Worth the time

Simply one of the best adaptations I've seen in a while---and I've seen a lot. Both of Shi Guang's actors are both quite effective in pulling us into having an empathetic relationship with the character, be it in his shameless moments, the happy times or the sad. All throughout the series, we are made to feel emotionally invested in a board game (most of us don't even understand), and in secondary characters (we usually give a damn about). Yet it works, it works splendidly. In a way, we also became Chu Ying, we became a third party viewer of happenings where we have no physical control of, an entity that could see the bird's eye view.

That was why once Chu Ying had to say his goodbyes, the accumulation of memories for the past episodes came crushing in and gave us tear-inducing scene. We shared what he had. Like how Chu Ying was just one part of his life, we realized we have the same position as well, but the time spent together becomes memorable enough.

At the end of the drama series, we don't have the climatic battle moment we tend to see in other sports drama, but we got a glimpse at the beginning of Shi Guang's road to being a pro.

Hikaru no Go is now one of my all-time favorite dramas. Watching it was worth my time. Thank you to all actors, staff and production crew. This was ride.

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Classic in the making

A tale that spanned three worlds and three lifetimes, this drama not only paved the way for a new generation of Xianxia genre fans, it had also cemented itself as a future classic.

The plot is quite linear as opposed to the novel and I believe the production team did the right thing. The first few arcs may be a bore to most viewers because of this decision, but it's still way better than be immediately thrown right into the drama's world alongside its amnesiac female lead. Imagine how far more frustrating that could have been. What will give us a motivation to root for Bai Qian then? Why do we care?

Hence, this drama succeeded in becoming a tale where we become emotionally invested in the characters way before the big changes that became the real starting point of the story. So if you've just started and found the first few episodes as slow, that is expected, you are looking right into the prequels so to speak. But once the ball starts rolling, it will be worth it.

In general, just like any other fairy tale, we saw some dubious character development later on, a few highly satisfying face-slapping scenes and an eventual happy ending for the main couple after a long melodramatic love story. True, things could've been solved earlier if everyone in the drama will just stop to listen and/or explain for a few minutes, but then, we'll never have the Ten Miles we know now.

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If the phrase "roller coaster of emotions" is a drama, this is it.

This drama series started with a bang! You're already roped in, you can't get out now. With a murder displayed with all its red-blood gory right in the first part, how can a viewer not watch further? Penthouse is a very good example of a makjang done right in recent years. With capable young and adult cast (except for the girl playing Ha Eun Byul, it took her quite a while to understand how to not overeact in an overdramatic scene) and a fabulous backdrop, Penthouse delivers a web of intrigue and plants numerous questions to be answered in the next season.

However, it doesn't just end there, we were also given a glimpse into the frailty of the human mind, something older popular soap operas failed to prioritize. After all, we are already in 2021, mental health discussions should be normalized. Though Penthouse injected it in during various moments throughout the drama, it only heightened the sense of normalcy despite it being in the makjang genre.

Like for example, you can enjoy at Joo Dan Tae's pure evilness because it's a caricature, he will never exist in real life. Then boom! Childhood trauma, physical reactions to repressed memory! He becomes someone real suddenly, we withheld total judgement, he's never 100% innocent of course, but we found ourselves waiting for the whole story first.

Then there's Cheon Seo Jin, another of our over-the-top ladies, very ambitious but obsessed at the same time. Then boom! Her world while growing up revolved around meeting the expectations set by her own family and by society. Now viewers don't lay total blame on her, we sympathize, we know why this monster was born.

It's all so fun. So much emotional investment, so much confusion, so much subversion of tropes in what is supposedly a trope-dependent genre. This is an incredible ride, I recommend it.

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Guilty Pleasure!

One of the few Chinese dramas that seduced me to watch all existing episodes without fast forwarding. It has the typical palace intrigue, absurd slo mos, childish tantrum-loving male lead, miscommunication, clinging-to-the-door-frame-in-anguish type of scenes, and endless revenge plot. It's a mix of everything, but it somehow it works well? You are pulled into their world and feel immense empathy towards the main character to a point of feeling legitimately afraid for her future, despite the fact that you're actually still in episode 10-ish and there's still 40+ episodes where she should still be obviously alive and well, acting out her main character role. The title itself is LITERALLY Female Prime Minister, so why am I stressed? Why am I scared for her?

It's silly I know, but the suspense in this drama is real. In a Kdrama world, this will be called as a historical makjang. So set your expectations right: It's so overdramatic that it will become your peak guilty pleasure. But rest assured that you wouldn't be actually guilty about it alone, because a lot of people will join you.

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