Reviews

Loved it but something was missing

I honestly loved the story. I liked how it was going but the ending felt a little off? I felt like there could be more to the ending. Like how Chung Ah reacted to Yichan's hearing loss, how they overcame the struggle. Or something like how Eun yu:'s family ended up in 2023, though there were not any changes but yk Eunyu met Sekyung in 1995. I felt like in the ending it was more focused on Eun gyeol and Eun yu and they didn't show much of the struggle of Yichan and Chung Ah. But otherwise i absolutely loved the story . I loved how well written the characters were. I loved Chung Ah's father's character development, how he tried to rebuild his relation with his daughter. And I'll be honest I was more interested in Chung Ah and Yi chan than the main couple ?‍?️ idk but they seemed wayy too cute ?

Read More

Heartwarming time-travel story

This show had everything: the sad backstories that make us empathize with the characters, beautiful redeeming arcs for the 2nd generation, as well as some amazing high school friend group scenes! Absolute must-watch for anyone wanting to relive their high school days.
When I initially started watching this, I thought it was a similar concept to a Bollywood movie from 2010 called Action Replayy since it involves the son going into his parents' past to make them fall in love. But as the episodes went on and Choi Se Kyeong's character was shown more (+her and Ha Eun Gyeol's relationship developed), it reminded me of A Map Of Tiny Perfect Things because of the similarities in the main characters stuck in the same "time loop" and needing to help each other to get back to the present. If you liked this drama, I highly recommend these two movies!
The last episode was probably my most favourite, seeing the positive implications of the changes that happened due to the time-travel instead of things going bad because of what was changed.

Read More

I would rewatch it for the chemistry between the leads

Li Yan Shu (FL) : First things first, for someone who is supposed to not take shit from anyone, I lost count of the number of times she was slapped by people in the show, including the second male lead, her step sister, and Mrs. Gu (mother figure for the male leads). (The writers really overdid the slaps)

At her best, she was lively and mouthy, so it was painful to watch such a beautiful person brought down by bunch of harpies. Although the ML has a presence, it isn't as powerful as the female lead, the magic doesn't happen until the FL enters the picture, that's when the show goes from "am i going to continue watching it" to "Yes! I picked the right drama to binge watch!"

Gu Cheng Ze (ML): One gorgeous man. Loyal to the family that adopted him, even when the old brat didn't deserve it. Protects the FL on numerous occasions. Is kinda a green flag. Watching the FL and ML together is such a joy.

I wouldn't mind watching another drama with these two actors in the lead role.

Honestly, Season 2 is much better.

Read More

It was okay

This one wasn't that bad but it also wasn't anything major outstanding, I did a second rewatch and was able to dissect and analyze the show this time, and well, here we go.

Mek & Kram: These two sucks, there's nothing nice to say about them, anytime they were on the screen they annoyed me to no end. Mek is horrible, he forgets Rak and his 3rd anniversary brings his friend over to Raks with Kram's favorite food, and has the nerve to tell Rak he can't remember what he likes. then when Rak goes to "sleep" Mek and Kram are talking as loud as possible and Mek still has the nerve to tell Kram to be quiet because he doesn't want Rak to hear, like it's too late for that. Then when Rak let go of his suspicions about Kram because he didn't want to fight, Kram sent a picture to Mek and Mek couldn't believe Rak when he said nothing was happening. Not to mention both Kram and Mek are major gaslighters, I was getting secondhand gaslighted listening to them. Both were crazy, Mek violated Rak and still gaslighted him while doing it and Kram was just nuts and needed more help, the fact he could put his best friend through what he did out in front of the apartment was crazy.

Rak & Dino: I don't know if I've seen chemistry with these two but I will say anytime Dino made out with Rak I was like please stop, his whole tongue had bills to pay. I love spicy and kissing but gosh darn we didn't need the tongue every 5 seconds of kissing, I wonder what Kong thought while filming this, anyway, I do think Dino was too pushy like you knew what Rak went through, give him space and help him heal from all of that. Poor Rak attracted all the crazies, from Mek and Kram to Tart, even Dino was a little crazy.

Chalam, Suea & Mhee - These 3 were my favorite and the most normal out of all of them. Chalam was just too funny and I adored all of his screen time. I need more of Mos, and I love Mhee and Suea because they were there for Rak like real friends should be and took care of him. Though I would've liked to see the love interest that they had talked about in the last episode, it would've been cute to see them all there at the beach with there lovers.

Read More

Slow burn romance

Ding Xiao Rou (FL): Pretty soul. Often said nonsensical things but she seemed magical. Add to that the actress playing the role is gorgeous and looks like a princess out of Taylor swift's official music videos.

Xiao Rou (ML): He was honestly a sweet guy. Despite all the things that went wrong because of the FL he always remained nice, even when they were bickering. Apart from that one scene where he said some harsh things (happens to all of us) he is quite adorable. He did need a little push to get FL back but they weren't really together at the time.

Nan Sa Sa [ Xiao Rou's bestfriend]: We all wish we had a bestfriend like that. Another gorgeous woman with a heart of gold. So, i'm very glad that she ended up with the Second Male Lead.

These three pretty much carried the show for me. I might rewatch it sometime again in the future.

Read More

Avoid watching 32-35 and save yourself some disappointment

Up to episode 32, everything was going fine even with the crazy repetitive tantrums thrown by Qiao Xin. And then Fu Mi Ya enters the picture again, not necessary to the plot at all. What were the writers thinking? So many good dramas' out there spoiled with such poorly written endings. (It is the curse of poor endings with these dramas) At least include something that would make sense, there should be a flow of things.

So, when the Miya shows up yet again the ML completely forgets about the FL. When your friend is sick you sure go take care of them for a while but don't setup house there my dude! What's more the ML did pretty well before ep 32, he seemed like such a poor partner for FL by the end of the show.

The worst part was ML was aware of how much the female lead was hurting because he was neglectful and he chose not to rectify it, even though he was quite capable of doing so. She wasn't a priority. Her dreams weren't a priority.

0 rewatch value.

Read More

What a mess

The 10-15 minutes cut from each episode doesn't do this show justice. It really turned the plot into a half-assed slice-of-life. I enjoyed the chemistry and comedic scenes. However, this show is lacking in character depth, highlights, adequacy, and completeness.

The plot holes bothered me a lot. First, we were never told Xia Yao's true motive on signing up for Yuan Zong's bodyguard academy. I thought he found the Yuan siblings annoying and didn't want anything to do with them? Xia Yao and Yuan Zong end up falling for each other, but NEVER announce their relationship or clear up misunderstandings about Xia Yao being Yuan Ru's boyfriend. This led Xuan Dayu to attack Yuan Ru for "cheating" on Xia Yao with another guy.

The inconsistency in side characters' actions also made me drop the rating. Xuan Dayu hated Wang Dashui for taking his money and was so determined in tracking him down. After learning Dashui's sad backstory, Dayu immediately forgave him and even supported him financially. And then he went on to abusing Dashui just because he was Dashui's sugar daddy. He also has an unhealthy obsession and possessiveness for Xia Yao, which makes me wonder, who even is Dayu's true love? And then Peng Ze clearly has a girlfriend, but he's also sugar babying another androgynous man. Xuan Dayu criticized Yuan Ru for cheating, but not Peng Ze? Very odd.

I was hyped up for this drama because my favorite actors were in it, but even rewatching this again couldn't make me ignore how bad the plot is.

Read More

A really nice and heartwarming youth romance - a stand-out in this genre <3

This movie is about the development of the relationship between two highschool students, through an exchange of a diary. The premise of the story is super simple and worked very well. It was just a super cute and heartwarming youth romance featuring some lovely friendship as well. The pacing of the plot was good and the evolution of the relationships between the protaganists felt very natural.

The acting was very good: the female lead was a really sweet chipmunk and the male lead was handsome with a lively personnality. Both worked very well together as well as with the secondary cast acting as their friends. I will for sure be looking for more dramas / movies with Takahashi Fumiya because he was really charming and gave a lot of charisma to a role that could otherwise have felt very flat.

The production value was pretty great: the decors are colorful and warm with a lot of details. The soundtrack is really diverse and in line with the story and the love of music of the main characters.

I would recommend this to people looking for a sweet highschool romance. It is pretty classic for the genre but it is really well done and was able to brought me a lot of feelings when I watch it. The filmmaking, the directing and the acting combined to a well-conceived scenario will provide you all the feels.

Read More

Classic for a reason

This is such a massive underhanded criticism of homophobia that uses heteronormativity to make its point, I love it.

Gong Yoo and Yoon Eun-hye. They're so cute! No wonder the former became such a big star in Korea.

The secondary leads are the main reason why I can't give this a perfect score. The character played by Lee Sun-kyun (RIP…) was annoying and the actor didn't do a very good job in my opinion. He was over-acting his scenes and he never came across as believable to me. That was one of his first roles though, as he would go on to have much better roles in the future, namely in Parasite.

However, the others did a good job.

I love it when people mistakenly answer the phone with something other than the phone itself. This time, it's a toy cube. If I remember correctly, the other times I've seen this so far are in Dreaming the Reality (1991) (Sibelle Hu answers a Coca-Cola can) and The Stunt Woman (1996) (Michelle Yeoh answers a brush). These are the only other such instances I can recall right now. Fun gag.

It's strange because, although the writing is a bit forced, contrived and overly dramatic sometimes, I would still praise the writing in this show, mainly because they managed to make realistic, believable characters that feel human and unique. They all have quirks that make them endearing, even if sometimes the story forces them to act in a certain way. It's an odd dichotomy but it is what it is. Imperfect writing can still manage to be absolutely great when it sets its aims high enough.

If you're trying to flee the soap-opera cliché nature of kdrama (especially the OST, this one is refreshingly silent in all the dramatic moments), then this should be your next destination.

I'm not queer and/or LGBTQ+ so it's hard for me to say whether it's good representation.

But it's a killer gender-bender story for sure. Hella hard to beat on that front.

Read More

soooo slow-paced

I would give this series a 10 for all the nice details put together, for the beautiful camera movement and especially for the adorable young actors... BUT the action soon becomes sooo draggy that literally nothing happens for long long minutes. I totally understand that life is like that, mostly relying on small gestures, but for a drama i expect something different.
Maybe it's just me losing patience?
..............................................................................................................................................................................

Read More

Excellent world building and character development

Despite what I've seen a lot of people saying, I found this of sweet home quite interesting.
Personally I feel as though they're laying the groundworks for season 3, as they're diverging from the source material it's quite important for them to do this.
There are points where it kinda drags on a bit and you just ask if it was really necessary but overall looking back I can see how important some of these scenes are, in terms of world building and character development.
Honestly I feel like a lot of people these days seem to be complaining about necessary scenes of world building in favour of fast-paced action, so I'm quite grateful that Sweet Home season has got that vital bit of world building otherwise I'd be completely lost.

Read More

During my rewatch

I watched this the first time and I enjoyed it but when it was over and I watched others I sort of forgot what happened, however, I watched it again for various reasons.

a couple of reviews I've read said that there was a lot of fluff in the beginning, which I didn't see. I mean Solo comes in and gets Warm Milk from Gui and falls in love with each other, I think it was done well, sometimes we need a little "fluff" because usually, it takes 3 or 4 episodes to get someone to fall in love which is fine but sometimes fluff is good

Supanut; I love him so much, I liked him during my first watch of this but then when I watched Pitbabe, I realized how much I like him as an artist. He has so much expression and emotional range that he makes his character come alive. He can honestly play any role, I hope to see more of him in 2024.

Gui & Solo; I like how they made these two characters interact in this series, Solo comes on a little strongly to Gui and throws out there from the start that he likes him, and usually other series, would have the other protagonist run away and make it out to be this whole thing but they made Gui this really sweet guy who just want to take care of Solo and protect him. Solo is just this sad boy who needs love and reassurance and those are my favorite types of men

Kao & Phu: I enjoy these two storylines, I like how Kao was so head over heels for this man and you can tell the moment he came running in with the trash can Phu was interested and the actor "Phu" does a good job playing the character "Phu" because if you see his eyes, they have a lot of expressions when he talks to Kao.

Khim & The Dr: I didn't care for these two the second time around, I watched them the first viewing but I skipped a lot of their parts the 2nd time as I didn't care too much. Khim's story was sad though with her being sick, thinking the doctor is gay even though they liked each other and her brother being mean to her but since I have seen it the first time I didn't need to see it the second time

Read More

A successful manga adaptation... Worth watch.

There is so much to say. First of all, for those who watched the series first and learned about the existence of the manga later, things may seem like a everyting was wrapped up so quickly (You are right.). The story of Yul and In Seo has been slightly changed here, there is not much depth. (sorry, the manga has achieved a much more successful weave in this regard.)
Although the main lines are faithful to the manga, there are some things missing. And of course, 80chapter can only be summarized as a 20-minute series with 8 episodes, so I won't dwell on it too much, but I can't help but say that I hope there will be a special or season 2 because Yee Chan's military service and his personal development afterwards and Yul's Seoul life in the music industry are not in the series.
The choice of actors is very successful, they reduced Ye Chan's excesses in the manga and they did it very well (the TV series is more successful than the Manga in this regard), Yul loses his tough stance very often... (the actor's laughs very cute :) Nevermind, I can ignore this too.
In general terms Drama was good acually better then good. They needed to add more chapters or they needed to be longer episodes but cute, lovely and love the chemistry between actors. Music was well enough.

Read More