best way to start 2024

historical dramas lately follow the "text book" to the T. everything feels the same so this was a breath of fresh air
the good,
strong female character
sweet adorable male lead
great noona romance*
secondary couple*
*yeah romance wasn't the focus, and non romance genres have the best romances ;(
everyone was smart
no unnecessary misunderstandings
the bad guy being nice to his family, I actually had a hard time because old historical "ministers" looked the same, so when he was nice at home and evil at work, it took me a while to realizes that was him
the husband was a cutie ;(

the bad
it was short
the ending felt a bit rushed
not enough romance

the grey
the "age gaps" were great in both couples, but becasue the fl was strong and independent, the ml was overshadowed, though it gave us a great "fl saves the day", I wish he had more scenes with his work to highlight him more, though they did highlight his pure heart well

Leia Mais

Hunger is greed

Food here could be substituted with any materialistic object with the vs of rich people. You either run towards something and you lose time, ie poor people, or you have too much of something and you lose it's value
Life is about balance, about gratefulness and about giving more than receiving. Rich people might think they have more but in reality they have so much less because they're never satisfied
Poor people are never happy because they always want more


Great filmography quality the biggest benefit of Netflix production. beautiful food. a nice message of poor vs rich, hunger, greed, definition of success, and be satisfied with what you have vs what you could have.

Not enough grittiness, aokbab is a great actress but her stoic richbitch vibe didn't feel as greedy as she should've been. The 1 second nudity was uncalled for and the downside of Netflix

The way those rich people ate was way too gross, and tho I understand the hunger metaphor and I don't doubt rich people do live their lives devouring their pleasures, but I also don't think they'd go around like eating animals, etiquette is a rich people nature
Overall good but not great

Leia Mais

Best manga/anime adaptation

I do believe I haven't watched that many anime/manga adaptations, but this keeps the magical anime world and blends it so well with the real world that it doesn't feel childish, cheap, unbelievable (like my skip beat which deserves a remake xD)
Plus their outfits are rocking tho I wish they changed more, or well had more eps to give us more amazing outfits


Production and quality are really great, better than most jdramas/manga adaptations.


Anyway the writing could get a bit better, I feel like rohan is always too shocked and the explanations are a bit convenient and easy to get through.
I do think maybe even 5 eps season could allow for more character growth cuz there's a pattern of rohan getting into unexpected magical situations eventho he too has magic and he's always surprised and then it's solved
So more eps would allow for one villain to stay longer and maybe get a bit more depth, more character, friends and more dependency. Right now it's rohan, his guest appearing assistant vs 1 day villains

Anyway still a great yearly tradition and I hope they continue ❣

Leia Mais

Educational cliche drama

Just like webdramas about almonds, this was a drama educating and encouraging ppl on stock investments. From a running man ep, it seems the new korean trend is investment so this was a cute and fun way to showcase what it feels like to invest. The losses, the addiction, and the benefits

Cliches are never dead so atleast it was done a bit differently, more comedic that it didn't take itself seriously and the ending was so fulfilling honestly it's like a breath of fresh air with 22's sad endings

The bonds were cute, han jieun was the highlight and the cherry that carried this show, the comedy fell a bit short but HJE kept it fresh
I like hong jong hyun and missed him in dramaland but his character did feel a bit bland, he was always too careful that he didn't feel that happy or in love. I did like his past pretrauma tho

Leia Mais

my byun yo han did such a great job though I couldn't help but wish for more ;(

this was a nice full story, the plot moved in several years smoothly and gradually that it all felt harmonious

tbh I wasn't a fan of the black and white, there were 3 scenes with brief colors and I think it ruined the mood, the story wasn't about paleness of life, making it b&w felt too forced, they severely missed on the playment of the beautiful blue ocean and better the actual washed out colors of "poverty", I felt like most of them wore browns or beige surrounded by sand and that would've gave them the dry vibes more
the subtle human interactions and friendships were really sweet though it feels bitter sweet with no real conclusion unless they wanted to convey "home" is the best place

Leia Mais

a typical action comedy that was still entertaining. their comedy sense at points reached a childish point, but a few scenes made me laugh alot, my favorite was that redvelvet shirt scene xD


I don't know if it was a pun and he was called yuri or he was indeed also a redvelvet fan that's why he wanted to even the field for a fair battle, xD

the overall background conflict was kinda boring tbh and the fight scenes were meh but it was nice to see KYK do both a comedic role and a somewhat serious one and I think this was the best balancewise from his works, and subin is the perfect actress for a spy genre and they gave her good amount of credit though it seems they'll always make the fl hostage while the ml comes back but still she pulled her own weight and fight scenes well

Leia Mais

misfortune magnat

ever since the 1st plot move the fl was just too "unfortunate". her mom loved her brother more and she neglected her daughter.


the brother dies and the dad disappears so the mom abandons her only kid too. the fl doesn't know what to do so she works for an insurance company. she doesn't do well so her coworker tells her to do whatever so people would buy. then he disappears and she's fired becasue the big boss found out.

so like my main problem here was, why not work as a secretary, a waitress, anything else... but noo her past turned her into prostitution, and beside her abusive boyfriend there's a gang that targets prostitutes... everything was just too convenient, like point A led to point B and that led to her becoming a murderer..

but in the end she fakes her death and works at a cafe in her hometown. like why wasn't that her 1st target? becasue the writers wanted her to break...
oh yeah at the end they showed that the ml was the guy who gave the kid vr of her that fish. though I knew from the start it was him becasue of his voice, it was yet another perfectly fitted plot move.. also pretty creepy..

Leia Mais

I loved the outfits and the settings and I really liked the sweet cooking vibes, but for one thing I hated the bald hair, even though it's part of their culture it felt awkward to me.

and another thing I disliked was the slowness of it, I got the sweet little unexpected familial feels but the plot seemed too empty, nothing much happened and in the last ep I thought "wait that's it?". so there was no closure, no ending, no resolution.
the romance as well, they weren't mismatched but again there was no confession, no progress. it was overall like I just watched a cooking show..

Leia Mais

the story was simple and silly, but I love plots with the "a wish magically comes true" trope~ it had the Big and 13 going on 30 kind of a vibe and it was really sweet to see the truth behind the sibling "rivalry".

a few of my favorite lines were "she knows too much about you, she must be your nemesis" xD "it was a blessing to be Shi Miao's brother" and the best one "you forgot something. ME" TT_TT

when the movie start we see this overly childish kinda annoying kid that won't stop bothering his sister and the sister that just can't take him anymore that she wishes him away, but instead of just disappearing he becomes her best friend's brother and through that she starts to see the reasons behind her brothers actions ;(

the parents were horrible people tbh, and the events in the movie were pretty basic but they delivered the sibling love really well.

I'm so used to dramas vr of "teenagers" that a real 16 year old looked too young to be 16 xD also now I see the brother was almost 23 but he captured the annoying youthfulness of a 18(?) year old really well, though again he also looked younger xD

Leia Mais

I've only seen 8 chinese movies (1 is a jackie chan, 6 are for my bias idol/actors, and 1 was just too weird) so it's new grounds for me, but this was beautiful!
the production, the directing and the camera work was top notch, though I'd have preferred prettier uniforms (thanks to kdramas love of pretty uniforms xD) but overall this had great quality.

there are a few plot moves I hate, and one is unnecessary angst/crazy characters that turn psychopathic. and this thankfully handled everything well.

Jackson Yi was only 18 when he pulled that off! he was amazing! his expressions, and the control over his movements was beautiful.. tbh even though I am an idol fangirl, I only heard of the name TFBOYS but I'd have been super prejudice if I read his bio before starting this. I only looked at his age and I was blown away by his acting.
also, I cried the most over the loss of that manbun ;p

Zhou Dong Yu on the other hand was 27! and she doesn't look a day older than 17 tbh, but she also had that control and maturity in her that actually gave extra depth to the character and her emotional control rather than making their age gap obvious or weird.

the development of the story was beautiful, granted it was a little too long so I had to pause every once in a while but that's just because I didn't want to look away while watching this. the vulnerability, the friendship, the connection was just beautiful~

I wanted a little more clarification on Xiao Bei's mom. they mentioned her again but I didn't get the point. did the cops previously meet Xiao Bei becasue he was searching for her? or did the cops know her?

anyway, I did think the cops were a little conveniently "dumb" and unable to talk or get their points across, but overall it was nicely wrapped up. though I slightly needed a little "more" of that ending :)

the songs were nice and I never rewatch movies, though I'll add this to my fav movies list, and maybe even the rare gems one too~

Leia Mais

I'm soft for these kinds of stories, they really had me at "based on a true story" TT_TT
Sawada was the true mvp here! he had so much genuine feelings, his happiness for other people's good news, and his heartache for their sad news was so heartwarming and he did so much for Bae Jae Cheol..

Bae Jae Cheol was kinda really selfish (maybe they made it more dramatic for the movie), but his wife also had her own problems and he never really tried to help her. she was an angel to put her own problems aside and stand by him :) looking at some real videos though, Bae looks like a sweet guy.
and they might've not fully added her story for time value ;)

also, I wonder if Misaki was also based on a real person because I shipped her with Sawada xD
I'm a huge opera fan so I loved the soundtracks, but the audio quality was not that great, and sometimes the background singing was louder than the dialog, plus they also had such a diverse cast, and with their accents it was kinda hard to catch everything but since they added korean subs it was only a problem for me ;p

Leia Mais

I'm a sucker for lookalikes switching identities, it's a classic move xD I've probably seen every american movie out there with this theme ;p
unsurprisingly it's my first drama with Seo Ji Soo, but she's a natural! and pretty too~ I specifically loved Jung Da Eun as a character, and she pulled of the 2 roles so well, specially the way she changed her tone for each character (usually plots like this get unrealistic with that point). and she has a great singing voice too~
90% of my rating is for her, 6% is for mini queen Yoo Ari and 4% is for Yoo Ji Han's smile ;)

the public and law honestly needs to condemn saesangs, and this drama was a nice realistic outlook of the hardships of idols, that's why I loved Yoo Ari, she was a true genuine fan, though it's better to not engage with saesangs ;)

I have to say though, Shin Jun Seop was not that good (that's why I'm removing a 0.5), though his singing voice was nice~

the music and duet were nice too, and my rewatch values are 1 or 10, and I prefer to hope for more acting roles for Seo Ji Soo, and a longer vr of this drama xD

Leia Mais

I'm a huge fan of the series, and in this movie they picked out all of my favorite characters (minus jisoo) and they even gave Jung Tae Soo a nice small role, though I wish Yoo Mi Young had a bigger role, she really improved from the earlier season.
I loved the new addition of a bad "girl", she was awesome and if there's more to this installment, I wish to see her (and jisoo) again ;)
I always say Ma Dong Seok is the only believable 1 vs 100, or ruining through walls and doors xD and he always has the greatest comedic lines. "no onion please", gang pawn "how did you get here" MDS: "with the gps"! xD

the story is pretty simple, prison bus turns over, prisoners run away, bad guys tried to collect them and they find out the big plot.

my rewatch values are 1 or a 10, and I rarely rewatch movies ;)

Leia Mais

the best feature this season had was the possibility that they won't be able escape and a member could "die", that made the whole show like a live live action movie~ my favorite ep would be the zombie one, it was better than a movie.. I also liked the one that was like the drama the guest. they should do another try with the prison escape... oh, and the last one with the psychopath killer was cool too, though I wished the killer was more psycho :p

the 2nd season was even more fun and exciting than the 1st one, so I have high hopes for s3.. everything improved and it was already awesome~ this show is built around the cast and their individuality, so I prefer it if they keep the guests to a minimum..

Leia Mais