An insult to women and men at the same time

This is surely the worst drama that I have ever watched and it's not because of the production value (which is very impressive sometimes), it's because of its awful writing. This drama is an instant drop in the first two episodes. I dropped it when it came out in 2017, but I made myself a promise to finish it one day, so here we go.
Let's start with the bad (there's a lot – I should have made notes while watching):
- Do Bong Soon's character is the typical fake strong female character. We start with Do Bong Soon helping an elderly man and saving a bus, which are very heroic feats, but the character goes downhill very quickly. Do Bong Soon eventually becomes CEO Ahn Min Hyuk's bodyguard. She completely fails at being a bodyguard. She lets the CEO get hurt because of her, she lets a cop get hurt and she also lets the villain escape multiple times. The writers completely failed to recognize that she heard the main villain's voice at a pharmacy. When girls start getting kidnapped in her neighbourhood, she does nothing. When her friend almost gets kidnapped, she lets the kidnapper go even though she could knock him down in one hit. Why? After some time, Do Bong Soon is an intern at her own personal Planning & Development department with the CEO. Once again, we see her doing nothing all day. If she is shown doing anything, it's working on the same character model and drag and dropping things into a presentation. This was a missed opportunity to show women working in game engines and programming, but instead they showed us a pathetic character who thinks she deserves to be in the actual Planning & Development department without any actual skills... After Kyung Shim gets kidnapped, she goes to beg Min Hyuk for help and then completely invalidates his feelings. After Do Bong Soon rescues kidnapped women (at a location which only took everyone ages to figure out), she goes on to confront the main villain in a dramatic way that makes her lose her strength (even though she basically abused her power all throughout the drama and even hurt innocent people). After losing her strength, she is absolutely useless. She goes unconscious from two blows to the chest and she doesn't even try to free herself from her restrains at the brink of death. She does nothing but cry even though she received training in combat from the CEO. After escaping from her death, the three leads formulate a plan to catch the killer by exposing her out in the open to a sniper rifle while only she wears a bulletproof vest. I suppose headshots don't exist in her universe because that was so stupid.
- Do Bong Soon is not a strong character. She couldn't even tell the man she liked that she liked him. She is very childish and doesn't have much personality outside her powers.
- Na Kyung Shim (Do Bong Soon's friend) only cares about her face and looking pretty after being beaten up by the serial kidnapper / killer.
-Do Bong Soon's grandmother enters the scene at some point and beats up some goons. Which is fine and all, but the first thing she does when she visits her grandchild's home? She verbally abuses Do Bong Soon's father.
-It's inconsistent powers-wise. Do Bong Soon can't run, but she can jump high and basically fly as shown in the last episodes?
-Bomb designed to kill Do Bong Soon explodes into fireworks... What??
-Domestic violence. Do Bong Soon's mother is seen regularly abusing her husband, both verbally and physically. This abuse is sweeped under the rug with comical music played in the background. Even though the writers seemingly tried to redeem the mother in the last episode as having pushed him only once, it's just not believable. She was also physically and verbally abusive towards Bong Soon.
-Extreme homophobia, awful representation of LGBT community and queer-baiting in almost all of the episodes. It's so toxic that it took every ounce of my willpower to get through the scenes.
- Bong Soon and her mother and basically all the female characters are obsessed with Do Bong Soon snatching away Min Hyuk and having sex with him and basically raping him. These are not strong women.
-Min Hyuk goes to convince Do Bong Soo's father Do Chil Goo to return to his abusive wife because he cannot marry Do Bong Soon in such a situation. What a sad moment.
- All three leads are very misogynistic in some scenes. Do Bong Soon's character is misogynistic in itself. She is the opposite of strong and actually serves as a bad example for women.
-It has Kim Ji Soo, who is a known bully, but that's not really the drama's fault, so I would be willing to let that pass.
-Do Bong Soon has her own gang of high school kids.
-The characters are absolutely brain dead most of the time with no logical sense.
-Poop jokes.
-Racist representation of Indians with random Buddhist monk a.k.a. the scammer.
-There is no natural comedy in the situations, only poor writing. The romance was just pure fluff, nothing more.
-Min Hyuk and Bong Soon were extremely possesive.
-Useless police as always.

The good:
-Hee Ji's character was the only normal female character in the entire drama. I wanted to see more of her, but we got very little of her.
-Excellent villain who deserved so much better. He was the only consistent character and the reason I kept watching, but sadly writers didn't allow him more time to shine. The actor's performance was absolutely amazing.
-Some scenes were shot in a beautiful manner, but this got overshadowed by how despicable the characters were.

I need to cleanse my brain from this drama.

Leia Mais

Can't fill 40 episodes with just chemistry of the two leads

What a colossal disappointment. I'm a huge fan of sci-fi and fantasy content, so I was so hyped to start this drama. It took me months to finish because I just had to take a break from this mess. This drama really left me unsatisfied. I don't understand how it could possibly have such amazing reviews. I have already forgotten most of the things that I wanted to mention, but here are some of them:
1. The chemistry of the two male leads is undeniable from the start. Sadly, censorship took a huge toll on this show and not just in the BL department...
2. There's barely any character development. Some characters are written as if they were babies incapable of rational thoughts. Most of them never learn and make the same mistakes throughout the show.
3. There are so many moments that will make the viewer so incredibly confused, especially if you are not familiar with the original material.
4. Characters randomly teleport to their locations in a instant or they take so long that you forget they exist.
5. There are additional voiceovers that they had to do, probably due to the censorship. They kinda ruin the dialogue with the audio changes.
6. The special effects are forgivable, sometimes they were really good, other times they were so awful I could barely watch.
7. I really enjoyed some of the locations that they shot at. Too bad they never really used them properly.
8. I really liked some of the costumes.
9. Random characters are introduced with even more random storylines and backstories society every episode.
10. The cat was so cute, but it was criminally underused.
11. Most of the characters are so useless that they shouldn't be alive. 'Let's just stare at the evil and not do anything' trope is extremely prevalent here.
12. At times, the acting of the supporting cast was so awful it made me laugh in sad moments.
13. I didn't really connect with any of the characters and no episode made me feel sad for any of the characters. Deaths were so laughable.
14. Johnny Bai, Zhu Yi Long and Ocean Jiang carried this show so hard with every episode.
15. The cast was beautiful.

Honestly, I have no idea how I finished this. I suppose it's mostly because I expected to see some development between the two lead characters, but they had so little screen time together.
This could have been great if it was 16 episodes or less because it's mostly filler content. The storylines that should connect only cause more confusion with each added new episode. This is not worth the watch at all.

Leia Mais

Much more enjoyable than season 1

I was very frustrated after finishing ITSAY (especially due to episode 4 of ITSAY and the general toxicity of Teh and Oh-aew's relationship), so I was very hesitant starting this, but my expectations were actually blown away. The second season introduced really amazing side characters and the time skips were so wonderfully done, so it didn't feel like draggy like ITSAY did. Yes, there is cheating, but it's very realistic and understandable. This is probably the only BL where I didn't mind it at all. People deserve to experience love and need to learn to treasure it when they have it. I hope we get to see some of the characters again, I would love to see a spin-off! There are so many possibilities and so many characters to choose from.

Leia Mais

A huge upgrade from season 1

I really enjoyed watching this season. Season 1 finale was a frustrating mess, but if you ignore the events of that episode, this season is very enjoyable. It's much different from the first season as there is less fluff and cuteness – instead it's much more character driven and delves into what it feels like to lose your previous life and just life in general. Season 2 introduces several new characters which add a lot to the show.
Things I loved:
1. Jerome Ponce as Jim was amazing. His portrayal of how pain changes a person was just spot on.
2. There are some really amazing lines about letting go of past burdens and healing. The dialogue in general is very good.
3. This season addresses the SOGIE bill in Philippines which I found to be really important with regards to LGBTQIA+ rights.
4. Beautiful soundtrack.
5. Some of the shooting locations were absolutely gorgeous.
6. It deals with gender reassignment issues in a wonderful manner.
7. The ending sets things up wonderfully for season 3 (I hope there's one!). It shows that people that are hurting can't just jump into relationships and it's very realistic. It also gives a lot of hope for the characters.
8. Much higher production value compared to S1 – better lighting, sound and camera work.
9. Cute side couples.

Things I disliked:
1. Flo's hospital scenes were a bit weird, most likely due to the budget, but still, doing random stuff next to a stranger would be so awkward.
2. This season contains several scenes with flashbacks of Ben and Jim, several years into the past. I think those would have been better suited in season 1 and felt out of place. Especially considering the characters would be like 10-14 year old, so it was so weird to use adult actors.

Please give this season a chance – if you enjoy human storylines and not just BL content, you will like it! I wasn't that excited about watching this season, but I was very pleasantly surprised by how good this was.

Leia Mais

Perfect example of how bad writing ruins a cool premise

I will summarize some points that I didn't like:
1) Episode 1 was fairly decent, but there was a scene where Nac and Pang are sent to Ladda's office and Pom and Ladda just keep watching them as they beat each other up and I found that so disturbing that they turned on each other so quickly. I mean, weren't they friends once? It's almost like their friendship meant nothing anymore.
In Episode 1, their potentials also get "awakened" by presumably hearing Ladda (at least I thought it was her) over the speakers, but why is it they were capable of hearing it when they didn't even know how to manipulate the potentials? The same applies to seeing the numbers during the presentation. Unless Wave somehow manifested his powers during that time, it wasn't really explained.
2) Episode 5 was pretty intense, but there was also a scene where he literally almost killed Korn despite Wave starting the fight and everyone was just watching them. He even smashed one chair on him and people just kept watching. All the teachers and students... He was literally killing him and the only one who stopped him was Claire after like a whole minute. That was the beginning of decline for me and I started losing interest.
3) Episode 6 was Mon's episode. Mon was a very interesting character but there were too many things wrong with this episode. First, why did the pheromones manifest only in this episode? She'd been a part of that club for so long and they must have gotten in contact with her sweat before. I will not comment on the zombie makeup or their behaviour or the zombie acting, but it was quite bad. The fight scenes were also disappointing, but the relationships with the other club members were quite nice. At the end, there was another stupid thing. It's been months and Pang still hasn't even realized what his gift is (no idea how though), so he commands Nac to smash his head against the wall and Nac does it against a railing and Pang just watches in disbelief as his friend repetitively smashes his head against the railing and doesn't even bother to stop him and just watches. At that point, I was so done with this series.
4) Episode 7 was Korn's episode. I quite liked Korn before this episode, but they completely ruined him this episode. He was so sweet in Claire's episode, so I was very curious about his potential. The whole mess with the cloud thing and being held hostage with a simple knife was a bit too much. We didn't even find out the full scope of his potential.
5) Episode 9 and 10 were Wave's episodes. I was quite disturbed by the student-teacher romance because Wave was like 14 at the time. What really bothered me with episode 10 was how easily he created so much chaos in the school. People behaved like wild animals. Namtaan was probably the only one with the brain because she left the note as she left the roof. Wave blamed everyone but himself that he was naive and did that teacher's master thesis for her! Then magically they stopped him as he was about to unleash the files (even though Pang said there never were any? but it didn't seem like it at the time) through power of friendship? Somehow Punn overhacked him? That was so stupid. Wave was supposed to be the computer master.
6) Approximately 5 months went by since the awakening, but Pang and Korn still had no idea what their potentials were?
7) The whole plot of episodes 9-10 could be resolved if Pang just used his power on Wave and made him stop since he actively used his power in episode 8 and 7.
8) In episode 11 Pang used his power to nearly kill Tamtaan, he kept pushing her and pushing her even though he knew she had a blood pressure condition. Pang and Wave started putting their silly plan into motion.
9) In episode 12, they had to gather the pins from other rooms. So in this episode, it was like they didn't even spend 6 months together. They all kept attacking each other because of the condition that the one that didn't have the pin would be kicked out, but they didn't even realize that since they are so precious, they would never do that. I absolutely hated that Pang and Wave didn't inform Ohm and Namtaan about their plan. So in the end, somehow Pang managed to outsmart Pom and he made him remember all his memories, but... what really bothered me was how easily Chanon sacrificed himself for Pom. He had the gift of seeing the future. He could have planned out everything.
10) Episode 13 was kinda interesting with the ending, but it was so weird that their school's new hack-proof system was better than Wave? Also where was this system when Wave literally hacked the school in episodes 9-10? Also at the end, when the director asked the students if they would give up their gifts in exchange for them being ordinary, Wave didn't say anything? I mean, what was even his plan? Did he just want to crush the system while keeping his abilities? Also Mon and Korn magically appeared like nothing, so they were back and they also didn't want to give up their gifts? But they allegedly gave them up 2 episodes ago, so they definitely wanted to get rid of them.
11) It was cool they used a lot of English for written stuff, but did they really expect Thai students to be so fluent?
12) Why did the director need government funding? He could have just brought along Pom, made someone rich sponsor them and Pom would erase their memories. They could have groomed a small army this way.
13) The twins didn't even have their episode and somehow weren't even present for the evaluation or other stuff?
14) The whole conflict could have been solved easily had Pom just erased the director's memory and then Pang could have manipulated him as he saw fit.

Leia Mais

Very wholesome and heart-warming

This drama has spoiled me. It was an instant favourite for me just from that pilot episode. I don't think I will ever watch anything comedy-related that's as good as this drama is. It combines comedic elements with serious issues that many people face every day and deals with them in such a healthy manner. All the characters have such amazing chemistry with each other that no scene was ever boring or felt misplaced. The writing is just stellar. The actors did such a phenomenal job of making these characters come to life. Not just the main cast, but also the support cast. It was so wonderfully acted that you really grew to care about the characters in a very short amount of time. If you love found family trope as much as I do, you will surely love this one! It's really sad that this drama is almost always nowhere to be found on streaming services because it deserves so much love. I wish it had 16 episodes, but 12 episodes was still enough to wrap up the story really well. Bok-ja Club fighting!

Leia Mais

Soulless and painful to watch

I had such high expectations going into this drama considering its high rating, but sadly I am so disappointed. Watching the first episode made me give up on this drama and I usually don't give up on episodic content. It feels like there's no plot and this whole drama is just filler content to be honest. The characters are mostly unbearable and difficult to connect with (not just because of their nature). I think the worst part is the humor and the sound effects – they feel incredibly forced, there's no natural comedic value in the situations. This drama is visually perfect, but it has no heart. It's like it was targeted at teens due to the choice of the actors. I can't believe this mess has such a high rating. It feels like this drama is set in an alternate drama world where anything is possible, but in reality the main male lead wouldn't even live past episode 1.

Leia Mais