

The reason I even started watching this series is because of the captivating premise of it. Exorcism, evil powers, fantasy, half demon half human lead, all marks of a supposedly great drama but alas I concluded this series with heavy disappointment in my heart.

Am I looking forward to Part 2? Despite the fact that it feels dumb and without any reason at all that the series is broken down into two parts, I would still give it a try till the end ( considering each part is just 6 episodes long and that is very short and fast to watch ) but I am going to go in this time without any thoughts or expectations in head.

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Morality at question

Watching "Weak Hero" is honestly a difficult job. Much like Glory, it makes you feel the anger crawling through your skin and onto your psyche making you delirious of the madness of any justice that is about to come.

It is absolutely worth feeling shocked at how incredible the acting in this series is. Each character is living, and breathing and feels very real. You feel the pain, the anger, and the warmth sometimes too. Among them, the most shocking transformation is Park Ji Hoon. For an idol-turned-actor, Ji Hoon's acting seems masterful and not like someone who has just stepped into a different world of main roles. He has breathed life into Si Eun's character and it is evident that the process would have been excruciating. On the other hand, it is no shocker for me that Choi Hyun Wook has such an incredible range of emotions even within one single 8-episode-long season, it is promising to witness his future roles and watch him grow even a wider diaspora of filmography.

High school dramas are mostly difficult to watch in the K Drama sphere, maybe because most of Asia suffer the same kind of trajectory in their school lives. It is difficult almost immensely so, it breaks you apart, tears you apart, and leaves you with traumas and scars you survive forever with. With dysfunctional families a very common harrowing reality present in the background, the effect is only heightened. "Weak Hero" is an ode to that: the horrific high school experience.

I don't want any empathy or redemption to be reserved for Bum Seok here, he is not a victim, he is a perpetrator. No amount of tears, guilt, regret, remorse, sad background music, revelations, flashbacks, or redemption arc would make me want to feel anything but anger for his character. There is no need for sadness or pity either, the way he turned out HE CHOSE TO BE THAT. Circumstances can push you to the edge, how to survive further is your active choice. An idea that is crucial to world-building in "Weak Hero".

Season 1 is tastefully done, at times pushing you into madness about what is to follow, but lays a very strong groundwork for the 2nd part to land on. We just wait and watch.

Leia Mais

A story for us, of us and that will go on to become us

After a long time, I have cried my heart out after ending an series. "Pachinko" is a masterpiece, one that everyone should watch and then read and then meditate upon. It leaves us with lessons that we will hold within us for a very long time, allow us to survive, to endure.

Reading Pachinko in 2019 was my first brush with the understanding of the horrors of the Japanese occupation in Korea. To learn almost nothing about it and then to learn so much about it thanks to books, dramas like "Hymn of Death" and reading webtoons like "The Gyeongsang Mermaid", is a lesson inside how much suffering has occured and yet how much hope is left amidst all of this.

The story of Sunja and the retinue of characters that dwell in this tale will all reside within you. Not only because of how beautiful the cinematography is, how brilliant the screen adaptation of the novel is or how beautifully wound together the scenes are despite going back and forth a thousand dimensions, it is because it seems these characters lived these little lives through their acting. You feel the emotions they feel sometimes like a burden, sometimes like a relief.

Amidst all the cross cutting timelines and the recurring themes of discrimination, otherization, ostracization and suffering that spread across the 8 episodes of the series, the moments that remain with you are the hopeful ones. When Sunja gives birth to Noa, when Sunja and Kyunghee walk debtfree, when the characters dance in the opening sequence, when the ending of the 8th episode show the real life stories of the women surviving today.

Even those fleeting moments of happiness that are embedded in this long dark story shine very bright, linger inside you and stay within you.

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One of the best movies ever

Parasite lives in the extremes of cinematography, its palettes are not colourful with multicolour but rather paint the most real of pictures of what South Korean societies are like. It is an ode to Director Bong's incredible work that Parasite feels so real and raw.

Parasite questions social inequality in the most of crude of forms, through micro-aggressions, violence, abuse, discrimination and isolation. Every moment of the movie feels like a punch to the gut and it answers and questions notions that is not only limited to South Korea but even beyond the realms. Parasite's imagery, its acting, its message, its want to tell a story will live on like a legend. Decades later the story will live on to still question and rebel.

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Addictive like a gameplay

Semantic Error's strongest forte is the insane chemistry that Park Seo Ham and Jaechan have on screen ( maybe it is thanks to offscreen chemistry too?). It almost feels too addictive as if you are obsessed with something, but it is a good kind of obsession.

Even though it uses the most repetitive tropes of college dramas, the romantic duo suck you right in with how much tension, angst and even cutesy love you see between them.

The only regret you would be left with is that you hope for the episodes to be even longer and the overall series to be more mainscale production. With a meagre set scale and lesser production value ( a fact well known as major production companies in Korea still don't want to focus on funding for BL series ), Semantic Error has proven that the audience is attracted to not star power or grandeur but to how well the series for its value is.

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Fancy, fashion and fabulous

The world of fashion is not a difficult world to showcase on screen. Fans of Devil Wears Prada know very well that what makes a show based on fashion a hit is not its glitter and pomp but the rawness of the character it shows. The strongest point of The Fabulous is it's fantastic storyline that tackles the most wonderful of ways for characters to develop, mature and yet never feel too tedious.

In its main leads, much like Devil Wears Prada, The Fabulous never misses to show the reality of what makes the world of fashion so fancy yet so difficult to tread inside: passion. The main characters are a mix bunch, a marketing agent, a photographer, a model and a designer yet all tied by the same threads of the hard work to pursue that they really wish. I think that is what makes them so "fabulous".

In a society that is still stringent about same sex relationships being publicly showcased, The Fabulous tackles queer relationships with a sensitivity and normalcy that I wished other dramas did. While you watch these special relationships blossom in their own way even though with very less dedicated screentime you still feel heavily for them.

And yet amidst all this, the glamour and the drama of the fashion is not lost. Watchers of Emily in Paris who love the drama of the show, need to watch Fabulous for an even better treatment of the world. Get ready to dazzle your eyes and often also feel deeply for these characters.

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Addicting and fun to watch

Behind Every Star is for fans of Shooting Star and The Fabulous, of stories full of glitter and dazzle, full of drama and angst with comical storylines that will flip you off your bed laughing.

With incredible acting that does justice to the comical and dramatical theatrics of the story, this remake is an incredible undertaking. For fans of the original series, Call My Agent, this might become a tedious task to watch as it copies the storyline completely but for fans who are watching this for the first time through the Korean remake, Behind Every Star is a fun watch.

Even though I absolutely adore the current love story, I would have loved even more if they were bold enough to stick to the original character sketch of Jane and kept her as a lesbian female lead than turning her just for the public opinion sake.

Apart from that, Behind Every Star has everything that a hit series needs. A strong storyline, a perfect cast and enough fodder to feed the audience. With drama everyday coming from new ways at Method Entertainment I think we have more than enough story to get entertained even more.

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Intrigue of palace politics and laughter in a single bowl

The character of Yul is a perfect cut for D.O., it's as if the role was written for him. The comical nature, the coldness, and the hidden tsundere are very typical of him. 100 days my prince impressed me with its plot, the intrigue it carries and the uniqueness it ensures. Korean dramas around palace politics are always intriguing in their own unique way but 100 days my prince stands out with a cast very strong in their craft and a storyline that is not found yet. Amnesia, love, angst, pangs of unrequited love, and loss are all tied up into the wild mix of raging wars of succession and power inside the walls of Hanyang.

Even then there are missed spots and one of them was Nam Ji Hyun as the female lead. For me, her acting didn't cut for the role and felt incredibly shallow. Han So Hee shined more than her even though the subtotal of her screentime is far less than the lead. The side characters of the show are an incredible cast, each giving justice to their characters. From Kim Seon Ho to Jo Sung Ha, from friends to follies, each brings forward a masterclass in living their characters and making them into breathing ones.

Filled with major laughter scenes with the arsenal of villagers, it does not feel too dark even though it is. 100 days my prince brings to you a fresh take on palace politics in a light mix filled with fun, frolic, romance, and much more.

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Bitter truth in a searing drama

The impact of the reality depicted in D.P was so much that the Ministry of Defense had to make a statement that the drama exaggerates the haunting living reality of military enlistment in South Korea. Watching D.P is not an easy task, it triggers and taps into an inner emotion of rage, guilt, and even shame in some ways.

As the youth in South Korea live these horrific truths shown in the series, it is a reminder of what human nature is and how punitive justice and often retributive human behavior can be. The lead cast is a terrific bunch and as always depicts their characters with a fervor that sends a chill down your spine. Jung Jae-In is a perfect fit for this show with the amount of action, horror, gore, and also the wide range of emotions it needs to be used and depicted. The side characters no matter how small their role plays a crucial role in taking the drama forward.

With just 6 episodes and more to come in a slated season 2, D.P is easily among the best social dramas that I have seen. It serves you the truth as it is, no glitter is added to it, not even the slightest bit. It is cut-throat and gore filled but it is the living reality of many.

Leia Mais

A legacy of its own

Squid Game is among the best series to come out. This is an ode to not only the fantastic storyline but to also the uniqueness of it. Thrillers often blur the line of society as a complex and evolve to become just hollow spheres of action and melodrama which happens with a lot of mainstream world class production level thrillers.

Squid Game with its rootedness in the idea of childhood games evolved into the run for money as a rat race tells a story that will transcend the boundaries of psyche and human nature. It answers and tells a story that will forever remain attached to its viewers. Watching the series is a difficult task with its triggers but it is also thrilling and not possible to be left midway with how addicting it is.

Flawed yet fulfilling characters, storylines for each of them that take place in varied senses, the emotive value of it, all of it is masterfully done.

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Thrilling but dragging

Flower of Evil is definitely not one for people who love to have things fast paced in their thrillers but this is definitely a slow burn. The beginning seems to drag a bit, up until maybe like Episode 8 for me personally the story didn't have me wanting actively to know what's happening next gaping with excitement.

But towards the end, Flower of Evil catches insane speed. With cut throat storylines and insanely strong acting it catches you by the throat. Acting is the strongest point in Flower of Evil as the main leads almost live their characters on screen. You feel their pangs of love, you feel their angst, you feel the emotions bouncing right through the screen.

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