So here's what I'm watching this week! Of course the list is split by country and the amount of episodes I've seen so far are written below! There will be spoilers from now on so if you aren't caught to the episode number on list, you might want to go watch that episode and then come back! If you're interested in previous reviews, click here and if you want to see a list of my Favorite Asian OTPs and Ships, click here!
KDRAMA
FINISHED Dating Agency: Cyrano (16/16): Min Yeong works as a dating agent and while her field of work requires her to offer her clients the perfect match by levels, she romantically believes that love shouldn't have restrictions. She risks getting into trouble as she plans a date between a low level class client and a higher rank woman. All seems to go according to plan until we find out that Byun Hoon, the leader of another agency, is trying to do the same with his own client.
I was in the mood for something lighthearted and cute and this show came up on my radar so I decided to check it out cause it reminded me a bit of The Undateables in terms of it being set around a dating agency. Overall I did think this show was super cute and I loved so much of it from the way the show was set up to Min Young being an absolute ball of sunshine. I thought it was so creative to have each client and target as part of an investigation with the team learning the entire backstory of each target and discovering how to get the target to fall in love. Of course part of me wondered if maybe it was really all manipulation especially with the first case we got with a vet and a librarian but in the end I think I could let it go with the idea that they weren't doing much more than showcasing the best qualities of their targets. Min Young was absolutely adorable and it was so crazy to see Choi Soo young play her cause I'm watching Tell Me What You Saw right now and her character there is the complete opposite of Min Young! I really did like the romance between her and Byun Hoon which was interesting cause usually an age gap like there's would bother me. What did bother me was that random stretch of episodes where for no real reason Byun Hoon refused to accept Min Young's feelings for him and his feelings for her cause it felt so childish for how old he was especially. In the end the whole kidnapping thing though silly worked to bring them back together and I was super down. I'd give this show a 8 / 10 cause it was exactly the type of cuteness I was looking for.
Itaewon Class (10/16): On the first day of attending his new high school, Park Sae Ro Yi punches his classmate Jang Geun Won, who was bullying another classmate. The bully is the son of CEO Jang Dae Hee. The bully's father runs restaurant business Jangga where Park Sae Ro Yi’s own father works. CEO Jang Dae Hee demands to Park Sae Ro Yi that he apologizes to his son, but Park Sae Ro Yi refuses. Because of his refusal, Park Sae Ro Yi gets expelled from school and his father gets fired from his job. Soon, an accident takes place. Park Sae Ro Yi’s father dies in a motorcycle accident caused by his ex-classmate Jang Geun Won. Burning with anger, Park Sae Ro Yi viciously beats Jang Geun Won. He is soon arrested and receives prison time for violent assault. Park Sae Ro Yi decides to destroy the Jangga company and take revenge upon CEO Jang Dae Hee and his son Jang Geun Won. Once Park Sae Ro Yi is released from prison, he opens a restaurant in Itaewon, Seoul. Jo Yi Seo, who is popular on social media, joins Park Sae Ro Yi’s restaurant and works there as a manager. She has feelings for Park Sae Ro Yi.
I'm feeling just as bittersweet about this week as Saeroyi was tbh cause though we finally took down Geun Won, Chairman Jang is still in power and now he's really going to be gunning for Saeroyi after having to give up his son. I had a feeling at the top of this week that it was way too early for Saeroyi to make a killing move cause duh there's still 6 episodes left of this show but around halfway through the 10th episode I started to wonder if Geun Soo would be what really screwed Saeroyi over and though that didn't actually happen, I feel like it's still possible. The way he felt sorry for his father and how Saeroyi was so cold to him and how he kept thinking about Yi Seo refusing to date him made me think that he's going to go to Chairman Jang and be like I'll be your successor cause now that Jang dropped Geun Won like a hot potato, Jang needs someone to succeed him and if he wants to keep Janggo in the family, then Geun Soo is the only one left. I do hope that if Geun Soo does do something like this, it will be with Saeroyi in the back of his mind and not just cause Yi Seo made that joke about wanting to date him if he was the successor. The next move Saeroyi will be making will have to do with the special sauce that his father made and gave to Chairman Jang and I can't think of how he'll be able to use that cause even if he finds some sort of old recipe book in his father's stuff, would it take Jang down if he revealed to the public that Jang stole the credit? Would anyone care? On another note, it was really weird to see Saeroyi basically take a step back from last week and reaffirm his feelings for Soo Ah when I really thought that he was taking a step towards Yi Seo last week.
FINISHED Medical Top Team (20/20): This TV series follows the journey of creating Korea’s best multidisciplinary medical team and the stories of doctors inside. Characters who have different hurts and dilemmas struggle as they get to work together and gradually learn that healing a person is healing oneself.
I was in the mood for another medical drama after I didn't get my Romantic Doctor Teacher Kim 2 fix this week now that it came to an end so I decided to check this one out cause my girl Oh Yeon Seo was in it. Though it's not going to go on any lists of favorite dramas of all time or anything, I had a pretty chill time with this one. The medical stuff was pretty routine and I hated the hospital politics as per usual but I really loved all the characters we got. Joo Young was so cold and analytical but she never really thawed which was totally awesome cause she was great the way she was and like plenty of male leads were stone-cold like her so I had no problem. Speaking of, I do think that it was fascinating that so many times we could have gone the cliche drama route but ended up subverting expectations. I mean one of the male leads was literally an orphan while the VP was a mother who abandoned her child and yet they didn't end up as mother and son. I was also totally shocked by the ships that came out of this show cause I expected Joo Young and Tae Shin to get together and that Seung Jae would become a villain at some point and that Yeo Jin would be the second female lead but instead we got Tae Shin and Yeo Jin getting together and Joo Young and Seung Jae and I loved it. It was a little silly that Yeon Jin got sick so much but since she was obviously my favorite part of this show I didn't mind the extra screen time. Overall I'd give this drama a 7.5 / 10!
You all know I am such a sucker for musicians and shows about them but unfortunately this drama ended up making me sad more than anything else! I think the problem is that I went into this show expecting a cute drama about boys loving music and making it big and ended up with a real grounded portrayal of what it's like to grow up and loose things that you thought would always be around. This show's backbone was the friendship between our Eye Candy boys and how they started this band to always be together only to find out that by the end music started to feel less fun and more like a chore and that it was the band itself that was breaking them up. I mean talk about deep cuts! And of course it was super creative that this show portrayed a band going from nothing to stars and then back to nothing when most dramas are all about the lead up to fame or the fall from fame. Despite all this like I mentioned up top I went into this wanting something completely different so I feel kinda bad cause though this was clearly a well-crafted drama, it just didn't hit the notes I wanted. It felt just as heartbreaking as watching a show with two characters you watched fall in love only to then fall out of love. The CEO was neither a villain or an ally since the woman never did anything to destroy Eye Candy but also reveled in watching them flounder around rather than stepping in to help them in the media. I mean how are 18 year olds supposed to navigate such choppy waters? And then don't even get me started on the way poor Ji Hyuk was treated in the back half of the drama! Everyone kept blaming him for literally everything that went wrong. Even when he finally got a moment to tell them all about how he has nothing but this band and that the one time he tried to have something else (Su Ah) he had to give it up but it literally took the slightest hiccup for everyone else to run it was treated as an afterthought like oh Ji Hyuk was just being emotional. Having said all that I guess I'd give this drama a 8 / 10.
Tell Me What You Saw (10/16): "Tell Me What You Saw" is a suspense thriller about a genius profiler named Oh Hyun Jae who has lost everything, and a detective with photographic memory named Cha Soo Young who work together to track down a serial killer. Other members include, team leader Hwang Ha Young who sets the plan, ambitious investigation team member Choi Hyung Pil, and veteran detective Yang Man Soo.
You know what I awkwardly realized this week? I find myself not caring for anything with Hyun Jae's backstory or the hunt he's on. I mean I'll watch it and everything but I'm not emotionally attached. Idk maybe my disinterest has something to do with the fact that it feels like every other run-of-the-mill drama about cops where the wife of one of the main cops is dead which not only is nothing new or exciting but also I will never know why shows want me to care about a character we literally never even met. I'm also high key tired of seeing Choi who was promoted to Second Chief this week running around talking about how he's doing things "for the good of the police organization" like dude you're doing things for the good of your career. At least Ji Min is starting to take a stand and awkwardly trying to help Ha Young who also had a bit of a moment where I wondered if maybe she's not all that she seems. I highly doubt that she'll ever be on Choi's side but it's possible that she has a slightly different agenda than Hyun Jae who just wants to find out who killed his wife and why. It does look now that Choi didn't actually have anything to do with the accident but that he just used what happened to pretend like the Peppermint Guy did it and I bet that whatever piece of evidence he deleted/stole is the conclusive bit for the real criminal who caused the accident. Soo Young is also moving down her list of suspects for who could have sold the car that killed her mom but it's so weird that all this is basically happening off camera cause when I started this show I totally thought she'd be at the forefront of the mystery and we're now halfway through this drama and yet there's nothing connecting her mom's death to anything Hyun Jae is doing.
The Game: Towards Zero (28/32): It tells the story of a prophet who sees the moments right before the death of someone and a homicide detective who got dragged into a series of mysterious murders and end up digging up hidden secrets. Kim Tae Pyung, a prophet who can see death, 27 years old. He has the special ability to see the moments right before the death of someone by looking into their eyes. Instead of suffering from this mysterious ability linked to the death of people, he thinks that it is a special ability of his own. He is rich, handsome and has a sexy brain. However, he cannot see the death of Joon Young and that started to scare him. Joon Young, a homicide detective who is working with Tae Pyung to solve cases. 30 years old. She has good insight and intuition. Her father who was a police officer was her hero and her whole life, however, he passed away 20 years ago. That was a huge shock for her. She was only depending on herself and no one else. However, when Tae Pyung appeared, she started to change. She wants to heal his and her wounds. Ku Do Kyung, a forensic expert, 33 years old. Tae Pyung gave him the nickname of “4 weeks left” because he gives the result 4 weeks later. He is a smart and talented employee of the National Forensic Service. He always seems relaxed. In front of Joon Young, he acts differently. He can’t stop laughing when he is with her and lets his image of a cool and cold man away.
I truly will never get over my anger with this show for trying to convince me that poor sad sack Do Kyung is the victim of Tae Pyung and that we should all feel sorry for him. The ironic thing is that whenever I read the comments below each episode it feels like everyone watching is falling for this and I'm just sitting here like no that's not how this works! A good person would never start killing just cause he/she was told that they would commit suicide in front of a bunch of cops! Even this week we're told that he tried so hard to live a normal and good life but he was tormented by fate and I wanted to scream. At the very least Joon Young and our cop squad all told Tae Pyung that if they do die from Do Kyung's bombing that it wouldn't be his fault and they love him anyway and I was like yes thank you you're all angels. It was totally heartbreaking and low key hilarious seeing them all do things that they would never normally do like buying a sports car or telling someone they liked them cause they thought that they might die soon. I'll also never not get tired of how incompetent the police are in general cause it's like Do Kyung can literally walk up to their police station and take a victim away or wave to them across the street and no one can catch him. That's the problem with revealing the villain so early cause then the only way to keep him around and on the streets is to make the police look idiotic.
FINISHED The Master's Sun (17/17): Joo Joong Won is the stingy and greedy CEO of Kingdom, a conglomerate that includes a major department store and hotel. He meets the gloomy Tae Gong Shil, who started seeing ghosts after an accident. Their lives take a new turn as they work together to deal with the terror and sadness brought about by the spirits, while delving into a kidnapping incident in Joong Won's past. And unknowingly, they fell in love with each other.
I was pretty excited to check this drama out cause it was a Hong Sisters one and tbh I think it's fascinating that since I was late to the kdrama game, I never saw the dramas that the Hong Sisters became famous for so my first Hong Sisters drama was A Korean Odyssey which if you know me you know that I absolutely love to pieces and have rewatched a hundred times but oddly enough the general public HATED it. It's fascinating cause every drama of their's that I've watched but been meh about, everyone else has loved so I'm sitting here wondering if it's me that's crazy for not following the general trend. In case you didn't guess by now, this was my long-winded way of saying that I was disappointed in The Master's Sun. I wanted to love this show cause so much of it reminded me of A Korean Odyssey and though Gong Shil was super fun, I disliked Joong Won from almost start to finish. He was such the definition of the cold male lead that I hate to watch in a drama but more than that I didn't understand why Gong Shil and Joong Won kept fighting their feelings for each other. Like there was literally nothing keeping them apart! Both were single, and it wasn't like Joong Won's family played a huge role in separating them, and there was no tragic backstory linking them that would lead to a noble sacrifice! It wasn't until the final episode that we actually saw them be all cute and shippable but at that point I was so over this drama. I wished that Gong Shil had been more confident about the ghosts she was seeing but I did enjoy the helping ghosts part of this show. I also liked the way Joong Won's backstory played out and the twist with Hae Joo and Ha Na. Overall I'd give this show a 7 / 10 and here's hoping that the next Hong Sisters drama I check out I'll actually enjoy cause as of now it's 1 loved and 2 meh.
CDRAMA
Eternal Love Of Dreams/Three Lives, Three Worlds, The Pillow Book (46/56): Two thousand years of enduring love and obsession between the female monarch of Qing Qiu and the ancient god of the Heavenly Kingdom.When Feng Jiu was practicing immortal cultivation alone in the wilderness, she was attacked by a beast and rescued by Dong Hua Di Jun of the Heavenly Kingdom. The encounter becomes deeply ingrained in Feng Jiu's heart and to repay her debts, she decides to follow Dong Hua into battle. She soon realizes that her good feelings towards him have evolved into love, but Dong Hua is a god who has forgotten what love means. In order to protect Feng Jiu, Dong Hua sends her to the human realm which results in the death of a friend. Feng Jiu enters the Winged Tribe Princess Ah Lan Ruo's dream sequence in search of a sacred fruit that can bring the dead back to life but gets trapped to relive Ah Lan Ruo's life for eternity. Dong Hua finds a way to save Feng Jiu and realizes that he already reciprocates her love for him, but another hurdle crosses their path.
This week's episodes were a mixed bag cause the first half was hard to get through cause like I've said before, I don't like the concept of constantly having to erase memories to enter different lives part of this show so the amount I didn't care about this Aranya dream world was high. At the same time the second half of these batch of episodes had Fengjiu remember who she was again so we got so many more cute moments between our leads that I loved. We still don't know why Shen Yu and Aranya look like Dong Hua and Fengjiu but I'm assuming that we'll figure out as soon as the mirror is built though we do know that the Shen Yu in this dream world is the real one somehow trapped so maybe once Dong Hua breaks the dream, he'll be freed. I think it's hilarious that everyone outside the dream is so worried except for Lian Song who's like up to his ears in exasperation with Dong Hua like get your butt out here already and stop enjoying the dream world! I'm also still worried about Miao Luo cause it sounds like she just needs something from this dream world and then she'll be free which sucks cause Dong Hua only has 10% of his cultivation and it's annoying that he won't tell Fengjiu what's going on cause I'm worried that he'll end up leaving her to fight and Fengjiu will think that he just abandoned her. We're nearing the end of this show now with only 10 episodes to go and based on what I know about the novel I'm not exactly looking forward to the final arc and I'm hoping that the show changes it like they've changed other stuff cause I don't want to suffer and limp to the finale!!
Well Intended Love Season 2 (10/16): Xia Lin, a third rate actress who works hard for her dream of being a movie queen, meets Ling Yizhou, the president of Lingshi, a multinational group that controls the economic lifeline of Guangdong city. A crisis of public opinion pushes the two to the top of the netizen's wave. Whether it's an encounter of deja vu or an encounter schemed by others, the two happy enemies are still super sweet even in a situation full of accidents.
It's funny watching this version of Xia Lin and Yizhou's love story and comparing it to the previous one and seeing all the differences here and there that exist. On the one hand it's a much less toxic relationship but on the other I can't help but feel like the previous season was more fun to watch. I do think part of this is cause season 1 had so much more of a wish fulfillment aspect with a rich guy doing everything in his power for a poor girl only without the dramatics that come from chaebol families like other dramas since Yizhou really only had a grandmother and she loved Xia Lin. It also helped that I adore storylines where arranged marriages that turn into real ones and cohabitation antics. I'm hoping that now that Xia Lin and Yizhou are in love and really engaged that maybe I'll find more that I love in this version of the drama. Xia Lin did figure out that Yizhou had known her for almost 2 years before they met officially but like honestly guys without the whole I caused you to believe that you had cancer, Xia Lin's anger with Yizhou feels like a bit too much. I mean all he did was like you from a distance and which is not anything more than a normal fan would have. I was also glad that Chu Yan and Yizhou are best friends again though I think it's annoying that the show never told us why they disliked each other at the start of the show only to be brothers again now. I also adore his love line with Xiaoyou already! On another note, it's interesting that Xia Lin's manager is the villain this time around and I can't wait for her to be outed as the bad guy cause her plan is really idiotic. I mean it's like girl do some research before you try to pin a murder on someone!
xoxo Allie
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