Better than BOF, but crappy ending

I had watched Boys Over Flowers before this—but none of the other versions, and right off the bat I knew I was going to like this better. ALL the characters were more likable, and that even includes FL's parents.

Of course, there were some things that were so ridiculous—like the parts where a bridge/poker game determined who got to stay in school—but there were dumb scenes in the original story, so I guess I had to let that go.

Compared to BOF, I felt like everything was more dimmed down, from the scariness of the mother to the social situation in school. I liked this, as it definitely felt more realistic.

Meteor Garden does suffer from something a lot of Chinese dramas seem to suffer from—the inability to focus on multiple plotlines at the same time. For the side characters, it felt like we were learning about one ship, and then moving on to another one after it had been wrapped up. Also, I didn't give a crap about Terence.

Sadly, the last few episodes of this show were just kind of a mess. Random drama was added in at the end, there was a sudden musical number, and I was so confused and disappointed that that was the ending we were going to get. Either way, I still quite enjoyed watching this.

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The first half was better, but I will forever love Dan-oh and Haru

The beginning of this drama was definitely the best part of it, but saying that I was disappointed with the second half is much too harsh, because I still love Haru and Dan-oh so much together. But it's true that there was a lot of mystery and intrigue in the beginning, and that our questions were answered as we asked new ones. The pacing definitely slowed down near the middle and there was a lot more fluff and repetition — but it's understandable considering the nature of the premise. Even so, I felt like there was a lot of meta and fourth-wall-building that was hinted at but never truly explored, which is sad because I had got so many theories in my head about the writer and about the outside world and we never got to see it.

Something about the ending is both satisfying and really unsatisfying again at the same time — I DESPISE time jumps, but I appreciate that they both knew what was about to happen before Haru disappeared, and that they remembered each other at the end and it wasn’t one of those open-ended “let’s stare at each other, I think I know you from somewhere” scenes. Still though, I wanted something with more OOMPH. Maybe something to break the fourth wall more in which Dan-oh and Haru interact with the portals and the writer of the comic directly, some sort of confrontation. I thought that was the strongest part of this drama: the beginning, when they both actively pitted themselves against the writer. There was a lot of opportunity for something more meta, but the drama never explored that.

Ju-Da’s storyline also kind of tapered off for me, I thought there was so much potential in the contrast between her weak stage character and vengeful shadow self, but in the end she never did anything to break out of it. I know reasons were given, but it really just feels like lost potential. Going off of that — for a main role (in the drama), Nam Ju’s character did a whole lot of nothing. Even so, I’ve never found myself so invested in the first, secondary, tertiary, AND QUATERNARY ship.

The acting was honestly amazing by THE ENTIRE CAST. The blinking, tearing up, ephiphanies...you could see all the emotions on all the characters, EVERY TIME, and it HURT me. Extraordinary You tugged at all my heartstrings.

Also: Amazing OST.

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What could have been

The teasing male lead, the hilarious bickering, the girl pining over someone else while the male lead pines over her before she realizes who's been there for her all along...all this combine to form one of my favorite types of romance, so this drama starts with a winning formula...but it never actually uses it to its full potential.

While I enjoyed seeing the female lead deal with unrequited love, it should not have SO. DAMN. LONG. She's deep in it for 25 episodes and it lingers for a few episodes after that, and we're hit with scene after scene of the female lead never taking the male lead seriously. Meanwhile, the second male lead (Cheng Lang) pines for another girl, and those two are given wayyy too much screentime. I never cared about them and they kept getting slow motion scenes.

We sort of have the opposite issue with the third couple, Qiu Le Tao and Huang Jun, who also have a really interesting story, but they get together so fast that I found it difficult to care for them. And I even like the ending of her reconnecting with their childhood classmate, but the show tried to give it shock factor and left the reveal till the very end, despite it being pretty obvious. The result of that was no time to develop the actual relationship, and a situation where her supposed best friend Xiao Ju didn't even know she was marrying until the engagement party.

In fact, the last few episodes are just filled with misunderstandings and time jumps, and I feel like the leads really lose their spark. They're supposed to be grown-up, but they're still written like children, and the show opts for "fun bickering" scenes when a more serious conversation was long overdue. The ending, overall, feels rushed and makes no sense, which is sad because the early high school and even college days were still enjoyable to watch despite the flaws.

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Just fine

I felt like this drama had a really strong start — the female lead's spunkiness made her really likeable, the mystery was intriguing, and the time travel also made for really interesting parallels.

As the drama went on, I felt like it a lost a lot of its spark, opting for either humor or a modern-only plot, leaving the saeguk mystery and time travel element both really neglected until the last episode and not really tying the two timelines together well enough. It didn't make much sense what Yeon-woo's time travel had to do with the modern storyline, or why those parallels even existed. I think the stakes weren't established well enough for me to feel emotionally invested: I paid painstaking attention to the modern day characters to figure out how they were tied to their past lives, but by the end it felt like the modern day characters were the far more important ones. I really think this drama could've used a full 16 episodes to balance out the modern and historical plotlines and add some explanation for the time travel.

Other than that, I felt like the side characters were fine and occasionally funny but pretty unimportant to the plot, and the main romance was also fun but generally a cookie-cutter ship. It's a fun watch but for me, not very memorable.

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Great chemistry, odd pace

I wish so much that this drama was longer because the pace was way too fast and all I kept thinking was that I loved the chemistry and I loved the main leads together and wanted the development of enemies-to-lovers to be more slow. I probably could've done without the side characters getting so much screentime, and even more without the string of misunderstandings at the end (even though I know the drama is setting up a season 2). The chemistry is great, the OST is catchy, the acting is pretty good, and the dialogue is beautiful — sometimes it's just a little confusing how the characters got to where they were because we didn't have time to show the "in-between" moments.

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A comforting tearjerker

"Comforting tearjerker" might sound like an oxymoron but that's exactly what this is. I loved the relationships we saw in this drama — between family members, between friends, between classmates, etc. and the little hint of romance was so adorable and heart-warming. I loved how subtle the character development is, and the lines are so profound and thought-provoking.

There's really not much more to say and I don't really. have any criticisms about this show. The only thing is that I maybe wish it was a little longer as there were some little time jumps that took me by surprise at first and I would've loved to see even more day-to-day scenes. But maybe that's just me being greedy and not getting enough of this entire cast and how beautiful this drama was.

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Light-hearted and low-stakes

This was a really wholesome and comforting drama — there never really felt like there was a huge conflict or overarching plot, it was just about several people in a little village town dealing with life and its issues. While I enjoy the light-heartedness of it all, I felt like it was hard to understand the point or the general direction of the drama — meaning that character development was a little sparse for most of the characters.

Speaking of which, I've never been a huge fan of ensemble dramas for the reason that I never care for everyone equally, and this drama was no different. I loved the badminton teams (both male and the female teams) and how they grew together throughout the episodes, both on and off the court. There was one character who had an arc as they joined the team after not getting along with them and he turned out to be my favorite character because the development was so strong and clear.

On the other hand, the subplots of everyone else who just lived in the village were not really interesting to me, especially because their interactions with the main teams felt peripheral.

Overall, I think this was a pretty fun drama to watch (slowly, a few episodes here and there) but it's not really a binge type of drama or something I felt very invested in.

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Half a movie

I felt like the entire mood and atmosphere of this movie was really great — I loved the quiet darkness of the town, the tension and scariness of the school setting, and this overall anticipation that was building up from beginning to end of the movie.

With that being said, I felt like this movie focused on the wrong main character; starting out following the ML and learning about the FL's reputation through his eyes was great (and really different from what I've usually seen) but it started to become clear that the FL's story was more interesting, especially as we saw her character develop.

Furthermore, I feel like this movie ended right when I thought it was hitting the climax, or its most important moments. I understand that since we're following the ML's perspective, an open and unresolved ending just makes sense, but this is when I really wished the story could have switched its point of view and continued forwards.

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Beautiful and un-cliche

It's been a long time since I enjoyed a serious movie this much; going into this I had been worried that it would be pretentious and boring, but that wasn't the case at all.

In fact, I felt like the plot never stopped moving, the story's pacing was great, and the movie actually took me by surprise in many scenes. I thought that something was going to happen and the movie was going to go the cliche route, but they didn't and instead I watched something that felt much more realistic and emotionally-charged, rather than needlessly dramatic.

We're given just enough information about every character and situation to make us emotionally invested — it really feels like we're given a intimate peek into the tensions between family members.

Cinematography was beautiful as well; overall, the tone of this movie is so nostalgic and warm. I was surprised that there were some parts that were truly funny, albeit a little bittersweet. I won't lie — it stressed me out a lot in many places, but that was partly due to my misplaced expectations. Go into this without any preconceived notions and you'll find yourself in love with it, I promise.

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Great beginning

So it pains me to give this such a low rating because I was absolutely in love with the episodes that took place in high school and the hate-love relationship between the leads. Both characters had unique personalities and could clearly hold their own, but their banter was just so FUN to watch.

Past those six or seven episodes, however, the story just gets messy. They use a bunch of tropes but it's like they never buy fully into it, with characters either being underdeveloped or shifting in wayward directions. By this I mean the characters have flawed logic again and again just to make the story move forwards, and there was just too much noble idiocy in this for it to be enjoyable.

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Light-hearted

This was cliche but cute, non-toxic, light-hearted, and just downright wholesome. I really appreciated the relationship between the lead characters — there was just so much trust and understanding between them, and the drama did a really good job of showing how two people can accept the different parts of each other. They also did a good job with the childhood connection trope; it made sense and played a huge part in the story and didn't feel thrown in haphazardly.

One issue I have with a lot of these kinds of dramas though is that they always try to incorporate some deeper traumatic backstory, but for the sake of maintaining a light-hearted mood, it's like they don't dare to go into the details. The same goes for the side characters, who are funny and endearing but have cookie-cutter personalities and no deeper character development.

There were other parts of the plot that were very cliche and used common tropes but nevertheless, for a light-hearted drama this is a really good go-to.

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Takes time to love

This was a drama that really had to grow on me, because I started out hating every single character except for the main male lead, who was the most straightforward and righteous one of them all. As the drama went on, the characters really grew in subtle yet obvious ways, and it was really nice to see. This goes especially for the two teens still in high school, who grew to be really lovable and relatable for me.

The biggest plot point that I hated was the goddamn AMNESIA, which really annoyed me because he was the only character that I cared about and we essentially had to start from scratch for no good reason. It also led to a bout of noble idiocy, which didn't end up terribly but is still one of my least favorite tropes.

I'm also a sucker for the little tidbits of fantasy that are in this screenwriter's dramas (dreams in WYWS, hiccups in Pinocchio, mind-reading in IHYV) and this was no different, but I kind of wish he was more involved in the different cases, like going on investigations. It's understandable he wasn't because he was still in school, but I felt like there was a lot you could do with the mind-reading and it was all confined to him passively reacting to things around him.

Another thing that annoyed me about the mind-reading was just how it was filmed, with frame holds on random faces and voiceover. It made the production value of the drama seem very cheap and took me out of every single thing where that happened. I understand that it's hard to depict something so internal, but still.

Finally: No SLS here. I never liked the second lead.

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I had a good time watching this, but it was honestly something that really had to grow on me. At the start, it was chock full of cliches, over-acting, and really ridiculous plot points — which is a huge thing that annoys me about old dramas, because it just makes the main character seem like a complete idiot.

Watching this drama and comparing it to her later dramas...you can also really see how much Park Shin Hye has improved over the years. Part of why I disliked the main character so much at the start was because her voice was in constant aegyo and there were weird, unnatural facial expressions that might've been an attempt at humor.

But the plot actually got better, and I really enjoyed the development of the characters. Even the main lead, who started off really mean, turned out to be quite lovable and understandable. I was fully prepared to be suffering through SLS the entire drama but that did not happen.

A lot of the issues were very cliche, especially since cross-dressing identity secret plot comes with a lot of cliches of its own. But the humor made it a lot better, and none of the plot points were dragged out for too long.

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I highly wonder if I would have enjoyed this better if I had watched it as one of my first dramas, because now all it seems like is a mash-up of tropes with none of them done well.

The thing I had heard most about this drama is that the male lead was the rudest they've ever met, but it actually didn't seem so bad to me, mainly because the main female lead could hold her own and fight back. This definitely tapered off as the drama went on, and I wish she had stayed that cold instead of crying so much.

I had also been warned that the body switch plot was really minor, but it turned out to be even less than I had expected, which was kind of disappointing because it would've been a plot I was really interested in. Despite this, I still really appreciated the acting of the two main leads when they were body switched. I do think that it was a little confusing the way the visual effects kept switching them back and forth, but I get that they're trying to make it clear who's in whose body in the scenes.

The second ship's plot also dragged out for soooo long, and I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of Yoon Sang Hyun. He just yells a lot and I always have to adjust my volume ? Honestly the same could be said for the main lead's mother as well, and overall there was just so much overdramatic crying that's pretty typical of older dramas.

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