I guess people still like bad boys.

This series was on my watchlist but it wasn’t quite the time to watch it but the hype and rave reviews made me watch it ahead of schedule and I will say that overall I can totally understand the reason for the hype.
Don’t get me wrong I liked the drama in the totality of what it is and although some arcs weren’t properly fleshed out (I won’t go into details here as someone else already did so read review by #PeachBlossomGoddess for further details if interested) it was still a good drama, aesthetically pleasing drama. I completely agree that ZLH was overacting sometimes but honestly i didn’t mind it at all, I can’t totally understand why people especially the ladies are into his brand of crazy (judging by many reviews I read), his ferocious deranged snarl looks where one for the record books and gave the likes of Wen Kexing ( my favorite male CDrama character tied with Mei ChangSu), DongFang QingCang and Wie Wuxian a run for their money.
My Girl Bai Lu always delivers and that chemistry was off the charts, I wish we got more of them as a couple but the ones we did get was definitely worth it.
As much as I liked the drama for some reason I didn’t crazily love it and I only give 10/10 to a drama I love and will definitely rewatch.
I highly doubt I will rewatch this but never say never.
Rewatch value 6/10
Overall value 8.5/10

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I enjoyed it

People saying that this has no plot, I don’t agree with that. The plot is basically clear. She’s out for revenge for her dead friend, how more clearer can it be? The movie is a revenge drama and doesn’t pretend to be anything more than that. It delivers for me in what it sets out to accomplish. The fight scenes where actual very decent although some suspension of belief is required at time, it had overall good/decent fight scenes.
She took my face and my Lamborghini should be an iconic phrase. Lol.
It’s not something I would rewatch but I do recommend for a one time watch.

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Super disappointed

They certainly don’t make them like Vincenzo or Taxi Driver. Damn. I actually really liked part 1 because it was like a build up for what’s to come but to say I am super disappointed with this part2 is putting it mildly. It was super anticlimactic and extremely underwhelming. I honestly wouldn’t even call this a revenge drama at all, IMO it’s more like a Justice (law) drama. I wanted to see pain and suffering in a severe way but all I got was loss of voice, maybe or maybe not blindness, and 2 freaking prison sentences for our 4 major perpetrators. To say I have been left unsatisfied with the outcome of this is such an understatement.
It would have been better and made more sense IMO if it was Kim Gyeong Ran that pushed Jeon Jae Joon instead of Ha Do Young.
Someone’s review was like, yeah I get all she went through and that they don’t agree with bullying and abuse but said reviewer would have preferred if she got some awakening and chose forgiveness and chose to let go instead and I’m like GTFOH with that stupid self righteous goody2shoes fake and pretentious attitude. It wasn’t you or any of your family members that was tortured so brutally for an extended amount of time, so you can come here and sit on your self righteous high horse and spew some pretentious crap so you can come across as a good person, once again GTFOH with that BS. She didn’t even get revenge, she more like got Justice, the people that were hurt/dead was not even her doing, it was their fellow perpetrators that dished to them just a little of what they actually deserved.
My rating is lower on this than part1 because my revenge fantasy wasn’t met at all and I’m super pissed that no severe bodily harm was done to the 4 of them especially to Park Yeon Jin, Jeon Jae Joon and Lee Sa Ra, the same way they did to several other people. I am an eye for an eye kinda person. In my book whatever is good for the goose is also good for the gander.
I’m going to go watch season 2 of Taxi Driver and then rewatch Vincenzo to get my revenge fix.
This was the perfect drama for the lead actress and she shone in this drama because it didn’t require her to show a lot of different range, i don’t think she can act very well, if she’s too display several different expressions, I don’t don’t how that will come across because her face always looks so frozen like she can’t move any muscle on her face. I haven’t watched decadents of the sun but I have dropped all the other dramas of hers that I tried watching, this is the only one i completed.
I definitely don’t plan on rewatching this.
Rewatch Value 3/10
Overall value 7.5/10

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Cute

Watching this series I just realized that Our Secret walked so that Lighter and Princess could run.
I watched Time and Him Are Just Right & Lighter and Princess before I started watching this and as I am watching I am seriously getting the vibes of both of them and I am not mad about it at all.
The only complain I have so far is that they are making the FL talk like a baby. I get she is in high school but her female high school friends especially KeKe wasn’t talking like that. I know it’s a CDrama thingy to make their FL cute or something by making her talk and behave like a child, just FYI it might be tolerable as a young girl but it’s definitely not cute as an adult so I hope that now that she’s gotten into the university they will make her talk and behave more maturely because I really like this FL. She’s sassy and has spunk but they are literally killing all her sassy spunky vibes with this baby-like acting BS.
Am at the final stretch of the series, let’s see how they end this one. Fingers crossed.

Update: one of my bane of contention was with the way the writers and directors made the FL, with the childish behavior and baby-like speech pattern during the high school period and although the baby-like speech pattern persisted the childish behavior was done away with now in the present time during university, she grew more backbone, which was good to see.
The relationship progressed after ep20 when there are just 4eps left and the romance is so muted, it’s barely there. After concluding the series I realized that it’s a middle school type of romance and it never pretended to be anything else, I will try to not let my expectations of what I wanted it to be influence my rating so I will try and rate as fairly as I can. Overall I enjoyed the drama but it’s pretty forgettable IMO and not something i would ever rewatch.
Someone said beware of diabetes with this series and I kinda echo the sentiment a little bit, it’s definitely a sweet and fluffy series but it lacked that humph to it that would have made it super memorable like it’s successor Lighter and Princess. Simply put Our Secrets was for teenagers while Lighter and Princess was for a more matured audience even though the lead actors were quite young themselves.
Rewatch value is 2/10
Overall value is 7.5/10.

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Unexpectedly good

Honestly while watching this series, I almost stopped so many times but every time I wanted to stop Jiang Xiao Yu will do something that makes me wanna continue. I swear I watched this solely for Jiang. I saw so many bad reviews on this and while I agree with some of the points that lead to the bad reviews I will say this, Chen Zhe Yuan totally carried this series all by his lonesome self and boy did I enjoy every fricking minute he was on screen. I stumbled across this series and I watched it in one go even though I wanted to stop several times as earlier said.
Hu Yi Tian character was so stoic and so boring and I think the actor could have done better even though is character was supposed to be all serious. I honestly have never liked anything that Hu Yi Tian has done.
The best part of this series is definitely when Jiang says he’s the smartest person in the world and I completely agree with him.
This is such an underrated gem IMO.
If you are debating to watch this, I honestly highly recommend.
Rewatch value is 7/10 just because if I ever do rewatch I would only rewatch the scenes with Jiang in them.

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My Kinda Jam

The beginning part was completely out of this world because it was all martial arts, the later episodes were more scheming and it took away a little bit of the essence of what made me fall in love with the series in the first place, I’m not adverse to schemes in a series so it didn’t damper it to much for me. The only problem I had was that I didn’t think it needed any romance and while I have nothing against mismatched couples this one’s just didn’t do it for me at all. There was absolutely no chemistry or even any type of sparks flying between the pair of Xiao Se/Sikong & Lei Wu Jie/Ye Ruo Yi, especially Xiao & Sikong (their romantic moment interactions was really painful to watch IMO) and the writers trying to force the couple thing to work was just cringy to say the least. I really wish they took the faux romance part out. They could have all just been martial brothers and sisters. All that being said, as much as I wanted to take out some points because of the forced romantic pairings because trust me it was incredibly bad and I so badly wanted to but I decided against it as the overall series did outweigh the poor romance efforts so I still gave it a solid 10⭐️.
Xiao Se was a breathtaking character and Li Hong Yi who portrayed him is such a good actor and did a very fine job. He sure brought Xiao Se/Xiao Chu He/Prince Yong An characters to life. He’s surely becoming one of my faves. My favorite character and I think he will also be that for most of the viewers is none other than Wu Xin, he’s one liners were a thing of joy. I wish he featured more throughout the series especially at the later episodes. Every moment he was on screen was important and meaningful. I also applaud Liu Xue Yi for going all in for this character, starting with agreeing to shave his hair for the role (he looked so handsome) and then bringing the character to life. The Bromance between Xiao Se&Wu Xin, Xiao Se&Lie Wu Jie, Xiao Se/Wu Xin&Lei Wu Jie was the only relationship that was needed to be very honest. One of my major disappointment was that we never got to see Spear Deity fight.
The top3 fights:
3rd place goes to the fight between Lone Deity and Xiao Se in Tianqi City.
2nd place goes to Baili DongJun (Liquor Deity) and Mo Yi (Earth Deity) on the celestial island.
1st place goes to Tang Lian against the Dark river people. OMG Tang Lian stole all our hearts with the fight. The actor that played this role did such an awesome job with it.
The CGI and fighting choreography was so incredible I was pleasantly gobsmacked. It fulfilled all my martial arts fantasies and then some.
Rewatch value 10/10 (I have already rewatched)
Overall 10/10.
I highly recommend.

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Disappointing

I was so looking forward to this, it started off so strong and good. The swimming/death story arc was good and drove the 1st part of the series. I didn’t like UWMA and dropped that half way (the incessant weeping of Pharm was such a turn off, I get the trauma and all but it was too much for me to endure), you have trauma but won’t go seek help from a professional so you cope by crying A LOT. So that wasn’t my cup of team so I didn’t care much about care much about Pharm&Dean here either. Could have done without their presence.
As for Win&Team, they were great until the last few episodes. Team now turned into Pharm with the incessant crying. The level of cringe that was the last few episodes was intolerable. So freaking disappointed with how they finished this.

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I recommend

Thanks to the writers of this drama for giving us less common trope filled plot. This is the one drama that the romance being as muted as it was, was actually not bad at all. The focus of the drama was overcoming adversity and doing it with love and our FL did it with such aplomb. Although her family members took sometime to come around to her way of thinking when they finally did the family became unstoppable.
I have seen a lot of horrible emperors in CDramas but this one does take the cake because he was horrible for no reason other than he was d emperor.
Anyways to say I highly recommend this drama will be an understatement.
Happy viewing new viewers, enjoy the ride

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Quality over Quantity

Wow. Such a good series with matured cast and matured acting. The cast did such a good job portraying their characters. Oh and that chemistry was definitely chemistrying…. I can’t honestly say which was better, their conversations/banters or the way they look at each other, both were simply magic.
I honestly wish CDramas will transition away from the baby/childlike talking FLs and ridiculous cliched/tropey filled plots and give us more matured like dramas like this. I doubt that will happen as it seems the mature plots is not popular with their targeted audiences, which is such a shame as the minority are constantly subjected to a regurgitated load of mess.
I highly recommend this drama

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A fluffy nonsense

I Honestly don’t have the wherewithal to write this review. This started so good. It was funny and cute. But it ended up being a cute fluffy middle school romance drama that disappointed me greatly. I don’t know if it’s because of his age or what the reason was that made the kiss scenes so extremely bad. But that’s just an excuse IMO as Wang AnYu was the same age when he acted in “Falling Into You” and he over delivered there (I keep saying that actors/actress and CDrama directors need to go take kissing lessons from that drama). If it was only just the issue of the kiss scenes been terrible i could have tolerated it but no, when they finally confessed to having feelings for each other we got the most horribly awkward tv couple of all time. The awkwardness was so damn painful to watch and it was illogical. It didn’t make any logical sense why these two people who have been living together for so long will be this extremely awkward with each other.
Like I said i don’t know if it was the age of Lin Yi or because of the director that the kiss scenes were so bad but am just glad that Tang Xiao Tian the SML made it up to Xing Fei aka FL 2yrs later in their own drama My Little Happiness. If you want to watch an adult romance with better plot featuring 2 out of the 4 main leads in this drama then go watch My Little Happiness. Enough said.
Don’t even get me started on the second couple. The FL was in love with the SML since highSchool but the SML kept putting off starting a relationship with her and disappointing her so many times, when the FL finally got over him, the light bulbs went off and he realized that he’s in love with her but alas it was too late. One of the FLs best friends fell in love with said SML even knowing the situation-ship between her “friend” aka the FL and the SML, that was icky alone on its own for me but the major eye roll moment was when they tried to sell me that the SML has now falling in love with said FLs friend. The way the feelings happened went from 0-100 and was so super unrealistic, he was crying over the FL but less than a week/month he’s now in love with the FLs friend, puhhhhh-lease.
I was going to give this a 2 or 3/10 to be honest but the last episode was nice so it made me change it to 5/10 but that is all this deserves IMO.
I won’t be rewatching this horrible awkward painful experience that’s for sure
Rewatch value 2/10
Overall value 5/10

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The gaslighting & mental gymnastics ?

The gaslighting by the writers of this drama is of epic proportions lemme tell you, having dialogues like, we are now even cos you saved me 3 times to justify them being a couple down the road is very sick.
But they achieved their goal because the mental gymnastics that a lot of abuse apologist in the comment section are using to defend their support of a relationship that was preceded with abuse, torture and attempted murder is wild to say the least. You all can dress/excuse it however you like, is not going to change the fact that you support a woman falling in love with someone who almost killed her several times and abused/tortured her. Not like the stabbing and poisoning was not bad because they were but the ants and the water boarding, telling me that any same person will fall in love with someone who water boarded them and let ants crawl over them is pure madness and most of you really need to go reflect on the kind of person you truly are.
The level of shallow minded and below basic human decency and honestly intelligence with comments like, OMG they are so cute, OMG it’s so toxic but idc cos they are so cute, being more annoyed and disappointed that they didn’t get a kiss scene than disgusted that there was a relationship at all is all too telling of who you really are, FYI thinking watching and enjoying cute moments and kiss scenes trumps everything tells me you are not on any level that is worth respecting as a human being.
Aside from the COMPLETELY AND ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE relationship between the ML and the FL the drama is ok but I simple cannot get past that so for me this drama would be rated 3/10.

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Sweet

I do like the story and the acting, the acting which is a pet peeve of mine from Thai dramas & has resulted in me dropping a lot of their dramas is fortunately not an issue here as the plot and acting in this one is really good.
Currently @ ep 10 and I’m seriously frustrated with Kawi. He claims to want an equal relationship but that’s not what’s happening, Pisaeng still always has to give in to his wishes and demands, every thing they do is on Kawi’s terms, Pisaeng wanted to stay home but Kawi forced or cajoled however you wanna look at it, to go to the amusement park, Pisaeng ok we are here now, let’s get on a ride, in true Kawi form, he says no and sulks/walks back to the car, like seriously, that really pissed me off.
As long as Kawhi bats his eyelashes and says please Pisaeng will just give in like a simp, while it was tolerable before they became official now it’s just plain stupid especially after the whole “be equal in the relationship” passionate speech.
Rewatch Value 4/10
Overall Value 7.5/10

PS: will update review and rating after completing the drama
Update: completed the drama. I will slightly change my rating from 7.5/10 to 8/10.
Their domestic montage in ep11 was cute and adorable.

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Heads & Shoulders Above the Rest

I want to start by commending the casting director because they did such a fantastic job.
Aside from the script/plot (although I agree it went a little bit sideways in the last 7-10eps) which was stellar, the success of this drama IMO stems from the fact that the casting director and director of this drama didn’t cast any popular “idol” and casted people that can actually act. What a refreshing breath of fresh air to watch a drama where nobody is conscious of their angles and trying to look good instead of actually acting naturally. I totally understand that dramas want to make money and they have to cast this idols and most of them can’t act worth a dime, even to save their lives, but since they are popular and bring in lots of traffic and have fans that will defend their acting until their last breath and swear to the heavens that we haven’t seen acting like that in history and if you dare state otherwise, you are thereafter branded a hater/anti (unfortunately a lot of reviewers fear the attack from the aforementioned mobs so they keep quiet instead of rocking the boat and give their honest reviews if the drama sucked or the acting sucked), this directors are unfortunately forced to work with this very good looking but extremely average actors. Also not just acting, the combination of average and recycled scripts are also part of the problem.
I honestly commend all the actors for a job well done, I can’t emphasize enough what an awesome and stellar job you all did, it was incredible to watch, I want to specially shoutout to the most outstanding character to me and that is Princess Yang Ying aka Prince Li, the Justice this young actress did to her role will go down in CDramaLand history IMO, she was spectacular, she was believable at every point of her journey, I was left in awe everytime she graced the scene, I can’t wait to watch more from her in the future, honorable mention to Yu ShiShan, Alen Fang what a fabulous job you did with that character (and that shimmy was definitely on point)
I wish the last few episodes weren’t so rushed and was fleshed out as the beginning of the drama, it felt like they just threw everything at us all at once but all that being said, IMO this drama is still definitely heads and shoulders above the dramas of its kind this year as at the time of this airing.
My only complain would be in the romance department, if felt like they gave us a lot without actually giving us anything, the romance started out well but it kinda frizzled out as they became a couple officially and this was honestly the worst part of the drama
All in all, I highly recommend.

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Could have been great

I hated the last few episodes hence the low rating. How tf does a character who talks so much and always has something to say become mute and can’t speak to clarify situations. To say I was pissed off at how Lusi’s character changed in the last few episodes is such an understatement. This chemistry and connection between Chu hua and Shanggan qui que was intense and hot so that’s why I’m left bewildered and baffled at their kiss scenes, it’s was so underwhelming, their lips didn’t even move, I guess I can blame that on the director. Another reason for my low rating. All in all really enjoyed the beginning and hated the ending.

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Damn

I finally got around to watching this series. I taught it was overhyped but i am going to tell you right now, it’s not. It’s not perfect by any means because I noticed some flaws but they are not dealbreaker’s kinda flaws, so overall it was really good. So far nothing has really happened to any of the perpetrators, so am assuming they are leaving it for the part 2.

The brutality that was the bullying was beyond my comprehension. I can’t believe that in a whole school and city no single person could do anything about that level of brutality. That some teachers and some students can just brutalize people at will and absolutely nothing is done about it. I have seen this on a couple of Korean series and if this is what is going on in their schools over there without any protection from the authorities, the. I really have no words.
My only complaint is that for someone who has planned so long and hard for this revenge, she should have taking self defense classes and learned how to fight. I don’t discount her trauma at all because what she went through was pretty traumatic but if you are going to say that you are hardened now and are going to exert cruel revenge, you can’t be shuddering, flinching and terrified at the sight or touch of the perpetrators you are going after, it really does defeat the whole badass-ry persona. If the perpetrators can tell that you are still afraid of them, then you are likely not going to strike the kind of fear and terror that you need to when you face off with them.
I don’t know if that’s what they writers and directors were going for but I would have preferred she was mentally and physically stronger and they were all super terrified of her but it’s still a pretty good revenge drama. I have enjoyed this first part but I sincerely hope to see some severe damage being done to this arrogant vicious bullies in the part 2.

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