Orange Marmalade (2015)

I really wanted to love this drama since I adored its origin (web comic "Orange Marmalade"). It's cute, and the actors exceeded my expectations. I liked the interactions between the leads, and the premise of a shy female vampire in love w/ music is freaking adorable.

However, the script writers sucked.

Why, oh why. . . WHY would any sane person randomly insert 5 episodes of a different timeline without ever referring back to the main plot? This decision resulted in a cheesy, messy, and cringe-worthy filler set in ancient . . . China? Korea? . . . Anyways.

Aside from the 5-episodes long filler, this story was decent. Yes, it was cheesy. Yes, there are many, MANY cliches. But at the end of the day, cuteness slayed. If not for the fillers, I would rate this 7.5/10 just because of the main leads.

Give this a try, but beware the sudden transition into ancient Korea!

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When I don't like a drama, I don't like it, whether a bias is a cast or not.

Seems like I and a Facebook friend were the only people who enjoyed that time travel. yes I loved it even more than the first 4 episodes. It has more heart than the present time.

Overall, I marked this drama a perfect score, ON MY OWN PERCEPTION. It may be not as perfect as it is, but a 10 for this is deserve because of its flawless storytelling, from beginning to end. To understand a thing, all you need is a focus, not on the scenes but on the dialogues, some answers are revealed there.

I actually dropped it at first, but seeing how some hated the Joseon setting but for one (the FB friend) to praise it positively, I got intrigued...and we then had the same opinion.

This is my first Yeo Jin goo drama (yes, I skipped Missing You child version). Impressive. I like him already. Seolhyun of AOA, not as great as our teen stars today, I bet was the perfect Mari. She breathe the character well with simplicity and elegance. As for Lee Jong hyun, this is my new drama of him too, and how can he perfectly portray such lovable character. I don't have Second Lead Syndrome (but Iship him with Ara..whaa chemistry) in this, but I love the character so much. The rest of the characters were lovable too. Anyone not noticed, but no one seems to be a villain. All is fair. Chemistry overload.

The soundtrack was so nostalgic. The shots were just enough for the eyes. The theme, is not just about humans and vampires. It is about fate and acceptance - and how I got to understand these fate and acceptance, rewatch the joseon episode and read the dialogue. It was actually mentioned there. This dramas' title was justified by the story. One of my favorite KDrama titles now.

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Lackluster at best

The story should have been good. It had an interesting plot with both modern and period piece storylines, but it just failed to reach anything close to memorable or romantic. The ML was an arrogant prick who treated his FL like crap and then expected her to love him. The actor himself, though I’ve seen him in other things and he was not as bad, was seriously terrible in this. He constantly looked like he wanted to cover his nose and walk around without letting any lesser individuals look at him. Maybe they thought having a guy who looked arrogant play the part of an arrogant character would make it easy to act out but it ended up looking stiff and somewhat forced. The FL couldn’t work up an expression other than blankly staring to save her life AND the script called for her to be so stupidly in love that she was happy to be called disgusting or a monster, as long as the ML (who called her those things to her face and behind her back) was the one to say it. At what point is she supposed to stand up for herself and tell him he’s a piece of garbage and doesn’t deserve her heart? Because if she had done that, it would have been the first bit of actual intelligence she ever showed. The second ML was not much better character-wise, but at least he was a better actor. Also the switch from modern to period piece to modern again was clumsy at best. I mean, honestly, they could have done that twenty different ways that would have been better. Sorry but bad acting along with complete character fails made this series nearly ridiculous. There were a few bright moments, when we saw the vampires and humans comes to an understanding and become friends, and we could almost see something worthwhile about the show, but then it failed on so many other levels that the message got lost. What to say about the music? Well, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. One song was kind of catchy. It felt like an anime theme song. The rest, despite the singing ability of the actors, were simply lacking. For me, the music was forgettable. This is actual the fifth time I’ve tried to finish this show and I finally succeeded. I would watch a few episodes, get bored, forget about it, be reminded and try again. Seriously, 5 attempts to get through 12 episodes over a two year period. So it just wasn’t enough to hold my attention or make me care about the characters. In fact, the only scene I found touching was the one where the FL sacrificed her life for the ML, and what was most touching about that was that she killed herself for someone who hated what she was. I don’t think he would have saved her if the situations were reversed. He was always either cowardly, conceited, or hateful. Not a good character choice for a ML. Are we supposed to swoon just because he’s handsome? Sorry, not on the likely. Overall, this series lacked sense, sophistication, and substance, but it attempted to have style (if you count having a gorgeous cast, though most of them can’t act, as style). IMO, not a keeper. Will not watch again. Kind of wish I’d never bothered to finish it.

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Unique plot involving vampires with a historical twist with a pretty much let down characters

This has been certainly a series that I unexpectedly love and hate at the same time. The concept of the plot is definitely intriguing — the coexistence of humans and vampire, the history of how it started, the reincarnation, etc. There was definitely a lot going on for this 12-episode series.

One issue for me though is that both lead characters annoys the hell out of me while watching the series. Don't get me wrong though, I am pertaining to the fictional character themselves and NOT the actors. The acting of the cast was quite decent for me although I really felt that Lee JongHyun had the most impact. My problem with the lead characters is that I felt like they were poorly written.

ML hates vampires for illogical reason. I felt like he was being immature with no enough reason to. He was a smart guy but most of the time he just looks like an idiot to me. His ridiculous hatred actually caused most of the problems in this series.

FL on the other hand kept being naive and keep coming back to the ML who does nothing but hurt her feelings and is being asshole because of his inexplicable hatred towards vampire.

It was a whole headache. I almost dropped this halfway but I didn't because this is my second time watching it after more than 5 years. I probably liked this more when I was a bit younger. Stupid puppy love that doesn't make sense excites me before but now I've become picky and unrealistic stories makes me cringe.

I love the OST eversince I've first heard it few years ago. If you're an enthusiast of unique plots, I recommend this.

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It is such a shame that great young actors like Yeo Jin Goo were wasted on this adaptation of the Orange Marmalade manwha that fails to give justice to its source material.

In many ways, this is basically three shows - a weird choice when there's only 12 episodes - and since one of them is a Sageuk with little relation to the rest of the show, it's impossible to know what on Earth the writers were thinking. If you watched the first three episodes and then the final one it would make just as much sense. You don't need to watch the rest as they contribute nothing to the plotline.

It is very disappointing to watch the final episode and realise what this drama could have been if they'd concentrated on the six pupils coming together to form Orange Marmalade. We could have seen them become friends and allies over 12 episodes, learning to understand each other despite their differences and defending each other because of their shared experiences. Instead they decided to skip all that for a boring historical diversion - even though we were told at the end that Orange Marmalade was the *main point of the drama*.

There's a charming - if unoriginal - storyline in here about some high school students who overcome bigotry with the power of music and I'm just going to pretend that's the one I watched.

I'll watch Yeo Jin Goo in anything because he's a great young actor. But I was let down by the writing of this drama.

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So much potential

I feel like with better execution this could've been along the lines of LOTBS or MLFTS, or even Extraordinary You. But the thing about these dramas were firstly that the sageuk and the present-day moments were evenly spread out throughout the drama so that we understood there was a reincarnation aspect to this. In the drama, it was all present-day for the first few episodes, all sageuk for 5 more, and then present-day again for the rest. It just made for very messy and weak parallelism.

With that being said, I was honestly more interested in the historical story, which is a rarity for me. But it had a really good action aspect to it, and the nobility/commoner difference also made the tension much more interesting. Still, it ended sort of weirdly and anti-climactically.

On the other hand, though I love school dramas, the school part of this had so many cliches, including my least favorite: AMNESIA. There also really needed to be an enemy, like there was in the sageuk portion, which could've made it so much more interesting. Essentially, I felt like the "bubbliness" of the drama — the fact that it was just about bullying and being nice to vampires — made the present-day portion super weak compared to the sageuk.

Honestly, I also got pretty bad SLS during this, especially during the present-day scenes, and the way he was haphazardly slapped into a relationship with the bad girl was super fast and made no sense to me. I felt like his character could've used a lot more development NOT centered around the main girl — his backstory with his parents was much more interesting.

Overall, I laughed a lot during this, not because it was meant to be funny, but because it took itself so seriously when things were actually really ridiculous.

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Movie start with a good note but upto first four episodes then director totally get messed up with the story.
No good story line ,he suddenly went to past where all the characters were there who were in present and there they again apart and he came back to the future having memory loss and got hallucinated and in the end he realised it was not hallucination ,it was always you (lead actress) I still not get why there is need of past history which confused a lot .
What I like about drama is all the lead characters acting otherwise this drama do not have strong story line which make connected with the characters ,I like neck kissing scene too .Below average story .

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Orenji mamalreideu

I thought "this is another snotty school drama". I haven't read the manga, so I couldn't imagine what would happen next. In the first series, events developed quickly, they were very tricky with memory loss, and in general, twice in a series, I almost died ...
When the Joseon times began, I did not understand anything that was happening at all. But to clarify the picture, she continued to watch and did not regret it. I don’t understand why there is so much negative criticism towards this part, it touched me so much, this time shows all human qualities and attitudes towards people.

In conclusion, I want to say that the drama is very concise, but this is enough to catch the main idea.

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Drama found to go downhill after a couple of episodes

This is just gonna be a short review. The story itself is actually interesting.The fact that the vampires live amongst humans secretly intrigues me. It wasnt dissapointing at first, until when they showed their past life. At that point the show became boring. I watched this show because I am a fan of the original story. The fact that they barely followed the original storyline saddened me. The acting and cast were alright. Nothing that impressive about it. Since they were on a band, the music is actually quite nice. I wouldnt rewatch this at all. I was greatly dissapointed when I watched this show. If you're a fan of the original story, it's up to you wether or not you will watch it, but i cant guarantee you will like it.

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When I first started this drama I understood why people were dropping it like a hot potato and the rating it was getting as a drama. But, that was quite sometime ago and I hardly remember my feelings at the drama at first. I had watched the first four episodes and then put it on hold for 2 years. But, I picked it up again just recently, and watched episodes 5-12 in a couple of days marathoning for several hours every day for three days.

The modern story has less of a draw for me, I just found it mostly just the same as the other school kdramas out. But, the Joseon time period episodes in 5-9 were just what I wanted. I found that story intriguing and fun, plus, I felt like I could have watched 16-20 episodes of that story. The boys are best friends, and in the end it ended in a tragic love story with awesome bromance.

That is why this drama for me is really a mixed bag. I really loved some of it, and other parts were boring and tiresome, like for instance when all the kids at school were afraid of vampires. Especially, a hot hunk vampire who they had been gushing over how hot he was just a few days earlier. My response to a hot vampire dude would have been the same that those fangirls of his had near the end. He is just a hot dude who eats strange food and medicine, he is still a hunk.

The romance was not exactly lacking in this drama, but there could have been more romance for the vampire guy. All in all, I didn't hate it overall, but I would loved to see more of the Joseon time period episodes, and less school issues.

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I started this because I like school drama but ended up liking the the middle story much better than the modern school one. I wondered where Orange Marmalade came from but found out in episode 3. the school story, with the band I thought was a bit cliched, though the music was good. The idea of the outcast minority fighting for acceptance was very brave, which made it different from the usual school bullying trope. I am generous with scores, otherwise I think this may only have rated around a 6.5 but the middle part pushed it up, while the school part was not so good. For me, I like Han Shi Hoo (Lee Jong Hyun) better than the lead. Now that all the vampires are coming out, perhaps all those shy gay and bi K pop and K drama stars might consider trusting their fan base will not evaporate just because of who they are and start following their lead?

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