A drama of half-formed ideas

I score dramas based solely on my enjoyment of them, so my rating doesn't reflect the quality of the drama but how good of a time I had watching it. For me, Kokdu was a very long, painful ride.

I started the drama as it was airing and I hated it. Right from the first episode, it was obvious that the writing was sloppy and the plot was poorly placed. I was in a bit of a drama drought and tried to stick with it for as long as I could, but 4-5 episodes in I caved and dropped it. It was boring and while I enjoyed the ML for being a very out-there character, the FL was as sturdy as wet cardboard. But, oddly enough, I went back to it all these months later on a whim and, for some reason, found myself genuinely enjoying it. Was the writing better? No. The characters? No. All that changed was my mentality. I laughed at some of the jokes and had a grand time, and when the writing was bad or the pacing was weird, I laughed at that, too. If you don't take it seriously, it can be a pretty entertaining show. (The last 1/3 of the drama really drops off, however, and everything goes about how you expect so there's no need to force yourself to sit through it if you feel it's dragging.)

The biggest issue this drama has is that it doesn't follow through with any of its ideas. It'll throw plot twists and developments at you left and right without fleshing them out and then will forget about them just as soon. For example: the FL is a doctor, but she doesn't actually feel like one. She ends up opening a clinic, but the only time we see her doing her job is when it's convenient for the plot. By the halfway point, she basically isn't seen working at all.

Then we have Kokdu or, more to the point, the person whose body he takes over: Jin Woo. At the beginning of the drama, he dies and Kokdu has to deal with the affairs he left behind - his girlfriend, the plot of the villain, the FL Gye Jeol, etc. But partway through the drama, his soul is returned to his body by Gye Jeol's command. In this sort of show, this is something that often happens and makes up a big chunk of the story. But here? He's around for around 2 episodes, in which he discovers what's happened in his absence and decides to cling to life. This amounts to a whole lot of nothing. He dies again shortly after so Kokdu can take over his body and is never heard from again. There's no closure for him, he doesn't accomplish much of anything while he's around, and after he dies again no one really talks about him, not even the leads or his ex-girlfriend. It's filler.

This isn't the only instance of this, though. At one point, Gye Jeol's brother is kidnapped and the two leads go to save him. This is used as a trigger for Gye Jeol to finally realize that Kokdu's not human (which, how did she not notice this sooner??) and they begin their dramatic angst to waste even more time. And the brother? Well, when they walk off to have their angst, he's freed. Somehow. I guess. We're never shown if Kokdu went back to set him free, if he got out himself, or anything of the sort. Again and again, the story will introduce a plot thread or some side story and drop it just as quickly. Take the ending: Kokdu dies? No, he survives and is asleep in the hospital. No wait, he's actually awake and is staying past his 99 days. No, wait, actually, he's trying to get Gye Jeol to confess to him so that he can die. So what if he said he would stay with her no matter what half an episode ago? Oh, wait, he's dead again, for real this time. Except, of course, there's the mandatory time skip and he's revived for their happy ending. I didn't even mind the very end itself, but the lead-up to it was dreadful. There's also a point at the start of the last third of the drama where Kokdu stops being a fun character to watch and becomes more of the standard, brooding ML you often find in these shows, which killed a lot of my enjoyment.

Characters will say their opinion on one thing and change it at the drop of a pin. Kokdu remembers his little brother from his past life randomly, starts doting on his reincarnation for all of 10 seconds before he's shoved aside with no further development between them for the rest of the series. The second couple will fight over something randomly and then get along again. Actual plot points will happen off-screen and then will be explained to us lazily through exposition - or maybe not explained at all! I could go on and on about how hot-and-cold this drama is, but you get the point. All of these half-formed ideas get thrown in without being properly fleshed out and it really kills the drama.

So why am I still giving this a 7? If I have this much (and more) to complain about, then why not rate it to reflect that? Well, at the end of the day, for 2/3 of the drama I was enjoying it, even if it was a hot mess, and that's what mattered most to me. I laughed at how bad it got and enjoyed some aspects of it. The demi-gods were fun to watch, there were some good jokes sprinkled in, and beneath all the crap there was a sliver of hope that this could have been something. It feels like the rough draft of a story, just thrown together with a bunch of ideas that were never written out properly to be given substance, and if I think of it like that, I can move past some of its bad moments.

TL;DR: It's a badly-written show, yes, and the latter 1/3 is a slog, but if you're the type of person that likes watching bad shows now and then, and you want some turn-your-brain-off garbage to veg out to at the end of the day, give it a shot. And if a good plot with good writing is integral to your enjoyment?

Run the other way. Run as far as you can.

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I really wanted this to be good

Coming off of shows like Sweet Home and Happiness that did survivalist horror so well, I had expectations for this. They weren't that high and I wasn't expecting another Sweet Home out of a traditional zombie apocalypse story, but I was anticipating a fun, off-the-walls zombie flick that would keep me entertained for a few hours. And it did! At first. Let me explain.

The drama starts off great with some well-shot, high-action scenes and a lot of unabashed gore and really gets you into it. You don't really know much about the characters other than a few facts thrown at you, but hey, it's zombies, most of them won't survive anyway. So I got really into it at first. The mystery surrounding the source of the virus wasn't all that interesting and immediately felt like a half-baked origin story, but it was good enough for the B-horror I was expecting.

Problems stemmed when time started to pass. The initial mayhem was brilliant but after a certain point, when the characters start talking about being hungry and thirsty, issues arose. The characters explicitly explain to one another what would happen if they didn't eat or find water soon. Then, well. They don't find any. What would normally be an important plot point in other zombie shows becomes a moot point here. They drink some rainwater at some point, each takes a bite out of a candy bar and that's about it. They talk about being hungry but show no signs of getting weaker or being malnourished, and their only goal throughout the series is to get rescued, never to find food or water.

The show has a LOT of B-plots and side characters that never have any satisfying conclusions. They introduce a bunch of characters that you think will be fleshed out or explained later but never are. And there are a LOT of plot holes. For instance:
1. The pregnant student is shown heavily in the first episodes. Her identity isn't explained and we know nothing about her aside from her giving birth and tying herself up with ribbon (just ribbon, yet somehow she doesn't break free) to keep from hurting her baby after she turns. That's it. She was there to add drama and tension but she wasn't added with a plot or reason. Shock value, at most.
2. On Jo's father is keyed up to be the man who will save the day. In early episodes, On Jo talks about how her father promised to be there for her if anything happened to her, that he would save her, and throughout most of the series, he does everything in his power to see that through. Most of the scenes we get of his character are him making his way to her school, so naturally, we expect the reunion to be a big, key point in the series, right? They've built it up that way. But no. He dies about 7 minutes after reuniting with her. In fact, their reunion is used as the big cliffhanger for one of the episodes, only for him to be turned into a zombie at the very beginning of the next. It was one of the biggest letdowns of the series and leaves a sour taste in your mouth when you realize that his entire purpose was just to build up tension. To add insult to injury, his 'noble sacrifice' was unnecessary. After he threw the first flare, the zombies ran to it and cleared a path for everyone to escape safely. Throwing more and not escaping was pointless.
3. The bullied girl had no character arc. She is one of the few intelligent zombies we get throughout the drama and so I expected something big to happen with her, but she just wandered around on her bike after trying and failing miserably to burn down the school. Then when I saw she reached the quarantined zone, especially after she bit her schoolmate, I expected all hell to break loose there. Nope. She was subdued. The whole point of her was to show the military that asymptomatic infections were a thing so that they would abandon the main cast at the school. Great storytelling.
4. Cheong San's mother. They had her do a little rescue mission only for her to fail at every obstacle. Her entire role was to leave a vehicle for the policemen to use (they could have just had one there from someone else, there was no reason to use a character for that) and to get to the school so that her son could be sad that she was a zombie. That's it.
5. Gwi Nam as the main antagonist of the series worked for a little while, but he got old pretty quickly as he never did much of anything. He'd show up, attack, they would 'kill' him and he'd come back after healing only to find they'd moved. Not that big of a threat, really.
6. The police officers, especially Song Jae Ik, were a great addition to the cast. I thought. Jae Ik was there from the start, saw Byeong Chan, and had the task of finding the laptop, so I naturally thought he'd be one of the few adults in this that would actually help the kids. Nope. Not what happened. He saves the baby and another random little girl, sure, but the moment the military saves them, he just dips out of the story. You see his face once or twice after that and that's it. He had fewer scenes and yet a better role in Happiness.
7. There was literally no point to the streamer. At all. Why was he in the story? He did absolutely nothing. Not one thing. And then he disappeared with the police officers.
8. The girl (I don't remember her name) who used her handkerchief to infect another student. She escaped, hid away in a storage room, was having a change of heart and was going to bring supplies to the others (and hey, that would have helped with that one plothole, wouldn't it?) and then she's killed off randomly. I didn't like her and don't care that she died, but if they were going to do that, they could have just had her die right away in the halls.
9. When Gwi Nam bit Nam Ra, she became an intelligent zombie. Everyone else he bit became regular zombies. How does that make sense? The strain that's passed on should be the one that he has, so logically, everyone he bites should become an intelligent zombie. What, is the virus prejudiced?
10. When Byeon Chan turned, he didn't look like a normal zombie. It looked like he became an intelligent zombie. This is never addressed, and we never find out either way. Maybe they just did it that way for dramatic effect? Not a good move.
11. What was the point of the assemblywoman? Why was she in the story at all?
12. In the end we see Nam Ra seemingly well-adjusted after being out on her own for a few months. How? How is that possible? When we last saw her, her hunger was so bad that she tried to bite On Jo and left because she could no longer hold herself back. So how is it that she's perfectly fine around them now, and that her eye has healed? It doesn't explain anything about that. It just leaves it off trying to make us think she's a cool badass zombie-fighter now, but I'm just left with questions.

I know I'm missing some, but you get my point.

Most of the plot was jumping from one closed-off room with no resources to another. A few ideas they actually do have are foiled by what's going on in the outside world, like phone lines and the internet being cut off. It was fine at first, but the kids never got any smarter and never adjusted to the zombies, so that's all we ever got. To the very end, they had absolutely no control over the situation, which isn't what you want to see in a zombie series.

I have a lot of gripes with this drama, to the point that it negatively impacted my viewing experience. But like I said, it was fun at first. I do recommend at least watching the first half because some of it is a lot of fun, but don't expect anything more than a few good scenes and some light comedy in the first few episodes. After that, decide for yourself if you want to suffer through the mess that is the second half.

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The best BL J-drama to date

Do not let this gem pass you by. Cherry Magic is great. It's stupid and silly in all of the best ways, and it has respect for its characters. Naturally, it still has that charming but hard to watch cringe that J-dramas are known for, but it's heartwarming. And to top it off, it feels like it's the perfect length to tell its story. It's not too long, not too short - just the right length for everything to tie up nicely.

This story is primarily character-driven, so take caution if you're the type to prefer plot over character studies. On that front, not a lot happens. The drama follows the lives of the 2 main couples and a handful of side characters and has little going on outside of that. Most of the conflicts are internal - no love triangles to muddy the waters or external forces tearing therm apart. They're just people living their lives.

The drama does a great job showing some platonic romances as well. Friends that the characters make genuinely feel like friends and the healthy relationships explored aren't all romances. For that alone, this show deserves your time.

Overall, it's the kind of story you want to binge in bed on the weekend when you're having a rough time. Guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

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Memorable and Heartwarming

Though this drama doesn't bring anything new to the table, what it gives us is a well-written, non-sexualized approach to homosexual couples you don't often get to see. Like with a lot of BL, not much happens concerning the plot in these short 8 episodes. The story is character-driven. It focuses entirely on Vlad and Karl, the two protagonists, and their journey living together and growing closer with time. It's simple, and sometimes the dialogue can come off as preachy to some, but I really do believe that this drama is a great addition to the LGBT library, especially for young or otherwise closeted members of the community. It may be a bit heavy-handed, but the messages it offers are sometimes what you need to hear the most. For anyone who has been there before, it's relatable.

The couple in question is very realistic. Karl is more than closeted, he doesn't realize that he's gay until partway through the series. Vlad, on the other hand, is out and proud and doesn't want to hide anymore. This happens more often than we like to admit, and it can make finding love hard, and keeping it harder. And that's the premise. That's it. Instead of giving us a variety of topics and fascets of gay relationships to dabble in, it focuses on this.

Like in the Movies is one of the first BL dramas I saw that felt to me like it was made for the community. Whether it's the decision to hide and wait, the need to take your time in accepting yourself, or the confidence to be out and open about who you are and who you love, it doesn't condemn anyone for feeling the way that they do. Your journey is your own, you are valid, and you deserve to write your own ending. And I think that's beautiful.

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I have never seen a more genuine couple in my long history with kdramas

Dali and the Cocky Prince is really something special. I've gotten accustomed to writing reviews about dramas that don't offer anything new but are enjoyable nonetheless, but Dali is not that. It's a lot more. Sure the premise is simple and has been done before, but the execution is brilliant. The characters are wonderful, from the leads to the side roles, and they bring the story to life in a way that feels refreshing and new. They're entirely believable.

Moo Hak is an eccentric male lead, which was a really popular trope for a long time, and he's the poster-boy for that trope. He has his tacky, flashy designer suits and his expensive watch, he's extremely bad at English and he's not well-versed in common cultural knowledge and phrases. But his shortcomings are balanced out with his business savvy and his very genuine predisposition. Moo Hak is not a polite man by any means. He's rude and brash and loud, loves money, and commands attention when he walks into a room. But he's honest, more so than anyone else in the drama, and he's passionate about everything he does. Food is important to him. He runs a restaurant chain, never skips a meal and cares not only about how food tastes but also about how well it will fill his customers' stomachs and how affordable it is. And when he's passionate about something, he puts a lot of care into it. And that's just what we learn about him in the first few episodes. The characters are multi-faceted and deep, enough to feel like real people.

Dali, on the other hand, comes from a very different world. Where Moo Hak is uneducated and had a rough childhood working for his father's business, Dali comes from a prestigious family who has owned the Cheonsong museum for generations. She's well-educated and passionate about art but has trouble taking care of herself - even eating and sleeping on her own. Reality hits her when her father passes away suddenly and she's sent from the Netherlands to Korea to deal with the estate, the art museum, and the many debts her father left behind. But she's resilient and determined to take care of the museum that her father loved, even at the expense of all that she has left. To her, Moo Hak is a strange but incredibly interesting man. He makes her laugh and gives her the help that she needs to try to protect Cheonsong, even if the ways he does so are crude and frustrating to her at times.

As I said, the story itself, if you're just looking at it from a plot perspective, is nothing new. It's how it's handled that makes it special. With a drama like this, you can easily look back at your previous experience with similar stories and imagine what plot twists and dramatic turns it's going to take, and know where you're going to end up in the end. Except that a lot of those common pitfalls don't happen here. The misunderstandings, the sudden revelations, the big reveals and family please for the couple to part - all those annoying subjects crop up exactly where you're expecting them to, but Dali isn't so easy, and it's going to subvert your expectations wherever it can. Those romcom climax lows where everything is suddenly going wrong and the characters who were best buds in one episode are suddenly enemies or apart for the next two or three? Yeah, no. Dali's not about that. And that's what I loved about it. It's one of the few romances I've watched in the past several months - maybe a year? - that doesn't use those tropes to pad out the last 6 episodes, and I'm eternally grateful. I enjoyed every minute of it, from beginning to end, with no dragging in the middle.

The biggest appeal for me, though, is the relationship between Dali and Moo Hak. They're genuinely in love. They have an adorable honeymoon phase, they're honest with each other and they prove how much they care time and time again. I've watched a lot of romances. They're my guilty pleasure when I'm sick or having a rough go of things. I've seen couples turn on each other or break up for several episodes just to add drama and pad the runtime. But every time these two go through one of these things that would, in any other drama, take several hours to resolve, they work it out. They talk to each other, they work it out, and they don't let the other person go. In addition to that, we get to see a lot of shows of affection between them that you don't see often in Korean dramas - butterfly kisses and implied sex (which is getting more common but not overtly so) to name a few. I could maybe see some people being turned off by just how much and how often these two are showing affection for each other, but when I'm watching a romance, that's kinda what I'm looking for and I loved it. I genuinely believed in their relationship, and I rooted for them all the way. These two are precious.

So watch Dali and the Cocky Prince. Just do it. I suppose if you prefer mysteries then maybe it's not for you, but I don't think you'd be looking at Dali at all if that's what you're after anyway. So just give it a shot. It's funny, charming, sweet, and brightens your day. What's the worst that could happen?

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The first thing you need to know about this drama is that the two leads are amazing together. They're both very talented and own their roles. I should note that this was my first time seeing both So Ji Sub and Gong Hyo Jin act, so I'm not able to compare this to their other performances, but I can say that I loved every moment they were on screen. From two to three episodes in you're already hooked, just waiting for them to arrive on screen.

I didn't go into this story expecting much, especially with the premise that it had. It seemed interesting, sure, but ultimately overdone. The writers took a different take on it than what I expected, though, and the whole thing was enjoyable from start to finish... except for a few episodes towards the end. The story's climax feels like it happens earlier on, the rest just added on to make it reach 17 episodes. Story elements, and even characters, are added last minute to add more conflict to the story where it wasn't needed before, and I found even Gong Shil to be growing a bit unlikeable. But the last episode brought it back, and it felt more like it did at the start of the story, so I can't say that the ending was a waste. Still, I can't say it fully makes up for the unnecessary twists that happened before it, so this is where I had problems with the story.

It isn't just our two leads who are great in this drama, either. Every character is played very well by some talented actors. I especially enjoyed Choi Jung Woo as Joong Won's secretary. But despite the actors themselves being great, the characters never really gripped me the way I would have liked. I didn't hate any of them, not by any means, but I had to roll my eyes at some of their actions or would fine myself impatiently waiting for our leads to come back on screen. So while everything was well acted, I wasn't very invested in any of them. But Joo Joong Won's incredibly likeable character coupled with the quirky and loveable Gong Shil more than made up for it.

Now, is it rewatchable? Most definitely. The moment I finished it I already wanted to go back and rewatch. Except I would maybe skip the last few episodes, as they just draw out the story.

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I didn't know I needed this but here we are

If you're looking for something totally new and fresh, this may not be the drama for you. The story contains all the tropes you've come to expect, even if it makes fun of them, and there's nothing to it but the romance and friendship between the characters. But if what you're looking for is something to lift your spirits on a rough evening or to bring a smile to your face, you're looking in the right direction.

Scripting Your Destiny is a quirky, fun take on the overused notion of 'fate' in Korean dramas. It puts a face to that unchangeable fate in the form of deities of destiny, beings who exist to write a person's fate the way a writer does their characters. Over the course of this short but sweet series, we get to see a mess of ways these deities can affect their charges using their books and how the people being written about can both conform and change the destiny they've been given. This is all centred around Shin Ho Yoon, a deity seeking to write the perfect destiny for his charge Jeong Ba Reum. That includes the perfect romance, of course. The problem is that Ho Yoon has no experience with romance nor the skills to write the best romance it can be. To solve this issue, he plagiarizes Ba Reum's love interest Go Chae Kyung's old writing in an attempt to bring the couple together. In doing so, at some point, in some way, he finds himself becoming her love interest instead. This is a problem as deities of destiny must remain impartial to their charges and feeling anything for a human risks elimination.

This drama is great at setting a mood. The cinematography is really good for such a small, short drama, the OST perfectly suits the story and the actors do a great job. Everything comes together well and the best part of the story is the fact that it's so short. Because there isn't much time, it focuses on progressing the plot and building character relationships rather than adding in unnecessary conflicts like a lot of long-running romcoms are so prone to do. While it at first seems like the start of a love triangle is forming, it never gets there. There are no backstabbing friends, no parents trying to get in the way of the characters, and really, no unnecessary complications to the plot. Well, mostly. There are some moments towards the end that feel a little muddied as they try to up the severity of the one big conflict the drama does have, but they're rectified and didn't derail the story.

Even if there's nothing new, the story stays true to what it intended to be and knows what it is. It's character-driven. There's comedy, there's the overused notion of fate, and there are characters that you really grow to like over the drama's short run time. My one gripe has to be that I wish it was just a little longer. A little more detailed. I wish we got to learn more about Ba Reum as his character doesn't get the same sort of conflict and growth that I thought he was going to have in the early episodes, and I wish we saw more between him and Ho Yoon as their dynamic of deity and charge could have been really fascinating to explore. And, well, I liked the characters. I would have loved seeing more of the two deities interacting and their history or had more detail on the flashbacks that are shown. And it would have been nice to have more concrete knowledge on how the deities function themselves, how they come to be, how it's decided that they're eliminated, and the inner workings of their world. It's mentioned that there are deities for more than just destiny, but we're never shown them. The world this could have created could rival many big fantasy dramas of the past if given the chance, but well. That was never the drama's intention. It didn't want to be the next Hotel Del Luna or Goblin. Still, it would have been nice to see.

If you like calm romcom settings with a bittersweet twist, give this one a shot. It won't take up much of your time and you may find something memorable along the way.

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I enjoyed every minute of this drama for its colourful cast of characters, its stupid humour and its unique premise. But not everyone will, and it's important to go into Psychopath Diary with a very clear mindset if you want to enjoy it.

I'll skip an overview of the premise and jump straight to the meat of the controversy: the plot. Psychopath Diary is, essentially, a black comedy. It's really important to keep that in mind as you watch it because if you go into it expecting a dark, psychological thriller or a fascinating take on the premise, you're going to come out of this show having watched something you weren't looking for. This show is a comedy. It never wants to be more. There's character growth, there are heartwarming moments and a lot of really fun, engaging interactions within a cast that somehow managed to keep me, personally, loving every character. But the gritty psychology that a lot of people went into the drama looking for is not here.

I do agree that, had the writers taken a different route, the drama could have been so much more interesting. The plot plays it safe, for the most part, especially at the end. But if the drama went down a darker path, it wouldn't have been the story they were going for. Yoon Shi Yoon is an actor that relies on comedy and exaggeration. I think he plays his 'psychopath mode' role very well, but he's not the actor that would have been chosen had they intended the series to be a dark thriller. He's too bubbly, too likeable for a role like that. But for what the drama IS, a cute, heartwarming comedy with a thriller premise, they couldn't have chosen anyone better.

The cast is amazing. Everyone played their roles well, I fell in love with all of the characters, and even when the writing takes a few dips here and there in quality, they manage to make it enjoyable enough that I don't care. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any actor that felt jarring or any performances that were done poorly. This drama introduced me to Yoon Shi Yoon who I've found to be thoroughly enjoyable in the other roles that he's played. It was also the first time I saw Park Sung Hoon in a drama and he was amazing as a serial killer, so I'll definitely be taking a look at his other roles. Jung in Sun as Bo Kyung was the perfect compliment to the trainwreck that was Dong Shik. But aside from the main cast, everyone did a great job too. My favourite part of this drama is by far the amazing actors that brought it to life.

The plot, with its interesting premise, is both a strength and a weakness. It promises a lot of things at the beginning that it doesn't deliver through to the end, which I know is the biggest complaint that people have and I fully agree that it's an issue. But what it does give us, so long as you're able to go with the flow, is a fun story with a lot of long-standing jokes, character bonding, and a good look into who this pushover salaryman Dong Shik is and how he grows into a stronger person. So, I'm able to somewhat forgive its faults in favour of the enjoyment that I got out of it.

TL;DR: Psychopath Diary is a fun, engaging comedy with thriller aspects. It is NOT a psychological thriller. Going into the drama knowing that is critical to your enjoyment of it. The writing is nothing revolutionary, but it's enjoyable. The cast is amazing, everyone is fun to watch, and the soundtrack is perfect. But if you're looking for a drama that tackles tough issues like what makes a person who they are, how pressure and misconception can change someone, or a good man's slow descent into murder, you'll have to wait. The drama you're looking for isn't here yet, but maybe with Psychopath Diary paving the way, we'll see it in the future.

Until then, enjoy watching this stupid, pushover salaryman as he tries to keep his life together.

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A cute little adventure

It's nice to see the Korean industry taking another step towards LGBT content. This past year they've been dipping their toes more and more in BL territory and I love it. While the story is very simple and barebones, To My Star offers a short but sweet look into the lives of two very opposite people as they enter each other's worlds. A quiet, stoic chef suddenly finds his space invaded by a flirty, outgoing actor who's trying to lie low after a scandal threatens his career and sparks fly. The story doesn't go too deep into who these characters are, where they came from or how they got here, it does give us just enough to tell what kind of people they are. In web dramas, there is never enough time to really get the full story. The crew needs to pick and choose the level of detail they can handle and what parts should be sacrificed, and more often than not that's nuance. Fortunately, To My Star makes up for its losses with a nice, slow romance that isn't half as unhealthy as most of the titles in the genre.

Definitely worth a watch. It's short and sweet and won't take up much of your time, and it's the perfect way to enjoy the genre if you're not a fan of high school romances. There are better titles out there, but that doesn't make this one any less cute.

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The heart makes up for the plot, I swear.

Hello Me is the perfect example of a drama not necessarily needing a well-written plot in order to be memorable. During a season filled to the brim with suspense thrillers, murder mysteries and dark-themed dramas, this little romcom was my oasis. It re-energized me in the middle of weeks filled with murder, betrayal and frustration. Without it, I probably wouldn't have made it through the other shows that aired.

The story for this drama is actually pretty simplistic, and more than a bit convoluted. BHN is a woman who, after the death of her father, essentially gave up on life. Blaming herself for his death, she was never able to get her feet off the ground. She was a fixed point in time. While the world around her kept changing, she refused to change with it, and her inability to adapt found her living off of her sister's success in exchange for housekeeping, with a job that didn't give her much of an income. At 37-years-old she had nothing to show for herself. But on her worst day, she gets a second chance as her 17-year-old self appears from the past and gives her the push she needs to reinvent herself. This concept has been done before in many different ways and variations and isn't anything new. A lot of the drama's shortcomings stem from this premise as they try to think up ways to explain - or avoid - the time travel and the convoluted nature of how things ended up this way, and it only gets worse when they try to send 17-year-old BHN back to her time.

Despite the lacklustre plot, it's worth a watch. It makes up for its shortcomings with a powerful message, heartwarming moments and great characters. Hello Me tells a story of loving yourself and accepting who you are, no matter your faults, where you came from or how you got here. We follow BHN's journey as a sad, guilt-ridden woman at the end of her rope as she regains lost confidence and learns to stop blaming herself for the past. Through her own will, she finds a career and reconnects with friends and family with whom she had grown distant over her 20 years of grief.

I wouldn't be doing the drama justice if I ignored the supporting cast. HYH as the male lead was amazing. Following the theme of BHN herself, many of the other characters go through their own growth period throughout the story and the male lead is one of them. HYH begins his journey as an immature, indecisive young man with a good heart. He has no direction in life and no interest in the family business so he spends his days learning new skills and collecting very niche licenses that he says will be useful when working in the future, even though he's never had a job. After losing a bet against his father, he's kicked out of the house and has no choice but to try to make it on his own. The chemistry between HYH and BHN is amazing. They genuinely feel like they care about one another as they grow close and every interaction they have, while oftentimes silly and over-the-top, is natural and fluid. There's no sudden forced romance like you usually get with romcoms. Everything is slow and they go at their own pace, forming a close bond before anything more than HYH's crush is brought into the spotlight.

YCS is a former school-bully-turned-actor hiding his past behind his new name Anthony and a lot of plastic surgery. Pretty topical, given the past few months. I honestly hated his character in the early episodes, but at some point he did start to grow on me. We follow him as he struggles to regain his lost popularity and to make amends for his past wrongdoings, and the journey was better handled than I expected it to be, honestly. Even smaller characters are given their own personal journey's, whether it's BHN's family finally coming to accept her again after 20 years without support, HYH's father worrying that his son will never grow up or even the younger BHN maturing and coming to love her future self as her future self learns to accept her in turn. Everyone has a story and these are just a few.

So if you hate plot holes, maybe avoid this. There are plenty, especially towards the end. But if plot doesn't matter to you as much as the heart and soul of a drama does, give it a shot. There are some wonderfully written characters and a beautiful message in every one of them, and if that's not enough then the relationship between the leads is incredibly adorable. It's funny, it's sweet, and it holds a special place in my heart.

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Don't sleep on this!

For time travel fans, Kairos is just what is needed to cleanse the palette after Alice's disappointing run last season. It's a mystery thriller with heartwarming relationships and a story that's not as it seems at first glance. The story takes place in 2 timelines, 31 days apart from one another. In the future, we follow Kim Seo Jin, a well-off director of Taejung Construction whose daughter is kidnapped and who feels like the world is falling to pieces around him. In the past, Han Ae Ri is a woman working part-time jobs to save up money for her mother's surgery. But when her mother goes missing from the hospital, she doesn't know where to turn.

For just 1 minute every night at 10:33pm, they are able to interact with one another across time. They use this advantage to try to stop the tragedy that's struck their lives and to solve the dilemmas that they both face. But this drama wouldn't be a contender for one of the best of the year if that was the only storyline. As we go further into the story, we realize that everything is intertwined.

Kairos is masterfully told. Everything fits together perfectly, everything has a reason and a purpose. The writers did an amazing job tying everything together and created a solid plot. You don't get that kind of writing much. It's not often I walk out of a drama feeling as satisfied as I do now. I loved the characters, I loved the story and the themes, and Shin Sung Rok's brilliant performance reaffirmed his acting skills yet again. I can't recommend it enough.

Nothing is perfect, though, and I do have a few gripes. Without spoilers, I can't go into detail. But like every other time-related story I've ever watched, there are logical inconsistencies with the time travel. While the plot is solid and well-woven, there are holes in the sci-fi aspect of the show. I know most people don't expect time travel dramas to make much sense, but for anyone who does, there is one aspect of the time travel in this that might get under your skin. Spoilers, can't say what, but you'll know when you see it. The second problem I had with the story was the wife. Her backstory, in particular, and some of the plot surrounding her. It didn't make much sense and felt entirely out of place whenever it was brought up, almost silly. Her side story did not fit into the plot at all. It felt like I was watching a skit off to the side while waiting for the main actors to come back to the scene, and sometimes it was enough to take me out of the story. But these things aside, Kairos is wonderful. The cast is amazing. The music, while nothing memorable, fits into the story perfectly. It's a tense, suspenseful tale of family and corruption and everything in between, and I loved every moment of it.

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Go into it with certain expectations

I'm coming out of this drama conflicted over how I feel about it. From a slice-of-life perspective, it's fantastic. The characters are all very well thought-out, from their backgrounds and histories to their personalities and how they react to the world around them. I think Woong himself is the best example of this, introduced as the kid in school with the worst grades whose only ambition is to live comfortably. Over the course of the drama, we get a lot of depth into how he really felt during that point in his life as well as how he feels in the current day, and there are a lot of layers to his character that you wouldn't expect if you were only to see the first few episodes. Yeon Soo also has these characteristics, though her side of things didn't pull at me the same way Woong's did.

The story has a bright cast of side characters, too, who make the world feel very lively and lived-in, and they wholeheartedly make the drama better. Except... the unfortunate reality is that they're underutilized. Early on they feel like they might be important, but as the episodes go on they lose their significance. I can't really say that any of their stories are left unfinished, but none of them were particularly satisfying. Ji Woong is the best example. Early on, we're shown just how close he is to Woong, we see them growing up together and later on we see them leaning on one another. But further into the show, that starts to fade. As they pull more and more focus on the main couple, they leave him behind to deal with this small, out-of-nowhere plot with his mother. His mother is important to his character to a degree, sure, but that's all that his story amounts to in the end and that was really disappointing to see. Certain aspects (spoilers - if you watch it, you'll know) felt like they were just thrown in to find a way to end his conflict, and his romance with his coworker, which was hinted at and hinted at, was resolved very briefly out of nowhere. All of the couples but the main one were like that. We could have gotten so much more out of these characters than what we did.

That doesn't mean I hated the show. I liked it, I just didn't love it. The show shone its brightest during the original flashback scenes. All of the high school content and the original documentary was a lot of fun. Woong and Yeon Soo were lively and funny and charming, and it really felt like something special. I honestly wish the rest of the drama could have kept that feeling going, because it just became a bit generic once their adulthood started. And for a drama whose premise centred around a follow-up documentary to the one they starred in during their high school years, it didn't seem to matter all too much to the plot.

Our Beloved Summer does have some really heart-wrenching moments. The characters are very human and sympathetic, and it plays its strengths well. But it's not perfect, and it could have done better. A good example of its shortcomings is the plagiarism incident that happens early on in the drama. Another artist goes on television and implies that Woong has plagiarised him, but when comparing both artworks it doesn't really become apparent how the work was allegedly plagiarised, other than (I think - don't remember too clearly) them being drawings of the same (or similar if I'm remembering incorrectly) building. The thing about buildings is that if they're drawn at the same viewing angle, those drawings will look pretty similar. It's a bold claim and one that's taken very seriously in the art world, but I couldn't see the plagiarism myself because of that and thought, well, maybe they'll point out how it was plagiarised. But they didn't. They introduced the conflict and used it to push their plot along and show different facets of their characters, but they didn't care about the plagiarism itself. Naturally, Woong did not plagiarise. If anything, I believe that the other artist plagiarised Woong, but what bothered me was that there didn't seem to be a reason for this claim to be believed. Woong didn't address it and it faded from the story. Like a lot of other subplots. It came in, caused some trouble, and then vanished without any real resolution.

So, watch Our Beloved Summer. It's cute, and they care a lot about their characters. Well, about the main 2. Like cute couple scenes? Watch it. Like slice-of-life? Watch it. Don't like things feeling half-finished? Well, then maybe this one isn't for you.

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Though the plot was cliche and predictable, Space Sweepers was a fun sci-fi romp we don't often get to see in the kdrama world. Sporting some great visuals and a very likeable cast, we're dumped into a future that's been shown a dozen times before and yet still managed to feel fresh and interesting. With a very international cast showcasing a lot of different languages and characters, it managed to feel very real and organic. And even though I knew where it was headed early on, I didn't get the least bit tired. There are some awkward lines and some bad acting from side characters, but overall it's an enjoyable watch. Definitely worth your time!

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The journey is worth the time

I liked this drama. I really liked it. But if you're looking for a unique story, this may not be the best place for you. Gumiho follows the same trends as most interspecies romances, from the trigger that pulls the characters together to the overly-predictable "plot twists" towards the end that make you wonder how far they have to go to pad the runtime. But there is one thing that Gumiho has that a lot of its predecessors are lacking: a unique mood.

While on paper there isn't much that Gumiho does new, it does present its plot and characters in a unique way. The melodrama is forgotten in favour of a bright, colourful world of comedy, charms and ridiculous moments. The solemn, isolated otherworldly creature is still present in the ML, but he meets his match in Lee Dam, a bright college student who has no qualms about closing the gap between them. Both the actress and character have this infectious happiness about them that draws you to them in much the same way she does Shin Woo Yeo and I found myself binging the episodes without ever intending to.

Gumiho doesn't just have good leads, though. A lot of the characters are unique, with stories and interests of their own. For me, Yang Hye Na really stole the show with her over-the-top yet very genuine personality. In most stories, she would be turned into an antagonist who is either at odds with the main couple or trying to tear them apart. But no. She's amazing. Despite her apparent lack of interest in SWY, she helps him watch over LD and gives him all the advice in the world to help him become human before his time is up. The relationship that she instead forms with Do Jae Jin, LD's friend, is silly and wholesome and everything you could want in a side couple. We don't see much of LD's brother Dan, but what we do see shows the same world building - he's a character that only shows up now and then and is never deeply delved into, but we see he had an interest in archery. That may not sound like much, but there are so many dramas out there that are so focused on making their characters do the thing that they want them to do that they forget to give them hobbies and interests, which are so integral to understanding a character. There's even a sibling duo found in the second love interest and his sister (Gye Sun Woo and Gye Seo Woo) that feels strangely fantastical yet totally believable. Props to the team for that. Really, I couldn't have asked for more.

The show has its faults, though, which mostly come in the form of the writing further into the show. As soon as the main couple comes together - in the same episode, in fact - they're suddenly bombarded with 101 reasons they can't be together, reasons which were not really present at any time before that, and they're all the plot twists that you've heard before with interspecies dramas. This is where my binging turned to watching every few days. Conflicts need to exist in a story for it to continue moving forward, but the conflicts they used were so arbitrary and the writing surrounding them so bland that I started losing interest. Everything else outside of those issues was still enjoyable and I liked it, but with the central focus being so unoriginal I found that even the acting suffered and it was hard to press 'play.' They even introduced the dreaded love triangle that is totally one-sided and is just there to slow our main couple's relationship down.

Putting that aside, I do really think that this drama is immensely enjoyable. It's creative and fun, most of the characters have amazing dynamics together and the team took the time to make them feel real. The biggest problem is the endgame conflicts, but if you go into it prepared and steel your heart from some disappointing, eye-rolling developments, you'll be just fine. Don't let the weak ending deter you - the journey up to it is worth your time.

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Just a little bit brilliant

Note: The first section of my review is spoiler-free, but the second half won't be.

It feels like comedy is a very precious resource this year. To me, at least, with everything going on in the world, Kkondae Intern was a brief but wild respite from the very long, unending quarantine and the stressors of working in essential services through the pandemic. I wanted to laugh away the day, and Kkondae Intern gave me that.

On the surface, the story is not very compelling, especially with the description we're given. KYC is a man who landed his first job after graduation, only to find himself working beneath a rigid superior whose poor treatment bogged him down until he one day quit and joined a rival company, where he climbed the ladder to a high position in the marketing department. It isn't until watching for ourselves that we know what exactly transpired then, and further in the story we get to see the seeds sowed in the past that led to that very important moment in KYC and LMS's lives.

Many people know what it's like to work under a boss who doesn't treat them well or who they simply don't get along with. A big part of the drama's appeal is the role reversal between KYC and LMS. After pulling himself up at another company, KYC is given the opportunity for revenge when LMS, his former boss, is hired on as a senior intern in his department. He takes full advantage of the opportunity which is both fun and hilarious to watch, but if that were the whole drama then there wouldn't be much fun to it after the first few episodes. Instead, Kkondae Intern uses their past as a starting point for one of the most unique and enjoyable friendships I've seen all year.

What I really appreciated, though, was how 3-dimensional the characters were. Nobody, between our two main characters or anyone on their team, or even most of the antagonists that worked against them throughout the story, are simply good or bad people. Everyone makes mistakes and sometimes they throw their colleagues under the bus. Sometimes they're selfish or overbearing. They say things out of jealousy or spite. But they're not bad people, not really. They have redeeming features, as well. This is shown best in KYC, who is at first framed as a better person than LMS but is actually petty and egotistical, and in LMS who plays our villain in the first episode of the series, but is generally not that bad of a guy. Further down the road, it's LMS who's sticking his neck out to protect his coworkers, and even KYC.

I do have some complaints, mostly minor, that I'll address. Below contains spoilers, fair warning!

There are some things with the storytelling that are a bit poorly done or badly written. An example off the top of my head is the backstory surrounding the oxbone soup recipe. I could have overlooked something, but from what I remember the restaurant owner's soup started tasting terrible, suddenly, and there wasn't really a reason given. Again, I may have missed something. I tended to watch episodes late at night before bed and there were instances where I was a bit distracted, but from what I remember it just suddenly stated that the soup tasted horrible, and even when LMS followed the recipe it still tasted bad. At some point, there was also a dog that just randomly went into cardiac arrest and needed CPR, which was silly and out of place. They just needed to gain someone's favour, so they shoved that in to quickly solve their problem and it showed.

As much as there were odd holes like that here and there, it didn't affect my enjoyment of the series. The pros outweigh the cons. There was a romance that ended with a proper rejection and there was no malice left afterwards, which was fantastic. It's a rare thing in dramas where a relationship doesn't work out, and rarer still that the parties involved are still on good terms afterwards. We need more of that. Each character had their time to shine, with the exception of a few members of the company, and there was great character growth.

But at the end of the day, Kkondae Intern is just a silly, ridiculous business comedy with a trot soundtrack that sounded refreshing compared to all of the pop in most dramas, and it did what it set out to do. I laughed, I smiled, I enjoyed every minute of it. Maybe you will, too.

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