Watched/Completed in 2020

I watched this as a hate watch and it was pretty decent for a hate watch. ML is a dick with a super ridiculous and possessive mentality. The first 3 episodes will have you going WTF!? but it gets better after that. FL is a singer, so the OST is actually pretty good. The last two episodes were a draggy waste of time. Random note: FL is just gorgeous.

It had an average "okay" plot to begin with. There were many plot holes and illogical things that didn't make sense, including the villains' reasons for being evil. I was contemplating keeping my rating at 6 or lowering it, but the horrible ending sealed it for me.

I feel conflicted because I wasn't the biggest fan of the plot for part 3, but I loved the action.

I think i just really ended up loving this movie because it was the finale and because of the whole east meets west thing (except it didn't have the whole white savior thing going on). I loved the production and set design (1960s America and 1960s Chinatown). Because it took place in Cali we got to see more diversity in the cast (and omg Vanness is in it!!!). I loved that we got to see female fighters. Speaking of females, I loved how they briefly covered Yonah's story as a second generation immigrant and her struggle dealing with her dual identity as a Chinese American. These movies follow a pattern, but for some reason i thought this was refreshing and i loved this part almost as much as the first movie.

Feel good family drama. ALMOST up there with Five Children. It had a really great cast and they did not let that talent go to waste. I liked 80% of the supporting characters. I think there was just one part I didn't like, which is when the antagonist comes into the picture, but that arch lasted about 10 episodes at most. Gonna miss this family. ^^

This was a wannabe sports drama. It had way too many cliches going on for my liking, but it was cute and they somehow managed to make it work. I loved the mischievous cat meowing sounds. The editing for the ice hockey scenes annoyed me and there was some obvious use of stunt doubles for ice scenes. This drama was overhyped, but cute.

I started this yesterday and I'm amazed that this did not get spoiled for me. Total bingeworthy drama. LJK did a fantastic job acting. On another note, I miss Kim Ji Hoon and need to see him in a main role again.

Librarian soldiers...interesting.

I was not expecting to see so many butts. O_O

I loved it! This would've been perfect for October, but whatever...close enough. This was such a fun drama and not scary despite being about monsters. I loved the animated scenes too.

This drama got me in the mood to kick off October fest for dramas early, so I'll try to focus on dramas that are monster/ghost/spooky themed. ^w^

Idk, it's bad and good at the same time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's frustrating how smart these characters can be (solving puzzles and stuff), yet SO STUPID at the same time. >_<

This was in my currently watching list for almost a year. >_< Anyways, I don't want to go anywhere near the university this guy goes to. I didn't care much about the cases throughout the drama, but *the* twist made it worth it for me. I'm still super confused by the ending (the very last part where he looks up and sees something).

Finally finished this. I had to force myself to get through it. It has its good moments, but overall it was sort of blah for me. Not bad, but not good either. Possesive male lead and crybaby female lead...the beginning makes it seem like it's gonna be in slap/kiss territory, but luckily it's not. It's not even worth a good hate watch. I will say that I had major second lead syndrome though.

Warukunai (not bad). :P

I started this drama when it first aired and it was sitting in my On Hold list for 7 years! >_< I had to start all over again, but at least there was an even bigger gap from the time when I read the manga to the time I watched this drama. The twins are still my favorite characters. Just realized both Anne Watanabe and Higashide Masahiro are in this drama. (Awkward...this is why I don't like paying attention to celebrity gossip). However, I did love Anne's portrayal of Yuko. She did an awesome job.

Still so much stupidity, but this season was an improvement from last season I suppose. I really love the casting for Fatty (can I keep him for future seasons??). This season is still pretty inconsistent and jumps all over the place. It was confusing af, especially with cast change. However, it's still got its funny and awesome moments.

What should I watch next?
1, Mystic Nine
2. Tomb of the Sea (aka Sand Sea)
3. Reunion: Sound of Providence 1&2 (still being subbed?)
4. Other (related)

I can think of so many daddy jokes. xD Interesting twist on the contract relationship trope. Of course, I'm a sucker for it. Pretty good and cute for a webdrama. I didn't find it draggy at all.

Marathon alert! I forgot why I added this to my watchlist and went into this drama blind and I was pleasantly surprised to realize this is a remake of a very popular Korean classic (that I also loved). I liked this version. This is probably my second favorite remake. There are things that I liked better than the original (FL is actually cute, talented, and not dumb...ML is less of a dick) and there were things that were worse (added unnecessary tropes, real bitchy characters, etc). The main thing that annoyed me was that the bitchy characters (although they changed for the better) got happy endings and ended up with guys waaaay too sweet for them. Those guys deserved better! Also, ML being totally irresponsible and unprofressional toward career and commitments annoyed me too.

p.s. The houses are gorgeous! (They're a dead giveaway to what the original series is called).

Maybe a 6.5? This was a cute, funny, and heartwarming story about Franken learning how to be human via the small little things that make us human. The first half was really boring and i had to force myself through it, but the second half was pretty interesting. It did get a bit repetitive at times, but I'd say this was a pretty wholesome drama.

A little too pervy for my liking. The amount of molestation in this drama is disgusting. Also, that ending...wtf.

Amazing. Now I gotta wait until end of November to watch the sequel.

I think people slept on this series because I hardly saw it in my feeds. Maybe it was because main actor is not that popular...idk. Anyways, I enjoyed this drama and thought that it was slightly above average than most of the romances that China pushed out in 2020. Maybe it had to do with me being a fan of the main actress (Sun Qian). Maybe it had to do with ML having 2 cats....or maybe it just worked out timing wise cuz I was watching Horror/Thrillers back to back and this was a nice break. For a romance, it really hit the spot. I also really liked the business side of the plot.

Things to note:
-FL is kind of young so, although there is kissing, there's nothing intense with the main couple (that was fine with me).
- ML can be annoyingly irrational due to jealousy.
+This is not a school/youth type plot (thank god) even though technically they did go from classmates to lovers.

85% business, 15% romance and the business part of it was realllly boring. I mainly watched for the dog. Speaking of the dog, the ML has an usual obsession over it. He's been separated from his dog for like 10? years and all he does is draw his dog because he misses it so much (not his mom, not his dad or grandpa, not even his friends....his dog!)

Keeps you guessing and has many twists. The first half was a 7, but second half is an 8 or 8+. I also really liked the casting choice because some of the casting threw me off.

SUPER cheesy (think Twilight) and yet I liked it. It brought me back to my teenage fangirl years. It's actually pretty good for webdrama standards, especially for its time period. The music was such a throwback.

Great mystery/suspense with a nice balance of romance. The twist at the end really did throw me off. Keeps you guessing.

I dont think this stood the test of time well...or it was not that good to begin with anyway. It's kind of cheesy for a crime/thriller and it got draggy. I also didn't like how stubborn and incompetent the cops were. The halfway point was pretty good.

Out of the zombie movies I've watched this year, this is my favorite so far lol.

Before you start coming at me with pitchforks, I'm rating this as a documentary. I thought it was a solid good documentary.

The last two episodes were amazing, but the beginning couple of episodes got super political and lost my interest. *yawn* I also ruined s2 for myself because I watched after a huge gap between season 1. Also, I broke one of the cardinal rules of watching Horror by stopping in between and taking breaks. It's interesting...for s1 I barely touched the FF button, but for s2 I had to watch with 1.5 playback speed. >_<

One of the few series I watched this year with minimal fast forwarding. Not sure what I can say without giving too much away. I could probably push my rating to a 9 due to the symbolism and the way things tied back together beautifully in the end. Some "wishes" were more satisfying than others. There were some incompetent cops that would normally annoy me, but they were more lazy than dumb. The fact that ML, his boss, and FL were super smart more than made up for it.

This was sooo slow paced and 95% of the characters were so dull. I just wanted to be put out of my misery. However, there were some things I liked, such as the music (obviously) and main couple's natural interactions. They was a natural awkwardness they had around one another. Plus, the progression of their relationship was nice. Someone mentioned lots of angst...but I'd say this was more agony. xD

Uhh....how do I put this...If you're watching for Marcus, the on screen romance, steamy kisses or bed scenes then you will love this drama. Marcus is like a piece of meat used to lure in fangirls/boys. There are plenty of shower scenes and you'll see him wearing partly unbutton shirts or shirts with a low neckline. I don't really pay attention to this stuff, but once you notice the objectification it's hard to ignore.

If you're watching for the plot, it's pretty mediocre as far as the "I'm stuck inside my own novel" type plots go. This is probably my 5th drama with this type of plot and so far it's toward the bottom of the ranking list.

I just needed to watch something mindless. I appreciated the bromance.

It got a bit repetitive and draggy toward the end, but overall I liked it. :)

Not sure how to rate this because I feel like most vampire romances are cheesy with bad cgi to begin with anyway. The vampire action was just...lol. There was some lazy writing too, but it's not that bad.

This was really weird, but interesting.  Ji Sung and Park So Dam. 'Nuff said.

Better than expected. Gu Xuan Wu was my favorite character. ♥ Gonna miss these dorks. I know there's a season 2, but I don't think I'll continue due to the stuff I've read about it.

Idk, I can't tell if I didn't like it cuz I was bored plus that ending OR if I didn't get into it cuz someone spoiled the movie for me in the first 5 minutes. I'm not sure if it was bad, but it was really long and draggy and I'm not sure what the message of the story was.

Campy, goofy, fun. Yes, it can be dumb at times, but it makes fun of itself so it's all good.

This got added to Netflix USA today. I don't know what the standard is for Filipino horror, but I found this pretty okay. Macmac was adorable.

The part where my brain got stuck at was that they were Catholic priests, but they needed to find a vice exorcist born in the year of the tiger. o_O  Anyways, Park So Dam was fantastic in this.

Oh my gosh, I loved it so much. The cinematography and direction were so good that I could not bring myself to fast forward or speed watch. You can tell they did an amazing job at acting too. It's just that some of it took a hit with the dubbing. Nonetheless, the drama was still fantastic and the OST was amazing. I did have to take a break just because I wasn't speed watching. Some episodes were less interesting than others (though not bad), but the story picks right back up again. I highly recommend to watch with the highest quality possible. Luckily, it's on Netflix!

I'm a sucker for contract marriage plots, but this was very very cliche, which I still loved in the first half. I think what made me drop my rating was the tsundere male lead, even though there was character growth, and the dumb female lead. FL wasn't dumb to begin with, she was just naive and trusting of people. It's just that somehow after marriage she turned into a complete idiot...which she shouldn't have majored in business or statistics if she was. It just doesn't add up nor did her career trajectory. Also, I wish they had a better conclusion for the cousin's storyline.

The plot is like a 6.5. This is a makjang, so if you're not into soap opera melodrama, this is not for you. Lee Yoo Ri is a fantastic actress as usual. I found the first half of the drama to be slightly draggy when it came to revelations. I liked the second half better. I think what mainly hurt the drama was the 16 episode format constraint. They could've shortened it to 12.

So I was debating between 7 and 7.5 while watching this, but the later episodes are quite good so I'm giving it the higher rating. Also, the dog is sooooo cute. And she wasn't just there for the cute factor, I liked how they incorporated her into the plot/script. The business drama was also not ultra boring, so that's a plus...oh, and no cheap dubbing!

It had some funny moments which "saved" the drama, but no, not worth watching. Major cringe, lots of second hand embarrassment, bad acting, low quality, cheap dubbing. You can tell it's based off one of those trashy, but highly addicting romance cnovels...you know the ones. Clearly stuff was edited out. If I had read the novel, I think I would have liked it, but not the execution of the drama. I had to watch the second half with 2x playback speed. Thank god it's over.

cheesy delinquent movie. ML is hilarious.

I actually really enjoyed it. I thought it was refreshing. FL is strong and such a sweetheart. ML is not that assertive like most dominant cdrama MLs are. In fact, it's the FL who is bold and saves him from trouble. This is a slow burn college romance. Riley Wang is not exactly the best actor out there, but he does a decent job. He's mainly kind of there for his cute smile/dimples. Oh, and I enjoyed the musical performances better than in Do You Like Brahms? xD

Not as good as the movie, but still decent. It's such a pity because this started out sooo amazing, but kind of became mediocre. I was already expecting the plot to be somewhat stretched out and as expected some parts were a bit draggy, but it wasn't too bad. I'd say it's a 7, but +0.5 for the food porn and soundtrack. This drama has no dubbing!

I love my heist movies. This is no Ocean's Eleven and it's actually kind of a hot mess, but it's supposed to be. The craziness of it all causes many twists in the story. It has a great cast and I loved the action and stunts.

Let's just say my average episode rating is 5.38. It's hard to believe this was produced by Studio Dragon. This writer's other dramas sucked too. I should've looked up the writer beforehand.

It was pretty decent. I could push my rating to a 7, but I found it to be slightly repetitive. Or maybe I'm going through a burnout.

If I see another pink cdrama poster, I think I'm going to vomit. I wasn't going to watch this, but then I noticed it was a sports drama about basketball (my favorite sport) so I had to check it out. This drama didn't totally suck, but I didn't enjoy the basketball/sports part of it either. Some of it had to do with the editing (though not as bad as the ice skating sports dramas). For some reason, I just didn't feel the rush, anticipation, or excitement. I'm pretty sure they used some stunt doubles, but this wasn't as noticeable. I did judge how FL dribbled the ball (she was supposed to be a good player and dribbing is literally the first thing you're taught).

Also, the whole scenario is just so absurd. The university basketball team disbanded because the former coach died and now there's no one interested in playing basketball so the former coach's daughter tries to revive the team. Are you kidding me? Basketball is a popular sport. It's hard to believe there's not enough people to form a team. And the university couldn't hire a new coach?? So some FRESHMEN girl steps up because her daddy was the former coach. Makes no sense since universities are very competitive when it comes to forming sports teams and hiring coaches. Apparently, this is based off some novel, but the whole scenario is still dumb. Also, the ML flaunts his wealth and buys FL stuff a lot.

It's pretty funny, ridiculous, and entertaining, but I got so stressed over the FL. I can't tell if she was dumb, naïve, or just reckless. I guess she improved by the end.

I can see why people didn't like it cuz of the ending, but I liked it.

Finally finished it on the 3rd try. I got half way through before, but I could never finish it for some reason. First half was boring for me, but I think it's just not my thing.

Funny and heartwarming.

I could not recognize young Jackie Chan! xD Okay, this took me forever to finish because I kept falling asleep. However, I actually really liked it for the action and slapstick style humor. I would recommend it only if you can watch people work out using unconventional training methods and enjoy people doing cool tricks/flips/kicks.

It's hard to rate this drama cuz there are 10 stories, each written and directed by different people starring differing cast. Some stories were okay, but some were AMAZING. My average episode rating was 7.55. That being said, this drama made me feel ALL the feels including shock and surprise. I loved how it covered the pandemic from multiple angles, not just health care workers, but other essential employees and unsung heroes.

I will say this drama covers a very sensitive subject matter, not just emotionally, but probably politically. Like it's amazing to see all these people work together to fight the pandemic, but as an outsider you can see the propaganda, and you might have to swallow some negative thoughts you might feel about the country and its involvement with the pandemic.

p.s. It's really weird to see popular actors bare faced. I'm so used to seeing them with makeup and all glammed up. For some of the stories, I'm pretty sure they added makeup to make them look extra tired and exhausted.

I teared up...just as expected. T-T

Loved it! Her journey as an actress sort of reminded me of Skip Beat. I wasn't a fan of the bullying toward the end though. I'm considering reading the manga after this.

2020 MDL Watch Challenge - The 90s!

I'm not sure why it's called Mom Has An Affair because the mom does NOT have an affair. This is one of those typical daily airing soaps where things are very black and white. The characters are pretty flat. The antagonists are scum with no sense of morals or guilt. The villains hold all the cards in their hands until the very end. I'd say the story was a 7/10. It got good toward the middle, but it took a hit. There was something off about this drama. I can't say it was because of bad acting, but more so bad script and direction. It just made the acting seem cartoonish. Once they started zooming in on everyone's shocked faces, I knew it was a cheap production. The last 30-40 episodes were such a drag and barely had any comic relief. They left some loose ends too. What I really loved were the kids, the dog, and the grandma.

Pretty much a repeat of season 1, which is slightly annoying if you watch s1 and s2 back to back. This season gets more into the romance, which can be problematic for our current times. 90's MLs were a different breed in dramaland and Japan is known for its controversial romances. Let's just say FL is still in high school...or maybe not. They sort of stop showing her going to school at some point, but never mentioned she graduated. I also see the Adult/Minor tag so I'm gonna assume she's still in high school in season 2. Anyways, it's not that creepy, except for one or two things depending on how you interpret it.

Nice to see the conclusion. The whole adult/minor thing did give me a couple of panic attacks, but they were mostly false alarms. She has an "older" look in the SP so I'm gonna tell myself that she's an adult now so I can consume the story.

I was not expecting this to be a musical. Some of the songs seemed like an odd fit for the overall mood and theme of the story.

Just one of those goofy, fun movies.

umm, wut? o__o istg, this drama has tried to kill me multiple times with its twists. Here's what I liked....Mimi (the dog) is hands down the best thing about this show. The music is fun and I really enjoyed the piano playing. I loved the cast, although nothing really stood out with them in this drama. Other than that, the story was mostly boring. Yes, it had a couple of twists, but I'm not sure if I actually liked them. So overall, the drama was pretty meh for me.

First of all, I know this is written by same writer as Cruel City, but lower your expectations...like a lot. The plot did get really good at one point and the action was pretty good, but the drama tanked toward the end. And I think most people said that throughout this drama they felt confused or lost as to what was going. It seemed to me like this drama was having an identity crisis. Is it a drama about swindling? Espionage? Political Conspiracy? It just seemed all over the place. I never got fully invested in the characters and ultimately felt unsatisfied by the end. It didn't feel like a proper conclusion...something was missing and I think it's because they didn't tie it back to the beginning.

I'm surprised this didn't get spoiled for me. So I'm a fan of supernatural dramas and this is exactly my cup of tea, even if it isn't all that amazing. If you're a fan of The Vampire Diaries or Goblin you will probably like this. I love how the fox brothers had a very Damon/Stefan like relationship. No comment on the graphics, this was filmed during a pandemic and they tried to do they best they could by even delaying the show by a week. It did get a bit draggy and repetitive toward the end. Some episodes were sort of boring, but had an fantastic ending. Overall, I enjoyed the drama.

I marathoned this drama this weekend so I avoided all the drama on the feeds/comments section and the spoilers. All I knew was that people were really divided over the two MLs. I actually really liked Start Up, even though it had some plotholes. And yes, that's even after my ship did NOT make it, but I'm not butthurt about it. There's this formula when it comes to love triangles in kdramas (that are too close to call) in which 9/10 dramas follow. This is one of those exceptions and I think people felt really betrayed. The first half was inspiring and innovating and the second half slowed down a bit, but I still enjoyed the drama overall and the character growth. There were valuable lessons learned even if it wasn't entirely accurate.

Nothing special about this lakorn. I actually watched because one of my favorite supporting actors is in it (Anuchit Sapunpohng), but he plays one of the villains (yikes). I ended up having to watch a lot of the annoying antagonist scenes. What's different about this lakorn is that it puts a twist on the kidnapping/island trope. The FL arrives at the island by herself and practically delivers herself to the ML as a hostage. xD It has no slap/kiss and no rape (but nang rai gets date raped). Oh, and the child actors were adorable.

This isn't BL, it's an LGBT drama. I don't know how to describe it other than "beautiful". Be warned: It's slow paced and some scenes may break your heart.

It's a black comedy, so it shows the cons of pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare (often not talked about), which can mainly be digested with a dark sense of humor. As someone who has never gone through a pregnancy, I felt uncomfortable laughing at some of the stuff cuz that could be me one day. Of course, there are good parts to childbirth and becoming a mom too. The drama is also very heartwarming and brought up a lot of good points. I loved the character growth of some of these characters.

Battle Royal meets Die Now? My average episode rating is 8.3. I might lower my score down to an 8 after my initial excitement and hype dies down. Every once in a while Netflix comes out with a jdrama that's actually really good. It's a high production drama. You can see the affect a big budget has.

+7.5 for the plot and piecing together who the Alice in Wonderland characters are (Alice, Rabbit, Hatter, etc).
+0.5 for OST
+0.5 for scenic shots (cool city shots and scenery shots)
-The ending...it's not bad, but typical Netflix smh.

p.s. it's pretty gory...think Battle Royale.

A match made in government. Okay, so this is exactly my type of crack. It's a sweet (but not too cringey), almost disneylike romance. I'm a sucker for this trope. Also, FL was in a poor mental state at the beginning of this drama and I really enjoyed seeing her mental health improve as more and more people become a part of her life.

I think I mainly enjoyed that it was airing daily and I was watching everyone else. It was your average farm lakorn (disclaimer: I'm not the biggest fan of farm lakorns!). The writing was kind of messy, especially in the beginning when things were jumping around. Like I said before, Kao came off weak as an actress, but I think a lot had to do with bad writing and the fact that the rest of the cast was really strong. I have a love/hate relationship with ML in this one because 1. It's Mark ♥ and 2. ML was like a toddler throwing tantrums, then a super possessive and annoying ML, and then when truth revealed, still possessive (but suddenly switched to nice guy?). Anyways, it was nice to see Duke Panudeth Wattanasuchart play a nice guy. :)

I thought it was a good binge watch, especially if you didn't have any particular ship. I was about split even on which spy I liked better, though I was predicting one would get the girl. The last episode was pretty underwhelming, but other than that it was pretty good.

p.s. I loved Yoo In Na's outfits in this drama (especially that red one in the last episode).

So I had given the lakorn adaptation from 2016 a 6.5. This one was about the same too, but I wanted to drop because I couldn't stand FL's annoying personality and her choice of lipstick. The dubbing was pretty annoying too. However, FL does change for the better somewhere in the 2nd half after a time jump. That being said, I loved the secondary couple and of course Yao Yao. They are the only reason I finished the drama. Lots and lots of filler stuff though.

What a bunch of goofballs. ^^

MDL Watch Challenge: Adapted from a Manhwa ✔

Definitely not my type of movie.

MDL Watch Challenge: Year 2000-2005 ✔