KDRAMA
Big Issue (8/32): Set within the frenzy world of the paparazzi media. Due to a photograph, Han Seok Joo loses everything, including his job as a photographer for a top newspaper and his family. Ji Soo Hyun is the notorious chief editor of a paparazzi group. She hires the man to become a paparazzi photographer.
Wow what a messed up show. The story is a little too unbelievable and all the characters are terrible people but I'm fascinated anyway. I should have honestly known what I was jumping into with this show when the description literally told me that we're following paparazzi who by the way are the worst humans on the planet. I guess I just assumed that since this was a drama that we'd be seeing somehow more moral paparazzi but I think based on what I've seen so far the heroes are only the heroes cause the villains/targets are only so so much worse. In a way they are portrayed as not as bad as normal paparazzi cause they're not looking for romantic scandals but like illegal things. Despite this, the heroes themselves aren't good people. Seok Joo gave zero shits about that poor actress who was being raped and only cared about taking photos while Soo Hyun gave zero shits about blackmailing that poor actress into giving her an interview and whether or not Seok Joo lived or died after the train incident and the hospital. She is the direct reason for Seok Joo's life being ruined and I'm curious if he'll blame her or if he'll care cause he feels like in a place in his life where none of that matters anymore. Even more terrible is how little Soo Hyun cares and how even still she's using his weaknesses to help herself like using his sick daughter to get him to work for her and kidnapping him after he said no to her offer. The drama is filmed really well though and I'm fascinated with the world cause these characters are acting like their jobs are life and death with the blackmail and the thugs and the buying people off. I honestly don't care that much if we never see either character becoming good or getting karma to bite them in the ass cause after a few minutes of being shocked, I adjusted my lens to this world and I'm all in.
He Is Psychometric (2/16): A boy who is able to read the secrets of those whose skin comes into contact with him, and a girl who does everything she can to hide her pain. In the drama, the boy and girl will meet and try to fix, heal, grow, and love from the small and big occurrences that happen in their lives.
Sometimes it's really nice to go into a show with no idea what you're jumping into cause then you have no expectations that need to be met and that's what I found here. The synopsis was so short that I mostly just assumed that this would be a rom com set in a school with maybe a slightly dark tone but I was surprised to find that it feels more like an investigation drama with humor thrown in to smooth over the dark edges. Ahn is the adorable (I say that and he's like my age) being all energetic and upbeat and funny though a lot of this is a cover so people won't see his pain underneath it all. My heart broke watching him as a child and then when he was worried about people seeing him as a monster. Jae In is interesting cause at first she seemed like the kind of lead I'm mostly meh about, jumping to conclusions without any proof, but I did like that she has no problem with speaking her mind and as two episodes went on, suddenly I found myself loving her! I can already see the romance is going to be adorable and I love that the whole psychometry secret is out already cause it drives me mad when a major plot point like this is hidden from the other main lead (it's why I couldn't love Healer like I should have.) I also really love the little family Ahn made with Sung Mo being his big brother and Ji Soo being his big sister and I really hope that Sung Mo turns out to be a good guy like he seems cause there are hints of him acting a little dark. For a second I wondered if maybe he set the fire and all this is to hide that fact but then I remembered that we saw an older dude doing it so the darkness is probably just Sung Mo wanting to find the real criminal in that fire. As I expected in this sort of drama, all the main characters are connected to each other with Ahn's parents dying in the fire and Ji Soo's dad being the head detective who probably framed Jae In's dad while Sung Mo saved Ahn. I'm curious to find out what happened to Sung Mo's family and whether they died in the fire cause it looked like baby Sung Mo was at the orphanage with baby Ahn.
Romance Is A Bonus Book (14/16): Cha Eun Ho is a successful and handsome writer who is also the youngest chief editor at a publishing company. He has a calm demeanor and remains reasonable at work. He then becomes involved in the life of his childhood friend, Kang Dan Yi who was once a popular copywriter. She is now divorced, a single mother, unemployed and struggling in life though still attempts to find a job, but even with her once good career, she cannot. However, in a desperate attempt to find a job, she lies about her background and begins to work as a temporary worker in the same building under none other than Cha Eun Ho. As they become involved in each other’s life more than often, a love story begins to unfold.
I was a little surprised when Dan Yi called Eun Ho her boyfriend this week but then I remembered they held hands and went on a date last week and in dramas, they're basically married now lol. The romance is totally working for me now on a basic level cause though I still don't think the main couple has chemistry, I do think a lot of their interactions are super cute and it's sweet how much they love and want to protect one another. Now onto the main story this week which I feel like is something that I don't understand probably cause it's a cultural difference. It seems insane to me that people wouldn't hire Dan Yi just cause she took a break from working for a while cause it's like she graduated from a really good school and she clearly did well at her job by winning awards and stuff but okay let's say I'll go with this idea cause it makes the most sense of my problems with this story. The bigger problem is that everyone's like super uncomfortable with her staying as a contract worker now that they know she's overqualified but like why cause it's not like Dan Yi is running around thumbing her nose at everyone/everything or constantly bragging about her old jobs and if it's really such a problem, why not just transfer her to the marketing team? The whole company knows that Dan Yi is a hard worker and really smart and still good at advertising so the idea that she won't be able to keep up with current marketing trends as a reason not to hire someone who took a break from work doesn't make sense here! It's also a little ridiculous that the CEO keeps being like Eun Ho this is a company, we can't bend rules when there's no board to talk to. All decisions are made by like five people and if they want to bend the rules for someone, why the hell not? I feel like a lot of this might just be contrived drama for the show but I'm sure Dan Yi will return to the company by the end even if I kind of want her to join somewhere else or start her own company with Eun Ho just to show everyone.
We finally met Yoon Seo's stalker this week and I was disappointed that the whole thing with him was resolved so quickly. This includes the connection he had with the rich guy Se Won was going after cause I expected it to be a bigger mystery but instead everything is resolved offscreen and we're just told it all worked out. I guess I should have known cause this is a lighthearted rom com more than anything else and every time we get a new case that feels like it could go on for a while, it's finished in an episode or two. To my pleasure Jung Rok didn't get upset that Yoon Seo was at the law firm only to gain acting experience but unfortunately this was followed almost immediately by the noble sacrifice trope which was ridiculous but at the very least the reasoning behind it was better than Korean celebs can't date. I liked that it had more to do with the public view on her and how if they knew that she was dating while working at this law firm then the story would go from what a dedicated actress to she just did this to see the guy she liked. I really expected Jung Rok and Yoon Seo to have a talk by the end where he laid his cards on the table cause up to now these two have been pretty clear about their thoughts and I don't know why they can't still be together but just not in public. Like secret date like every other celebrity at least until the drama is filmed and after that people won't care that you might be dating the guy you used to work for. On another note I was living for how the Always Firm people were gossiping about whether or not those two were dating but the best part was when Lawyer Choi suddenly started crushing on Lawyer Dan too and that was everything even if the reason he ended up liking her was because she reminded him of his mother. I had that thought as a joke when the girls were talking about his ideal woman and then it came out to be true and I was mildly freaked out. I also loved how Lawyer Dan was like lets date and Lawyer Choi was so thrown. I can't wait to see more of their antics.
CDRAMA
FINISHED An Oriental Odyssey (50/50): Based off Miao Juan's novel. In Tang Dynasty, the chivalrous eldest daughter of the Assistant Minister of Revenue, Ye Yuan An, saves Mu Le, an amnesiac young man of mysterious identity. Yuan An takes Mu Le in as a family servant, and the latter swears his loyalty to her. Along with Zhao Lan Zhi, a constable, the trio solve cases after cases together. But what is Mu Le's true identity?
If you remember back, I started this drama back when it was airing in the fall but I ended up stopping around midway through the drama cause I was really not liking where the plot was going and I kept thinking I'd come back (which is why I didn't write up a dropped review) but recently I saw a YouTube video of Yuan'an and Mu Le and it was so adorable that it reminded me how much I adored them as a couple so I jumped back in. Unfortunately this second time around didn't help with the terrible writing of this show but I stuck around cause I loved Mu Le as a character and the costumes in Suoluo were so beautiful and I loved the back and forth banter between Mu Le and Yuan'an. Unlike most people, the time travel didn't bother me because I actually loved the idea of Yuan'an seeing Mu Le's past so she could stop blaming him for something he did that wasn't all that bad and because I loved seeing Mu Le/Prince Ying fall in love with Yuan'an over and over. It was once Yuan'an became a blue bat monster and the Empress of Suoluo started to make strange decisions that it lost me. Like you lock up one son after he tried to murder half the court, your second son and the Emperor but the second son falls in love and he's gotta be tortured almost to the brink of death and exiled? Like what in the actual hell and because of this it was so satisfying watching the Empress die. The sad ending didn't do any favors for me cause though I don't always mind sad endings, the fact that Yuan'an didn't actually realize she loved Mu Le and admit it until like episode 45 was completely ridiculous. I also hated that though Yuan'an and Mu Le got married like twice, neither really used it like in W where the main leads called each other husband/wife despite not even being really married cause why else marry so early in a show if we can't get such simple cuteness??? Overall I'd give this show a 8.5 / 10. It renewed my love for Zheng Ye Cheng as an actor and showed me how pretty Janice Wu is so it wasn't a total loss!
As you all know I adore Zanilia Zhao so of course I was up for checking out another one of her new dramas and I excitedly picked this one cause I love spying and cons and heroes outsmarting villains (it's what attracts me to heist and con-artist shows/movies too) and I was not let down. The pacing was a bit strange because it was exciting at the start but then slowed down a bit only to pick up again around halfway through the drama and the communism vibes was a bit too strong for my taste but I could let it pass cause obviously this was made in China and they believe in this message so I can't really complain. I loved the idea of following three major groups and seeing how differently each were portrayed in their ideals. I also really loved that unlike most shows, our leads were able to outsmart the villains almost every step of the way which was so refreshing cause most dramas usually make us sit through countless episodes of watching our heroes fail only to triumph at the very end. I adored our main lead Yanzhi cause I loved how super smart she was but what really grabbed me was Yuhao who was the perfect mix of sexiness and sweetness. I struggled for a while to decide whether I liked him or Song Mian better and though I think Mian was better looking, Yuhao was so much more competent which adds to his appeal cause he was a man who could protect you no matter what and Mian seemed to see people as tools rather than people. I do wish the romance between Yanzhi and Yuhao was a bit more overt but I could get past that since their love was evident in every move they made. Separately they were a force to be reckoned with but together they were unbeatable. The real problem was that I wish Yanzhi and Yuhao had learned about each other earlier cause it wasn't until like halfway through the show that they officially became a team and that's when the show picked up for me. My favorite scene in this entire show was the one where they were in that hotel restaurant with the whole Secret Service waiting for Yuhao's Communist doctor and they outwitted the entire room without saying one word of their plan out loud. I'm glad they got their happy ending but I'm not usually a fan of the time skip main character returns trope and it sucked that everyone we followed for 45 episodes died except for our main leads and Yanzhi's mom. Manna was a fun villain and I was actually okay with her redemption at the end cause though she did a lot of irredeemable things, there was a part of me that felt so much pity for her. I also kind of hated when Aoki and was replaced by Feng cause Aoki was a much more interesting villain though Feng was clearly smarter. Despite any of these minor complaints, I loved this show and I'd give it a 9 / 10!
xoxo Allie
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