I don’t get it

Ok, this is my opinion..No hate on anybody

I know I’m a bit late to the party. I was strangely reluctant to first watch this drama (because I was afraid of being disappointed if it did not turn out to be as good as everybody said it was) and then I was hesitant to post my thoughts about it; mainly because I couldn’t understand why I was “not impressed”. (For some reason, I kept remembering Superman saying to Steppenwolf, “Not Impressed”).. anyhoo..

The show ticks so many boxes.. it has a perfect recipe of a perfect romance. Really good looking ML, quite pretty FL, supposedly swoon worthy romance, all the usual tropes, etc. But for me, something was missing. And I still don’t know what. May be it’s a case of it’s not the show, it’s me.

There seem to be polarized views on the kid playing young Zhao Lusi. It didn’t bother me much. Probably because I was prepared for it. And ML during that phase really treated her as an elder brother. Did not creep me out. I wasn’t a fan but I also didn’t find it gross.

I just couldn’t get the romance between ML and FL. I understand she had a crush. But it takes a lot for a crush to transform into once in lifetime kinda love. And I really didn’t get that feeling from our leads. The drama tried to sell that, but I just couldn’t buy. I don’t get why he gets attracted to her. Is it just because when she takes care of him, he suddenly sees her in a different light? If that, then I somehow don’t see it as love. It’s gratefulness at best and selfishness at worst. I don’t want to believe that he always had a specific soft spot for her (even though it is hinted.. he keeps just his and her photo from the graduation ceremony). That would feel weird because in my eyes it’d make him a creep. She was pretty young at that time. So no, I don’t want to believe that. Then I really hit a wall there… why?

It was easier for me to see how her fascination with her brother’s friend progressed to a crush. Those who have older siblings or cousins would know, how your sibling’s one friend seemed like a perfect specimen back when the puberty hit. So I get it. What I don’t get is why that progresses into this forever kind of love? Granted at such an young age, all the emotions are extra bright. But I find it difficult to accept that none of the other friends in her widening circle capture her interest? If they made her fall for him after they meet again, it might have made more sense. They could have shown how the new encounters slowly remind her why she had a crush on him, and I’d have accepted that.

I really like Zhao Lusi. She has the looks and the skills. But somehow in this drama, she appeared a bit stiff. IMO it’s on the director. Same with Chen Zheyuan. I don’t think he is a great actor but he is not bad either. He gets the job done. But here somehow he looked .. I dunno.. bored?!? Personally, I didn’t see their chemistry which is driving people nuts. But yeah they were effortlessly together. I give you that.

One thing that was like a sour note for me was in their bid to show her as an apple of her family’s eye, they treated the bro rather shabbily. Her mum-n-dad were very much about her but mostly treated the big bro like an unwanted adopted child. To be honest again it could be just me. But I hate it when in dramas, parents treat main leads’ siblings more favourably. Similarly I hate it when parents are so darn biased in favour of main leads. I dinna find it cute, I dinna find it funny. I was second hand annoyed for her bro.

The drama is polished. It looks good, OST is not bad either. I just didn’t get hooked onto it the way I expected after the reviews. My expectations were way up there. But at the end I was underwhelmed. I just couldn’t see the “wow”.

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A pleasant watch though a bit rushed

Strong and smart FL literally falls through a time hole like Giselle from Enchanted. She learns to navigate the new strange world and makes a space for herself. ML is not your typical cold, rude robot; just a bit reserved due to his past.

You need to keep your logic in the back pocket. Then you can enjoy this rom-com. It’s not very fluffy, has a just-right balance of mystery, romance, comedy and drama. But logical it is not. The time travel theory, as in most cases, trips on its own feet and leaves a few open questions.

A few more episodes would have helped for sure. The romance feels rushed and the ending even more so. We don’t get much of an epilogue either.

It’s aesthetically pleasing with clever dialogs. It is mostly carried by the actors. Lee Se Young absolutely rules. I don’t think the role challenged her a lot. In spite of it being his first lead role, Bae In Hyuk does very well. I’d love to see what he does next. Just somebody do something with his hair. Except the last scene, you don’t much see his fore head. I found it very distracting and weird. The supporting cast is pretty solid.

Overall, if you want something light, not-much-challenging, pleasant watch, give this one a try.

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Right as “Rain”

I went with some expectations since the trailers look good. I will just say that it did not disappoint me. The show has not dragged; it has kept moving. The action scenes are captivating. The chemistry between ML and FL is mature. Rest of the actors are doing their jobs quite well. Music is good too. So what’s not to like?

This drama is set in the world of the rich where most of them are jerks. People go to any lengths to get what they want, money is the ultimate goal and getting somebody killed is as easy as a cow pie. Our leads have their reasons for entering this world and staying there. ML is a bodyguard of our FL.

For me , Rain’s calm, controlled but deadly bodyguard is a treat to watch. It’s not a surprise that his action scenes are fantastic. His quiet tone of voice and understated performance does the trick here. And him in those suits is the cherry on the top. The man looks good, I tell ya. In the show he doesn’t smile much, (well, given the story line it’d be odd if he did smile a lot) so that one brief smile of his on the pier is just.. I (gasp) melted, you guys. He may not be conventionally good looking, but he is handsome and he has the presence.

In comparison, Kim Ha Neul’s Wan-Soo is not consistent, as in, she oscillates between ok to not so ok. She is quite graceful but at times, she comes across as a robot rather than stoic. On the other hand, I am really loving Jung Gyu-Woon here. He has captured Yong-Gook’s brokenness, deep layers and arguable sincerity perfectly. YG is a serial cheater which should get him beaten by a blunt object but you can’t help but pity him. I am passionately hating the baddies and that shows what good jobs they are doing.

With two episodes left I really hope they wrap it well. K-dramas have a tendency of fizzling out in the finale. I’d change my ratings if that happens.

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Balderdash

Nonsensical story. I don’t necessarily have an issue with the concept of ML can only be cured by FL’s kiss. I saw it as a farce so I could take that ridiculous concept without flinching (a lot). But the extremely clicked scenes had me rolling my eyes so much that I ended up having an head ache. The same old oh-so-ditzy-but-good-at-heart FL, cold-successful-CEO-ML, showing-out-of-nowhere-SFL, SML who has to be ML’s stepbrother, evil step mother, faithful assistant. Same cliched scenes with cheating ex and friend, same engagement party, same accidental kisses, same mother, same everything. I could count hundred such things. It’d be a bit tiring to type it all though. Oy vey..

It’s low budget. The budget shows in the wardrobes, sets, production.. everywhere. You can even see the concealer underneath the ML’s eyes. And I don’t get why some male, Chinese actors are so thin. Like they are not “lean”, they are thin to the point where the clothes hang on them. It’s ridiculous. The ML probably weighs 5 milligrams more than your standard scarecrow.

If you can look past FL’s overacting at times and ML’s lack of acting at different times, the actors did what they could. And that and it’s shortness are the only good things can say about this drama.

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Beautiful and realistic tale of love, friendship and actualization

I first watched this beautiful drama back in 2020. I loved it. It recently appeared again in my YT feed. It reminded me how beautiful the drama was.

This is a story of two painfully introvert people falling in love. ML and FL are extreme introverts. They often struggle saying “No” to people, they struggle with expressing themselves and are sometimes taken advantage of. There is a huge gap between how gifted the ML vs how ordinary our FL is. This gap makes her second guess their relationship. But in spite of all of that, they find love.

Our ML is a naturally gifted, elite pianist. But he is exhausted by the constant pressures of people’s expectations. He has been so busy in meeting those, he has come to hate his skills. On the other hand our FL is very mediocre with her chosen instrument. She is painfully aware of it. People around her like to tell her that. Even her family, although loving, reminds her of that. She yearns to be better at it. She tries, but is unable to overcome her natural lack of talent. When she asks Park Joon Young, “do you know what it is to lack the talent”?, you can feel her pain. It gives him and us a pause. How painful it is to know that you have hit your limit and no matter how much you try, you are going to get better at something you love? PJY is so bloody talented that he takes it all for granted. Not his fault but he is so immersed in his own troubles that he’s forgotten to count his blessings. Her one remark reminds him of that. Just beautiful.

I love how the ML and FL’s characters are realistically flawed. They are not perfect but together they work wonderfully. It’s very easy to mistake CSA for a weak person. She is not weak. She is just an introvert. But she can assert herself when needed. She breaks it off with PJY when it becomes difficult for her and irrespective of possible repercussions says “No” to her catty professor.

PJY is also a very complex character. He is struggling with his family situation, exhausted by constant pressures; he values her friendship, asks her to wait for him but also loses his patience when she keeps bringing up the gap between their natural talents. During the span of the drama, he learns how to let go of his past, learns to love his gift again and comes to appreciate CSA for her perseverance and love.

The story is wonderful, music more so. The side characters are realistic, at times bratty but overall good people. This is not a lighthearted fluff. It’s a serious depiction of beautiful as well as painful sides of love.

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Slice of life rom-com where life is as smooth as butter

This drama is not at all bad. If you have just finished something intense or serious, this can be used as a palette cleanser. Because this is as far from intense as I am from Mars. Life is smooth for all the characters. They are either successful or on the path to be successful or rich.

This is not necessarily bad. After a hard week, you can unwind with this drama since it does not need you to think. And sometimes that’s all you want to do. You don’t want to think.

The drama needs you to switch off the thinking part of your brain. I didn’t get how they all kept their immaculate appearances after spending 10 hours in surgery or how they managed to go on dates or meet friends during work day. To be fair, they didn’t show that they were work days. . For all I know there could be 250 weekends in that drama land. But since the logical part of my brain was switched off, it didn’t make any difference, I could just roll with it.

The drama has kisses galore. So no lack of skinship but somehow I wasn’t a goner for their chemistry. The ML was too tall for the FL. Similar height difference between the leads did not bother me in “Put Your Head On My Shoulder” with the same FL who was tiny beside the ML. But here I found it a bit jarring. Plus their height difference kept noticeably changing. So anytime they kissed while standing, my brain couldn’t stop counting the boxes the FL had to stand on for that kiss. Not every pair with a huge height difference is cute for me. I feel that the FL casting could have been different. She did an alright job playing her part but something was off. While the ML’s kisses were hot, the FL seemed to just tolerate those. They were not goldfish kisses. But it looked like he was into the kisses while she was not. May be just me?!?!

I also don’t know what’s with the too bright make-up. It was unnatural and unrealistic. Especially on ML who sometimes looked a bit waxy. Also, no idea how the law in China works but I know that paralegals or legal assistants do not call themselves lawyers. Here the FL and people around her sometimes referred her as lawyer. Or may be it was a mistake in the subtitles? Dunno. Weird. The humour was sometimes too forced. The cluelessness of the cousin was funny at first but it was stretched until it became an eye roll. Like dude, you are at least 24-25. You see two people in constant close proximity with each other, staring in each other’s eyes. You see them going to and from each other’s apartments at all hours of the day and you still do not get it?

For me the huge plus point for the drama was that everybody actually acted their ages. There was no fake cutsie behaviour or FL talking in a fake baby voice and tone. That is an instant turn off for me. The SLs were not only annoying pieces of baggage. They had their own story. And for some reason I was tickled by the fact that ML’s uncle got together with FL’s bestie. Like ha.. once they marry, she’d become ML’s aunty and FL’s aunt-in-law.. lol.

Overall I enjoyed watching it. Even with all the flaws, it’s a fluffy romance with no hardships, no betrayals, no separations, no toxic relationship. Who cares if it also has no story? I’d have watched something else if I was after something complex.

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Refreshing

Classic example of how actors, directors, writers can transform a rather run of the mill story to a quite quite enjoyable and wonderful drama. Lovely Runner does not have a great story, nor is it unique.. But its presentation is charming, refreshing and enjoyable. Major kudos to the actors, director and the team.

The plot does have some loopholes but that is to be expected of a time travel drama. My only gripe is that we don’t get to know why the villain does what he does in every effing time line. He is just incorrigible and sticks around like a two day old candy. But in the finale, poof.. he goes away very easily. I don’t want to put any major spoilers here but such an easy end makes him just a prop to make the show last for 16 episodes. It didn’t detract from this otherwise charming drama for me. But it just kept bothering me like a mosquito bite. Why did he keep on keeping on? Like either say why or just go away.

Music is wonderful; it stays with you afterwards. But the USP is the actors. Casting a good looking pair sure works lol, but if they just look good then the drama loses its momentum around eighth or ninth episode. Here ML and FL, SML, friends, mom, dad, bros and grandma’s are all just fantastic. The mix somehow really works. Apart from the OTP, the healthy and positive family dynamics on both sides were so nice. Keeps you engaged. I’m rather getting tired of the over-demanding, shrewish, moms and dads who look down on their kids. Plus as many have said before the height difference between ML and FL makes it cuter. The last episode also kept me smiling like a simp. I know.. I’m very shallow.. eh..

Loved this one. Wanted to give it a 10 but the caricature-ish villain deducts half a point for me.

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Edit:

Rewatched it today.. very unusual for me to revisit the drama so soon after the first watch but was feeling low because of something, wanted to get lost in the k-drama world and this was a random pick.. It struck me once again. How on earth our ML and FL are so darn cute together! It’s not silly cute but cute cute. Our leads’ strong performances actually change the tone of that cuteness as per their age. To me at least, the cutes of their teen age romance was different from the cutes of their mature romance. The pitch and vibe of their togetherness changes as per their age. Hats off to both the leads for throwing themselves in their characters. Sometimes the couple-ness (I know I made up this word..anyhoo) feels amazing in the high school years. But when the characters enter the matured phase, the chemistry either fizzles out or it seems contrived. It’s very difficult to see the leads as grown ups, in spite of all the hair style changes or wardrobe changes. I had this difficulty in WIFTY and Our Secrets. But here the transition was smooth. And the credit fully goes to Byeon Woo Seok and Kim Hye Yoon. Job well done you guys!! And that’s why I am bumping this to 10, in spite of my gripe with that very bad man.

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