Sleep Memo (2023)

Tried so hard for what could have been. Wasted opportunity.

I tried so hard to like this sageuk because of PHS. I think he's a talented actor and love sagueks, what else other reasons could there be? However I've started and stopped this drama 4x already. The first few episodes were very promising - mystery, underdog, and dashing king. The side plots (the 'forensic pathologist' friend) were also hilarious to watch and the supporting actors were likeable.

However by about episode 8, that was it. Nothing new was happening and the plots were going around in the same circles. The mystery hadn't progressed and none of the mysteries were getting any closer to being solved. We already knew who did it (but not the why, but do we really care anymore?) The romance was half-baked - there was no chemistry whatsoever. Instead, we have the villains plotting and way over-acting with a lot of yelling and overly dramatic evil "I want to rule the world"-esque lines.

I totally throw in the towel at epi 14. Even watching at 1.5x speed AND online shopping for groceries on the side didn't help. This series should have stopped at episode 10 or 12. But instead, they have to drag it even beyond the normal 16 and even go on to 20. Please save 20 episodes and above for sageuks with lots of conspiracies, complicated side plots, engaging characters with nuanced motivations, and plotting where the real Machiavellian villain is unseen right up to the end or plot development that span several decades; but certainly not this rubbish.

I love sageuk and don't give up any without a fight. This is probably only the second time I'm dropping a sageuk in my entire kdrama watching history. Since I'm so close to the end, I may finish it one day when it's finished broadcasting but only because it's on Amazon Prime which I'm subscribed to anyway.

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Do not listen to these NEGATIVE reviews

This drama is suspenseful, love, danger and entertaining. It feels like people need special effects and fake kung fu/fighting in order to enjoy a show. Or they need to drool over Dylan wang or Yang Yang in order to give a decent rating. For me PHS is amazing this role. He plays a prince interested in his people and he is comical at times. On the other hand Lee tae-sun is hilarious!! His laugh is so funny and he always refers to himself in third person. The FL I feel they could have found someone better. She is bland and hard to like. The second FL is better IMO. So far their detective search for the connection between everything is the best part. There really is not much romance as of yet. It feels like there will be but we are all waiting for it to finally happen!!

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Even PHS can’t make me stay

I just want to say I love PHS but this drama is a bust. There are so many things going on but at the same time it feels like nothing ever happens, do you know what I mean? Drama wants to keep the audience guessing but what ended up happening is me feeling frustrated and thinking to myself wth is going on?

At first I thought the female lead was strong and intelligent but now all she does is cry and say “CHORRR HA” with her deep voice. Absolutely zero chemistry with PHS and the romance is non existent.

Oh yea, and no second lead syndrome here at all.

One thing I do look forward to is hearing the autopsy master laugh. I loved all his scenes with the maid!

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Our Gloomed Youth

The story kicked off with the female lead getting falsely accused of murder and the prince is connected to the incident. So how would they structure the drama around this narrative? They had the female lead spend most of the drama hanging around the prince waiting for something to pop up for the story to move again, which didn't happen until the last few episodes. Unbelievably long and draggy for little to no story or character development. Everything can be summed up with 6 episodes without compromising anything from the narrative. The romance and the secrets were too delayed to care about, instead of laying them out evenly. Which made romance redundant by the end. Aside from the initial few episodes, I don't see anything appealing in this drama.

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SUPER boring and no Romance

I don’t even know where to begin. I WISHED I READ THE REVIEWS! This is not the romantic melo-drama I was expecting. Nope, you will not get Red Sleeve or some great romance.

The drama is focused on two things I don’t like watching, high on politics, low on romance and non-existent skinship.

HUGE SIGH.

After watching Happiness, I was SUPER excited for Park Hyung Sik and I was completely shocked how he acted in Our blooming Youth and maybe its because of the writing, but I felt no chemistry between him and the FL. I understand the drama wanted to be authentic and have it pure to the history, no touching or any flirty conversations, BUT is that something I want to watch on TV?

If I wanted to watch a boring Joson drama, then why was it advertised as a romance? I felt like the false advertising was to draw the audience, rather than actually telling the viewers what they were getting themselves into.

The drama was too boring, too slow and had too many fillers. The side stories were not even interesting and the fact that the FL was a man for the entire drama was very disappointing. I didn’t sign up for that so the drama poster is VERY misleading.

Overall, the drama was a complete waste of time for someone who loves romantic K dramas and I’m a little irritated that it was advertised as such.

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Slow Burn Sageuk

"Our Blooming Youth" is a tough drama to review. On one hand, it is one of the few political power-based sageuks that had a story that kept me interested, but the story and romance, and mysteries all happen at a snail's pace. Thankfully the cast is great, the leads are charming and likable, and there are entertaining comedic moments, otherwise, this drama would have been extremely boring for way too many episodes. The plot often took too long to explain the obvious, and the corruption plot was very confusing to me until the final episodes because they waited so long to show backstories. Still, I think the slow pace also gave us time to get to know all of the characters better and I really did grow to care about many of the characters.

The show stars Park Hyung Sik as the charming prince and he is perfectly cast. He is matched with Jeon So Nee as Jae Yi who meets him in disguise in order to clear her name. From the beginning, I loved that they were both clever and brave fighters, which made their chemistry seem natural and evenly matched. There were definitely times when her actions frustrated me, and also times I wished their relationship would progress more, but they did stay true to the tragic mystery and corruption plot instead of just taking a full romance detour, which I can appreciate too. The rest of the main characters are just as charming.
Pyo Ye Jin and Lee Tae Sun had their own cute chemistry as master and apprentice. Yoon Jong Seok played loyal and stoic well, and Heo Won Seo was super cute and one of my favorites in this drama.

Another favorite of mine was Jung Woong In who just plays evil so flawlessly. Just his creepy smile alone is epic.

There are no weak links in this entire cast except for maybe Im Han Bin as the younger prince, but I'm going to blame that on his awful wigs, not his performance. You know the cast is good when you genuinely care about what will happen to minor characters as much as you care about the leads. I also appreciated that the story gave these characters fuller storylines that helped create well-rounded characters not just cliches you expect to see. I empathized with some villains as much as I empathized with the heroes. Not a single character felt like filler. That's one thing the writers did very well.

What I wish the writers did better was make a less confusing mystery plot. It was only in the last 2 episodes that I was finally able to understand what had happened in the 18 episodes before. This plot had poisonings, massacres, ghost stories, revenge, gaslighting, betrayals, and a rag-tag mystery-solving squad but so many scenes went over my head as I struggled to make sense of it all. I think that's the main thing that stopped me from loving this drama even if it all made sense by the end.

Would I watch this again? Maybe. It is so slow-paced, but maybe binging it would help. I think knowing the full story may help me pick up on things I missed if I watched for a 2nd time. There are also cute and funny scenes but I'm not convinced there were enough to make me want to watch this all again. Knowing what will happen also dulls a lot of the initial excitement.

Overall, this is a good historical drama but you have to really be in the mood for a slow-to-reveal mystery. There is romance, it's one of the main plots of the story, but don't expect too many actual romantic moments, which may disappoint romance fans. If you are a Park Hyung Sik fan he will not disappoint. Royalty looks good on him. If you watched enough sageuks a lot of the plot will feel familiar but the overall story is original enough to stand on its own. I am curious to know what the CDrama version is like, but I'm not sure I'm curious enough to actually watch it. I would recommend "Our Blooming Youth", even if I still don't understand the title, and just tell folks to grab plenty of popcorn for the slow pace and trust all roads to lead somewhere satisfying eventually. I also loved the themes of trust, loyalty, and true friendship! Like an act of well-planned revenge, give this story time to build to make the best impact. Dragging or not this drama definitely made me glad I watched by the end.

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사람은 지키질 준 제가 있으면 버틸수 있지 않습니까?

It is such a weird creature, this drama. I'd say, a chameleon. It nearly falls apart for not having a clear distinct theme. It doesn't try to catch attention by any means but develops the story steadily. It could be rather a good point if the drama wasn't so ephemeral.

?️The story starts off with a premise of a detective, continues with attempts to get Hwan and Jae Yi together, concludes with restoring historical justice for the kingdom's falsely accused people. It could be a story about a female detective in Joseon who dresses up in man clothes and helps poor people, and we would know what we're watching. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but the motive for the murder of Min family was never revealed? We know who did it, but why?

?️Yet the supporting characters in the drama are great, from the ministers to Lee Hwan's closest friend Han Seong On. The couple of Myeong Jin and Ga Ram is genuinely funny and sincere. The actors did a great job. It also put on my radar the young actor Heo Won Seo (Tae Gang role), and I will watch where his career will go.

Overall, Our Blooming Youth feels like a good cupcake without any cream or sprinkles. It might taste well, but people won't eat it if there are more appetizing foods around. The poster and the title are so bland and tell nothing. Even the OST for the drama is almost nonexistent. The finishing music sounds crispy, but there is not a single song, only instrumentals. Having Park Hyeong Shik in the cast is not enough to get high ratings. I have an impression we saw just the first draft of the drama.

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Nice historical mystery with some romance.

I find this drama being a steady 8/10. Not perfect, but definitely not deserving the harsh negative reviews.

Bellow is my opinion regarding some points of the negative reviews:
1. Misleading poster: Somehow right, however only in the description of the Jae Yi character. She is actually far from devoted future wife and mother, being mischievous (in a good way) and with very modern understanding of the woman place in the society.
2. It is a mystery drama with none or very slow burn romance: Yes, I agree, romance is left more on our imagination than actual romantic scenes. While we would be happy to see more romantic scenes , we should take in consideration the story. Both lead characters cannot imagine having chance as a couple, hence the withdrawal from expressing their feelings. First, due to the historical setting, there are strict rules of who can be Crown Princess and our FL doesn’t answer the criteria. Second, the ML believes she belongs to another man.
3. Holes in the mystery story and poor writing: I disagree, all of the complaining reviewers are forgetting of the tombstone Jae Yi’s father found! That piece of stone is the connection. The other complain was for non developing the fantasy part - it had an explanation, just pay attention to final 3 episodes (not willing to spoil).

In fact all negative reviews dropped the drama in the middle, the unraveling is happening at the end :)

Acting is spot on!

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Political Intrigue Galore

This drama was enjoyable. The story was more stressful at times than I anticipated, and it’s very heavy on intrigue and political maneuvering. My main disappointment was that, by contrast, it was VERY light on the romance imo. In the beginning, it was very easy to compare this to the Forbidden Marriage. A LOT of early themes were very similar. But where the Forbidden Marriage focused more on romance and humor, this was more intricate and plotty. Ultimately, I think the actors did a tremendous job. Park Hyung Sik was fantastic as always. Heo Won Seo was a surprise breakout performance, and I actually liked Pyo Ye Jin better in this than in Taxi Driver. I'm definitely now a strong fan of hers. Overall this drama is enjoyable and worth watching!

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Classic

The synopsis here on MDL is not really accurate for the female lead character at all. There is more to her than that. Anywho....

This is what I consider a classic all-round, entertaining sageuk. There is plenty of humour, action, intrigue, tragedy, drama, villains, simple folk and good people that fight for justice.
The plot isn't completely new, with disguise as the opposite sex being needed to clear the FL's name, having been framed for murder. However, the portrayal of an intelligent woman, actually supported by their family and a benevolent Crown Prince not afraid to wield as much influence as he's able, is nicely done and feels different.
PHS must be a go-to for such roles, with his flair for natural humour and good looks, as the righteous Crown Prince.
Type casting, however, is also the bane of any drama and once you see some actors, you know the evil character is them the minute they show up. Directors and casting, please take note! Some, though, were far less obvious... round of applause for that.
I loved the characters though, including those I wanted publicly flailed for being so vile!
There are a smattering of clichés, but not to the point it annoyed me... balled fists and catching the falling FL being the main ones.
I thought the mystery that needed solving, which drew together many characters throughout the story, was very well done and kept me glued. I watched this drama over quite a short period and never got bored or lost concentration.
There were a couple of times when the comedy was too obvious and didn't fit... There were no microphones in the 1400s, so pretending to use one in 'interviewing' the Crown Prince, for example, just stood out as totally inappropriate, even though very brief. That is real shame, as there were laugh out loud moments much more natural. It was not needed.
The romance aspect is very light, which for me fit with the story perfectly, but if you are looking for lots of deep snogs etc, you will be very disappointed. However the affection shown between several characters with just a look, is lovely.
I so enjoyed this drama and would really recommend it. The ending was very nicely done and the soundtrack complimented what was being watched too.
The core friendships and trust between characters, even when tested, was also so nice, with no accepting allegations at face value, when a person's true personality should tell those nearest, differently.

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Worth your time

Starts out very well, then slows down and might get a bit boring but the show definitely makes up for that part in the end. I'm happy I didn't drop it when the story started slugging alot in the middle of the show. The end was well scripted and was wrapped up nicely. At the beginning I was expecting FL to be in action often because that was how the show started out but she wasn't in much fight scenes. Other than that.... the script.. the script is a dam good one. Lots of twists and turns to make it unpredictable unlike other k-dramas. Overall the show is definitely worth your time and you will definitely enjoy it.

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