It was dull and disappointing, Nevertheless

Nevertheless might have been much better, if there was a good storyline, likeable pair of lead characters and a bit decent pacing.

The story never felt like romance, instead it was 90% complications for the leads, which I felt kind annoying and the end wasn't compelling enough. I personally like the lead characters (So Hee Han & Song Kan) but there pairing felt dumb, disappointing and it never kept the show to be interesting. Instead I was quite amazed by the pairing of the supporting characters, which were developed quite well.

The only positive thing about this drama was the music which I felt was soothing to the ears and quite melodious. Along with that, I loved how the relations developed among the other supporting cast, which was way better showcased than the lead characters. It was a wasted potential, Nevertheless.

Cons:
• Unlikeable lead characters
• Weak storyline
• Less of love story, more of irrelevant complications among the pair
• The pacing was very slow, with couple of episodes being flat boring

Pros:
• The OST was soothing and melodious
• The supporting casts had a better relationship development

My Rating : 5.5/10

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A fail romance story, that's way too unbelievable technically

Fantasy romantic dramas are a dime a dozen in the Korean TV landscape, and while Netflix’s latest love story, Doona!, isn’t in the least bit supernatural, the story is every bit as fantastical as the time-travel or superpowered romantic sagas we’ve grown accustomed to. As  we’ve come to expect from Netflix dramas, which benefit from the streaming platform’s deeper pockets, Doona! looks the business, with hazy visuals and atmospheric lighting blanketing each frame, but it’s superficial to a fault. The leads were shabbily written and it was hard to root for them, albeit the ending was anyways not pleasing as well.Supporting characters don’t get much of a look-in – not that they are a particularly exciting bunch. I have seen better romance dramas of this year, period.

My Rating : 5/10

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Great Action teamed with compelling story

My Name is a brilliant take on Action/Thriller involving gangsters, a woman seeking for vengeance and the hunt for the mole. The action sequences are done superbly and Han So Hee did a tremendous job with her part.

Clocking at only 8 episodes, My Name is shorter than other K Dramas, but it is definitely filled with amazing action and outstanding OST. It felt like every beat matched perfectly with the given scene, which made the overall show compelling and worth watching.

This Netflix original was good for its story, the attractive OST, the great casting along with commendable performance by Han So Hee, amazingly shot sequences with more than decent fight/action sequences and an overall violent atmospheric setting.


My Rating : 9/10

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Wannabe John Wick, but failed disastrously

Kill Boksoon is an action packed movie, with good action but the storyline is weak, illogical and didn't have a depth to the overall plot of the story.

A group of killers trivializing murders, yet taking the moral ground of accepting it as a justice. A messed up combination of action with comedy and some gangster organization plot, Kill Boksoon looks like a wannabe John Wick in a parallel world, but fails miserably both in direction and storywise.

Coming to the casting and the characters, all of them were misplaced. Jeon Do Yeon is necessarily not a miscast I would say, but there were a lot better options to pick as a assasin. The rest of the characters were all over the place and nobody left an impressive impact whatsoever.

My Rating : 3.5/10

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Too melodramatic, lacking actual depth

Hospice melodrama If You Wish Upon Me has spent a lot of time showing us the end of life’s journey – admittedly through rose-tinted glasses. Beginning and ending by the ocean, If You Wish Upon Me reminds us that it is not merely an end-of-life drama, it is a cycle-of-life one, too.

The  show had more surprises in store – we realised that not only had we witnessed the start of Gyeo-rye’s redemption story, we had joined Tae-sik midway through his own. Tae-sik is the beating heart of Team Genie, always eager to lend a hand or an ear. But behind his crinkly smile was a long story of woe, filled with tragedy and bad decisions.

All of this may be fitting, but the drama is not perfect and had problems. There was no character depth except Geo-Rye and Tae-Sik. The other side characters were merely a helping hand to the show, without exposing their backstory to the audience. The character of Yeon-Jeo felt like that she only mattered in so far as how she affected the male lead. The pacing was very slow and at times the story felt dragged at some moments. The contrived plot and sentimental send-offs made for a series that occasionally lacked the sincerity to convey the story it set out to tell.

My Rating : 6/10

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Moon has it's own darker side

The Silent Sea may not be the most prolific korean series of the year, but it does something different by jumping into an altogether different genre, diverse from regular korean dramas.

The cast, especially Gong Yoo, did a splendid job. The writing was solid and the initial couple of episodes were tightly balanced, however it got a bit sloppy at the end. I felt that there was no satisfactory conclusion to the series, leaving behind many questions which were supposed to be answered whatsoever.

That being said, I must also acknowledge that the series does not reinvent the wheel. In fact, it’s essentially a variation on the plot of a certain other space tale. Even with the weak ending, The Silent Sea is worth watching. It’s a chilling look at a future that could be closer than we think, as well as a scary story with a monster at the end of it.


My Rating : 7.5/10

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Outdated yet bittersweet

Romantic comedies have been both a topic of interest and ridicule over the years. It is ridiculed by those who find it to be a candy-glossed version of reality. It is praised for its heartwarming rendition of romantic fantasies that feel wonderful to witness on a silver screen. Bang Woo-ri’s ‘20th Century Girl’ is a bit of both. The movie seemed to be alternate of Twenty Five Twenty One, with a small change in the end.

The eye to detailing in the film is well done. We are in fact taken on a ride down the memory lane. As heart-warming as the 20th century romances looked like, relationships were also marred down due to lack of cell phones. Relationships were forgotten, first love rarely became last love, friends lost touch and the yearning.. never ending. The climax of the film is a painful example of how things were different back then.However, the film quite stretches itself way more than it should. Quite unlikely for a repetitive culmination of that kind, it’s indeed the climax that works in favour of the film. Although the whole movie felt cliched, it does have some old school vibes and the feeling of first love being a teen.

In short, 20th Century Girl is a one time watch. If you’re a nostalgia merchant and if you dig yearning and doomed romances, the film would work for you. The biggest quip of 20th Century Girl is that its just another forgettable love-story that banks way too much on yesteryear love, since we have seen a few of this kind in dramas over the years, with more effectiveness in the story.

My Rating : 6.5/10

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Enjoy the time till it lasts.

Twenty-Five Twenty-One is one of those series that has tropes of other romantic K-Dramas, but is more concerned with characters and story revolving around them, rather than meet-cutes and overbearing romance.

Twenty-Five Twenty-One is a show About aspirations, conundrums that young people often face as they try and figure out who they are and what they want their life to be; the pressure to have certain ambitions and a life plan mapped out ahead of you.

Kim Tae Ri as Hee-Do was amazing as the main lead, comical yet mature at times, jolly yet serious about her ambition. That makes her a well written character. Although I do think that there should have been more backstory for Baek Yi Jin since he is the male lead and we heard a number of times about his part, but didn't actually encountered even once.

The story was well developed, even with the supporting characters and the constant shift between in the chronology was well maintained. Twenty Five Twenty One is a show that combines many elements such as romance, drama with comedy but above all a coming-of-age story. It's a story of youth that sees life in various colours and makes us believe that certain things may not be forever, but it should be enjoyed until it lasts..

My Rating : 9.5/10

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Life is tiring and this drama empathizes with it

My Liberation Notes (MLN) is the story of three siblings with a strict hard-working father who seldom speaks, and a mother who does most of the talking in order to avoid arguments at the dining table, and then a stranger living as a neighbour.

The drama is relatable on various levels, especially the mood at the workplace of the three siblings, the camaraderie between the co-workers, the after-work gossip, and the random ranting sessions.


Regardless of which side of the human spectrum you find yourself on and which character’s journey you relate to the most, My Liberation Notes hits many correct points, if not all, and makes the viewers feel relatable about the reality of life. MLN was a good drama, a slow burn with good character development, although gets very slow with pacing at times.

My Rating : 7/10

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Delicate portrayal of Love and Friendship

What happens when 2 friends start living apart in their own life full of struggles and hardships, with a lot of dreams and ambitions to be fulfilled. Soulmate manages to tell the story of this friendship that changes or develops the characters over the course of their lives. The beautiful chemistry of a great bond is elegantly displayed by Kim Da Mi and Jeon So Nee.

In essence, the film focuses on the story of the characters' personal journeys and transition from adolescence to adulthood. The movie captures beautiful stills of Jeju Island and the nostalgic BGM makes it more pleasant to watch.

My Rating : 7/10

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Female led thriller with a distracting title

Little women, loosely based on Louisa May Alcott's novel (only the characters though) is a thriller story of 3 sisters who deals with a society of rich people and their survival to sustain.

Little Women features an extremely well-written plot and air-tight characters. Kim Go-eun does an exceptional job with her acting as In-joo, but it is Uhm Ji-won as Won Sang-ah who takes the cake with her acting. From playing the victim card to acting like a total lunatic, fans really loved to hate Sang-ah. Despite not being a romance drama, fans started growing attached to In-joo and In-kyung’s respective love interests, Do-il and Jong-ho.

Even though with 12 episodes (unlike generic 16 eps for a K Drama), Little Women is as intense as it can get with amazing and intense performances. The plot has twisted so often by this point that this cathartic image at the end of episode 11 brings us full circle, setting up the satisfying conclusion in the show’s concluding episode.

There was a compelling message in Little Women, but what mattered most are the sensations it evoked. It gave us what we wanted to see, at the end. Little Women is an addition of amazing female led dramas (Why Her, Juvenile Justice, Extraordinary Attorney Woo) in 2022.

My Rating : 8.5/10

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Journey ends where you expect it to

Ghost Doctor doesn’t have any heavy romance involved. This is a supernatural bromance between a star surgeon learning to shed his arrogant nature and a cocky young resident doctor learning to, uh, embrace the privileged circumstances he was born into on his way to the top.

Started watching the show due to Kim Beum, but Rain was terrific as well. The importance of doctors, and saving every human lives is well portrayed in the show.

Although it may feel a little stucked with the narrative in the midway, but the last couple of episodes makes it up. Ghost Doctor ends where you expect it to and the familiar journey has been comfortable and to some extent, memorable.

My Rating : 8/10

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A fresh take on superpowers genre, K-Drama style

Moving, a South Korean drama about superpowered teens and the superpowered parents trying to protect them, became Disney's most-watched K-drama of all time. For the past few years, Korean dramas have extensively diversified their genres and viewership, moving beyond the tag of romantic comedies to producing some of the best thrillers, zombie or otherwise! Moreover, they have ventured into genres like dystopia, science-fiction, and now, superheroes! Needless to mention, Moving brings a fresh new entry to K-Drama with its superhero storyline with some family drama.

The show is extremely engaging with the pacing, storyline, action sequences, themes, and the performance of the cast and character relations. Moving is a great concoction of fantasy, mystery, thriller, action, and of course, a romcom, the characteristic feature of Kdramas. Moreover, it features the themes of bullying but now from the perspective of the silent observer and ethical questions that accompany the cost of a lost childhood when children are sold into becoming weapons of the state or in a simpler sense, sold into labor.


In a nutshell, Moving is, hands down, one of the most engaging and unique Kdramas released in 2023 and it would be a shame not to give it a chance with its interesting story, pacing, interesting characters, and the numerous mysteries unveiling themselves.

My Rating : 9.5/10

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A simple plot wih some good action sequences, ending lost the hold

Netflix delivers a knockout punch with its barnstorming early summer K-drama series Bloodhounds, the tale of two fresh-faced pugilists who go up against the vilest loan shark that Korean screen entertainment has offered us in years.

The drama takes place at the height of the pandemic. Characters wear masks in most locales, and check in to buildings with QR codes; sporting events take place before empty stadiums.

The storyline doesn’t delve into much social critique profoundly. The initial backdrop is set up as the launching pad (the pandemic scenes adding relatability) for the action that follows. Therefore, the series is more serious about how the action fleshes out till the end, and it’s not bad either because the show is equally aware of what it’s doing.

The last two episodes take a jarring turn. There’s no denying the fact that the cast adorably wins you over within the first few episodes, but the final ones go a little south. I would’ve definitely given it a higher rating depending on how much I initially enjoyed the series. However, the last two episodes turned out to be a let down in some spaces, especially with a main character suddenly out of the last 2 episodes and letting the antagonist live, even with an aggressive fight that we witnessed at the end.

My Rating : 8/10

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Opposite to the title, the drama is strong

Weak Hero Class 1 is a high school thriller series that follows the story of 3 students who doesn’t care about anything else, and somehow gets involved in constant fights due to bullying.

Most of the school centric dramas are romance, which becomes monotonous watching after a certain point of time. Weak Hero Class 1,however, is a thrilling, yet sobering portrait of young students and the different struggles, difficulties and momentary joys they experience while growing up in a society that, too often, neglects and pushes them aside, that successfully stands out as one of the best dramas of 2022.

With just 8 episodes, the pacing is superb and the action sequences were well crafted. And perhaps what the series does best is to show the immeasurable toll such violence and abuse can take on one’s physical, emotional and mental health. Especially for teenagers who may be experiencing other types of abuse, hardship and struggles outside of the school walls as well.

School violence is certainly not a new theme for a K-drama. But Weak Hero Class 1 is able to take that familiar topic and present it in a way that focuses more on the characters, particularly the victims, and show the unfortunately lasting effects of such violence. The best part of the drama were the 3 leads who had an amazing chemistry on screen and their change in characters once the events turned dark.

Adapted from a webtoon, Weak Hero Class 1 is engaging, highly effective action packed school based drama. The finale teases a 2nd season and yes I am very much intrigued to see what happens next.

My Rating : 8.5/10

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