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 A Gentleman's Dignity (20/20): This drama will tell the story of four men in their forties as they go through love, breakup, success and failure. The story includes the romantic relationship between Kim Do Jin, an architect with a scathing tongue, and strict high school teacher Seo Yi Soo, who moonlights as an umpire at amateur baseball games.
You know at first I was a bit hesitant to check this drama out cause the fact that the main characters in this show were forty made me wonder if I would enjoy this show. I've a pretty seasoned kdrama vet by now and I had this fear that the characters would be acting like they're twenty when they were forty and though part of that was true I ended up being so relieved that I checked out this drama cause it was absolutely incredible and I have a feeling it's going to cause me to fall into a bit of a drama slump after this cause nothing will feel as good! The fact that this was an ensemble show that followed the four guys and their love lives was everything and I ended up not even minding the storyline with Colin even if the aftermath broke my heart for one too many episodes! All the couples were great though Do Jin and Yi Soo's story was my favorite and Jung Rok and Min Sook was second-best. I loved how smooth Do Jin was and how quickly he fell head over heels for Yi Soo and though she did act a little too childish for being the thirty-something that she was, most of the time it was cute! Yoon and Meahri might have been the only couple I ended up skipping scenes with cause they just felt icky to me and I don't mean the part where he's twenty years older than her. It freaked me out that he literally watched her grow up and it's like at what point did you fall in love with her you creep? The bromance between the guys was everything and I even liked the kids at Yi Soo's school though it did make me wonder why actors like Woo Bin were playing such tiny roles. Overall I'd definitely give this show a 9.5 / 10 and I'm super going to miss it!
Hospital Playlist Season 1 (1/12): A drama depicting the stories of people going through their days that seemingly ordinary but actually special, at the hospital, a place known as the microcosm of life - where someone is being born and someone's life meets their ending. The five doctors are long time friends of 20 years who started their undergrad in 1999 in the same medical school, and now they are colleagues in the same hospital. The drama will also deal with a story of a band formed by the group of doctors.
Okay I'm seriously starting to hate that kdramas nowadays are following the American route and making multiple seasons for it's shows but I suppose that this one is a little better cause at least they've already announced that they're planning on having three seasons in total for this though it does feel crazy that we have to wait a year for each one. Moving on from that I was fairly interested in checking out this drama cause I really adored a lot of the main cast of this show and it made me curious to see what this show would be especially since it seems the focus is on friendship over romance. So far it definitely feels different than most medical dramas out there cause it looks like the show is actually going to skip the hospital politics and focus on the characters and their work but that's mostly cause the Ahn family who ran the hospital is completely hilarious. 4 out of 5 of the children work for the church and the remaining son who's one of our male leads decided to pass on becoming Chairman cause he prefers to be an attending doctor. The family all seem close and the mom seems to love her kids too and it's very novel cause I've actually never seen a chaebol family on a kdrama like this! I do admit that the show feels like it's tossed us into the middle of this world instead of the beginning so there is a bit of guesswork about what's going on but I also low key love that cause we are really jumping in to the middle of these characters' lives. They're all high up on the chain of doctors, either married or dating or have kids and have known each other for like 20 years now.
Itaewon Class (12/16): 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.
This week had me in tears for my baby Hyun Yi who I just want to shower in hugs. I hate that she was the one targeted this week but I was so proud of her when she stood strong in the face of being outed and was like yes I'm trans but what the hell does that have to do with cooking cause I'm going to win. I loved that everyone from Saeroyi to Seung Kwon to even Yi Seo gave her their own kind of support and I love that it was Yi Seo's final words that helped Hyun Yi know what to do. I'd like to think that in a perfect world Hyun Yi will win next week but I'm worried that the fact that she's trans will end up causing the judges to hate her or something. In a perfect world the people running the show would say that it would be a blind taste test in that the judges don't know who cooked what in order to keep this gossip out of their judging but once again I don't know if I trust the same people who were so horrified to find out that Hyun Yi is tans. I also want to say Geun Soo is all but dead to me after what he did cause I was already annoyed with him for outing Yi Seo's crush on Saeroyi but this was crossing a line that you cannot come back from. Having said that though honestly I saw this coming from a mile away and dudes there's a reason I didn't trust him. The fact that he's always been so attracted to Yi Seo when she's being mean shows you that there was also something not right with him and he's clearly inherited some of Jang's psychopathic traits, the same traits that Geun Won has always tried to emulate but never quite could while it clearly comes easy to Geun Soo. I'm also exhausted with Soo Ah and I wish that Saeroyi would stop giving her passes for what she does. I don't pity her one bit for having to struggle between him and Janggo cause as the girl even said it herself this week, you can pick which boss you want to work for so the fact that she refuses to leave Janggo when there's probs plenty of businesses that would love her just shows you her true colors so there's no point in her acting horrified or judgmental when she's no better.
Memorist (2/16): Dong Baek has an extraordinary ability. He can peer into the memories of whoever he touches. With his supernatural power, get it done attitude, and eye-pleasing looks, he is fervently revered worldwide as a superstar detective. However, when his punches meet with suspects before words, he can be a bit of a headache to his comrades. Starting from the age of twenty, Han Sun Mi is the youngest to have passed the bar exam, obtain a doctorate in criminal psychology, and become a senior superintendent in the police force. Having solved five cold cases that even a detective with supernatural powers couldn't do, she is a genius profiler. She has a secret that drives her to do what she does. These two highly-skilled professionals meet their match—a serial killer with abilities that transcend theirs combined. It's going to be a fight worth watching.
The kdrama world is really just feeding me the most right now cause I keep getting more and more investigation dramas to sink my teeth into! Some I enjoy and some I have to toss aside but I was really looking forward to this one cause not only are the two main leads two actors I adore but for once the synopsis didn't hint at a dead loved one as a motivation for the male lead so the show might feel a little different than the same old same old I had been getting! Luckily so far I'm super into what I'm seeing! It reminds me a lot of He Is Psychometric in that Baek can read minds when he touches people and here's hoping that I love this one just as much especially since everyone in this show knows about his powers like they did Ahn's! I am really curious to find out if Baek has the same trauma with how people don't like touching him that Ahn did cause it's like five fold on this show with how only two people will willingly touch him. I also actually really love that the typical roles of the female and male lead are switched in this so it's Baek who's all energetic and passionate and doesn't follow the rules while it's Sun Mi who's more by the books but actually a lot nicer than I expected her to be based on the posters for this show cause dramas tend to go to the deep end whether it's a competent female lead or a Candy. It does low key suck that there's no romance tag for this show cause I am already low key shipping our main characters and I'll be really curious to find out if there's police corruption in this show the way it's being hinted at or if the police chief and the higher ups just have more to them that they're not showing yet.
FINISHED Reply 1994 (21/21): Set in 1994, six university students from various provincial areas live together at a boarding house in Sinchon, Seoul, which is run by a couple with a daughter named Na Jung. The timeline moves back and forth between the past in 1994 and the present in 2013, making the viewers guess who will become Na Jung's husband among the male characters.
I'm watching these Reply shows in order of when they were released so even though this review is showing up before the Reply 1997 on this list, I did watch Reply 1997 first so if you're curious read that one first. I was a little nervous to check this one out cause I wasn't a huge fan of Reply 1997 and while I've heard that show is almost everyone's favorite and that this one wasn't good at all, honestly guys I think I enjoyed this one a lot more! I mean yeah Seo In Guk is in Reply 1997 and he's much hotter than literally every guy in this show but I think I just thought that Na Jung was a better female lead than Shi Won tbh. Part of it might be because she started the show older than Shi Won but I think she just felt more mature in general even if she was a fangirl too and acted just as crazy as Shi Won at times. I really liked that the sibling death in this show actually had feeling behind it and that we saw how much it affected our characters and the people they became. Na Jung also knew that she loved Trash from the start so we didn't have to watch her be completely oblivious and though of course there was a love triangle here too, it didn't feel as annoying as the one in Reply 1997 cause Chilbong was totally believable as a man who a woman might be interested in so I actually kept going back and forth between whether Na Jung should get with him or Trash. As the show went on I started to see what everyone was saying cause I had major SLS! Chilbong was an absolute angel and I wish that Na Jung would have picked him but in the end I didn't entirely mind Trash. I did however low key hate that Yoo Jin ended up with Shamchunpo over Haetae and I do think the friendship between our main characters didn't feel as strong as the one in Reply 1997. It also felt like there were too many episodes in this show for how much story it had cause it started to drag by the end but I loved the idea of having all our characters live in one boarding house cause you know me and my love for cohabitation antics! Overall I think I'd give this drama a 8 / 10 and here's hoping that I like the final installment of this series even more!
FINISHED Reply 1997 (16/16): Set in the 1990's, the drama centers around a female high school student Shi Won, who idolizes boyband H.O.T and her 5 high school friends in Busan. As the timeline moves back and forth between their past as 18-year-old high schoolers in 1997 and their present as 33-year-olds at their high school reunion dinner in 2012, where one couple will announce that they're getting married.
I was hesitant to check this drama out cause though I've really never heard anything but rave reviews for the Reply series, I've found that I'm never truly on the same side as most of the kdrama audience not to mention the fact that love triangles seriously just annoy me and that's pretty much what this show was about. Here's the thing. I didn't hate this show but I didn't love it either. Shi Won was actually the perfect depiction of a teenage girl in all her annoying and cute moments and I loved the way her relationship with Yoon Jae played out with all the bickering and the comfort that suddenly turned into awkwardness and realizations. I also adored the way the show played with Jun Hee's love for Yoon Jae and seriously one of the best moments of this show is that quiet hug that the two share as Jun Hee is leaving like Yoon Jae is saying I'm sorry I can't love you but I want you in my life. The friendship between our core 6 was a highlight and I loved just how real it all felt. On the other hand I know that part of the fun of this type of show is supposed to be in the guessing games of who ends up with our female lead but like I said up top, I dislike love triangles cause in most cases I pick one person and then just spend the rest of the time irritated that the female lead can't see what I see so that part of the show is where it lost me. Honestly I ended up finding Tae Woong super creepy in terms of liking Shi Won cause again it was one of the those situations where he was an adult who watched Shi Won grow up and it's like ew at what point did he start having feelings? And that doesn't even mention the fact that he had dated her older sister for so long and then suddenly decided he needed to have Shi Won cause she reminded him of her? Shivers. Overall I do think I'd give this drama a 7.5 / 10 and honestly I'm not sure if I'll end up liking the next two parts any better which I do feel bad for cause I can't help but feel like I'm going in with some sort of bias but I can't help what I don't like!
Tell Me What You Saw (12/16): "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.
This week was full of reveals after reveals and I was not ready! As we learned not only was the Peppermint Killer the child in the backseat of the car (Yo Han) that killed Soo Young's mom (as I called weeks ago cause duh we can't have two separate mysteries for our leads without linking them) but he was actually really close with Gyeong Su and another man so he wasn't actually manipulating other serial killers outside of the fact that he was the de-facto leader in their group so the others were happy to do as he said. We also learned that the reason that Ha Young is so into catching the Guy wasn't just cause he killed her best friend but because she was more directly involved which totally shocked me. Apparently back in the day he kidnapped her and she ended up giving up I Su's name in order to save herself and then didn't tell anyone what happened. This is messed up on so many levels cause I really expected better from her as a cop but also if she had just told the others what happened then maybe I Su could have been saved! But that's not all with the reveals cause the biggest surprise came from the fact that we found out that Yo Han is actually Dong Shik aka Soo Young's best friend and police partner who up until now I thought was just a supporting character who had a crush on her but I should have known better! It's going to be totally insane when Soo Young figures out who he is and I'll be curious to know if he really liked her or if he was just fascinated with the idea of being close to the girl who's mother his father killed and if he has no trouble trying to hurt her too. At the very least I'm glad that she didn't tell him everything about finding her mother's killer earlier in the episode when he asked and really it just serves to highlight why I adore her character cause most female leads would have just blurted it out to random strangers (I'm looking at you Joon Young from The Game: Towards Zero.)
FINISHED The Game: Towards Zero (32/32): 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.
Whelp this show is finally over and honestly I don't feel anything other than relief and a lot of disappointment cause I wish I could have enjoyed this drama more cause not only did it started out so strong only to devolve into this hot mess that I struggled to understand and enjoy but I wanted to enjoy a Taecyeon drama! This show should have been named 101 Excuses A Serial Killer Makes honestly cause to the last second the show kept trying to convince me that poor baby Do Kyung was a victim of his circumstances and if only the cops hadn't been corrupt or the reporters had backed off or the people that jeered at him had supported him. Cry me a goddamn river. We did end on a happy note which honestly was unexpected cause I really did expect at least Tae Pyung to die or something! Instead the bombs were disarmed, Do Kyung was jailed, Joon Young survived a 4 year coma, and all the cops were okay. It does super suck that Tae Pyung was jailed for trying to kill himself and Do Kyung and really 4 years felt like overkill but I get it and I'm sure that despite his sentence that he's not going to have any problem making money or doing well in life. I liked that he replaced the jewel in Joon Young's necklace and decided to embrace life and not worry about the future anymore. Overall I'd give this drama a 6 / 10.
CDRAMA
Eternal Love Of Dreams/Three Lives, Three Worlds, The Pillow Book (50/56): 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.
Well we finally wrapped up this Aranya dream world story arc and I truly don't understand what the point of this was. Like we get it. Feng Jiu and Dong Hua would fall in love no matter who they are or what lives they led but at the same time it's like we're told that the two aren't fated to be together so that's why we keep seeing them leading miserable lives which are filled with love but not openly or happily. We did learn that apparently when Dong Hua and Feng Jiu went to the mortal realm, they left shadows of themselves in this Valley because Dong Hua wanted to protect the Gods while he was away and Feng Jiu just couldn't part with him. Honestly I don't entirely understand what this means but at least we got some sort of magical mumbo jumbo as an explanation over something like oops it's coincidence? It's the same problem I have with all the primordial spirit stuff! Like apparently Mua Luo stole some of Feng Jiu's but apparently not enough to kill Feng Jiu so what even is it? It's also highly irritating that Dong Hua wants to keep all this a secret from Feng Jiu when it's like literally everyone else knows cause they need to fight her to keep themselves safe. I have a feeling that he's going to fight and end up using up all his power like Lian Song said and fall asleep for thousands of years but Feng Jiu is going to think that he left her or something which is why communication is key dammit! On another note it looks like Qingti's immortal body is almost completely made and I'm excited to see him again.
FINISHED Well Intended Love Season 2 (16/16): 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.
Well this season came to an end and honestly I'm a little disappointed that I ended up enjoying it less! I did go on and on about why and how last week so I probs should repeat everything that I said but in a nutshell I think I enjoyed the plot points a lot more last season with the whole contract marriage and cohabitation part of the show. I also feel like we've been rushing through plot points this season. Yizhou was able to prove that he didn't kill the guy that he had been framed to hurt and Xia Lin realized almost immediately that she might have overreacted last week when he told her about how he had actually known about her a year before they actually met. Yizhou was able to figure out that Xia Lin's agent was actually out to get both of them and so she was arrested but not before outing her accomplice who was also stopped but due to Xia Lin protecting Yizhou ended up hit on the head with amnesia. It's kind of funny cause last season it was Yizhou with amnesia and this time around it was Xia Lin. Eventually her memory came back and they're happily married. I do think it's a little weird that Yizhou's mom had no role this season but on the other hand I adored Chu Yan and Xiaoyou's relationship this time around and I'm happy they ended up together. Overall I'd give this season a 6 / 10.
xoxo Allie
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