Steaming hot pile of cliche!

Bad acting, bad direction, bad story line - sorry non-existent story line; if all that is not enough, there is bad romance to boot.

I hated what they did to Park Yoo Na'a character. Poor Kang Soo Jin . They left her character suspended in middle of mental breakdown. Surrounded by selfish classmates and brainless bimbos, Soo Jin looks like a moon fairy captured by a curse and left trapped in a place she doesn't belong.

There is no proper conclusion to any relationship except the main one. The show survives on very standard school comedy and disparaging remarks made by family members against each other. Excitement lasts till episode 4-5. It is all repetitive from there.

The sob story about dead friend had no use whatsoever except for creating a nonsensical hostility among characters. Sister-Teacher romance was pure cringe and not at all funny. I would not advise anybody to watch it. Pretty pointless and you don't even feel satisfied at the end.

It's a stupid drama with no justification to its title "True Beauty". Maybe they should've read Keats:

A thing of beauty is a joy forever
Its loveliness increases, it will never
Pass into nothingness;

Or George MacDonald:

“For essential beauty is infinite, and, as the soul of Nature needs an endless succession of varied forms to embody her loveliness, countless faces of beauty springing forth, not any two the same, at every one of her heart-throbs, so the individual form needs an infinite change of its environments, to enable it to uncover all the phases of its loveliness.”
― Phantastes

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Where's the story? Where's that damn thing that writers put their brain into, the thing that screenplay develops out of, that...ah! forget it. This drama would not have been bad had it actually been nonsensical. No, it is actually worse. It portrays a rather bad heroine as a good one. Short summary: a girl makes deal with a prince to recover his childhood memories using hypnosis(via a bracelet). The prince sleepwalks. Some random war and royal politics stuff popular in CDrama as filler. That's ... about it. There's a douche-bag general too. Like I care.

Let me put across the actual story. A princess who is a "strong, independent" wahmen uses trickery(ah! female nature) to trap a very high value male(our prince). Her pretense is she'll be a psychotherapist to him, and use her secret skill called hypnosis to recover his very traumatic childhood memories. Good. Except she ain't any hypnotist. She has a bracelet with what looks like a rudraksha that produces a ringing sound which is heard only by the prince and which traps him. Well, generally women use sex and makeup, but whatever. Now our good doctor freely abuses her patient to make him act in love under hypnosis. Our prince is oh so innocent about sex. He resists her attempts to do this, but she won't stop(is this not drug rape or something?). Hypnosis sessions make the prince exhausted and he is a bit lax on his political duties. Prince also has a habit of sleepwalking, due to which he always lands up in his wife's(yeah they contract marry) chambers. Finally when prince is hopelessly in love with his wife(literally dancing on her fingertips under hypnosis), she suddenly meets an old flame. Chad enters the (nonexistent) plot. Princess cuckolds prince and is often running towards the old "friend". Tolerate this for 10 episodes if you like. Some stupid political filler. Deaths here and there. Drama ends. You can celebrate that a manipulative female has successfully trapped the future Emperor of China. I'm pretty sure it won't fare good for the country.

Actors/Cast: Now these are actually good. The cast does its job very well. Its the writes that are lame(or perhaps "ideologically motivated")
Music: If you don't remember it later, it ain't worth listening to anyway. Timepass.
Cinematography: That's where most of the budget went. And costumes. Though there were excess of close up shots, as in full blown facial shots, that I didn't like. Like if there's a dialogue, I don't need to see a giant face every time someone speaks. They can keep cameras a bit away from subject.
Rewatch value: If you're a manipulative female, or like such heroines, then perhaps you could re-watch it. Truthfully, its just, meh! Save your time and watch "Consort Meng Arrives". I'll take Consort Meng over Princess Ming any day. She's less headache and more witty.

Leia Mais

Well made, but ending is not satisfactory

The overall plot is simple - as shown in trailer. Red Riding Hood plays the role of a detective traveling though a forest, when she comes across Cinderella. Finding something odd about her, Red Riding Hood decides to become part of her adventure for the ball night, en route to which the magic pumpkin carriage runs over a dead man, who turns out to be the royal hairdresser. Once King's security discovers the dead man, a search is initiated to find the murderer. The majority of movie is spent on turning the ballroom night into a closed room murder mystery.

Everything was good. Plot, costumes, cinematography, VFX - everything fit well with the fantasy genre. I just didn't like the ending. I really think Cinderella could have been pardoned by the Prince, or given relatively reduce punishment, for essentially defending herself from a creepy psycho trying to assault her. I didn't get the moral or ethical worldview the movie was trying to pursue.

Apart from the murder mystery, there is little extra content in the plot, except recycled characters from well known stories. Maybe they were trying to go for "true love does not care for external beauty" but it didn't come across well.

It is a decent movie that blends fantasy + mystery. Still unhappy about the ending though.

Leia Mais

Mostly Boring

Not a lot of comedy in this series. Show tries to run propaganda of "strong divorced woman". Husband is the only one who has to repair all his "mistakes"(read sacrifices) to become an even greater domestic scapegoat for an ungrateful family, in particular a really undeserving wife. The wife is divorcing over non-issue instead of repairing her attitude. That is the narcissistic modern Korean woman for you. Unbearable, ugly and fake.

Wife is flirting at office as divorce is going on. Hard to sympathize with such a character. She does nothing to support her husband's career but this show forces you to believe that supporting wife's dreams is husband's role(hint: it's not). Children are not likeable either. Probably a metaphor for modern Korea, and pathetic situation men find themselves in. Time to get a North Korean waifu.

Honestly, North Korean women are much prettier, look natural and have far less attitude.

Leia Mais

Like a flower on hillside

A beautiful drama. They don't make dramas like this anymore. Watch it as long as you find it.

A sad, poignant meditation on death. Simply beautiful. The OST tune has an ethereal charm.

Acting is great. A unique factor for modern audience is that this drama is set out of the city in a smaller locality. Probably outside Seoul. This makes for interesting visuals and dynamics of family. You will also learn about traditional rituals in Korea associated with passing of a person.

As I said, a meditation on death. If you lose someone, come here. This drama will comfort you. You can bear pain with smile. You will not be disappointed.

Cha Tae-hyun's smile and his usual demeanor will keep you fixated. You'll want to smile and cry at the same time. A sense of impending loss hangs like a shadow above the story.

Give it a try.

Leia Mais

Beta simp on a mission to find his abusive wife!!

True love is it not. When a 500 won coin liberates you from a thankless existence, so pathetic that even plot writers won't excuse themselves for shaming you for your wife's lack of communication skills, and then fate puts you on a pedestal, what would you do? Of course seek your misery again as your "one true love" in a post wall woman. Cute, is it not. Maybe good for fancies of 30+ age women.

This is the first drama I actually sympathized with "rich bitch" wife. Since such a character is usually abused by writers in KDramas. Here too they did try to show that she was preying on a younger lad, but I guess they found some sense and did turn it into "rich noona" situation. She's very good. Not a career obsessed freak. Totally waits on her husband. Her entitlement is a small compromise against the good stuff.

Misery loves company. That's the drama in a nutshell. Nobody can find fault in marvelous acting skills of Ji Sung and Han-Ji Min. But the characters here are not great. The onus of repairing seems to fall entirely on Ji Sung's character (husband). His wife's character does not realize any of her own mistakes(apparently she was short circuited and oppressed by her overworked husband who took extreme pains to give their family a good life.) In addition, there is the usual propaganda - housewife=depressed oppressed woman. Overworked post wall bank employee = career woman who is totally happy.

Bank employees and their antics provided much needed comic relief since the main lead's romance existed mostly in cringe flashbacks. I mean, Han-ji Min is a proper ajumma now. And Ji Sung is above 40. Not even the best makeup can make them look like high school students. Unfortunately, writers didn't write good comic script. The flyer with spelling mistake was probably the most original comic joke.

Cinematography: American sitcom ultra shake mode was always on. A thousand different cuts in one conversations. I mean, Han-ji Min's character is talking to that restaurant guy's wife. Tone of conversation is very muted. A casual talk. And the camera - cut to Han-ji Min's face, cut to other woman's face, cut to through the window shot, cut to inside the restaurant shot, cut to hair, cut to hands, cut to lips, cut to perspective shift, cut to....ah! Learn to operate a camera. Crafty angles won't make your pathetic dialogue sound like Buddha speaking at Jetavana.

Not worth a rewatch. You can drop it after Ep 12 if you ask me. Nice OST BTW. Ultra cheap drama with no location, costume, sets to feel great about. Most of the money was spent in lassoing expensive leads. I mean, they were running a bank in a hotel lobby. What do you expect.

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Strange but beautiful!

Mysterious. I liked it. Although mostly because it reminded me of old friendships from school. And the concept was new and intriguing.

Very beautiful shots. But camerawork and bokeh are stupid reasons to watch a movie. Characters act wooden. Crying and laughter look rather muted and fake. Acting is slightly lackluster and urgency of island as a trap is not conveyed properly.

You get to see beautiful Yahagi Honoka(the Itazuru no kiss actress) but she is in a supporting role and is mostly sulking throughout the movie.

Overall good story and beautifully made but acting does not match the vision of this story. Division of movie into novel like chapters is not helpful as it feels that you are watching a visual novel and not a movie. Movie is very sequential - good mystery based movies try to keep more than one thing happening simultaneously. Screenplay was not scrutinized properly.

Can be watched once if you like an intriguing plot. Cinematography has an almost painting like quality - honestly very cool to look at. I wish the actors were given more time to polish their performances.

Leia Mais

Beautiful fantasy adventure movie

Liked this movie based on brotherhood. A scholar and a fox on a journey meeting various challenges is a quite classic format of Chinese mythical tales. This movie is beautifully executed. The CGI is brilliant. I don't think many people will notice it but background music is also good. Often bad background score can spoil a good movie. The background score for this movie is given by none other than Joe Hisaishi, who has given music to Miyazaki movies from Studio Ghibli. Remember "One Summer Day" from Spirited Away - that's Joe Hisaishi. Don't miss this experience!

The sequence of scholar giving exam and descending to nether realm is one of the most brilliant plot devices I've seen in recent Chinese fantasy genre. That alone makes this movie worth watching. I don't know about second watch, but this movie is definitely worth a try at least once.

Movie is full of beautiful colors. Overall a very pleasant watch. Perhaps men will like this more.

Leia Mais